Cost Management: A Strategic Emphasis, by Blocher/Stout/Juras/Cokins is dedicated to answering the question: Why Cost Management? Blocher et al. provide the cost-management tools and techniques needed to support an organization's competitiveness, improve its performance, and help the organization accomplish its strategy. The text is written to help students understand the broader role of cost accounting in helping an organization succeed - and not just the measurement of costs. While the text does include coverage of traditional costing topics (e.g., job-order costing, process costing, service-department cost allocations, and accounting for joint and by-products), its primary strength is the linkage of these topics, as well as more contemporary topics, to an organization's strategy. This message is reinforced by a dynamic author team, all four of whom have close ties to current cost management practice. New to the 7th edition is McGraw-Hill Connect, a digital teaching and learning platform for home work completion and review that helps improve student performance over a variety of critical outcomes while aiding instructor grading and assessment efficiency. Housed within Connect, SmartBook is an adaptive study tool that helps identify specific topics and learning objectives individual students need to study. As students read, SmartBook assess comprehension and dynamically highlights where they need to focus more. The result is that students are more engaged with course content, can better prioritize their time, and come to class ready to participate.