دانلود مقاله ISI انگلیسی شماره 1503
ترجمه فارسی عنوان مقاله

تاثیر مرحله چرخه عمر سازمانی بر استفاده از هزینه یابی بر مبنای فعالیت

عنوان انگلیسی
The effect of organizational life cycle stage on the use of activity-based costing
کد مقاله سال انتشار تعداد صفحات مقاله انگلیسی
1503 2008 18 صفحه PDF
منبع

Publisher : Elsevier - Science Direct (الزویر - ساینس دایرکت)

Journal : Management Accounting Research, Volume 19, Issue 1, March 2008, Pages 62–79

ترجمه کلمات کلیدی
سیستم هزینه یابی مبتنی بر فعالیت - چرخه عمر سازمانی - حسابداری مدیریت -
کلمات کلیدی انگلیسی
Activity-based costing system,Organizational life cycle,Management accounting,
پیش نمایش مقاله
پیش نمایش مقاله  تاثیر مرحله چرخه عمر سازمانی بر استفاده از هزینه یابی بر مبنای فعالیت

چکیده انگلیسی

This paper investigates if the use of an activity-based cost-accounting system differs among firms in different organizational life cycle stages. We apply the Miller and Friesen [Miller, D., Friesen, P.H., 1983. Successful and unsuccessful phases of the corporate life cycle. Organ. Stud. 4 (3), 339–356; Miller, D., Friesen, P.H., 1984. A longitudinal study of the corporate life cycle. Manage. Sci. 30 (10), 1161–1183] life cycle model according to which the internal characteristics of firms and the external contexts in which the firms operate differ across firms depending on their stages of development. Based on the organizational life cycle theories we hypothesize that the use of the activity-based costing is more common among firms in maturity and revival phases than among firms in a growth phase. Our empirical analyses based on a questionnaire to 105 Finnish firms operating in various industries and in different life cycle stages support our hypothesis. We conduct various robustness checks of the results using several control variables and checking the effect of potential non-response bias. Our results remain essentially the same.

مقدمه انگلیسی

In a growth stage, firms are characterized by a rapid sales growth and an expansion of activities and products (Miller and Friesen, 1984). In a maturity stage, the sales of the firm level off, more formal and bureaucratic organization structures are established and innovation declines. In the revival stage, firms adopt divisionalized structures for the first time to cope with more complex and heterogeneous markets (Miller and Friesen, 1984). These life cycle stages of the firm are described in organizational life cycle theories according to which the internal characteristics of firms and the external contexts in which the firms operate differ across firms depending on the stage of development (e.g. Greiner, 1972, Miller and Friesen, 1983, Miller and Friesen, 1984 and Merchant, 1997). A firm's life cycle stage is a contingency to which organizational responses have to be matched (e.g. Miller and Friesen, 1983 and Miller and Friesen, 1984). This implies that the use of management accounting systems differs across the stages of organizational life cycle as different systems are needed in different stages. Firms’ need for formal management accounting and control systems is notably greater in the later life cycle stages than it is in the early stages. However, as Md. Auzair and Langfield-Smith (2005) point out, organizational life cycle is a fairly recent variable in the empirical management accounting system literature, and life cycle stage has not been linked to most of the management control dimensions. In a few existing empirical studies, it has been reported that the life cycle stage is an important driver of the emergence of management control systems (Miller and Friesen, 1984, Moores and Yuen, 2001, Davila, 2005, Md. Auzair and Langfield-Smith, 2005 and Granlund and Taipaleenmäki, 2005). For instance, Miller and Friesen (1984) report that firms in the maturity and revival phases put significantly more emphasis on formal cost controls than do firms in the growth stage. Md. Auzair and Langfield-Smith (2005) use a self-categorization measure based on the firm's own assessment of its life cycle stage and report that organizational life cycle, among other contingent variables, has a significant effect on the design of a firm's management control systems. In this paper, we investigate if the use of the activity-based cost-accounting system differs across life cycle stages of the firm.1 The life cycle literature (e.g. Miller and Friesen, 1983 and Miller and Friesen, 1984) reports that increased competition and diversification in products and markets cause firms in the maturity and revival phases to put significantly more emphasis on formal cost controls and performance as opposed to firms in the growth phase. In addition, mature and revival firms have greater resources for experimenting with advanced management accounting systems and they have more complex, more formal and more bureaucratic organizational structures creating a need for these systems compared to growth firms. These differences in the internal characteristics of the firm and the environments in which the firms operate lead to more widespread use of advanced costing systems, such as activity-based costing, among mature and revival firms than among growth firms. The paper contributes to the management accounting literature by exploring if the life cycle of the firm has a role of its own apart from that of the size of the firm in the use of activity-based costing. Although firms in the maturity and revival phases are often larger than firms in a growth phase, not all mature or revival firms are necessarily large in size. In other words, even small firms are likely to use activity-based costing if they have a managerial need for an advanced cost-accounting system due to their life cycle stage. We therefore expand the earlier studies investigating the effect of the size of the firm on the use of activity-based costing without considering the life cycle stage of the firm. Such earlier studies include Drury and Tayles (1994), Innes and Mitchell (1995), Bjornenak (1997), Chenhall and Langfield-Smith (1998), Malmi (1999) and Al-Omir and Drury (in press). We feel that this study has important implications for the practice of management accounting research; it sheds light on whether the actual underlying organizational need indicated by the life cycle stage of the firm rather than simply the size of the firm drives the firms’ use of an activity-based costing. In addition, although activity-based costing has been scrutinised for almost two decades, it continues to be actively investigated (e.g. Al-Omir and Drury, in press). One reason for this is that implementations of ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems allowing firms to integrate advanced cost accounting such as activity-based costing software with ERP systems, have increased remarkably in recent years (e.g. Dechow and Mouritsen, 2004, Granlund and Malmi, 2002 and Granlund, 2007). Our empirical analyses based on the cross-sectional survey data of 105 firms operating in several industries and in different life cycle stages, support our hypothesis. The results indicate that the characteristics of the firm reported in the life cycle literature to affect the use of advanced cost-accounting systems differ across life cycle phases, i.e. firms in the maturity and revival phases have a greater organizational size, lower profitability, a more diversified product/service range and have more often gained a stock market listing as opposed to firms in the growth phase. More importantly, we find that the use of activity-based costing is significantly more common among firms in maturity and revival phases than it is among firms in a growth phase. In addition, we find that it is the life cycle stage rather than the size or age of the firm which is decisive in explaining the use of the activity-based costing among firms. These results remain essentially the same after several control variables and checking the effect of potential non-response bias have been applied. We divide the remainder of the body of this paper into four sections. In Section 2 we review the relevant literature and develop our hypothesis. We describe the survey data and research method in Section 3 and report the results of preliminary data analyses. In Section 4, we report the empirical results including the corresponding robustness tests and present concluding remarks in Section 5.

نتیجه گیری انگلیسی

Life cycle research suggests that the use of management accounting systems should differ across the stages of organizational life cycle as different systems are needed in different stages (e.g. Miller and Friesen, 1983 and Miller and Friesen, 1984). In comparison with growth firms, the administrative task of mature and revival firms is more complex, they need to produce products/services cost-effectively to earn adequate profit margins on highly competitive markets, they experience increased diversification in their products and markets, they have greater organizational size and more formal and more bureaucratic organizational structures (Greiner, 1972, Miller and Friesen, 1983, Miller and Friesen, 1984 and Merchant, 1997). Consequently, the use of the advanced cost-accounting systems such as activity-based costing should be more common among mature and revival firms than among growth firms. In this paper, we investigate if the use of activity-based costing varies among firms in different life cycle stages. Following Kazanjian and Drazin (1990) and Md. Auzair and Langfield-Smith (2005) we use a self-categorization variable to measure the life cycle stage of the firm. The paper contributes to the management accounting literature by exploring if the life cycle of the firm has a role of its own apart from that of the size of the firm in the use of activity-based costing. Earlier studies report that the use of activity-based costing increases as the size of the firms increases (e.g. Al-Omir and Drury, in press) but, although firms in the maturity and revival phases are often larger than firms in a growth phase, not all mature or revival firms are necessarily large in size. Our empirical analyses based on the questionnaire completed by 105 Finnish firms operating in various industries and life cycle stages support our hypothesis derived from life cycle theories. The results indicate that the characteristics of the firm affecting the use of advanced cost-accounting systems differ across life cycle phases as reported in the life cycle literature, i.e. firms in the maturity and revival phases have a greater organizational size, lower profitability, a more diversified product/service range and have more often achieved a stock market listing as opposed to firms in the growth phase. More importantly, we find that the use of activity-based costing is more common among firms in maturity and revival phases than it is among firms in a growth phase, even after controlling for the effects of size of the firm and other relevant control variables. We also find that the firms’ reasons for using an activity-based costing system vary across life cycle stages as the life cycle theories predict. Cost-effectiveness and profitability are more important for firms in the maturity and revival phases than they are for firms in the growth phase (e.g. Miller and Friesen, 1984). Consequently, mature and revival firms need to put more emphasis on reducing and controlling their costs and improving their decision-making as opposed to firms in a growth phase. Concurring with the results reported in earlier studies, we also find that the use of activity-based costing increases as the size of the firms increases (e.g. Drury and Tayles, 1994, Innes and Mitchell, 1995, Bjornenak, 1997, Chenhall and Langfield-Smith, 1998, Malmi, 1999 and Al-Omir and Drury, in press). More importantly, our results indicate that the life cycle of the firm has a role of its own apart from that of the size of the firm when explaining the use of activity-based costing. This supports the view that not all mature or revival firms are necessarily large in size, but they have a greater need for advanced management accounting systems such as activity-based costing than many larger firms have.