The impact of firm characteristics on ABC systems: a Greek-based empirical analysis

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which potential factors affect the use of activity-based costing (ABC) in a service context. Design/methodology/approach – An empirical survey was conducted on a sample of 112 leading hotels enterprises in Greece. Findings – Results show that the use of ABC is positively associated with business strategy and with chief financial officer's (CFO) educational background. In addition, ABC is negatively associated with CFO age. No association was found between the use of ABC and the quality of information technology, membership of multinational chain, and CFO tenure. Research limitations/implications – This research was limited to the Greek hotel sector. Cross-sectional studies as the work presented here can establish associations, but not causality. Originality/value – This paper adds to the limited body of knowledge of the design of cost systems in a service context (service cost system design). Specifically, this paper adopted a contingency approach and used empirical analysis to identify the influence of specific organizational variables and CFOs characteristics on the use of ABC in service firms. The operational homogeneity of hotels enables powerful tests of the research hypotheses.