Title: Cost-system choice in a multidimensional knowledge space: traditional versus activity-based costing

Authors: Her-Jiun Sheu, Chao-Yi Pan

Addresses: Department of Management Science and Graduate Institute of Finance, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. ' Department of Management Science, National Chiao Tung University, 1001 Ta Hsueh Road, Hsin Chu 30050, Taiwan; Department of Business Administration, Ming-Hsin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan

Abstract: The coopetition members in a virtual enterprise still have many after-effects to be studied. Several questions mentioned by Mishira and Vaysman are resolved in this paper. Considering R&D and Marketing members in a virtual enterprise, the cost system choice for the R&D members is explored. The main results are (i) the expected profits of R&D members are likely to be higher when all members adopt the ABC system for whatever knowledge interval, (ii) the ABC system is likely to induce less benefits when the intra and intermember knowledge rents exceeds the gross benefits of R&D members with better knowledge provided by ABC if the marketing members are adopting the traditional cost system and (iii) given the cost system choice of marketing members and the knowledge space, adoption of the ABC system will moderate Knowledge Asymmetry (KA) and further generate higher expected profits for R&D members. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate our results.

Keywords: virtual enterprise; knowledge space; activity-based costing; ABC; traditional costing; transfer pricing; coopetition; R&D; marketing; research and development; profits; knowledge asymmetry.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.2009.024953

International Journal of Technology Management, 2009 Vol.48 No.3, pp.358 - 388

Published online: 05 May 2009 *

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