Purpose

Covers a range of important cost and management accounting topics. The main purpose of this assignment is to provide students with the opportunity to extend their knowledge, skills, attitudes and values in connection with some of the topics covered during the course.

Students are required to complete the assignment in groups of two and this is intended to foster the development of a capacity to work cooperatively with fellow students (as per the objectives for this course).

Formation of groups

Students are to complete the assignment in groups of two and do not have any entitlement to adopt some other arrangement (such as completing the assignment individually or in a group of three) without the permission of the lecturer in-charge of the course at the location where they are studying. Students who have difficulty arranging membership of a group or who encounter other difficulties (for example, a group member withdraws from the course) should consult their lecturer in-charge. Where there are an odd number of students in the class, the lecturer in-charge may grant permission for one group of three students to be formed.

Requirements

Each group is to submit essays on Topic 1 and Topic 2 as listed below. Each essay will carry a weighting of 15 marks out of the 30 marks available for this assessment task.

Topic 1: Ethics and budgeting

Budgeting is generally regarded as an essential technique for planning and controlling an organisation's activities. However, budgeting systems can also create incentives for unethical behaviour.

Using examples to illustrate your discussion, explain:

• How the use of budgets in planning and controlling an organisation's activities may create incentives for unethical behaviour; and,

• What strategies organisations can adopt to minimise the risk of their budgeting system leading to unethical behaviours.

Topic 2: Accounting for overhead

Modern manufacturing processes are typically characterised by large-scale automation, with machines replacing people. Consequently, manufacturing overhead has often become a much more significant component of total manufacturing costs and this presents a particular challenge for cost and management accountants. Competitive pressures make it essential that firms have accurate and up-to-date cost data, but overhead is an indirect cost and allocating it to individual products and product lines will always involve subjectivity and estimation.

Discuss the difficulties associated with allocating overhead costs in the contemporary manufacturing environment and identify strategies that firms can adopt to help make their overhead allocations more accurate and reliable.

Presentation

The assignment is to comply with the University's General Guide for the Presentation of Academic Work. Students are required to use the APA style of referencing. See comments below regarding word length. Each group is to submit a single copy of their assignment.