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Introduction
The diffusion of process innovation has been broadly applied in a wide variety of contexts ([50], [51] Rogers, 1995, 1971; [52] Rogers and Shoemaker, 1971). Recently, it has been applied in organizational behavior literature to study the transfer of information technology, adoption of new innovative practices, and use of change agents to communicate innovative methods to organization members. Diffusion has been applied to study the initiation and implementation of administrative and technological innovations as part of the organizational change and transformation processes. [17] Davenport (1993) reviewed how diffusion analysis has been used to study the successful adoption of new information technology by an organization. This paper responds to [17] Davenport's (1993) as yet unanswered challenge by extending the sociology of both the diffusion and adoption stages of innovation research in management accounting and control literature.
Process innovation and diffusion have long-interested researchers in organizational sociology, management and product marketing. Recently, innovations in management accounting such as activity-based costing (ABC) have generated research in accounting theory and practice ([1] Anderson, 1995; [2] Anderson and Young, 1999; [3] Argyris and Kaplan, 1994; [25] Gosselin, 1997; [39] Jones and Dugdale, 2002). However, as yet there is no integrative framework with which to study the diffusion of accounting innovations in organizations. A theory of innovation would assist us in understanding why some accounting innovations are successful and some are not. This paper attempts to fill this need by developing a contingency framework that allows researchers to classify and study management accounting innovation within the context of the literature on the sociology of diffusion and adoption.
Accordingly, a 2×2 contingency typology to classify management accounting innovations is developed. The contingency framework elaborates that the diffusion and adoption of management accounting innovations in complex organizations can best be understood by examining two dimensions of an innovation-extent and scope. Extent is defined as the degree to which the innovation affects the organization's administrative structure. It can range from a technical change within an existing system to the adoption of a new system. Scope is defined as the number of units within the organization that are affected by or adopt the innovation. Combining these two dimensions yields four distinct types of accounting innovations: mechanistic, organic, organizational development (OD) and organizational transformation (OT).