This text studies managerial uses of accounting information and how accounting information is used in the management of an organization. Three themes are covered throughout the text: the accounting system as a library of financial statistics; the information in the accounting library is not the only information at the manager's disposal; and the role of a professional manager. The text assumes no prior exposure to financial accounting, economics, statistics, or to the economics of uncertainty, although an acquaintance with strategic, or equilibrium, modeling and linear programming and the ability to take a simple derivative is presumed.