Relationships and Trends in Inter-organizational Accounting Exchanges for Competitive Productservices

In the automotive industry, some significant changes are developing that feed new relationships in networks, even due to the economic crisis. It encourages critical accounting information exchanges among firms for competitive productservices. Therefore, a qualitative analysis is useful to study practices of accounting information exchanges in inter-organizational relationships. Such information is considered critical from managers in business to business relationships. This study focuses on a firm of an automotive network which improves new product-services and develops new inter-organizational cost management tools. The open-book accounting and the kaizen costing are studied and the role of social factors is investigated because they influence positively and negatively the quantity and the quality of accounting information exchange. Furthermore this paper describes and interprets the changes in inter-firm relationships. The discussion highlights the shift from manufacturing to the «service» in this automotive network, and the role of management accounting to support the supply of new product-services.