Adoption of Activity-Based Costing: A Survey of the Education Sector of Greece

John Sorros (), Alkiviadis Karagiorgos () and Nikos Mpelesis ()
Additional contact information
John Sorros: University of Piraeus
Alkiviadis Karagiorgos: University of Piraeus
Nikos Mpelesis: University of Piraeus

International Advances in Economic Research, 2017, vol. 23, issue 3, No 4, 309-320

Abstract: Abstract The need to invest in education becomes evident during difficult economic periods. Nevertheless, the lack of sufficient financial resources leads educational institutes to form competitive cost strategies. Despite the increasing competition in the education sector, educational institutes usually refrain from using complex cost methods to improve their operations. In this study, we chose the activity-based costing (ABC) method to understand the reaction of educational institutes when they are confronted by the implementation of innovative cost methods. An institute willing to implement ABC should be capable of comprehending the associated operational adjustments. This study investigates the education sector’s potential in adapting to the ABC method to improve cost management. Additionally, factors that prevent educational institutes from making cost strategy reforms were also observed. Initially, we conducted semi-structured interviews of experts to develop our research instrument. The survey was then applied to 152 educational institutes located in the seven most populous regions of Greece. The findings of the hierarchical regression analysis indicate that educational institutes are not capable of accurately allocating costs and they lack specific data concerning overheads. However, the sector is more eager to implement sophisticated methods for increasing competitiveness than was anticipated.

Keywords: Activity-based costing; Education; Greece; Cost strategy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11294-017-9640-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:iaecre:v:23:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s11294-017-9640-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11294

DOI: 10.1007/s11294-017-9640-1

Access Statistics for this article

International Advances in Economic Research is currently edited by Katherine S. Virgo

More articles in International Advances in Economic Research from Springer, International Atlantic Economic Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().