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

Abstract

The issue of cost calculation has been largely debated in the last years under the pressure of the perceived lost of\nrelevance of the so called "traditional cost accounting approaches". The enthusiasm for new management\naccounting techniques has often driven most of attention towards technical or theoretical aspects of the proposed\nnew cost models. In particular, Activity-Based Costing (ABC) implementation literature pinpoints a large\nnumber of studies that have looked at technical and organizational/behavioral factors that influence effective\nimplementation.\nRecently a great attention has been paid by researchers on the contingent factors affecting the adoption of\nadvanced management accounting techniques and the influence of the variables that drive towards higher levels\nof cost system sophistication. The need is felt for insightful studies regarding processes and contingent variables\nworking through time in relation with these changes. Improved analysis can be obtained by undertaking\nreplication studies based on larger number of responses and/or across geographic and cultural borders. Whitin\nthe boundaries of a contingent framework analysis, this paper has provided additional insights into areas relating\nto factors influencing the level of sophistication of product cost systems in Italy.\nThe paper presents the comparison of two survey results carried on in a ten years distance on the same sample of\nItalian largest companies. These two long-distance surveys provide the opportunity to assess the changes\noccurred in the companies that in 1996 declared the adoption of (or the interest in adopting) ABC and Target\ncosting (Cinquini et al., 1999).Moreover, the time elapsed could allow the perception about adopters’ behavior,\nalong different stages of the diffusion process of advanced costing techniques. The research findings pinpoint\nthat only “importance of cost information” and “cost structure”, among the contextual variables considered in the\nmore recent survey responses, are positive and significant in relation with increasing in implementation of\nadvanced costing techniques. This outcome could open to further studies to assess whether or not adopters are\nmoving from a “fad and fashion” behavior of the early stages, to a more rational approach in which the matching\nbetween management needs and tools potentiality is maximized.