What Drives Management Accounting Innovations? A Survey of Activity-Based Costing Journal Publications

The purpose of this study is to examine the driving forces behind the diffusion of an important management accounting innovation, activity-based costing (ABC). Driving forces are analyzed within five main aspects (volume, journal field, journal type, author type, and content type) through a survey of English-language journal publications relating to ABC and its recent iteration, Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TDABC), between 1988 and 2019. Employing linear regression and Mann-Kendall statistical analyses, our results find some diffusion patterns. First, ABC/TDABC initially appears in business management then spread to non-business management fields, in particular to the bio/medical field. Second, driving forces behind ABC/TDABC diffusion have changed. At the beginning of the spread of ABC (1988-2003), it shows a push by academics and consultants. However from 2004 to 2019, there is a clear pull by practitioners, in particular medical doctors in the bio/medical field who see a need for this innovative tool. Third, academics and consultants attempt to spread ABC/TDABC to generate more research activities and business, whilst practitioners’ quests for ABC/TDABC are driven by their intrinsic needs and external demands. The longitudinal picture of ABC diffusion may shed light on how to enable such a management accounting innovation to achieve its long term success.