Marktorientierte Zielkostenvorgaben als Instrument der Verhaltenssteuerung im Kostenmanagement

Summary By taking the difference between a given target selling price and the target profit, target costs of a new product are typically calculated backwards from customers’ willingness to pay. In a top-down approach, these market-oriented costs form the allowable costs in the sense that the project is stopped if it is not possible to achieve the target values, even if it implies the renunciation of positive contribution margins. In this paper, we analyze whether market-oriented target costs are appropriate in order to motivate a high effort of the engineers. Using a principalagent model, we identify situations where it is easier to extract the designer’s effort with market-oriented target costs than with a combined “bottom up” and “top down” approach. However, whether the principal prefers market-oriented target costs critically depends on the possibilities of evaluating the agent’s performance.