ACTIVITY-BASED COSTING IN THE ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY: THE SINGAPORE EXPERIENCE

Abstract

ABSTRACT As part of the Singapore Government's effort to maintain and enhance market competitiveness, it has encouraged local enterprises to follow strategies of expansion, both regionally and on a wider global basis, and to be innovative in manufacturing technology. Organizational lag theory, however, suggests that technical innovations perse will not be sufficient without a concomitant improvement in the administrative systems of organizations, of which the management accounting system is a part (1). Recent new developments in management accounting practices, such as Activity-Based Costing (ABC) and strategic management accounting, as a response to the changed technology, have been widely reported in the overseas literature. ABC, in particular, is seen as providing enterprise managers with information for both strategic and operational decisions on product lines, market segments, customer relationships, and to stimulate process improvement (2) all critical f actors about which local managers and entrepr...