The Research On Cost Driver Theory Framework

The cost driver theory is the central part of cost management theory, the enterprises can have effective cost management and profit analysis only when the meaning of cost driver is correctly understood.Cost driver theory is different in different cost management phases, it fully reflects the social productivity and people's learning abilities at that time. In the traditional cost management phase, people think that cost is closely associated with the output, that is, output is the cost driver. In the activity-based cost phase, people's opinion has changed, they think that cost is closely associated with the activity, that is, activity is the cost driver. In the strategic cost management phase, people's opinion has changed again, they think that cost is closely associated with strategy, that is, strategy is the cost driver. We can predict that, with the changes of social economy and market circumstances, the cost driver theory will develop more rapidly, and greatly boost the development of cost management theory.The main problem in the current research of cost driver theory is that the traditional cost driver has been neglected, the research on activity-based cost driver and strategic cost driver has been separated or mixed. In the research of cost driver theory, no matter from the consistency of research method or from the completeness of research content, the traditional cost driver should never be neglected. But regretfully, in the current research of cost driver theory, most of the people have paid their attention to the activity-based cost driver and strategic cost driver, but neglected the traditional cost driver.This paper builds the cost driver theory framework which contains traditional cost driver,activity-based cost driver and strategic cost driver. We use the cost driver as the clue to disclose the inner development rules of cost management theory. Using dialectics of nature as the guideline, we divide the cost driver theory framework into four parts, that is, the cost driver background theory, the cost driver classification theory , the cost driver basic theory and the cost driver application theory. We also present that the cost driver background theory is the premise of the framework, the cost driver classification theory is the foundation of the framework, the cost driver basic theory is the mainbody of the framework and the cost driver application theory is the extention of the framework. During the following independent analysis regarding every cost phase, we use the framework to guide our research. By a series of comprehensive...