Research into product costing practice: a European perspective

This paper summarizes and reviews research of product costing practice in Europe. The review considers research into how many accounting systems firms use, product cost structures, the use of blanket overhead rates in product costing, the bases used to calculate overhead rates, the application of product costs in decision making and product pricing, and the use of activity-based costing. Although significant progress has been made over the last decade in describing costing practices in Europe, further work remains to be done. Having identified gaps in, and questions arising from, previous research, the paper concludes with recommendations for future research.