Accounting for preference dependency in target costing – a note
本文指出目标成本法隐含的客户偏好独立性假设不成立，直到产品达到提供基本功能的最低变体。作者提出修正模型，区分最低变体成本与额外功能成本，仅对超出部分进行客户导向的成本结构优化。
Abstract Target costing is a well-established strategic cost management tool in theory and practice. The original target costing model implies independence of customer preferences resulting in additive utility functions for the customer-oriented optimization of cost structures. We argue that this independence of preferences is not given until a minimum variant of a product is reached that provides its inherent functionality. This is reasonable since one cannot assign customer utility to a product that does not function in its most basic way. Our modified model accounts for the dependency of customer preferences and differentiates between the costs necessary to produce a minimum variant and those related to product features beyond this minimum variant. The customer-oriented optimization of the cost structure is then conducted only for those costs that exceed the costs of the minimum variant. This modification justifies the preference independence assumption in target costing and allows for a more reasonable assignment of required adjustments in costs per product component.