The Diffusion of a Management Innovation

Activity-based costing (ABC) as management accounting innovation has attracted great interest over the years. While both scientific research and management practice acknowledge the advantages of activity-based costing, its implementation and thus diffusion within companies is still considerably low. As consequence this dissertation aims at investigating those factors that influence the diffusion of ABC, to determine the reasons and factors which have discouraged firms from adopting ABC. Using Rogers' framework of innovation attributes a conceptual model for ABC diffusion is derived and empirically evaluated. The results are based on data from 139 German manufacturing firms, representing one of the biggest studies with regard to ABC research in Germany. Using component-based structural equation modeling, two factors, the perceived relative advantage and trialability of ABC, were found to be significantly associated with ABC diffusion.