Poul Israelsen

Dealing with complex and ill-structured problems: results of a Plan-Do-Check-Act experiment in a business engineering semester

ABSTRACT Challenged by increased globalisation and fast technological development, we carried out an experiment in the third semester of a global business engineering programme aimed at identifying conditions for training student in dealing with complex and ill-structured problems of forming a new business. As this includes a fuzzy front end, learning cannot be measured in traditional, quantitative terms; therefore, we have explored the use of reflection to convert tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge. The experiment adopted a Plan-Do-Check-Act approach and concluded with developing a plan for new learning initiatives in the subsequent year’s semester. The findings conclude that (1) problem-based learning develops more competencies than ordinarily measured at the examination, especially, the social/communication and personal competencies are developed; (2) students are capable of dealing with a complex and ambiguous problem, if properly guided. Four conditions were identified; (3) most students are not conscious of their learning, but are able to reflect if properly encouraged; and (4) improving engineering education should be considered as an organisational learning process.

Management Accounting System Problems in context of Lean: development of a proposed solution

1. Introduction (Morten Jakobsen, Falconer Mitchell and Hanne Norreklit) Part I: Cost Control Issues 2. Budgetary Control: Whats been Happening? (David Marginson) 3. Management Accounting System Problems in Context of Lean: Development of a Proposed Solution (Thomas Borup Kristensen and Poul Israelsen) 4. ICT Systems and Cost Management (Timo Hyvonen) 5. Functional Analysis (Takeo Yoshikawa and John Innes) 6. Target Costing: Market-Driven Cost Management (Peter Kajuter) 7. Continuous Improvement and Kaizen Costing (Takeo Yoshikawa and Reza Kouhy) Part II: Cost Management and Decision Making 8. Specifying Conditions for Cost Systems Generating Relevant Decision Making Costs (Samuel C. A. Pereira and Falconer Mitchell) 9. Designing Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing Systems: A Review and Future Research Directions (Sophie Hoozee) 10. The Theory of Constraints (David Dugdale) 11. The Dynamics of Management Accounting and Control Systems (Trond Bjornenak and Katarina Kaarboe) 12. Capacity Usage (Lino Cinquini and Andrea Tenucci) Part III: Inter-Organizational Cost Management Perspectives 13. Cost Management and the Provision of Support Services in Large Organizations (Will Seal and Ian Herbert) 14. Inter-Organizational Cost Management (Morten Jakobsen) 15. New Directions for Research on Outsourcing Decision-Making (Lars Brad Nielsen) 16. Customer Relations and Cost Management (Trond Bjornenak and Oyvind Helgesen) Part IV: Strategy and Cost Management 17. A New Framework for Strategic Cost Management: An Empirical Investigation of Strategic Decision in Britain, the USA and Japan (Chris Carr, Katja Kolehmainen and Falconer Mitchell) 18. Quality Costing (Riccardo Giannetti) 19. Environmental Cost Management for Green Production (Alessandro Marelli) 20. Performance Measurement Systems: Beyond Generic Actions (Rainer Lueg and Hanne Norreklit) 21. Methodologies for Managing Performance Measurement (Lino Cinquini, Falconer Mitchell, Hanne Norreklit and Andrea Tenucci) 22. Cost Management in the Digital Age (Alnoor Bhimani)Based on three case studies, a new Lean financial model is developed. This new model improves the organization by increasing Lean goal congruent behavior. The new financial (costing) model uses the waste categories known from Lean in order to create decision information for Lean decisions such as where to focus activities. The three case studies that the model development is based upon have a variety of problems getting their current management accounting system, standard costing systems, to work congruently with their Lean efforts. The new developed financial model improves the decision-making information in Lean organizations by rectifying the conceptual problems the three case companies have.