Financial Management: Planning, Analysis, and Decision Making

Financial management occupies a central position in the operational governance of contemporary business entities, as it serves as a systematic foundation for the decision-making process,encompassing the collection, distribution, and oversight of a company’s financial resources. The scope of financial management studies extends beyond the technical realm of accounting toencompass long-term corporate strategic planning, with the primary goal of maximizing company value.

Weston and Copeland in the eighth edition of their monumental work, Financial management, explains that this discipline is related to the functions and responsibilities of executives, especially financial managers in formulating strategic decisions regarding investment, funding, and dividend policies (Weston and Copeland,1989). This conceptualization is reinforced by the view that interprets financial management as a series of operational activities that are responsible for efforts to collect and utilize funds to realize company goals effectively and efficiently (Valentina, 2014).