REFERENCING GUIDELINES
1. Reference sources in assignments are limited to sources which provide full text access to the source’s content for lecturers and markers.
2. It should include the details of all the in-text citations, arranged alphabetically A-Z by author surname. In addition, it MUST include a hyperlink to the full text of the cited reference source.
For example:
P Hawking, B McCarthy, A Stein (2004), Second Wave ERP Education, Journal of Information Systems Education, Fall, http://jise.org/Volume15/n3/JISEv15n3p327.pdf
3. All assignments will require additional in-text reference details which will consist of the surname of the author/authors or name of the authoring body, year of publication, page number of contents, paragraph where the content can be found.
For example:
“The company decided to implement an enterprise wide data warehouse business intelligence strategies (Hawking et al, 2004, p3(4)).”
• Students whose citations are fake will be reported for academic misconduct.
• Not more than 3,000 words
Assignment Task: You are required to collect primary data and conduct a literature search in this assignment.
Part A
Have a conversation with an Owner-Manager of a business in Australia or a Manager in an organisation such as a Bank, Retail Store, Restaurant, Hotel, Factory etc. Ask the Owner-Manager or the Manager the following questions:
i) Does the business collect and use cost information for planning and control purposes? How often? (3 marks)
ii) Who is responsible for the collection of cost information? Be as specific as possible. (3 mark)
iii) What type of cost information does the business collect? Provide examples incl. types of reports. (3 marks)
iv) How important does the Owner-Manager or the Manager believe cost information are to the Business's success? Explain. (3 marks)
Question:
Write a summary of the results of the interview.
The content of the interview summary must include:
• date of the interview, (0.5 marks)
• the name and title of the person interviewed, (0.5 marks)
• name and location of the Business, (0.5 mark)
• type of Business (service, merchandising/retail, manufacturing) and a brief description of the goods/services provided by the Business, (1.5 mark) and
• responses to questions (i) – (iv) above.
Before you do Part A, some tips are as follows:
? Read journal articles on Types and Use of Management Accounting Information (i.e. Part B)
• Search 2 – 3 relevant journal articles
• Compile a list of the types of Management Accounting information used by managers in a real study. This will give you specific examples of types of Costs, Budgets, and Management Reports used. This will increase your knowledge and will give you the confidence when you conduct the interview.
? Plan
• What questions to ask?
Have examples ready (e.g. Do you use budgets? If yes, what types of budgets and information you use to plan and monitor your business or department)
• What business or organisation you will choose?
• Who will you ask? i.e. A Manager or Owner?
• When will you ask? i.e. Choose the day and time to make first contact
- Introduce yourself
- Mention the purpose of the meeting (i.e. For your assignment)
- Request an interview for approx. 15 minutes.
Part B This question is related to Part A
Choose one peer-reviewed journal article on the: Use of Cost Information in a real-life organisation (i.e. a case-based empirical study). The article should be published between 1990 – 2020. Choose your article only after you have accessed and reviewed several relevant articles, and then choose the best article that will answer the questions below.
Questions:
1. Based on your chosen journal article, briefly summarise the types of cost information and the use of cost information for planning and control purposes. (4 marks)
2. Based on your chosen journal article, did the Owner or Manager(s) in the study use similar cost information as discussed in Part A? Why or why not? Include examples in your answer from your journal article. (3 marks)
3. Based on your chosen journal article, how useful was the accounting information to the internal users (Owner or Manager(s)) in the organisation? Discuss with examples from your journal article. (3 marks)
4. Based on your literature findings and interview findings (from Part A), state two key lessons that would inform contemporary organisations about the practical use of cost information. (2 marks)
Additional Information:
a) You are encouraged to choose the journal article from the following Accounting and Management Accounting Journals:
Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal; Journal of Management Accounting Research Journal of Applied Management Accounting Research
b) You can access these journals in ProQuest
c) Your chosen journal article in Part B must be uploaded (as a separate PDF file) together with your assignment (as a MS WORD file format) in Blackboard under the folder Individual Assignment .
In addition, a hyperlink to the full text of your chosen article must also be included in the reference list (as per the Harvard Referencing guidelines)
Assignment Structure:
The report should include the following components:
a. Assignment cover page clearly stating your name and student number
b. Abstract (one paragraph)
c. Table of contents
d. A brief introduction or overview of what the report is about.
e. Body of the assignment with appropriate section headings
f. Conclusion
g. List of References (follow Referencing guidelines)