Part A (15 marks)

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 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.

Part B This question is related to Part A (12 marks)

Choose one peer-reviewed journal article (from any country) on the: Use of Cost Information in a real-life organization (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)