Browsing by Author "Bradshaw, John"

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ACCY223: Accounting: Management Accounting
(Victoria University of Wellington, 2010) Bradshaw, John
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ACCY223: Accounting: Management Accounting
(Victoria University of Wellington, 2005) Bradshaw, John
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ACCY223: Accounting: Management Accounting
(Victoria University of Wellington, 2008) Bradshaw, John
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ACCY223: Accounting: Management Accounting
(Victoria University of Wellington, 2009) Bradshaw, John; Khanna, Bhagwan
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ACCY223: Accounting: Management Accounting
(Victoria University of Wellington, 2009) Bradshaw, John
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ACCY223: Accounting: Management Accounting
(Victoria University of Wellington, 2005) Bradshaw, John
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ACCY223: Accounting: Management Accounting
(Victoria University of Wellington, 2010) Bradshaw, John
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ACCY302: Accounting: Advanced Management Accounting
(Victoria University of Wellington, 2008) Bradshaw, John
Open Access
Analysis of Change in Present Value Measurements
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2005) Bradshaw, John; Khanna, Bhagwan; Roush, Melvin; van Zijl, Tony
In recent years, the leading standard setters for financial reporting have shown an increasing preference for fair value measurement. However, present value is often the only acceptable method of estimating fair value and therefore the actual result of the swing to fair value is likely to be increased use of present value in financial reporting. This paper addresses the issue of interpretation of a change in present value between successive reporting dates and shows that the change can be analyzed by use of the familiar variance analysis framework widely used in management accounting.
Open Access
Can Budgetary Slack Still Prevail Within New Zealand’s New Public Management?
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2007) Hills, Joanne; Bradshaw, John; Khanna, Bhagwan; Hunt, Chris
The New Zealand (NZ) Government began its public sector reforms in 1984. The purposes of the reforms were to build a more open public sector, a plainer and clearer way of reporting, emphasising accountability and transparency (Wallace, 1993). A central focus of the reforms was to change the accounting culture by adopting accrual accounting and a 3 year budgeting and planning management cycle within Government Ministries. By investigating whether or not budgetary slack is used as a risk management strategy in NZ’s new public management (NPM) control setting, this study examines how successful the reforms are, more that 20 years after their inception. Budgetary slack is the excess requirements for resources or understatement of productive capability. Slack allows a budget to be easily achieved and gives a false perception of managers’ performance, defeating the basic purpose of budgets. As little research has been conducted on this phenomenon in NZ’s NPM, this study was undertaken. Using budgetary slack and earnings management literature, an empirical model is developed to examine whether the potential for budgetary slack exists in NZ Government Ministries. The five Ministries of: Health, Education, Transport, Justice, and Building & Housing, were chosen for this study. They provide a mix of sizes and are very topical for some specific reasons within the political arena. Results of this study will be of interest to the Government, public sector managers, taxpayers, other stakeholders, and academics.
Open Access
Costing Systems and the Spare Capacity Conundrum: Avoiding the Death Spiral
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2011) Bates, Ken; Bradshaw, John
We hear how firms have to become lean, eliminate non-value added activities and strive to maximise asset utilisation, but there are inevitably firms with excess capacity that need relevant information to manage the cost of the under utilisation of resources. In this paper we question whether cost system designers have been taking appropriate account of the capacity issue, and ask whether the costing systems employed are sufficiently adaptable for fluctuating levels of capacity utilisation. We note that the capacity issue has received diminishing attention in the literature since the 1960s, and identify the dangers of not identifying the cost of spare capacity. We demonstrate how improper cost system design or usage can draw the firm into the death spiral. This danger not only exists when moving into a recession but also when recovering and resuming growth. We describe two cases that demonstrate potential pitfalls and alternative approaches to the capacity issue. The manufacturing case is an SME with a traditional costing system that was hindering management‟s pricing and product mix decisions. Fortunately the death spiral was avoided as it was recognised that significant spare capacity was distorting costs and prices when the firm continued to base overhead absorption on budgeted production volumes. The service case relates to a large financial services company that implemented a complex activity based costing system and gained a much greater understanding of resource consumption and capacity utilisation, and hence established more effective cost control in their back office operations.
Open Access
The Pure Rate Variance
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2005) Bradshaw, John; Keef, Stephen; Roush, Melvin
The direct material cost variance can be subdivided into a price variance, a quantity variance and a price-quantity interaction variance. The price-quantity interaction variance is rarely mentioned in the literature because the traditional price variance does not acknowledge an interaction variance. For a number of pragmatic reasons, this approach may be justified for the direct material price variance. The direct labor cost variance is conceptually similar to the direct material cost variance. Accordingly, the traditional direct labor rate variance also includes a rate-efficiency interaction variance. However, the justifications for incorporating the interaction variance into the direct material price variance do not apply to the direct labor rate variance. This paper explores the possibility of separating the rate-efficiency interaction variance from the direct labor rate variance. This approach may be more aligned with the concept of responsibility accounting than the traditional method of calculating the direct labor rate variance. Thus, it may provide more reliable information feedback for decision-making purposes.
Open Access
Uncertainty, MCS and Firm Performance: Towards an Integrated Business Risk Focused Framework
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2007) Bui, Binh; Bradshaw, John; Hunt, Chris
Uncertainty is the core variable in any contingency theoretical framework (Chapman, 1997; Donaldson, 2001). Many reviews however have claimed that the accounting literature lacks a comprehensive framework for analysis of the relationship between uncertainty and MCS (Otley, 1980; Dent, 1990; Chapman, 1997; Langfield-Smith, 1997, Chenhall, 2003). Central to this study is the specification of uncertainty as it has been applied in contingency-based MCS research. This study argues that uncertainty, whilst well specified in terms of sources and types, it is under (not sufficiently) specified in terms of determining the degrees of uncertainty. This limitation is argued to impact on the explanatory and predictive capacity of an MCS based contingency theory (Schoonhoven, 1981). A theoretical framework is developed drawing insights from Otley (1999) and Kaufman (1992) that adopts a business risk view of uncertainty to explain or predict MCS fit/misfit with firm objectives, strategies and operational activities. It is postulated that the degree of change in business risk will signal and influence the level of required changes in MCS design and/or use and go toward addressing the under-specification of ‘degrees of uncertainty’. The level, extent and form of actual changes are dependent on firm capacity, defined as the available and accessible human and non-human resources, to realize the required changes. In doing so, along with considering the equilibrium/fit issues raised by Hartman and Moers (1999), the framework provides a potential basis for reviewing the apparent inconsistencies of past MCS research, and for positioning those studies argued to be narrow and/or of incomparable research design (Otley, 1981; Chapman, 1997). More importantly, a methodology for identifying external and internal drivers of uncertainty from a business risk perspective is presented. Additionally, through such identification a potentially proactive signalling mechanism for changes to MCS design and/or use is provided. The analytical findings of this paper will be of interest to managers, industry professionals, practitioners and academics alike.