Sanac Inc.: From ABC to time-driven ABC (TDABC) – An instructional case

This case deals with the decision of Sanac Inc., a Belgian wholesale company, on whether to proceed with the implementation of an activity-based costing (ABC) system or switch to time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC). As a business consultant, you are hired to decide about the appropriate costing method. Your task is to decide which system the company should implement, given the desire of the president of the company to calculate profitability at the order and the customer level.     

Developing time-driven activity-based costing at the national level to support policy recommendations for radiation oncology in Belgium

We use time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) to estimate the cost of radiation treatments at the national level. Although TDABC has mostly been applied at the hospital level, we demonstrate its potential to estimate costs at the national level, which can provide health policy recommendations. Contrary to work on reimbursement or charges representing the health care system perspective, we focus on resource costs from the perspective of health care service providers. Using the example of Belgian inputs and results, we discuss development of a TDABC model. We also present insights into the challenges that arose during model design and implementation. Finally, we discuss recent examples of policy implications in Belgium as well as some caveats that should be considered when developing resource allocation models at the national level.     

Data Fixation and the Use of Traditional Versus Activity-Based Costing Systems

An important debate in the contemporary accounting literature relates to the relative merits of activity-based versus volume-based product costing methodologies. Traditional volume-based costing systems are said to be flawed and may seriously mislead strategic decision making. Such arguments assume that decision makers use such information in an unproblematic way. This article reports on an experiment designed to investigate whether decision makers are able to overcome data fixation in a setting involving the use of product cost information. In response to criticisms of previous accounting studies of data fixation, subjects received some feedback after each decision, and were rewarded based on performance. The experiment involved subjects making a series of production output decisions based on detailed case information of a hypothetical firm facing different market conditions for each decision. A between-subjects design was utilized with two cost system treatments: activity-based costing (ABC) and traditional costing (TC). It was hypothesized that the group provided with ABC cost data would make 'optimal' decisions and the group provided with TC cost data would overcome fixation. The results of the experiment indicated that there was, in general, evidence of data fixation among TC subjects, but a small number of subjects did adjust to ABC costs. These results are discussed in the light of previous research and some future directions are outlined.     

Teaching note: Traditional and activity based costing systems

A significant portion of the current managerial accounting literature contrasts the benefits and importance of activity based costing (ABC) systems with the more traditional cost accounting systems. This paper questions this tendency of making such a stark contrast, by placing ABC systems within a wider cost accounting framework. Initially, the framework is developed by providing an overview of the product costing, control and decision making process. Also outlined are the various costing systems in terms of their objectives, advantages and deficiencies. A schema for integrating the costing process with decision making and performance evaluation criteria is then conceptualized. The role of ABC is recognized and integrated within this framework. The link between ‘traditional’ and ABC systems is also studied via an analysis of the conventional wisdom in some of the leading texts in managerial accounting. The analysis demonstrates that there is still much ambiguity in both the contrasting and the linking of ABC with the more traditional costing systems.     

JUST-IN-TIME PRODUCTION,AUTOMATION, COST ALLOCATION PRACTICES AND IMPORTANCE OF COST INFORMATION: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION IN NEW ZEALAND-BASED MANUFACTURING ORGANIZATIONS

This paper is based on an empirical study of the relationship between Just-in-Time (JIT) production, automation, cost allocation practices and the relative use of cost information for making and evaluating managerial decisions. The study uses a survey questionnaire to collect data from a random sample of New Zealand-based manufacturing organizations. Hypotheses were tested using bivariate tests and multiple regression analysis. The results indicate that the choice of activity-based cost allocations is negatively associated with the extent to which firms use a JIT approach to manufacturing, but positively associated with increased automation in the factory, as hypothesized. Furthermore, the increased use of JIT production is found to be associated with the decreased use of detailed costing information. The study found some support for the hypothesis that increased automation is associated with the increased use of costing information for managerial decisions.     

The promise--and peril--of integrated cost systems

Recent advances in managerial accounting have helped executives get the information they need to make good strategic decisions. But today's enterprise resource planning systems promise even greater benefits--the chance to integrate activity-based costing, operational-control, and financial reporting systems. But managers need to approach integration very thoughtfully, or they could end up with a system that drives decision making in the wrong direction. Operational-control and ABC systems have fundamentally different purposes. Their requirements for accuracy, timeliness, and aggregation are so different that no single, fully integrated approach can be adequate for both purposes. If an integrated system used real-time cost data instead of standard rates in its ABC subsystem, for example, the result would be dangerously distorted messages about individual product profitability--and that's precisely the problem ABC systems were originally designed to address. Proper linkage and feedback between the two systems is possible, however. Through activity-based budgeting, the ABC system is linked directly to operations control: managers can determine the supply and practical capacity of resources in forthcoming periods. Linking operational control to ABC is also possible. The activity-based portion of an operational control system collects information that, while it mustn't be fed directly into the activity-based strategic cost system, can be extremely useful once it's been properly analyzed. Finally, ABC and operational control can be linked to financial reporting to generate cost of goods sold and inventory valuations--but again, with precautions.     

The Association Between Activity-Based Costing and Manufacturing Performance

This study examines the association between activity-based costing and manufacturing performance. Results using a cross-sectional sample of manufacturing plants indicates that extensive ABC use is associated with higher quality levels and greater improvements in cycle time and quality, and is indirectly associated with manufacturing cost reductions through quality and cycle time improvements. However, on average, extensive ABC use has no significant association with return on assets. Instead, we find weak evidence that the association between ABC and accounting profitability is contingent on the plant's operational characteristics.     

COSTING NEEDS AND PRACTICES IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT: THE POTENTIAL FOR ABC IN THE NHS

This pisper explores the potential application of ABC in a situation of rapid change - the introduction of markets for health care in the UK. This changing environment places pressures on hospital units to refine their costing methods for product costing, budget construction and the pursuit of efficiency. These are areas of management accounting for which activity-based costing (ABC) has been proposed as a refinement to traditional costings. The merits of the ABC approach were examined by conducting four case studies of acute hospitatls. The results cast doubt on the benefits to be gained from ABC in product costing, but revealed potential applications in its wider roles of cost reduction and budget construction.     

China's Healthcare Costing in Times of Crisis: Conflicts,Interactions, and Hidden Agendas

This paper presents a longitudinal interpretive case study on the development of healthcare costing in China over the period 2002 to 2015. Adopting a middle-range theory lens, the study explores dynamic interactions in the use of cost information among societal institutions and organizations. It reports the successful internalization of costing systems in public hospitals in Beijing, which supports the effectiveness of a hybrid steering mechanism combining both transactional and relational features; however, such successful internalization does not indicate the success of steering the lifeworld of institutions and organizations towards change. Notably, hospitals' responses to steering alter over time, from passive absorption to active manipulation, revealing how cost information may underpin hospital beliefs in marketization. At an institutional level, the paper provides empirical evidence for relational steering among societal institutions, where a reaction of ‘rebuttal’ is observed. It offers insights on how accounting can be a powerful tool in legitimizing such rebuttal, while keeping political considerations as hidden agendas. The findings suggest the importance of understanding lifeworld complexity at both societal and organizational levels, and cross-institutional collaboration in using accounting as a steering mechanism. The findings have important policy implications for public sector reform, both in China and worldwide.     

Towards explaining activity-based costing failure: accounting and control in a decentralized organization

Many of the activity-based costing (ABC) systems introduced in recent years are said to fail (e.g. Cooperet al., 1992; Argyris and Kaplan, 1994; Shields, 1995; Roberts and Silvester, 1996). The use of ABC for surveillance by the group management, with no consequent actions, leads us to propose that claims on ABC failure result, in part, from assessing the use and value of ABCs from the decision-making perspective. The decision-making perspective may be insufficient for capturing the multitude of uses to which ABCs are put in practise. As this study shows, in the context of strategic decision-making the success of ABC cannot depend on whether its results require any actions or decisions to be taken, but on its ability to make a correct diagnosis of the situation. Consequently, some of the so-called ABC failures may not be failures. They may merely reflect a limited appreciation of the uses of accounting and control systems in practise. Nevertheless, failures and resistance are real in a number of organizations. This study explored the origins of resistance to ABC in a case setting, looking at diverse interests of organizational stakeholders, and the role of existing control and information systems in ABC implementation. We show that the resistance may have several sources; some related to the cost and benefits of ABC, some associated with organizational power and politics, and some pertinent to organization culture. The practical implication of this study hinged on the notion that although the resistance to ABC may come from various sources, these sources appear fundamentally structural and are unlikely to be dealt with by employing implementation-based strategies.     

Activity-Based Costing in Universities—Five Years On

This article describes the current state of costing within the higher education sector, reviewing recent published literature and analysing the progress made by institutions in implementing activity-based costing (ABC). It draws on the findings of two cross-sectional surveys of all UK universities, undertaken in 1993 and 1998/99. The data collected suggests that while implementation of ABC systems has been slow, this might be about to change because of pressures being exerted by funding bodies and central government.     

Activity-Based Costing and Central Overhead Cost Allocation in Universities: A Case Study

This article examines the development of ABC in university accounting and assesses the contribution it might make to solving the problems associated with central overhead cost allocation systems. A case study using an ABC methodology was developed and applied to library services at the University of Southampton. The results showed substantial differences in the allocation of the central overhead costs as between academic faculties using the model and the existing system. The authors argue that although the ABC approach may overcome some of the problems of overhead allocation and improve the economic efficiency of organizations, there are significant problems with its practical application.     

有效银行成本制度的选择

本文分析了银行产出形态的的特殊性,指出造成传统成本制度、成本分析难以应用于银行产品成本分析。通过对银行产品的成本构成路径分析,指出作业成本制度符合银行服务的有效成本方法,对银行成本管理、经营管理具有重大意义,并对商业银行如何推进作业成本提出了设想。     

Activity-based costing in the U.K.’s largest companies: a comparison of 1994 and 1999 survey results

This paper reviews the results of two U.K. surveys of activity-based costing (ABC) in the U.K.’s largest companies. These provide an opportunity to assess the changes that have occurred in the ABC adoption status of companies over a recent 5-year period. For the ABC users, some comparative information is provided on the nature of the ABC systems in use, their designers, the uses to which they have been put and the levels of success and importance that participants attribute to them. For the non-users, the reasons for their lack of commitment to ABC are explored.     

基于作业成本法的高校学生培养成本计量研究

本文采用作业成本法的基本原理,将学校各单位之功能加以区别,依作业活动分摊各项成本。通过构建多阶段的作业成本模型,来辨别、测算各种教育投入要素成本,了解成本发生之原因,最终提供学校、政府、家长等社会各有关方面进行教育决策所需要的教育成本信息。     

Cost-System Choice and Incentives—Traditional vs. Activity-Based Costing

We incorporate information and managerial incentives into the analysis of a common cost-management tool—activity-based costing (ABC). We study the choice of a costing system in a firm where the owners contract with a manager to use either a traditional or an ABC system and make production decisions. We show that, as commonly argued in managerial-accounting literature, in a first-best setting with no informational asymmetries the ABC system is always preferred to the traditional costing one. However, when the firm's manager has relevant private information, the owners' choice of a costing system is not as clear. We demonstrate that the firm earns higher expected profits under the ABC system when the uncertainty about the manager's private information is high. Conversely, the firm's expected profit is higher under the traditional costing system when the uncertainty surrounding the manager's private information is low because the gross benefits of better information provided by ABC are exceeded by the additional informational rents the owners must pay the manager under this system. Our results provide a formal explanation of the coexistence of traditional and ABC systems in practice.     

Activity-based costing systems and incremental costs

This article derives, in a comprehensive but informal way, the essential conditions for activity-based costing (ABC) and for costs proportional with output volume (CVO), such as variable material and component costs, to measure economic costs defined as incremental costs. Without this property these costing systems may give incorrect signals in decision making, such as in pricing, in altering the product portfolio, in make or buy and outsourcing decisions and in cost management. In contrast to the existing literature, these conditions are found to be extensive and to require a fairly detailed exploration of the complex and multifaceted nature of technology. Conditions on technology to allow the usual definition of cost pools are shown to require that production involves neither cost complementarities nor non-complementarities, that inputs in a cost pool are independent of those in other cost pools and that technology takes the form that the input mixes for a cost pool are fixed and invariant with volume. Essential conditions on the input market and the costing system are also considered. It will be indicated that a perfect market for inputs is required and that cost drivers are required to be linear homogeneous in the inputs in their cost pools. It is also shown that the type of cost function that can be entertained is restricted by those permissible technologies which allow incremental costs to be generated. These assumptions are thus imported into all the uses of these methods. Failure to satisfy these conditions suggests that many costs cannot be easily treated using ABC or CVO. Such failure also leads to distorting accounting numbers away from economic costs.     

Assessing an activity-based costing project

Research dealing with the implementation of system changes such as activity-based costing (ABC) systems is founded largely on a presumption that the motivation for the innovation is economic. The definition of success or failure then rests on the project’s reaching a stage of implementation where the new data are used in routine and/or unforeseen ways to improve economic efficiency. This paper presents a view of an ABC project where complex motivations, both economic and institutional, are identified, these held in turn by different groups within the organization as well as external groups likely to be affected by the project. Seen in terms of its institutional motivations, the project, documented in an internal review as a failure because it was abandoned without using the data, can be defined as a success by at least some of the affected groups.     

Behavioral changes following the collaborative development of an accounting information system

This research examines physician response to implementation of an activity-based costing (ABC) system developed and designed with physician input. We analyze changes in resource utilization for treatment of cataract patients and find changes in practice patterns, where physicians redeployed resources toward more severely ill patients and decreased average length of stay. We also find preliminary evidence of improvement in financial performance. We contribute to research investigating the influence of user participation on accounting system success, ABC system success, and hospital accounting information systems.     

The interplay between cost accounting knowledge and presentation formats in cost-based decision-making

Most studies on cost-based decision-making examine the profit impact of cost reports that rely on different methods to allocate costs. In practice, firms’ cost reports often employ the same cost allocation method with subtle variations in the way that the cost data are presented. This paper examines experimentally the profit impact of a cost report’s presentation format in relation to a decision maker’s level of cost accounting knowledge. Using a customer profitability report prepared using activity-based costing and presented in either a tabular or a graphical format, participants analyze a complex pricing and resource allocation task that affects firm profitability. The results suggest a strong relation between presentation format and cost accounting knowledge. Specifically, decision makers with a low level of cost accounting knowledge attain higher profits when they use a graphical format in comparison to a tabular format. More surprisingly, graphs (versus tables) have an adverse effect on profits for users with a high level of cost knowledge. This result has broad implications: in order to facilitate the decisions of a variety of users of accounting data (e.g. managers, external investors, etc.), firms may need to adapt the presentation format of their accounting data to the level of accounting sophistication of the users.