Accounting for Decision Making and Control: Amazon.ca: Jerold Zimmerman: Books

Product Description

Book Description

Accounting for Decision Making and Control by Jerry Zimmerman continues to grow in popularity with instructors due to its emphasis on teaching students to critically evaluate and solve actual business problems. Zimmerman is able to achieve this through: 1) Strong conceptual framework; 2) Business orientation focusing on how organizations work; 3) Balance between concepts & practice; 4) Strongest problem material available.

About the Author

Jerry Zimmerman (Rochester, N) is Alumni Distinguished Professor of Accounting at the William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Rochester.

Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
Managers at BMW must decide which car models to produce, the quantity of each model to produce given the selling prices for the models, and how to manufacture the automobiles. Read the first page

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Concordance

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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
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Average Customer Review

4.2 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)

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Most helpful customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!, Dec 23 2002

By

"plebbe" (Lancaster, Lancashire United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Accounting for Decision Making and Control (Hardcover)

The great take away from this book is that executives try hard to achieve the optimal solutions for management problems, but that they seldomly succeed. The reason: they underestimate the creativity of their sub-ordinates (and their superiors).
For ages students and lecturers thought management accounting was dull. Zimmerman shows how fascinating this subject can be. The decision making parts show how to calculate optimal solutions for management accounting problems, the control parts make your realize how difficult it is to make the optimal solutions come true. The implication: the amount of consulting work to be done is infinite.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Think Management Accounting Rather Than Cost Accounting, Oct 24 2002

By

Craig Matteson (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Accounting for Decision Making and Control (Hardcover)

Too often management accounting is completely subsumed in cost accounting. Yes, they are part of the same topic, but they have somewhat different emphases. This book covers costs, but it is really more focused on how you allocated decision rights, set measurement criteria, and how you reward people to get the behavior you want. It is also very helpful in clarifying thinking about what could be going wrong if you aren't getting the behavior you wanted out of a given system of measurement and reward.

The writing is very good and the organization of the book is sound and helpful. While there are charts and graphs it is not a book full of color and pictures. It is a book with words and ideas that are helpfully supplemented as needed. But the self-study problems and cases are set off from the main text by being on different color pages. This helps in locating what you are after.

There is a wealth of thought provoking problems and short cases to help promote discussion and provoke your thinking on the topics discussed in each chapter.

Another aspect of the book I really like are the concept questions in each chapter that help you gauge your understanding of what you have just read. The solutions for these are provided in the back of the book so you can know if you are "getting it" or not.

This is a fine and very useful text.

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3.0 out of 5 stars Using cost allocation for behavioral control, Feb 22 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Accounting for Decision Making and Control (Hardcover)

Zimmerman does a good job laying out many different cost allocation schemes. He gives an unbiased review of the strengths and weaknesses of each system. The angle Zimmerman takes is to point out the differences between using cost information for decision making,and for decision (behavioral) control. There is a good deal of organizational theory involved. I took a course in cost accounting at the University of Chicago GSB with a colleague of Zimmerman's. They taught together at U of Rochester. The professor did a better job of getting the point across. Zimmerman tries not to put much opinion into the text, and as such, comes up short on making his point in most cases. If your looking for a simple layout of various costing systems, this might be the book for you. If you like a little more persuasion in your academic reading, skip this one.

Additionally, the examples used are often too long and drawn out. I dont think he gives the reader enough credit.

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Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars a good book
This book is very similar to Managerial Accounting by Morse and Zimmerman. It's a great book. The lay-out is attractive. Read more

Published on July 26 2000 by barbara

4.0 out of 5 stars a good book
This book is very similar to Managerial Accounting by Morse and Zimmerman. It's a great book. The lay-out is attractive. Read more