The source of professional accountant's knowledge of Activity Based Costing

This paper reports the results of an investigation of the association between accountants' employed in the manufacturing industry, and their knowlege of activity based costing. The motivation for this study was to provide a possible explanation for the perceived gap between management accounting theory and practice identifed in previous studies (Dunk, 1989; Scapens, 1994). One hundred and thirty seven accountants employed in the manufacturing industry and who are members of a professional accounting association were surveyed to determine their knowledge of activity based costing. The results indicate that the level of knowledge is associated with their affiliation with a particular accounting body and the source of their on-going professional development. The results are important to professional accounting bodies and organisations generally because they can more effectively allocate training and professional development resources if they are aware of how on-going professional development is associated with accountants'activity based costing knowledge.