[The Impact of Electronic Commerce on Achieving the Competitive Advantage of Economic Units through the Strategy of Cost Leadership Study in Some Selected Companies in Iraq]

The study is dealt with an important topic related to one of the developments that occurred in the modern business environment (which represents one of the strategies to achieve competitive advantage) due to its importance and its relationship to the accounting work. A set of areas has been identified through which work in the e-commerce environment can be used to reduce product costs in economic units, which can include reducing: industrial costs, marketing costs, administrative and financing costs. A set of accounting methods have also been identified that can contribute to achieving the objectives of the cost management strategy, mainly represented in the possibility of reducing the cost of products, which can contribute to achieving a competitive advantage for the economic unit. Value (VC), product life cycle (PLC), on-time production costing (JIT), cost reduction through target cost (TC). The study is found that due to the many advantages that can be benefited from when working in the e-commerce environment, which can contribute to reducing product costs, as well as the possibility of benefiting from working in the information technology environment required by the e-commerce environment and the shift towards electronic accounting, we have the need to design a central database that contains all the data that contribute to the application of any method of cost management strategy, as well as securing positive relationships between the various methods in order to achieve the general goal of achieving a competitive advantage for the economic unit by reducing the cost of products to reduce their prices In the market. The theoretical part was reinforced by an exploratory study in a selected sample of Iraqi companies that showed that there is a positive and important relationship between competitive advantage and the cost leadership strategy, and a significant impact of strategic management accounting methods in achieving the competitive advantage of companies operating in the ecommerce environment, and also the use of strategic management accounting methods leads to achieve the cost leadership strategy, the study recommends the necessity of integrating the methods of strategic management accounting, as this will lead to the realization of the cost leadership strategy for companies operating in the e-commerce environment.