Life With a Sub-Contractor : New Technology and Management Accounting

• The kind of new technology that has been installed in advanced industrial production at an increasing rateover the last few years sets a new stage for the development of management accounting. Flexibility makesextreme adaptation of production to meet customer demands possible. Mass production of individualizedproducts makes product costing problematic. Control of operation has to be decentralized while the designof production systems has to be centralized. The function and use of a traditional management accountingsystem should be questioned. What are the important issues that prompt industries to install newtechnology in the first place? Is it flexibility or is it quality that is the prime mover? Is it both? Or might itbe efficiency? Whatever the case may be, it is necessary to clarify trade-offs between aspects of the newproduction facilities. Causal links between activities and costs have to be reestablished. The simplerelations between volume and costs are no longer valid. This paper deals with these issues against abackground of current research on local information needs in automated industrial production and asolution linking local and central systems is proposed.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

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