Channels of the Diffusion of Management Accounting Innovations in MNCs and Complex Organisations – A comparative study

Responding to increasing changes and advances in technology through the proliferation of globalisation, a range of management accounting innovations(MAIs) has emerged. Concerning these MAIs, researchers have put forwarded alternative views. One school holds the view that adopters are rational and maketechnically efficient independent choices. The social and organisational contexts in which such adoptions take place are thus taken for granted. Another schoolexplores more dynamic consequences of MAIs including the issues of how MAIs are adopted and implemented differently in different organisational settings. Thispaper contributes to the latter. By benchmarking with independent (non-group) companies, the paper provides evidence of the adoption of MAIs in dependent (subsidiary) companies. The paper aims to unearth four interrelated propositionsderived from the extant literature on the diffusion of new ideas, and discusses the network view and subsidiaries capabilities both absorptive and combinative indiffusion of MAIs in group organisations which have not been discussed in MA literature. Data were collected through 584 responses by members of theChartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) to a questionnaire and follow-up interviews with over 50 respondents of companies operating in the UK,Australia and New Zealand. The study focuses on five popular MAIs, namely, (1) activity-based costing (ABC), (2) activity-based management (ABM), (3)balanced scorecard (BSC), (4) benchmarking, and (5) target costing (TC). The data revealed that the diffusion of MAIs in group (subsidiary) organisations isdifferent from that in independent organisations and that the adoption andimplementation of MAIs is associated with (1) intra-subsidiary relations and their interdependence, (2) subsidiary capabilities (both absorptive and combinative), (3) geographical proximity of parent and subsidiary organisations, and (4) the ability of managers other than accountants.

Keywords:

Management accounting innovations , activity based costing , activity based management , baanced scorecard , benchmarking , target costing , diffusion of new ideas , subsidiary organisations , group organisations , intra-subsidiary relations , absorptive and combinative capabilities , CIMA members