ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The last couple of decades have seen considerable change in the structure of business organizations, caused largely by their desire to gain competitive advantage and by their desire to make use of the technological infrastructure available. As a consequence of the drivers of business management, organizations are now leaner and fitter but inherent in these changes are certain dangers as organizations seek to capitalize on their restructuring and achieve continued competitive advantage and growth in this new environment. The quantitative nature of accounting tends to focus upon the economic foundations of the discipline and thereby to reinforce the preconception that it is only those things which can be measured in financial terms, and thereby expressed as accounting information, which have value.
