Accounting for Decision Making and Control (Hardcover)

~ Jerold Zimmerman (Author) "Managers at BMW must decide which car models to produce, the quantity of each model to produce given the selling prices for the models, and..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, United States, Eastern University (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Accounting for Decision Making and Control by Jerry Zimmerman continues to grow in popularity with instructors due to its emphasis on teaching students to critically evaluate and solve actual business problems. Zimmerman is able to achieve this through: 1) Strong conceptual framework; 2) Business orientation focusing on how organizations work; 3) Balance between concepts & practice; 4) Strongest problem material available.

About the Author

McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide

Product Details

• Hardcover: 784 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Irwin; 4 edition (July 11, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0072501790
• ISBN-13: 978-0072501797
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 8.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #992,453 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Think Management Accounting Rather Than Cost Accounting, October 24, 2002

By	Craig Matteson (Ann Arbor, MI) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Accounting for Decision Making and Control (Hardcover)

Too often management accounting is completely subsumed in cost accounting. Yes, they are part of the same topic, but they have somewhat different emphases. This book covers costs, but it is really more focused on how you allocated decision rights, set measurement criteria, and how you reward people to get the behavior you want. It is also very helpful in clarifying thinking about what could be going wrong if you aren't getting the behavior you wanted out of a given system of measurement and reward.

The writing is very good and the organization of the book is sound and helpful. While there are charts and graphs it is not a book full of color and pictures. It is a book with words and ideas that are helpfully supplemented as needed. But the self-study problems and cases are set off from the main text by being on different color pages. This helps in locating what you are after.

There is a wealth of thought provoking problems and short cases to help promote discussion and provoke your thinking on the topics discussed in each chapter.

Another aspect of the book I really like are the concept questions in each chapter that help you gauge your understanding of what you have just read. The solutions for these are provided in the back of the book so you can know if you are "getting it" or not.

This is a fine and very useful text.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Bloated with Homework Problems, August 29, 2005

By	Bill Grissom "toraja" (Sacramento, California United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Accounting for Decision Making and Control (Hardcover)

The most surprising thing was how much of the book is homework problems (blue pages). Viewed edge-on they appear to be ~50% of the pages. Many problems are excessively wordy, fine as novellos but reading 2 pages to get to the issues is often tedious. The text is well written, but I didn't find the subject to have as much meat as other MBA subjects like Finance or Operations Research. I understand it is one of the better books on Managerial Accounting. I have 27 years experience at many companies, so others might find the material more enlightening.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Worse book in my entire MBA program, November 14, 2006

By	Reviewer 557 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Accounting for Decision Making and Control (Hardcover)

Beware ! This book does perhaps the poorest example explaining any concepts. I have never had so much stress in my life than taking a managerial accounting class with this book. I mean I actually couldn't sleep because of this book!
I took this class last year and I just finished my MBA and I am working on my Phd now, and I thought I would reflect and give some valuable advice to you, my fellow students.


If you don't have a prior managerial accounting background, go read as much as you can before you get into this book. Or you will be completely stressed out, lost and feel that you are a dummy. This book makes smart students feel dum. I mean really dum. You are not dum, the book just lacks clear explanations.

This book deals mostly with managerial accounting. For example if you are paid $100 per day at your job, really you are costing the company more than what you are being paid, really you use resources, like from human resources who hired you, electricity costs, phone costs, IT, etc, so your true cost to the company broken down is probably $160 per day. This is called cost allocation, in a crude example.

Easy concept right?, Just that you will not be able to learn this easily from this book unless you have a deep prior background in this. The good examples Zimmerman(author) gives are spoiled by the majority of his jargon and bad examples.


I honestly found myself at one point reading 1 page for over an hour to understand! (and I am a high A student). In my entire MBA program, I never had a worse book, nor more stress!!!

Ultimately, I had to do many exhaustive Internet searches to learn cost allocation theory.

Some reasons why this book is so bad:


(1) Does not explain many concepts with clear explanations
(2) Uses too much jargon
(3) Shows graphs and vital data one the next pages instead of including them on the same page, Imagine as you read you have to constantly change the page to see the graphs and charts, Very poor!
(4) Zimmeran doesn't want to teach, rather he wants to prove to you that he is smart!

(5) THE WORST
Perhaps the worst is the homework problems in the back. Zimmerman (the author) does not give sufficient examples of how to solve these examples. Nor does the book give the answers. Also, some problems are extremely hard, even the professor of the class had difficulty solving and explaining this. What is the goal of a book if students have to search elsewhere and be stressed out to learn?

I would say that this book is like taking a class in Algebra and having questions and concepts explained in Calculus.

Again, if you don't have a prior background in any of this, go take a class at a junior college on cost accounting to prepare for this book, you will need it. Or you too will be so stressed out!!

Jerold Zimmerman, please don't take personal offense, you may be a smart guy, but the art of education is explaining concepts easily and showing your work, which in my opinion and my fellow students' opinion, overall this book lacks.

GOOD LUCK to all students, and my prayers are with you if you have this book.