HI5017 T2 2020 Managerial Accounting
Assessment Details and Submission Guidelines
Trimester T2 2020
Unit Code HI5017
Unit Title Managerial Accounting
Assessment Type Assignment
Assessment Title Individual Assignment
Purpose of the assessment (with ULO Mapping)
Students are required to develop their understanding of the purpose and use of management accounting systems, especially costing systems and its usefulness in aiding managers make informed decisions. You are to critically evaluate the literature (using journal articles) to analyse the practical use of management accounting systems by contemporary companies, in terms of their relevance to the real-life companies’ decision-making by managers and achievement of business goals (ULO 1,
3 & 4)
Weight 30% of the total assessments
Total Marks 30
Word limit Not more than 3,000 words. Please use “word count” and include in assignment.
Due Date Week 9 Thursday at 11.59 p.m.
Submission
Guidelines
• All work must be submitted on Blackboard by the due date along with a completed
Assignment Cover Page.
• The assignment must be in MS Word format, no spacing, 12-pt Arial font and 2 cm margins on all four sides of your page with appropriate section headings and page numbers.
• Reference sources must be cited in the text of the report, and listed appropriately at the end in a reference list using Harvard referencing style.
• It is the responsibility of the student who is submitting the work, to ensure that the work is in fact her/his own work. Incorporating another’s work or ideas into one’s own work without appropriate acknowledgement is an academic offence. Students should submit all assignments for plagiarism checking on Blackboard before final submission in the subject. For further details, please refer to the Unit Outline and Student Handbook.
Purpose:
Individual Assignment Specifications
This assignment aims at developing your understanding of the purpose and use of management accounting systems, in particular costing systems, and its usefulness in aiding managers make informed decisions. You are to critically evaluate the literature (using journal articles) to analyse the practical use of management accounting systems by contemporary companies, in terms of their relevance to the real-life companies’ decision-making by managers and achievement of business goals.
Assignment Task: You are required to conduct a literature search and critically review a costing system in this assignment.
Part A
Choose ONE of the costing systems studied in this unit from the list below, and answer the questions that follow:
• Job Costing
• Process Costing
• Operation Costing (Hybrid Costing)
• Activity-based Costing (ABC)
Questions:
1. Briefly discuss the features of your chosen costing system. (3 marks)
2. Identify 2 specific Australian organisations that your chosen costing system is suitable to, and explain why. (3 marks)
3. Discuss the potential uses of the cost information for decision-making, to the managers in each of the 2 organisations selected in Q2 above. (3 marks)
Part B
Choose one peer reviewed journal article (from any country) on the: Use of your chosen costing system in a real-life organisation (i.e. a case-based empirical study). The article should be published between 2005 –
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 costing article, briefly summarise how the costing system was designed and implemented in your real-life organisation. (3 marks)
2. Based on your chosen costing article, did the costing system in the study satisfy the features discussed in
Part A (Q1)? Why or why not? Include examples in your answer from your costing article. (5 marks)
3. Based on your chosen costing article, how useful was the cost information to the internal users in the organisation? Discuss with examples from your costing article. (5 marks)
4. Based on your literature findings, state two key lessons that would inform contemporary organisations about the practical use of your chosen costing system. (5 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 Database by clicking on the above links. Log in details for ProQuest are – Username: Holmes2004; Password: Holmes. These journals can also be accessed via the ProQuest Database link available via the Student Login page in the Holmes website. You can also use Google Scholar. Don’t use Google.
c) Your chosen journal article 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>.
5 marks will be deducted if you do not submit the journal article with your assignment.
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.
Academic Integrity
Holmes Institute is committed to ensuring and upholding Academic Integrity, as Academic Integrity is integral to maintaining academic quality and the reputation of Holmes’ graduates. Accordingly, all assessment tasks need to comply with academic integrity guidelines. Table 1 identifies the six categories of Academic Integrity breaches. If you have any questions about Academic Integrity issues related to your assessment tasks, please consult your lecturer or tutor for relevant referencing guidelines and support resources. Many of these resources can also be found through the Study Sills link on Blackboard.
Academic Integrity breaches are a serious offence punishable by penalties that may range from deduction of marks, failure of the assessment task or unit involved, suspension of course enrolment, or cancellation of course enrolment.
Table 1: Six categories of Academic Integrity breaches
Plagiarism Reproducing the work of someone else without attribution. When a student submits their own work on multiple occasions this is known as self-plagiarism.
Collusion Working with one or more other individuals to complete an assignment, in a way that is not authorised.
Copying Reproducing and submitting the work of another student, with or without their knowledge. If a student fails to take reasonable precautions to prevent their own original work from being copied, this may also be considered an offence.
Impersonation Falsely presenting oneself, or engaging someone else to present as oneself, in an in-person examination.
Contract cheating Contracting a third party to complete an assessment task, generally in exchange for money or other manner of payment.
Data fabrication and falsification
Manipulating or inventing data with the intent of supporting false conclusions, including manipulating images.
Source: INQAAHE, 2020
Marking Criteria
Part A
Marking Criteria Weighting
1. Briefly discuss the features of your chosen costing system. 3%
2. Identify 2 specific Australian organisations that your chosen costing system is 3%
suitable to, and explain why.
3. Discuss the potential uses of the cost information for decision-making, to the 3%
managers in each of the 2 organisations selected in Q2 above.
Part B
1. Based on your chosen costing article, briefly summarise how the costing system was 3%
designed and implemented in your real-life organisation.
2. Based on your chosen costing article, did the costing system in the study satisfy the 5%
features discussed in Part A (Q1)? Why or why not? Include examples in your answer from your costing article.
3. Based on your chosen costing article, how useful was the cost information to the 5%
internal users in the organisation? Discuss with examples from your costing article.
4. Based on your literature findings, state two key lessons that would inform 5%
contemporary organisations about the practical use of your chosen costing system.
Overall Presentation of Assignment 3%
TOTAL Weight 30%
Marking Rubric
Excellent Very Good Good Satisfactory Unsatisfactory
Part A
Briefly discuss the features of your chosen costing system. (3 marks)
(2.1 – 3 marks) Present an excellent discussion of the features of your chosen costing system.
(1.9 – 2 marks) Present a very good discussion of the features of your chosen costing system.
(1.6 – 1.8 marks) Present a good discussion of the features of your chosen costing system.
(1.1 – 1.5marks) Present a reasonable discussion of
the features of your chosen costing system.
(0 – 1 marks) Unable to explain the features of your chosen costing system.
Identify 2 specific Australian organisations that your chosen costing system is suitable to, and explain why. (3 marks)
(2.1 – 3 marks)
2 specific Australian organisations identified that are suited to your chosen costing system with clear, concise compelling explanation to justify it.
(1.9 – 2 marks)
2 specific Australian organisations identified that are suited to your chosen costing system with very good explanation to justify it.
(1.6 – 1.8 marks)
2 specific Australian organisations identified that
are suited to your chosen costing system with good explanation to justify it.
(1.1 – 1.5marks)
2 specific Australian organisations identified that are suited to your chosen costing system with adequate explanation to justify it.
(0 – 1 marks) Unable to identify 2 specific Australian organisations that are suited to your chosen costing system and to justify it.
Discuss the potential uses of the cost information for
decision-making, to the
managers in each of the 2 organisations selected in Q2 above. (3 marks)
Part B
Based on your chosen costing article, briefly summarise how the costing system was designed and implemented in your real- life organisation.
(3 marks)
(2.1 – 3 marks) Clear, concise, compelling discussion of the potential uses of the cost information for decision-
making, to the managers in each of the 2 organisations selected
(2.1 – 3 marks) Present an excellent discussion of how the costing system was designed and implemented in your real-life organisation based on your costing article.
(1.9 – 2 marks) A very good discussion of the potential uses of the cost information for decision-
making, to the managers in each of the 2 organisations selected
(1.9 – 2 marks) Present a very good discussion of how the costing system was designed and implemented in your real-life organisation based on your costing article.
(1.6 – 1.8 marks)
A good discussion of the potential uses of the cost information for decision- making, to the managers in each of the 2 organisations selected
(1.6 – 1.8 marks) Present a good discussion of how the costing
system was designed and implemented in your real-life organisation based on your costing article.
(1.1 – 1.5marks) Adequate discussion of
the potential
uses of the cost information for decision-
making, to the managers in each of the 2 organisations selected
(1.1 – 1.5marks) Present a reasonable discussion of how the costing system was designed and implemented in your real-life organisation based on your costing article.
(0 – 1 marks) Unable to present a proper discussion of the potential uses of the cost information for decision-
making, to the managers in each of the 2 organisations selected, or confusing.
(0 – 1 marks) Unable to explain how the costing system was designed and implemented in your real-life organisation based on your costing article, or confusing.
Based on your chosen costing article, did the costing system in the study satisfy the features discussed in Part A (Q1)? Why or why not? Include examples in your answer from your costing article. (5 marks)
Based on your chosen costing article, how useful was the cost information to the internal users in
the organisation? Discuss with examples from your costing article. (5 marks)
(4.1 – 5 marks) Clear, concise, compelling discussion on whether the costing system in the study satisfy the features discussed in
Part A (Q1) with examples provided from your costing article.
(4.1 – 5 marks) Present an excellent discussion of how useful the cost information was to the internal users in
(3.6 – 4 marks) Present a very good discussion on whether the costing system in the study satisfy the features discussed in
Part A (Q1) with examples provided from your costing article.
(3.6 – 4 marks) Present a very good discussion of how useful the cost information was to the internal users in the
(3.1 – 3.5 marks) Present a good discussion
on whether the costing system in the study satisfy the features discussed in Part A (Q1) with examples provided from your costing article.
(3.1 – 3.5 marks) Present a good discussion of how useful the cost information was to the internal users in the organisation with
(2.1 – 3 marks) Present a reasonable discussion on whether the costing system in the study satisfy the features discussed in
Part A (Q1) with examples provided from your costing article.
(2.1 – 3 marks) Present a reasonable discussion of how useful the cost information was to the internal users in
(0 – 2 marks) Unable to explain whether the costing system in the study satisfy the features discussed in
Part A (Q1) with lack of examples provided from your costing article, or confusing,
(0 – 2 marks) Unable to explain how useful the cost information was to the internal users in the organisation
Based on your literature findings, state two key lessons that would inform contemporary organisations about the practical use of your chosen costing system. (5 marks)
Overall Presentation
(3 marks)
the organisation with examples from your costing article. (4.1 – 5 marks) Clear, concise, compelling two key lessons that would inform contemporary organisations about the practical use of your chosen
costing system.
(2.1 – 3 marks) Include all elements and is very well presented. Writing flows clearly and sections are linked very effectively. Referencing is exemplary. English is used very effectively and error-free.
organisation with examples from your costing article. (3.6 – 4 marks)
A very good two
key lessons that would inform contemporary organisations about the practical use of your chosen costing system
(1.9 – 2 marks) Include all elements and is well presented. Writing flows clearly and sections are linked effectively. Referencing is
of a high standard. English is used effectively with very few errors present.
examples from your costing article.
(3.1 – 3.5 marks) A good two key lessons that would inform contemporary organisations about the practical use of your chosen costing system
(1.6 – 1.8 marks) Include all elements and is generally presented appropriately. Writing mostly flows well and sections are linked. Referencing is in accordance with guidelines. English is used effectively with few errors present.
the organisation with examples from your costing article. (2.1 – 3 marks) An adequate
two key lessons
that would inform contemporary organisations about the practical use of your chosen costing system
(1.1 – 1.5marks) Include most elements and is adequately presented. Writing sometimes does not flow clearly leaving the paper to seem disjointed in areas. Referencing is somewhat in
accordance with guidelines. Basic English is used with some
errors present.
with examples from your costing article, or confusing.
(0 – 2 marks) Unable to present two key lessons that would inform contemporary organisations about the practical use of your chosen costing system, or confusing.
(0 – 1 marks) Lack key elements and is poorly presented. Writing does not flow clearly leaving the paper to seem disjointed. Referencing is not in
accordance with relevant guidelines. Basic English is used with errors present.
Total Marks (30) /30
