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In this study the extent and nature of organisational problems that are encountered in South Africa in respect of the implementation of activitybased costing are examined and compared with difficulties experienced by companies in the British Isles, United States of America and Australia. The investigation comprised a literature survey as well as an empirical study of the companies listed in South Africa. Contrary to the findings of overseas studies, South African companies experience less difficulty in respect of support from senior management and considere the employee resources allocated to the ABC projects to be adequate and satisfactory. ABC objectives are aligned with organisational goals, culture and company strategy. However, whilst implementers are adequately trained, the insufficient training of users and managers is perceived to be a hindrance to success and in the majority of companies other priorities take precedence to the ABC project.

Purpose – The aim of the study is to contribute to a better understanding of activity-based costing (ABC) implementation systems in the context of a developing country such as Jordan. The main objectives of the study were to determine the extent of ABC implementation within the Jordanian industrial sector and identify the factors that facilitate and motivate the decision to implement ABC. Additional objectives include determining the problems associated with ABC implementation and assessing the degree of success of ABC implementation.

Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire survey was conducted during 2008 among 88 Jordanian industrial companies that are listed on the Amman stock exchange. Eighty-eight questionnaires were distributed and 61 were returned giving a rate of response of 69.3%.

Findings – The survey findings indicate that ABC implementation among the Jordanian industrial companies is quite satisfactory. The rate of ABC implementation is about 55.7%. The most cited factors that facilitate the decision to implement ABC were that adequate training was provided for designing ABC and operating data in the information system are updated in real time: followed by the fact that adequate training was provided for using ABC. The most influential factors that motivate the process of ABC implementation are among others the increasing proportion of overhead costs, growing costs, including product costs and administrative costs, and currently the increasing number of product variants. Further factors are identified in the paper.

Originality/value – Most previous studies focused only on the implementation of ABC in western developed countries. The results of this study make a contribution to existing knowledge in the area of the implementation of ABC, especially in eastern developing countries such as Jordan. In addition, the current study used a multi-attribute to measure success of ABC implementation within the Jordanian industrial sector. This multi-attribute was composed of satisfaction with ABC implementation, the degree of using ABC in decision making and the success of ABC implementation.

We examine the interactive effects of organizational culture and structure on the success of implementing activity-based costing (ABC) in Chinese manufacturing firms.

We applied contingency theory of management accounting and used a questionnaire survey of 106 respondents.

The results indicate that a formalized organizational structure significantly affects the success of implementing ABC. The organizational culture factors, outcome orientation and attention to detail, were significantly associated with the success of implementing ABC. Further, interactions between centralization and outcome orientation and formalization and innovation were associated with success in implementing ABC.

While this study is constrained to Chinese manufacturing firms, its findings have ramifications for organizations in both developed and less-developed economies as the study demonstrated that organizational structure and culture interact with each other to affect the implementation success of a management accounting system.

This paper presents the first attempt to demonstrate the interactive effect of organizational culture and structure on the success of implementing ABC in organizations.

This paper aims to explore how different motives for implementing activity based‐costing may affect the implementation process. It focuses on the factors that affect different stages of the implementation process.

The paper uses case studies of two different business units of the same company which approached ABC implementation with different motivations. It is informed by administrative theory and institutionalist framework which draws on concepts from both old institutional economics and new institutional sociologists theory.

The paper shows how administrative and institutional factors affect different stages of the ABC implementation process and that the importance of success factors for implementation may depend on the level of implementation stage, and motivation for change. For instance, the quality of information system is very important at the adaptation and infusion stage.

The paper uses case studies that focus on two types of motivation for change. Further research work is needed that would examine other types of motivation for adopting accounting innovation to support the findings.

The empirical evidence results of this study can provide guidelines for companies either planning or implementing ABC.

The theoretical framework developed suggests that administrative theory reveals the practice (action) involved in the implementation, whereas institutional theory reveals the broader (macro) factors which shape the internal (micro) processes of implementation.

Some public sector organizations have decided to implement activity-based costing (ABC), a new cost calculation device and management accounting innovation initially designed for the private sector. The purpose of this study is to better understand the translation of this new calculation device in the context of a local government and to identify the trials of strength that actors faced during the implementation.

Building on actor-network theory and the concept of “trial of strength,” this study examines how a major change in a large local government’s structure, the merger of several cities, led to the adoption of ABC. This case study provides a setting for conducting a longitudinal analysis of the translation of a cost management innovation, ABC, in a public sector organization.

This study highlights how human and non-human actors interact when implementing a management accounting innovation in a local government and the trials of strength that they face. It also shows that although ABC helped the local government deal with issues such as setting fees, assessing outsourcing opportunities, increasing accountability and improving processes, the oversophistication of the technology used to implement the ABC model and the lack of links between the costing device and the budgeting process provoked a struggle among these two networks, leading actors to choose the budget over ABC.

This study’s findings extend the work on trials of strength of Christensen et al. (2019) and Laguecir et al. (2020). While those two studies focused on the struggles existing between opposing networks of human actors regarding the strategic orientation or the mission of public sector organizations, this study highlights that trials of strength may also occur when actors agree on the objectives of the new accounting innovation but not on how it is implemented.

To examine the likelihood of successfully implementing activity‐based costing (ABC) in a university setting.

A case‐based method is adopted, through the survey of participants in one ABC implementation.

A positive association was identified between successful implementation and the involvement and support of senior management, though perceptions were found to vary according to the precise role of participants in the implementation process.

The data relate to a single Australian university, so that the findings are not necessarily generalisable elsewhere.

The alignment of the ABC system with the university's competitive strategy, continuous improvement programs and organisational culture, is important to a successful implementation.

The study compares the perceptions of users and preparers to the implementation process and identifies significant differences between the two groups.

This paper reports the results of a study on the implementation of an activity‐based costing (ABC) system in an Australian oil and gas company. The findings suggest that the three most important objectives of implementing an ABC system were: (1) more effective cost management, (2) better cost control, and (3) more accurate costing information. The results reveal that lack of understanding of the ABC methodology was the most important factor that impeded the implementation of the ABC system. The results further suggest that the three most important factors that contributed to the success of the ABC implementation process were: (1) project team were well organized and advised, (2) there were good information flows between users and preparers, and (3) there were sufficient resources provided. Overall, the results of this study are similar to those studies conducted in the manufacturing sectors.

In spite of facilitating and motivating factors in the external environment, the implementation of new management‐accounting techniques as activity‐based costing (ABC) in companies is disappointing. The aim of the study is to determine factors that catalyse, facilitate and motivate the decision to implement ABC in Jordanian industrial companies. Additional objectives include determining the problems associated with ABC implementation and assessing the degree of success of ABC implementation in Jordan.

A sample of the Jordanian industrial companies was selected and a questionnaire survey was employed using a five‐point Likert scale to collect data from the financial managers, descriptive and analytical statistics were used to analyze the collected data.

The findings indicate that the most important factor that facilitates the decision to implement ABC was the provision of adequate training and the most influential factors which motivate the process of ABC implementation include an increasing proportion of overhead costs, and an increasing number of product variants. Consequently, this study found that the interaction of three types of factors (catalysts, facilitators and motivators) create the potential for change in these companies. Barriers to change could make the change process slower, hindering, and even preventing change; and barriers to change were identified that may explain the differing implementation rates of ABC in the Jordanian industrial sector. The greatest barrier to implementing ABC was found to be its high cost of implementation, followed by the high cost of ABC consultancy and computer staff time.

The study adds new elements to the institutional approach, and integrates it with concepts from psychology and organizational culture, to create a better understanding of management accounting. The results of study contribute to existing knowledge in the area of understanding the factors which act as catalysts, facilitate, and motivate ABC innovation and of those factors that create barriers to ABC implementation in Jordan.

Activity Based Costing (ABC) has been researched extensively in developed countries. Research on these issues in South Africa is limited. This article creates a better understanding of the design of ABC systems in South Africa, comparing ABC implementation in South Africa to that in several developed/developing countries. A quantitative methodology was adopted to evaluate the extent of ABC implementation. A survey‐case study methodology was used to identify reasons for implementation/ non‐implementation, problems and critical success factors relating to implementation. The results show that the extent of ABC implementation in South Africa is lower than that found in developed countries, but the evidence is inconclusive. Nevertheless, the results suggest that the issues facing ABC implementers in South Africa are similar to those faced in many other countries. This study provides South African companies with a comparative framework of important variables to be considered in implementing ABC.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the success of activity-based costing (ABC) implementation by confirmatory factor analysis of ISO 9000 certified companies in Thailand.

A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from key participants, accountant managers in ISO 9000 certified companies.

The study confirmed the six constructs for the sample of 102 key participants. The results indicated that ABC implementation success in the context of ISO 9000 certified companies in Thailand consists of upper-management support, ABC system training, non-accounting ownership, links to quality initiative, adequate resources, and links to performance evaluation.

The findings have significant implications for ISO 9000 certified companies which intend to adopt or implement ABC. Past findings on ABC implementation success have a small-sample size so they are of limited usefulness. This research has a larger sample size and more carefully chosen participants and so the generalizations are more acceptable.