Zijn ziekenhuizen minder creatief in accounting?.

Governance; Accounting;

Drivers of cost system development in hospitals: Results of a survey.

While many hospitals are under pressure to become more cost efficient, new costing systems such as Activity-based costing (ABC) may form a solution. However, the factors that may facilitate (or inhibit) cost system changes towards ABC have not yet been disentangled in a specific hospital context. Via a survey study of hospitals, we discovered that cost system development in hospitals could largely be explained by hospital specific factors. Issues such as the support of the medical parties towards cost system use, the awareness of problems with the existing legal cost system, the way hospitals and physicians arrange reimbursements, should be considered if hospitals refine their cost system. Conversely, ABC-adoption issues that were found to be crucial in other industries are less important. Apparently, installing a cost system requires a different approach in hospital settings. Especially, results suggest that hospital management should not underestimate the interest of the physician in the process of redesigning cost systems.Activity based costing; Cost control; Factors; Hospital context; Hospitals; Industry; Management; Organizational change; Problems; Processes; Studies; Systems;

Financiële toestand van de ziekenhuizen eind 1994.

Het regelmatig opvolgen van de financiële toestand van de ziekenhuizen door directie en overheid is cruciaal voor de kwaliteit en zelfs de continuïteit van de zorgenverstrekking. Vandaar dat in dit rapport de financiële gezondheid van 164Belgische ziekenhuizen (waaronder 114 Vlaamse) -eind 1994, werd onderzocht en vergeleken met de toestand- eind 1991.Financiële gezondheid wordt daarbij gemeten als een combinatie van de liquiditeitssituatie, de rentabiliteit, de solvabiliteit en het investeringsniveau. De analyse gebeurt per deelsector (algemeen - psychiatrisch; prive - openbaar) en ook volgens grootte - klasse. Er worden daarenboven aanduidingen gegeven van de financiële situatie van de Brusselse en Waalse ziekenhuizen op hetzelfde tijdstip. Elk individueel ziekenhuis kan zich aan de hand van de resultaten van deze studie positioneren tegenover de sector of deelsector, zodat de studie als dank mag beschouwd worden voor het vertrouwelijk ter beschikking stellen van jaarrekeningen.De resultaten uit dit onderzoek zijn zorgwekkend: alhoewel de financiële performantie in Vlaanderen lijkt beter te zijn dan in de ziekenhuizen van de andere regio's voldoen slechts 4 op 10 (vooral psychiatrische) Vlaamse ziekenhuizen aan de minimale eisen van financiële gezondheid.

Competitive Pricing in Markets with different overhead costs: concealment or leakage of information.

Pricing; Markets; Market; Costs; Cost; Information; Accounting; Research;

The benefits of cost system accuracy in a competitive price setting duopoly.

This study reports the results of an experiment to investigate the value of increased cost report accuracy in competitive pricing decisions. Prior work has shown that in more competitive environments, cost system choice matters less since there is opportunity to learn from informative market signals. Our study argues that in a dynamic duopoly, learning from such informative market signals is distorted when decision makers act as market leaders deciding first on prices. Compared to second movers (followers), a leader with a biased cost report continues to prefer his own distorted cost figures over the informative signals emanating from better informed market players. Consequently he realizes lower performance and can be taken advantage of by opponents with access to superior cost data. We conclude that in order to achieve profit leadership, current reputational market leaders have a great interest in improving the accuracy of their own cost report system.Activity based costing; Choice; Competition; Data; Duopoly; Market;

The value of more accurate customer profitability reports: Does cost complexity matter?.

This paper reports experimental evidence on the potential benefits of reporting different levels of customer-related information in a pricing decision context. The paper mainly focuses on the influence of the complexity of the cost environment -measured by the degree of heterogeneity across customers- on the value of more accurate customer profitability systems. Contrary to the findings of Gupta & King (1997) our results indicate that the value of more accurate cost reports increases, as the cost environment becomes more complex. In addition we find that, compared to a situation where decision makers receive only general profit feedback, reports based on traditional costing systems improve the quality of the pricing decision only in a complex cost environment.Activity based costing; Complexity; Cost complexity; Decision; Decision making; Information; Price setting; Pricing; Profitability; Reporting; Systems; Value;

Opinie-onderzoek over verschillen tussen openbare en private Vlaamse ziekenhuizen.

Uit vroegere studies bleek dat algemeen directeurs van Vlaamse openbare en private ziekenhuizen een eenheidsstatuut nastreven. Met een eenheidsstatuut wordt in het algemeen een situatie bedoeld waarbij de regelgeving voor alle ziekenhuizen dusdanig is dat noch de openbare noch de private ziekenhuizen zich bevoordeeld of benadeeld voelen tegenover elkaar bij het aanbieden van de zorg. Dit kan zowel verband houden met het juridisch statuut als met de regelgeving over financiering, personeel enz.. Een mogelijk eenheidsstatuut zal wellicht makkelijker tot stand komen als openbare en private ziekenhuizen een zelfde visie delen over een aantal beleidstopics. Het leek ons daarom interessant om via een opinie-onderzoek na te gaan hoe ziekenhuizen met een openbaar of een privaat karakter dezelfde of verschillende meningen hebben over elkaar wat betreft hun juridisch statuut, personeelsbeleid, mogelijke samenwerking, ziekenhuisfinanciering en toegankelijkheid. Alhoewel de resultaten aanduiden dat beide types ziekenhuizen, anno 2003, sterk te vinden zijn voor een eenheidsstatuut blijken er heel wat meningverschillen te bestaan over een aantal belangrijke beleidstopics.Studies;

Market feedback, cost system choice and competitve pricing: the advantage of not being a leader

This study experimentally investigates the value of cost report accuracy in an interactive pricing context. Market agents received feedback about their own profits via either a volume-based costing or a more accurate activity-based costing report. They also received a typical market report containing the performance of their rivals. While prior work suggested that market discipline and learning from salient competitors can overcome performance decrements due to inaccurate costing, our results imply that the corrective nature of market feedback depends on the decision maker's role in the competitive play. Compared to other participants, decision makers endowed with the role of a 'reputational' market leader are less effective in screening available market feedback because they predominantly fixate on their own cost data. Even when receiving biased volume-based costing, reputational leaders ignore valuable market signals of opponents having access to more accurate cost data. Consequently other market players can take advantage of them

The joint effects of customer profitability reports and sales support diversity in effective customer pricing

This paper experimentally investigates the value-enhancing effects of more accurate customer profitability analysis (CuPA) reports on customer pricing decisions and firm profitability when customers place different demands on the firm's support functions. Activity-based driven CuPA reports are contrasted against less accurate reports, either based on traditional volume-based costing or on aggregated feedback. Cost complexity of the environment was further varied by either low or high diversity in resource usage across customers depending on whether or not the most costly type of customer always consumed more resources in each of the various support functions of the firm. Results suggest that the diversity in resource requirements serves as an important 'contextual factor' for CuPA to have incremental value over the less accurate report types. Only when usage of sales support becomes more diverse, CuPA provides strong opportunities for learning resulting in more effective customer pricing and profit improvement. Results further show some profit benefits of volume-based costing reports. Even though cost allocations are more distorted, they still perform better than aggregated reports that do not allocate marketing overhead, but only in a more complex cost settings. Keywords: Customer profitability, pricing, sales support diversity, decision making. JEL-classification: C91, D83, M31, M41, M4