去年我在《论管理会计前景》(见《会计研究》1988年第5期)一文中,曾提到现代管理会计的创新学派对传统学派批判的主要论点之一是费用分配方法落后。几十年来一贯以直接人工工时作为制造费用的分配标准,而目前在资本和技术密集型的企业中,人工成本在产品成本结构中所占比重往往低于10％;如仍以工时怍为费用分配的标准,势必使成本信息失真,导致经营决策和业绩评价会出现重大失误。这个问题怎么办?美国H.T.约翰逊和R.S.卡普兰两位著名教授在他们的新著《相关性消失了一管理会计的兴衰》(1987年哈佛大学出版社英文版)一书中提出了一种“以活动量为基础的成本计算法”(Aetivity—based Costng)的设想,但原书对该法的介绍过于概括,语焉不详,又无实例,令人难懂。最近在《哈佛商业评论》(《Harvard Business Review》)1988年第5期上看到了R.库珀与R.S.卡普兰合写的“正确计量成本,才能作出正确决策”一文,对活动量基础成本计算法作了较详细的介绍。但由于原文篇幅较长,叙述庞杂,现择其要者简介如下,以飨读者。 Last year, in my article “On Management Accounting Outlook” (see “Accounting Research”, No. 5, 1988), I mentioned that one of the main arguments of the modern school accounting’s innovation school for criticizing the traditional school is the backward method of cost allocation. For decades, direct labor hours have always been used as the distribution standard for manufacturing expenses. Currently, in capital- and technology-intensive companies, labor costs often account for less than 10% of the product cost structure; The standard of allocation will inevitably distort the cost information, leading to major mistakes in business decisions and performance evaluation. What about this problem? The famous professors HT Johnson of USA and RS Kaplan in their book “Relevance Disappeared of the Rise and Fall of Management Accounting” (Harvard University Press, 1987) proposed a “ The concept of ”Acetivity-based costing" is based on the activity amount. However, the original book’s introduction to the law is too general and the language is unknown. There are no examples and it is difficult to understand. Recently, in Harvard Business Review (The Harvard Business Review), No. 5, 1988, I saw R. Cooper and RS Kaplan, together with the article “The Right Measurement Costs to Make the Right Decision,” and the basic cost of activities. The calculation method was introduced in more detail. However, due to the length of the original text and the narrative complexity, the brief introduction of its essentials is as follows.