SISTEMI DI COSTING: HANNO UN RUOLO I NUOVI PRODUCT COSTING? UN'ANALISI EMPIRICA, CON UNA COMPARAZIONE 1998 E 2007, IN ITALIA

This paper reviews the results of two Italian surveys of cost systems in the Italian\u2019s manufacturing companies. These provide an opportunity to assess the changes that have occurred in the traditional and new product costing methods adoption status of firms over a recent 9-year period. For the new product costing methods users, such as ABC, some comparative information is provided on the nature of the new product costing methods and the levels of success. The present survey confirms some reservations that have been expressed concerning the use of Activity- Based Costing (ABC). However, instead of using only the adoption of ABC as measure of product cost system design, this research use one proxy measure of cost systems sophistication to capture the characteristics of the product costing systems. Results indicate that ABC, as higher levels of cost systems sophistication, are positively associated with size of organization, namely with large companies, as a contingent variable of firm characteristics. Key Words: Traditional product costing, New product costing, Activity-based-Costing, Cost systems sophistication, Contingent factors