This case study examines in detail the changes that were induced in a modem cost accounting system by the introduction and evolution of Just-In-Time (JIT) manufacturing. it is intended to do more problem finding than problem solving, in the hope of stimulating the formulation of hypotheses for further study. The project initially sought to detect whether Hewlett-Packard's JIT manufacturing experience had spawned new approaches to cost accounting or had uncovered fundamental weaknesses in traditional procedures. The most promising research opportunities to emerge, however, concern the changing relations between cost accounting, product design, process control, and quality assurance.

[This case study examines in detail the changes that were induced in a modern cost accounting system by the introduction and evolution of Just-In-Time (JIT) manufacturing. It is intended to do more problem finding than problem solving, in the hope of stimulating the formulation of hypotheses for further study. The project initially sought to detect whether Hewlett-Packard's JIT manufacturing experience had spawned new approaches to cost accounting or had uncovered fundamental weaknesses in traditional procedures. The most promising research opportunities to emerge, however, concern the changing relations between cost accounting, product design, process control, and quality assurance.]

This study examines firms' behavior with respect to the systematic intraday timing of earnings and dividend announcements. In particular, it tests the hypothesis that good news is more likely to be released when the security markets are open while bad news appears more frequently after the close of trading. Both endogenous (stock price change) and exogenous (comparison to the preceding period's earnings or dividends) classifications are used to distinguish good news from bad, and both forms support the "good news during, bad news after" hypothesis. An information content analysis using daily stock price data is then performed to illustrate how differences in disclosure timing may affect inferences about the magnitude of stock price response, announcement anticipation or news leakage, and the speed of price adjustment.

This paper presents an agency model in which one of several monitoring systems can be chosen, if the agent possesses private information about the firm's production technology, the principal may rationally prefer to delegate the choice of the monitor to the agent even though the agent's compensation will depend on the monitoring information. In general, this expansion of the contracting space allows the principal to orchestrate more efficiently the agent's effort and monitoring system choices. The model suggests that the existence of alternative accounting methods and the delegation of their selection to management may represent rational equilibrium behavior.