The use of costing information in Egypt: a research note

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the use of costing information in Egypt. Design/methodology/approach A survey was carried out of 40 Egyptian privately held firms in four sectors (pharmaceutical, foodstuff, chemical, and packing and wrapping industries). Findings The paper finds that the use and sophistication of costing information in Egypt is limited. No advanced accounting techniques seem to be applied, activity‐based costing concepts are largely unknown, and the main purpose of costing information is pricing decisions, rather than performance measurement, process improvement or cost reductions. Research limitations/implications Considerable problems were encountered in obtaining responses to the questionnaire. The results suggest that not all questions were understood by the respondents, which could be caused by the use of Western management (accounting) terms and concepts in the questionnaire with which the respondents were unfamiliar. Originality/value The paper is one of few surveys of management accounting practices in Africa, and (to the best of one's knowledge) the first in Egypt.