Provided by James R. Martin, Ph.D., CMA
Professor Emeritus, University of South Florida
Management Accounting Discussion Question Links
| Graduate Management Accounting Course
1. Discuss the concept of leadership recommended by Deming and used by Toyota. How is this different from the traditional American concept of leadership?
2. Discuss the controversy related to choosing the appropriate level of capacity for determining overhead or activity rates. Pick a capacity level and defend your choice.
3. Compare SPC to standard cost control. Explain how standard cost analysis is and is not a control concept. Then pick one side or the other and defend your choice.
4. Discuss the Beer Game. What is the purpose of the game and what lessons does it teach?
5. Discuss the Red Bead Experiment. What is the purpose of the experiment and what lessons does it teach?
6. Discuss the Match-Bowl game. What is the purpose of the game and what lessons does it teach?
7. Discuss Ouchi's three control mechanisms and how they are related to traditional and lean enterprise concepts.
8. Discuss the various supplier relationships and compare the traditional approach with the JIT, JIT II, and Japanese approaches.
9. Discuss the Drum-Buffer-Rope concept. What is the purpose of the concept? What problem is it supposed to solve?
10. Discuss the moving-baseline concept. What problem does this concept solve? Explain how.
11. Discuss the advantages of the PLC concept and how the PLC concept is related to strategy.
12. Discuss social accounting in relation to the PLC concept? What is the connection between the two concepts?
13. Originally there were two basic concepts related to strategy. Describe and compare these two concepts and then discuss other strategies discussed in the literature.
14. Discuss the differences between Juran's zero defects concept of quality and the Taguchi/Deming concept of robust quality. Pick a side and defend your choice.
15. Discuss the connection between the balanced scorecard and strategy along with the strengths and weaknesses of the BSC concept.
16. Compare traditional management and accounting concepts with the lean enterprise concepts associated with JIT and TOC in terms of how the company is organized, optimized, measured and controlled.
17. Discuss how throughput accounting differs from full absorption costing and direct costing in terms of the behavioral implications associated with these methods.
18. Discuss the concept of motivation in relation to culture including the effectiveness of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards.