The design of management accounting control systems (MACS) is an important factor affecting the extent and success of employee involvement in continuous improvement (CI) programs. The results of an experiment reported here indicate that the combination of Activity-Based Cost (ABC) information and an emphasis on idea generation are both important in determining the number of recommendations received. Cost information is important in determining the overhead reduction associated with those recommendations. Furthermore, results-based control leads to less overhead reduction when Volume-Based Cost information (VBC) is provided, but greater average overhead reduction per recommendation when ABC information is provided.
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