Le rôle des attributs perçus pour la diffusion des innovations dans la comptabilité analytique. Le cas de la comptabilité par activités

Activity-Based Costing (ABC) has often been considered to be one of the most important innovations in management accounting. Although the interest in this instrument is very high, its diffusion in practice remains relatively low. Given that several variables determining the diffusion of innovations in management accounting, have still not been researched, this paradox remains to be explained. We aim to shed light on this question and present a study about the determinants of the diffusion of ABC. Based on a survey among manufacturing firms in Germany, we test hypotheses derived from Rogers? (2003) theory of diffusion focusing on the perceived attributes of an innovation. Our results show that Rogers? theory has some explanatory power because in line with extant research, we find that the relative advantage and trialability of ABC are important determinants for its diffusion. We attribute the finding that ease of use, compatibility, and observability have only positive but no significant effects to the fact that ABC is an administrative innovation that diffuses among organizations, which is different from the origins of the applied theoretical framework which lie in technical innovations that diffuse among individuals.