Management Accounting Research , 1997, 8, 277 –298 Relative Einzelkosten- und Deckungsbeitragsrechnung: a critical evaluation of Riebel’s approach Ju¨ rgen Weber* and Barbara E. Weißenberger* This paper is on Relative Einzelkosten- und Deckungsbeitragsrechnung as a German management accounting system that has been developed by Paul Riebel. We discuss (1) its origins and (2) its central features comprising (i) independent cost measurement and (ii) reliable and valid cost allocation, which together are claimed by Riebel to provide valuable informational support for any type of managerial decision. We illustrate our discussion by means of a short case study, juxtaposing Relative Einzelkosten- und Deckungsbeitragsrechnung to Flexible Standard Costing, another German management accounting system with a decision-oriented focus. We show that even though the application of Relative Einzelkosten- und Deckungsbeit- ragsrechnung in practical situations must fail, accounting theory still can learn some lessons from analysing Riebel’s ideas. ÷ 1997 Academic Press Limited Key words: Germany; Riebel; decision-orientation; contribution costing; direct costing; cost measurement. Not every word in one language has an exact equivalent in another. Thus, not all concepts that are expressed through the words of one language are exactly the same as the ones that are expressed through the words of another. (Arthur Schopenhauer) 1. Introduction Relative Einzelkosten- und Deckungsbeitragsrechnung , presented by Paul Riebel first in 1959, has remained one of the most controversially discussed management accounting systems in Germany. Although up to today virtually no company has fully implemented all of its central features, and some academics still refer to it as an ‘exotic’ accounting system (Seicht, 1991, p. 51), no German textbook on accounting is without a detailed description of Riebel’s approach, and SAP, Germany’s biggest provider of standard accounting software, explicitly advertises that its software meets the requirements of Riebel’s Relative Einzelkosten- und Deckungsbeitragsrechnung (Sinzig, 1994). This discussion has never found much reflection in cross-national literature, * Lehrstuhl fu¨ r Betriebswirtschaftslehre, insbesondere Controlling und Logistik, RWE-Stiftungslehrstuhl (RWE-Chair for Controlling and Logistics), WHU Koblenz Otto Beisheim Graduate School of Management, Burgplatz 2, D-56179 Vallendar, Germany. Received July 1996; accepted 27 January 1997. 1044–5005 / 97 / 030277 1 22 $25.00 / 0 / mg970052 ÷ 1997 Academic Press Limited