Modern Costing Innovations and Legitimation: A Health Care Study

Michela Arnaboldi and Irvine Lapsley

Abacus, 2004, vol. 40, issue 1, 1-20

Abstract: This article is a study of the introduction of a modern costing technology—activity based costing (ABC)—into a health care organization which is undergoing change. The transformation of this organization is of particular interest as it focused on the experience of a service which had always existed by collecting blood, which is given as a free donation (the gift), and which is then converted into a variety of health care products. Typically, accounting innovations in the U.K.'s National Health Service are at the behest of central government: In this case, the adoption of ABC is on the initiative of the health care organization itself. The attractiveness of the specific costing approach from the perspective of the management of this health care organization is as an ingredient in legitimation—the portrayal of this entity as a ‘complete organization’.

Date: 2004
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