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Management Accounting Research , 1996 , 7 , 199 – 217
Strategic investment decisions : the importance of SCM . A comparative analysis of 51 case studies in U .K . , U .S .and German companies
C . Carr* and C . Tomkins †
John Shank (in this special edition) summarises the argument for complementing acapital budgeting approach to investment decisions with a 代写留学生硕士论文broader strategic costmanagement (SCM) accounting approach incorporating three additional toolsvalue chain analysis , cost driver analysis and competitive advantage analysis . This
article first discusses how this new framework might be assessed empirically andthen examines the application of these techniques in practice , drawing on 51 casestudies of strategic investment decisions in 44 companies in Britain and Germany(including U . S . subsidiaries in both countries) . There are substantial internationaldif ferences , German companies placing much more emphasis on strategy in theirapproach . In general , compared with unsuccessful companies , successful companiesplaced proportionately five times as much attention on the issue of competitiveadvantage , almost three times as much on value chain considerations and twice asmuch on cost drivers ; commensurably less attention was placed on traditionalcapital budgeting techniques . Finally , we draw conclusions on the role of the financefunction and of such techniques within the context of strategic planning .
Ö 1996 Academic Press Limited
Key words : strategic investment decision ; Britain , Germany , U . S . A ; vehicle components ; financial analysis ; discounted cash flow ; strategic cost management .

1 . Introduction : requirements for an empirical investigation
The increasing usage of discounted cash flow techniques in U . K . and U . S .
companies has been documented in a number of surveys (Klammer , 1972 ; Pike ,1983 ; Klammer and Walker , 1984) : by 1986 , usage extended to 84% of U . K .companies (Butler et al . , 1993 , p . 56) . Less is known about their real influence inrelation to other more strategically oriented techniques , though a more strategic
approach has been thought to have characterised successful German and Japanesecompanies (Hayes and Abernathy , 1980 ; Hayes and Garvin , 1982) . In the light ofShank’s argument (in this special edition) that NPV techniques need to becomplemented by value chain , cost driver and competitive advantage analyses , we* Manchester Business School , Booth St . West , Manchester M15 6PB , U . K .
† School of Management , University of Bath , Bath BA2 7AY , U . K .1044 – 5005 / 96 / 020199 1 19 $18 . 00 / 0 Ö 1996 Academic Press Limited200 C . Carr and C . Tomkinsappraise the relative importance in practice of each of these techniques , throughcase studies of strategic investment decisions in Britain and Germany .We use the term ‘strategic’ to connote investments which have a significant ef fecton the organisation as a whole and on longer term performance (Marsh et al . , 1988 ;Ghemawat , 1992 ; Butler et al . , 1993) and focus accordingly , because theseinvestments are more likely to merit a strategic cost management (SCM) approach .We would expect Shank’s strategic tools of analysis to be less relevant to minor ,internally orientated investments ; our own pilot studies (Carr et al . , 1991)suggested that strategic investments decisions often do tend to turn on broaderstrategic considerations , rather than financial analysis .本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。