We examine the extent to which activity management practices are adopted by Australian business units at
each of Gosselin’s [Gosselin, M., 1997. The effect of strategy and organizational structure on the adoption and
implementation of activity-based costing. Acc. Organ. Society 22 (2), 105–122] levels of Activity Analysis, Activity
Cost Analysis and Activity-based Costing. We also examine the association between extent of adoption and the
organizational factors of size and decision usefulness of cost information, and the business unit culture dimensions
of innovation, outcome orientation, and tight versus loose control.
Data were collected by mail survey questionnaire of a random sample of business units, with questionnaire design
and distribution based on Dillman’s [Dillman, D.A., 2000. Mail and Internet Surveys: The Tailored Design Method.
John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York] Tailored Design Method. Adoption rates are found to be higher than in prior
studies, suggesting the continuing relevance of activity management practices and the advantage of using Gosselin’s
(1997) levels. All factors were found to be associated with all activity management practices. In particular, business
unit size and all three business unit culture dimensions were found to be associated with extent of adoption of
Activity Analysis (AA) and Activity Cost Analysis (ACA), while decision usefulness and the cultural dimensions
of outcome orientation and tight versus loose control were associated with Activity-based Costing.