The Role of Participation in the Design of Time Equations in the Time-Driven Activity based Costing – A Systematic Review of the Literature
The Role of Participation in the Design of Time Equations in the Time-Driven Activity based Costing – A Systematic Review of the Literature

Summary/Abstract: This article presents a systematic review of the literature related to the design of Time Equations in Time- Driven Activity Based Costing. In these linear equations, the times to perform activities can be collected through interviews or observation. The first method, including the participation of employees, has been seen a source of inaccuracy that hinders the success of the model. To dispel these critics, on the basis of the studies that support the participation of the users in the design of management accounting information systems, the review has been conducted around three research questions. First of all, the article wants to find the reasons that encourage the involvement of employees in the design of a TDABC system. Secondly, the article wants to search the conditions that able the participation of the employees to become a driver of success of TDABC. Lastly, the article wants to highlight the negative effects in work measurement models, such as the Time Equations, where only the stopwatch is used and employees do not have a say. The analysis of the literature shows a lacking and incomplete consideration of these aspects. For these reasons we leave a few suggestions for future research.

• Details
• Contents