An Empirical Research of Target Cost Management for Life Cycle Costs

Research Project

Project/Area Number	07630124
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Accounting
Research Institution	Kobe University
Principal Investigator	KATO Yutaka Kobe University, School of Business Administration, Professor, 経営学部, 教授 (70117993)
Project Period (FY)	1995 – 1996
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 1996)
Budget Amount *help	¥2,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,300,000) Fiscal Year 1996: ¥800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000) Fiscal Year 1995: ¥1,500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000)
Keywords	Target Cost Management / Strategic Cost Management / Longitudinal Field Research / Life Cycle Costs / Inter-organizational Cost Management / Benchmarking / 製品ライフサイクル / 製販同盟 / Design for Environment / ユーザーコスト / 日本的管理会計 / 戦略各的コストマネジメント / ISO14000 / コスト意識 / 研究開発者管理
Research Abstract	This research report is consisted from four chapters. In chapter one, several problems around target cost management in Japanese companies are identified. Then, the progress of implementing target cost management among Western enterprises is explained. Beyond our anticipation, Western competitors utilize target cost management with higher sophistication. The chapter is concluded with some suggestion by learning from foreign applications. Chapter two focused on the dysfunction of target cost management. Strategic cost management perspectives are useful to overcome the facing problems and several suggestions for possible improvements are described. Brief outline of three-year-research project of transferring target cost management into a European company is appeared in chapter three. Most of the previous target cost management researches is based on case research, literature survey, and statistical empirical research. This particular research project, however, utilized a quite unique resea … More rch methodology ; longitudinal field research. The nature of longitudinal field research is explained. Then, expecting research outputs with some finding follow. This company has been learning from leading-edge Japanese practices and overcoming problems now we are facing. The company aims to reduce life cycle costs of the firm. Three more years are needed to unveil the reality of this foreign experiment. The chapter strongly suggests relying on this research methodology to adcance target cost management research in the future. The final chapter describes the current state of the art of target cost management application among Japanese companies. Kobe University Management Accounting Group executed this mail survey. Concerning the life cycle consideration still limited number of the companies pay attention to life cycle costs minimization. majority of the companies has rather narrow focus on cost reduction activities and this approach does not necessarily lead to the life cycle cost minimization. More detailed examination of the acquired data will be taken place. Less