Title: Activity-based costing adoption: definitions, influences and consequences

Authors: Abdulrahman Aljabr

Addresses: School of Business, King Faisal University, P.O. Box 400, 31982, Al-Hasaa, Saudi Arabia

Abstract: Utilising appropriate definitions of activity-based costing (ABC) adoption and non-adoption is important in order to obtain accurate findings from research on the influences on and outcomes of ABC adoption. Hence, this research aims to examine empirically the appropriateness of various definitions of ABC adoption and non-adoption, and then examine the influences on and the outcomes of ABC adoption using the empirically-identified appropriate definitions. Data were collected from Saudi manufacturing business-units via a questionnaire survey strategy. The results indicated that only one definition of ABC adoption and one definition of ABC non-adoption are appropriate, and that ABC adopters do not significantly differ from non-adopters regarding any of the influences on and consequences of ABC adoption. This research contributes to the ABC adoption research by attempting to identify empirically-appropriate definitions of ABC adoption and non-adoption, and then testing the determinants and consequences of ABC adoption using these definitions.

Keywords: activity-based costing; ABC; ABC adoption definition; ABC non-adoption definition; influences on ABC adoption; consequences of ABC adoption.

DOI: 10.1504/AAJFA.2021.120465

Afro-Asian Journal of Finance and Accounting, 2021 Vol.11 No.6, pp.861 - 896

Received: 10 Jul 2020
Accepted: 02 Nov 2020
Published online: 21 Jan 2022 *

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