Managers' motivational antecedents to support activity-based costing systems

Abstract

The past three decades have witnessed a growing trend in using activity-based costing systems. Management and accounting research have identified management support as one of the focal points for successful implementation of such systems. However, little research has been done to study managers' motivational antecedents to support activity-based costing systems in the Middle East as well as in the Asian countries. It is expected that the level of support differs from one culture to another. This paper addresses this issue in an experimental setting where 129 managers from two different cultures were asked to respond to judgmental decisions to support activity-based costing systems. Two models of the expectancy theory (the force model and the valence model) were used to measure the motivational support for activity-based costing systems. The authors hypothesized that these models provide better explanations than a chance model. The results of the regression analyses support the research hypotheses. However, the force model had a higher explanatory power than the valence model.