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ABSTRACT
The cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is an economic model suitable for measuring the present and future benefits and costs, both tangible and intangible. Although this is a wellknown model, it is not so popular in the literature regarding general issues on organization and project management, as it is in other fields, such as construction and health. This paper presents an empirical study of the benefits as part of the CBA for a Romanian company that produces mural painting and that is part of a project funded by the European Union. The aim of this paper is to identify the benefits and costs of such a project and categorize them according to the literature. The results show an impressive number of intangible benefits and costs. Finally, we proposed a list with possible categories of benefits for organizational improvement projects.
Keywords: cost-benefit analysis, benefits, organizational improvement project, case study.
JEL classification: M20.
1.Introduction
Cost-benefit analysis is a very useful instrument for analyzing a current or future project. This analysis allows project's stakeholders to compare project costs with benefits, so they can decide if is worth to invest. Even thought the theory sounds great, the practice is not so easy. First of all, there are some domains of activity, such as construction and health, where cost-benefit analysis is widely used, so anyone trying to perform a cost-benefit analysis for a specific case has models to look at. But this is not the case for organizational improvement projects. Then, the person doing the cost-benefit analysis should be a trustworthy person that takes care of investors interests. It also should have specific knowledge of the field and economic knowledge. It might seem something simple to compare costs with benefits, however the process of identifying the costs and benefits, then to evaluate them and to monetize them, is a challenging process.
The present paper aims to present first of all from a theoretical point of view, the cost-benefit analysis, with a main focus on benefits. For the theoretical section, namely the literature review, we decided to divide it into two main sub-sections, as follows: a first general section on costbenefit analysis, and the second on benefits. The project analyzed in the practical part of this paper consists of a project...