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An International Meeting of American Accounting
Association
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The Coming Nanotech Revolution – Accounting Challenges |
Saurav Dutta
SUNY - Albany
Raef Lawson
Institute of Management Accounting
Abstract: Nanotechnology deals with research involving objects that are incredibly small. Research in this field is rapidly advancing and will soon enable the manufacture of items from the atom level up which possess superior physical properties. The introduction of nanotechnology will revolutionize not only the products produced by manufacturing processes, but also the manufacturing processes themselves. This change in production technology has numerous accounting implications. Nanoscale production will significantly alter the cost of product development and production, with an increasing proportion of costs being incurred as overhead and being incurred very early in a product’s life cycle. These changes will necessitate changes in organizations’ cost management systems and the tool and methodologies they employ. From a strategy perspective, organizations will need to rethink their business strategies and their place in their industries’ extended value chains.