Abstract
Target Costing is a managerial accounting technique, which contributes to the competitiveness of Japanese automobile companies. The fact that target costing was born in automobile manufacturers, is due to the macro-economic environment and the competitive environment of automobile industry in Japan. However, the business environment has changed dramatically since 1990's. The main factor, which made the business environment change, is the progress of information technology. In this paper, we first analyzed the changes of business environment caused by the progress of information technology, and confirmed the role of target costing in the new business environment. And then, we showed how the target costing is evolving with the application of advanced information technology, by analyzing two cases of Japanese automobile companies.
