Accuracy
Accuracy is one of the most important aspects in writing a text because it impacts both instructors and students. Our goal this edition was to be precise and avoid errors wherever possible. To assure accuracy we employed a new error double-blind review process using top notch, professional error checkers.

What’s New This Edition?
We thank our reviewers and focus group participants for their suggestions. Many of these suggestions motivated the changes described below:

Corporate Governance: Accountants have always recognized the importance of ethical conduct. However, the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) has signaled the need for educators to expand the subject of ethics to a broader concept of corporate governance. We focus our expanded coverage on four specific areas including:

• Quality of Earnings--We explain how accountants manipulate financial statements.
• Standards of Ethical Conduct for Management Accountants--Our coverage focuses on the policies and practices promulgated by the Institute of Management Accountants.
• The Fraud Triangle--We discuss the three common features of criminal and ethical misconduct including opportunity, pressure and rationalization.
• Specified Features of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX)--We cover four key provisions of SOX that are applicable to managerial accountants.

Corporate governance is introduced in Chapter 1. This chapter includes four exercises, two problems, and one case that relate to the subject. Thereafter a corporate governance case is included in every chapter, thereby enabling continuing coverage of this critically important topic.

What's New by Chapter:

• Chapter 1: Revised learning objectives and strengthened their connection to text and end-of-chapter materials. Revised the Curious Accountant opening with new high profile companies and products (iPods). Added a major section covering corporate governance. Related exercises, problems and cases are provided. Moved content related to emerging trends in accounting (TQM, Activity-Based Management, and Value Chain Analysis) to an appendix. Updated exercises, problems, and cases.
• Chapter 2: Revised learning objectives and strengthened their connection to text and end-of-chapter materials. Revised the Curious Accountant opening with new high profile companies and products (Google, Inc.). Removed Exhibit 2-8 Cost Behavior and Revenue Relationships. Reorganized text material to develop a more logical flow of content. Added coverage of the regression method of estimating fixed and variable costs. Updated exercises, problems, and cases.
• Chapter 3: Revised learning objectives and strengthened their connection to text and end-of-chapter materials. Centralized coverage of pricing strategy. Updated exercises, problems, and cases.
• Chapter 4: Reversed sequence of Chapters 4 and 5 to allow coverage of allocation before it is used in the discussion of relevance. Revised learning objectives and strengthened their connection to text and end-of-chapter materials. Revised the Curious Accountant opening with new high profile companies.Removed coverage of cost pools. Updated exercises, problems, and cases.
• Chapter 5: Reversed sequence of Chapters 4 and 5 to allow coverage of allocation before it is used in the discussion of relevance. Revised learning objectives and strengthened their connection to text and end-of-chapter materials. Reorganized text material to develop a more logical flow of content. Replaced Focus on International Issues box with new scenario. Updated exercises, problems, and cases.
• Chapter 6: Revised learning objectives and strengthened their connection to text and end-of-chapter materials. Updated exercises, problems, and cases.
• Chapter 7: Updated exercises, problems, and cases.
• Chapter 8: Revised learning objectives and strengthened their connection to text and end-of-chapter materials. Revised the Curious Accountant opening with new high profile companies and products. Reorganized text material to develop a more logical flow of content. Replaced Reality Bytes sidebar with new scenario. Updated exercises, problems, and cases.
• Chapter 9: Revised learning objectives and strengthened their connection to text and end-of-chapter materials. Replaced Focus on International Issues box with new scenario. Added content demonstrating that multiple ROIs and RIs are normally computed for different divisions and investment opportunities within the same company. Updated exercises, problems, and cases and added new problems related to the calculation of multiple ROIs and RIs within the same company.
• Chapter 10: Revised learning objectives and strengthened their connection to text and end-of-chapter materials. Revised the Curious Accountant opening with new high profile companies and products. Updated Reality Bytes sidebar. Updated exercises, problems, and cases.
• Chapter 11: Revised learning objectives and strengthened their connection to text and end-of-chapter materials. Updated exercises, problems, and cases.
• Chapter 12: Revised learning objectives and strengthened their connection to text and end-of-chapter materials. Revised the Curious Accountant opening with new high profile companies and products. Updated Reality Bytes sidebar. Updated exercises, problems, and cases.
• Chapter 13: Removed content related to the different graphical forms of displaying analytical data. Updated exercises, problems, and cases.
• Chapter 14: Revised the Curious Accountant opening with new high profile companies and products.