“The Diffusion of Activity-Based Costing in Italy in the Last Decade: A Research Note”

Since its introduction, Activity-based Costing (ABC) has beenpresented as an innovative cost management technique useful inovercoming the limits of traditional cost accounting systems. It can beconsidered as one of the most important management accountinginnovation of the twentieth century. Even if ABC has attracted the interestof many researchers in the last decades, the empirical evidence shows thatthe ABC use has not been as high as expected. This is the “ABC paradox”,consisting in the ambiguity between the proven benefits from ABC and itslow adoption rate by the companies. The longitudinal comparison ofsurveys proposed in this paper confirms the presence of the “ABC paradox”also with regard to the Italian setting. The survey studies conducted in thelast decade in Italy show a range of ABC diffusion between 13% and 28%highlighting a slightly increase. The results of this study are indicative of alimited growth in the popularity of ABC in Italy. Morover ABC adoptionrate is still clearly lower than the one of the rest of the world that variesbetween 27.9% and about 45%.[...