Changes in Costing in Italy

Abstract

The issue of cost calculation has been largely debated in the last years under the pressure of the perceived lost of relevance of the "traditional cost accounting approaches". The enthusiasm for new management accounting techniques has often driven the attention to the technical theoretical aspects of the proposed cost models. The paper presents the comparison of two survey results developed in a ten years distance on the similar sample of companies located in Italy (the first survey is reported in Cinquini et al., 1999).

The comparison is based on costing system characteristics such as cost objects, costing purposes, cost configuration, allocation bases and innovative trends in costing (behavior respect to Activitybased costing and Target costing).

These two long-distance surveys provide the opportunity to assess the changes occurred in the costing systems reducing the effects of physical and cultural barriers. The latter constitute the main issue in comparing results of surveys conducted in different countries. Moreover, the time elapsed could allow the perception about adopters’ behavior, along different stages of the diffusion process of advanced costing techniques. This outcome could open to further studies to assess whether or not adopters are moving from a “fad and fashion” behavior of the early stages, to a more rational approach in which the matching between management needs and tools potentiality is improved.

Keywords: Management accounting innovations, Activity-Based Costing, Target costing, Product costing design, Cost system sophistication, Contingent factors

JEL Classification: M40, M46, M47