Strategic cost management: preliminary lessons from European companies
Entrepreneurial drive, technology, and productivity are three characteristics which give many European companies a role of worldwide importance. This article describes strategic cost management within the framework of strategic management reflecting the current European approach. The conclusion is that at present European companies: (1) are making core competencies the guiding ideas of their strategies, and (2) are striving aggressively to increase their value, first by reengineering practices, and second by "inventing" new markets and satisfying all stakeholders, not only the shareholders, better and quicker than the competitors or other reference companies are able to do.
Strategic Management of Costs: A New Tool to Gain Competitive Advantage
In a dynamic business environment that includes rapid change, the powerful extension of technological development, increased competition, globalization, market segmentation, unsustainable demand, the importance of information, and changing business processes, cost management has become more critical, dynamic, and necessary than ever before. In order to rescue itself from the claws of competition today, every firm must achieve a competitive advantage. Managers need to think competitively and devise and execute an effective strategy. The selection and implementation of an appropriate competitive strategy are the keys to both the short-term and the long-term success of the firm. The purpose of this study is to identify and empirically test the role of cost management tools in achieving the strategic objectives of Kosovo firms.
Institutionalizing Corporate Social Responsibility: A Study of Provisions and Implications of Indian Companies Act 2013
Abstract 
The spotlight of this chapter is to understand the connection between public policy and corporate social responsibility (CSR); in other words – the institutionalization of CSR. What is the role of the government for setting standards and mandating for ensuring responsibility? The emerging accepted wisdom in policy and academic circles is that many sustainability solutions are likely to result from institutional (i.e., governance) reform. A perceptive on CSR evolving as an institution of broader societal governance appears as a promising opportunity to delve into at a point in time when conventional rules, actors, and markets that steered the global economy demonstrate to be undergoing credibility crisis. CSR therefore must be considered within the wider field of institutions for governing the corporation and the economy. This chapter is exploratory as it dwells into theoretical underpinning of emerging mandatory CSR as well as provides empirical mapping of corporate responses to the new enacted legislation. The CSR analysis presented is based on a content analysis of the information contained in the annual reports of some prominent companies, government documents, audits reports, companies websites, and newspaper reports, which will provide us evidences of responses of corporates toward the CSR provisions.