The influence of technological and environmental factors on the diffusion of activity-based costing in Iran

The study investigates the different relationships between certain technological and environmental factors and activity-based costing (ABC) diffusion stages. Data were collected through a survey questionnaire sent to Chief Financial Officer of Iranian manufacturing companies. Based on binary logistic regression models, the results show that the relationships between the antecedent factors and ABC diffusion change depending on the diffusion stages. The overall findings suggest that factors that are significantly related to one of ABC diffusion stages (e.g., ABC adoption stage) may not relate to other ABC diffusion stages (e.g., ABC infusion stage). For instance, product diversity and analyzer strategy produce different level of effects on different ABC diffusion stages. The results also reveal that uncertainty-financial and uncertainty-industrial influence two of the ABC diffusion stages, while uncertainty-economical, overheads, and competition influence only one of the ABC diffusion stages.