A critical evaluation of the diffusion of cost and management accounting innovations

Abstract

There have been substantial criticisms regarding the lack of efficiency and capability of traditional cost and management accounting practices in the literature during the last two decades leading to call for new techniques. In reply to such criticism, several new techniques such as activity based costing, target costing and the balanced scorecard have been introduced. However, recent survey evidence indicates that the diffusion of these innovations is dismally low. Although a number of recent surveys on diffusion of cost and management accounting techniques confirm the slow diffusion rate of management accounting innovations, they do not explain whether such diffusion speed should be considered an issue. Addressing the above issue, this paper explores a number of factors which are seen to influence the diffusion of cost and management accounting innovations in practice and provides a general model for diffusion process.