The history of the standard for the calculation of cost of ownership in the semiconductor industry

The semiconductor industry is one of very few industries to have a standard for management accounting, and this concerns a method for calculating the cost of ownership (COO). This research investigates the history of the development of the COO standard, starting from the late 1980s and stretching to the mid-1990s, and explores the circumstances under which this development occurred. We find that the development and revision activities for COO built on complementary conditions, such as industry organizations, networks of professionals, and standard-setting procedures, which had been established for cooperation in research and development and for the development of technical standards. We suggest that these factors may explain the absence of standards in management accounting in many other settings.