An exploration of the factors affecting the diffusion of Advanced Costing techniques: a comparative analysis of two surveys (1996-2005)

摘要

The issue of cost calculation has been largely debated in the last years under the pressure of the perceived lost ofrelevance of the so called "traditional cost accounting approaches". The enthusiasm for new managementaccounting techniques has often driven most of attention towards technical or theoretical aspects of the proposednew cost models. In particular, Activity-Based Costing (ABC) implementation literature pinpoints a largenumber of studies that have looked at technical and organizational/behavioral factors that influence effectiveimplementation.Recently a great attention has been paid by researchers on the contingent factors affecting the adoption ofadvanced management accounting techniques and the influence of the variables that drive towards higher levelsof cost system sophistication. The need is felt for insightful studies regarding processes and contingent variablesworking through time in relation with these changes. Improved analysis can be obtained by undertakingreplication studies based on larger number of responses and/or across geographic and cultural borders. Whitinthe boundaries of a contingent framework analysis, this paper has provided additional insights into areas relatingto factors influencing the level of sophistication of product cost systems in Italy.The paper presents the comparison of two survey results carried on in a ten years distance on the same sample ofItalian largest companies. These two long-distance surveys provide the opportunity to assess the changesoccurred in the companies that in 1996 declared the adoption of (or the interest in adopting) ABC and Targetcosting (Cinquini et al., 1999).Moreover, the time elapsed could allow the perception about adopters’ behavior,along different stages of the diffusion process of advanced costing techniques. The research findings pinpointthat only “importance of cost information” and “cost structure”, among the contextual variables considered in themore recent survey responses, are positive and significant in relation with increasing in implementation ofadvanced costing techniques. This outcome could open to further studies to assess whether or not adopters aremoving from a “fad and fashion” behavior of the early stages, to a more rational approach in which the matchingbetween management needs and tools potentiality is maximized.