HI5017 T3 2019 Managerial Accounting

Assessment Details and Submission Guidelines
Trimester	T3 2019
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, 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, 5, 6, 7 & 8)
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 Sunday 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, 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:

Journal Article Critique (30 Marks)

You are required to conduct a literature search and discussion in this assignment.

You are to choose a peer reviewed journal article (from any country) on the:

• Use of Standard Costing in a real-life company; and
• Use of Target Costing in a real-life company.

Register the two article names and details with your Lecturer in class. The articles should be published between 2010 – 2019. Choose your articles only after you have accessed several relevant articles, and then choose the best articles that will answer the assignment question below.

Required: Critically evaluate the relevance and challenges of both costing systems by answering the 5 questions below:

Questions:

1. Briefly discuss the features of standard costing as a planning and control system. (5 marks)

• Based on your standard costing article, discuss the relevance of standard costing as a planning and control system in your real-life case company. Did it satisfy the features discussed in (i)? Why or why not? Include examples in your answer from your standard costing article. (5 marks)

• Discuss what target costing is and compare and contrast it from standard costing. (5 marks)

• Is target costing relevant in today’s competitive and (in most cases), uncertain business environment? Explain with examples from your target costing article. (5 marks)

• Based on your literature findings (above), which of the two systems would you recommend for contemporary organisations to use for planning purpose and which system you would recommend for control purpose? Explain (5 marks)

Additional Information:

1. 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

• 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.

• No student can choose the same article as another student from the same class, else both students may receive a zero mark, at the Lecturer’s discretion.

• The two journal articles must be uploaded (as a separate PDF file) together with your assignment (as a MS WORD file format) in Blackboard under the folder <Assignment>. 5 marks will be deducted if you do not submit the articles with your assignment.

Assignment Structure:

The report should include the following components:

1. Assignment cover page clearly stating your name and student number
   1. Abstract (one paragraph)
   1. Table of contents
   1. A brief introduction or overview of what the report is about.
   1. Body of the assignment with appropriate section headings
   1. Conclusion
   1. List of References.

Marking Criteria

Marking Criteria	Weighting
Journal Article Critique
1. Briefly discuss the features of standard costing as a planning and control system.	5%
2. Based on your standard costing article, discuss the relevance of standard costing as a planning and control system in your real-life case company. Did it satisfy the features discussed in (i)? Why or why not? Include examples in your answer from your standard costing article.	5%
3. Discuss what target costing is and compare and contrast it from standard costing.	5%
4. Is target costing relevant in today’s competitive and (in most cases), uncertain business environment? Explain with examples from your target costing article.	5%
5. Based on your literature findings (above), which of the two systems would you recommend for contemporary organisations to use for planning purpose and which system you would recommend for control purpose? Explain	5%
Overall Presentation of Assignment	5%
TOTAL Weight	30%

Marking Rubric

	Excellent	Very Good	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory
Journal Article Critique
Briefly discuss the	(4.1 – 5 marks)	(3.6 – 4 marks)	(3.1 – 3.5 marks)	(2.1 – 3 marks)	(0 – 2 marks)
features of standard	Present an	Present a very	Present a good	Present a	Unable to
costing as a planning and	excellent	good discussion	discussion of the	reasonable	explain the
control system.	discussion of	of the features	features of	discussion of	features of
(5 marks)	the features of	of standard	standard costing	the features of	standard costing
	standard costing	costing as a	as a planning and	standard costing	as a planning
	as a planning	planning and	control system.	as a planning	and control
	and control	control system.		and control	system.
	system.			system.
Based on your standard	(4.1 – 5 marks)	(3.6 – 4 marks)	(3.1 – 3.5 marks)	(2.1 – 3 marks)	(0 – 2 marks)
costing article, discuss the	Present an	Present a very	Present a good	Present a	Unable to
relevance of standard	excellent	good discussion	discussion of the	reasonable	explain the
costing as a planning and	discussion of	of the relevance	relevance of	discussion of	relevance of
control system in your	the relevance of	of standard	standard costing	the relevance of	standard costing
real-life case company.	standard costing	costing as a	as a planning and	standard costing	as a planning
Did it satisfy the features	as a planning	planning and	control system,	as a planning	and control
discussed in (i)? Why or	and control	control system,	with or without	and control	system from the
why not? Include	system, with	with examples	examples	system, without	case company.
examples in your answer	examples	provided from	provided from	example
from your standard	provided from	the case	the case	provided from
costing article.	the case	company.	company.	the case
(5 marks)	company.			company.
Discuss what target	(4.1 – 5 marks)	(3.6 – 4 marks)	(3.1 – 3.5 marks)	(2.1 – 3 marks)	(0 – 2 marks)
costing is and compare	Clear, concise,	A very good	A good discussion	Adequate	Unable to
and contrast it from	compelling	discussion of	of target costing	discussion of	present a
standard costing.	discussion of	target costing	and compare and	target costing	proper
(5 marks)	target costing	and compare	contrast it from	and compare	discussion of
	and compare	and contrast it	standard costing.	and contrast it	target costing
	and contrast it	from standard		from standard	and compare
	from standard	costing.		costing.	and contrast it
	costing.				from standard
					costing or
					confusing.
Is target costing relevant	(4.1 – 5 marks)	(3.6 – 4 marks)	(3.1 – 3.5 marks)	(2.1 – 3 marks)	(0 – 2 marks)
in today’s competitive	Clear, concise,	Present a very	Present a good	Present a	Unable to
and (in most cases),	compelling	good discussion	discussion of	reasonable	explain of target
uncertain business	discussion of	of target	target costing’s	discussion of	costing’s
environment? Explain	target costing’s	costing’s	relevance in	target costing’s	relevance in
with examples from your	relevance in	relevance in	today’s	relevance in	today’s
target costing article.	today’s	today’s	competitive and	today’s	competitive and
(5 marks)	competitive and	competitive and	uncertain	competitive and	uncertain
	uncertain	uncertain	business	uncertain	business
	business	business	environment,	business	environment
	environment,	environment,	with or without	environment,
	with examples	with examples	examples	without
	provided from	provided from	provided from	examples
	the article.	the article.	the article.	provided from
				the article.

Based on your literature	(4.1 – 5 marks)	(3.6 – 4 marks)	(3.1 – 3.5 marks)	(2.1 – 3 marks)	(0 – 2 marks)
findings (above), which of	Clear, concise,	A very good	A good	An adequate	Unable to
the two systems would	compelling	recommenda-	recommenda-	recommenda-	present proper
you recommend for	recommenda-	tion for which	tion for which of	tion for which	recommenda-
contemporary	tion for which of	of the two	the two systems	of the two	tion for which of
organisations to use for	the two systems	systems	contemporary	systems	the two systems
planning purpose and	contemporary	contemporary	organisations to	contemporary	contemporary
which system you would	organisations to	organisations to	use for planning	organisations	organisations to
recommend for control	use for planning	use for planning	purpose and for	to use for	use for planning
purpose? Explain.	purpose and for	purpose and for	control purpose.	planning	purpose and for
(5 marks)	control purpose.	control		purpose and	control purpose.
		purpose.		for control
				purpose.
Overall Presentation	(4.1 – 5 marks)	(3.6 – 4 marks)	(3.1 – 3.5 marks)	(2.1 – 3 marks)	(0 – 2 marks)
(5 marks)	Include all	Include all	Include all	Include most	Lack key
	elements and is	elements and is	elements and is	elements and	elements and is
	very well	well presented.	generally	is adequately	poorly
	presented.	Writing flows	presented	presented.	presented.
	Writing flows	clearly and	appropriately.	Writing	Writing does
	clearly and	sections are	Writing mostly	sometimes	not flow clearly
	sections are	linked	flows well and	does not flow	leaving the
	linked very	effectively.	sections are	clearly leaving	paper to seem
	effectively.	Referencing is	linked.	the paper to	disjointed.
	Referencing is	of a high	Referencing is in	seem	Referencing is
	exemplary.	standard.	accordance with	disjointed in	not in
	English is used	English is used	guidelines.	areas.	accordance with
	very effectively	effectively with	English is used	Referencing is	relevant
	and error-free.	very few errors	effectively with	somewhat in	guidelines. Basic
		present.	few errors	accordance	English is used
			present.	with	with errors
				guidelines.	present.
				Basic English is
				used with
				some errors
				present.
Total Marks (30)					/30