Open book management (OBM) means opening a company's financial statements to all employees and providing the education that enables them to understand how the firm makes money and how their actions affect the bottom line. It is a method of managing without concealment that involves all employees in focusing on how to grow the business profitably. The experience of Manco, Inc., a medium-size supplier of branded consumer products for retail and office product channels, illustrates the four essential steps of OBM: 1) Get the information out there; 2) teach the basics of finance and business; 3) empower people to make decisions based on what they know; and 4) make sure everyone shares directly in the company's success, as well as its failure, with targets for net earnings and return on operating assets. With technological changes transforming business and the concurrent rise of intangible and human capital as the sources of wealth creation, OBM has begun to find its place in the business world.

Brand equity is one of a firm's most important assets. Unfortunately, such intangible assets have received little attention from the financial and accounting communities. This view may now be changing. The focus of the research is on valuating the effect of advertising on brand equity, not only for external reporting but also for internal management and control. Pros and cons of various brand valuation models are examined. Brand asset measurements should address the success of the firm in creating a product, providing marketing support, retaining customers, building brand value, and reducing return volatility. The authors use a calculation called "advertising turnover" to describe the relationship between advertising expenditures and brand value. It indicates how efficiently the firm converts advertising dollars into brand value, and is similar to methods used in financial analysis for determining the productivity of capital assets or receivables. Plotting this calculation over time can distinguish between high-efficiency brand enhancers, low-efficiency brand enhancers, unknown brand future, and brand deterioration. Brand ROI can be broken down into "brand turnover" and "return on sales." Kellogg's brand performance is used as an example of applying the model to evaluate the ability of advertising and market share to enhance brand value.