Success of Activity-Based Costing Projects in French Companies : The Influence of Organizational and Technical Factors

The present paper explores the impact of organizational and technical factors on the success of an ABC project. Data were collected through a mail survey and interviews with French financial controllers. The findings suggest that the success of ABC implementation depends mainly upon two factors: training and the perceived complexity of the information technology. According to our interviews, French cost controllers think that the ABC method is too complex of a management accounting system compared to the “Section Homogène” method and, thus, is a potential reason for the paradox of why some firms abandon ABC immediately once it has been implemented and others use it for a while and then abandon it