Budgeting is at the heart of the performance management process for most companies. However, some argue that many companies today are dissatisfied with budgeting. It is seen to be costly and time-consuming; it inhibits action and causes organisational problems. The influence of the "Beyond Budgeting" model has caused many major companies, including Toyota, to abandon traditional budgeting altogether. Should other companies follow suit?

This report explores the changes in budgeting through a survey of financial and non-financial managers. Concerns include:

The attitudes of managers towards budgeting models

How budgetary practices have changed

What problems budgeting can cause

The effects of budgets on overall company performance.

This report reveals that there s little evidence to suggest widespread dissatisfaction with traditional budgeting. However, to enable a company to perform at its best, understanding budgeting in context is essential and it is imperative that budgeting works in tandem with other control systems and organisational structure.

* Original research funded by the Chartered Institute of Management Accounting

* Reveals the realities of budgeting models in practice

* Includes interviews and surveys ofactual businesses"

Market: Students in undergraduate courses in electromagnetism. This innovative textbook provides students with a modern view of the unity of electromagnetism by forsaking the traditional historically ordered development for a more logically ordered one. This approach involves the introduction of Maxwell's equations at the earliest opportunity to serve as the basis for everything that follows.

Management accountants should have a key role to play in developing and executing pricing strategy and policy. However, their historical focus on costing and operations means that their potential as business partners with marketing and sales professionals is easily overlooked. This book focuses on how management accountants can help key stakeholders in the formulation and execution of pricing policy and, conversely, on showing managers responsible for pricing decisions how they could be helped by management accountants. It equips management accountants with a unique overview of pricing theory, the practical, quantitative techniques they should know and the value they can bring to the pricing function. The book analyses segmentation, value to customer, price-value maps, segmental pricing, product differentiation and dynamic pricing, with traditional economic theory, showing how these ideas have implications for management accountants and the value that they can bring to the business. Differences in customer value have been integral to economic theory for decades and price discrimination, the technique of charging different prices to different customers for the same or similar goods, is well-established. This observation provides the central core of this book. The methods of price discrimination are set out in detail, showing how management accountants can bring their analytical skills to bear in helping executives and pricing professionals take advantage of differences in customer valuation to improve profits. The book provides a thorough overview of the field and offers a good introduction for researchers and students. Equally, the book shows managers, marketers and pricing professionals how management accountants can assist them in delivering better pricing practice.

First published in 1998, this volume was designed to lead to an operational model of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMT) decision making which incorporated the mathematics of fuzzy set theory. The rapid advancement of robotics, automated technologies and software such as CAD and CAM have made such studies paramount. Here, analyses of a questionnaire survey and field study of major UK manufacturing companies together provide a simulating portrayal of AMT investment decision making and have been expanded upon with a model using fuzzy set theory.

First published in 1998, this volume was designed to lead to an operational model of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMT) decision making which incorporated the mathematics of fuzzy set theory. The rapid advancement of robotics, automated technologies and software such as CAD and CAM have made such studies paramount. Here, analyses of a questionnaire survey and field study of major UK manufacturing companies together provide a simulating portrayal of AMT investment decision making and have been expanded upon with a model using fuzzy set theory.