An activity-based costing for a university consultancy centre for entrepreneurship

Abstract

The motivation to implement activity-based costing (ABC) in services and academia-oriented institutions is identical to other institutions: to assign indirect costs to products and services based on activities. This study presents an attempt to develop an ABC simulation model applicable at the Centre for Entrepreneurship, which is an advisory and consultancy unit at Qatar University. The proposed ABC model is intended to assist the managers computing the operational costs of four operational activities of the centre: research, training, consultation, and incubation. The study relies on a qualitative research method, including data collected from both primary and secondary sources. Secondary data is a based on reviewing literature sources; whereas primary data is based on a survey. The findings confirm the appropriateness of ABC in gaining better insights into the cost structure of the activities of the centre. Copyright 2018 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.