What Managers from the Class I Freight-Carrying Railroad Industry Say Students Need from the Managerial Accounting Course

Abstract

Individual interviews were conducted with top-level marketing, operations, and costing managers in two Class I freight-carrying railroads. This study focuses on the following research question: Which accounting concepts and information do managers use in decision making? From a list of accounting concepts from a popular Managerial Accounting textbook, managers assessed the level of importance for each accounting concept. This study helps accounting educators design the Managerial Accounting course by providing them with the most essential accounting concepts used by managers in decision making. The study concludes that the most critically important accounting concepts for managers include: understanding cost terminology, cost behavior, cost-volume-profit relationships, customer profitability analysis, and the use of non-financial measures.