Accounting information and value chain analysis: an exploratory field study

Interfirm relationships introduce new challenges for management accounting. One such challenge is to provide the information for the coordination and optimization of activities across firms in a value chain. In literature it is argued that a value chain analysis is a method to meet this challenge. However, little empirical evidence currently exists on the use of this analysis in practice. This paper presents an exploratory case study on the use of an activity-based casting model by the U.K. retail firm J. Sainsbury's and a group of 36 suppliers for supporting supply chain management practices. This cost model is based on the principles of value chain analysis, and integrates cost information of firms across the value chain. This allows them to perform benchmark analyses, strategie what-if analyses and monitoring of supply chain costs for supply chain optimization.