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findings of the study.
The research problem was that there were inadequate studies that had been done with respect to management accounting practices within the asphalt manufacturing industry in Thailand. This was a problem because the asphalt manufacturing industry within Thailand was a dynamic and highly competitive industry that needed critical decision-making processes. Therefore, the interest of the study was to explore the types of management practices, tools and controls that were used in the asphalt industry. The researcher wanted to achieve this through a case study, which was the reason the asphalt manufacturing company was selected. The company was also selected because it was determined that it fairly represented the features of most of all asphalt-manufacturing companies within Thailand. Additionally, The choice was made because the company was one of the asphalt manufacturing companies that had stayed in the industry for a relatively long period. Therefore, it was anticipated that it had had many experiences with respect to the use of management accounting tools, controls and practices to enhance its profit margins. This happened to be the case. Moreover, it was anticipated that the top management of the company was composed of personnel who had much experience in the area of management accounting tools and strategies.
Through the case study, the interest of the study was in finding out the types of management accounting practices and the value of such practices to the company. The study was also interested in why the company would preferred certain practices to others, and the benefits it derived from such practices. This was achieved with qualitative research methods, in which case the study used semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions as the methods of data collection. The data was analyzed by use of McCracken’s five-step process of qualitative data analysis. The study found out that the company under study was using different management accounting practices, which it selected according to its operational structures, objectives and strategies. Besides, the research study revealed that the management accounting practices that were adopted at the organizational level were slightly different from the ones that were used across the subunit levels.
The study results showed that the company benefitted from management accounting practices, tools and controls. Some of the benefits included improved financial performance, efficient operations, setting and achievement of goals, and staying competitive in the business environment. This implied that the company made decisions based on the data that was generated through the management accounting tools.
The results of the study had many implications with respect to the use of management accounting practices, tools and controls. It is important to note that the use of management accounting tools enabled the company to increase its profit margins and enhance the efficiency of its operations. Based on this, one of the implication was that business owners, especially the players in the Thailand’s asphalt manufacturing industry, would begin to adopt the use of different management accounting tools, controls and practices to enhance business practices. The information that was generated through this study would provide asphalt manufacturers, especially those that were not already using any form of management accounting practices, with important information as to the benefits of management accounting practices, how to choose the best tools and controls, and how to use management accounting practices generally. Besides, the companies would be able to realize that management accounting was important in terms of generating data for effective decision-making.
The other implication was that results of the study made a huge contribution to the scanty information pertaining to the use of management accounting practices, tools and controls within Thailand’s asphalt manufacturing industry. The results were particularly very important because many researchers had not focused enough on the use of management accounting practices within the country’s asphalt industry. This means that the research gap that had existed prior to this study was greatly reduced by the outcomes of the research.
One of the most important finding of the study was the use of different management accounting tools and controls in each of the subunits of a company, as was demonstrated by the company that was studied. For instance, the research study found out that the company adopted different management accounting tools, controls and practices in each of its subunits. The implication of this was that not all management accounting practices fitted well in any subunits. A further implication was that the company as a whole could not benefit much by adopting similar practices for all of its subunits. This could be explained by the fact that, even though the company had overall organizational goals and objectives, each subunit had its own short-term objectives that contributed toward the achievement of the overall long-term objectives of the company. For example, balanced scorecard tools could not be emphasized in the finance department, because that would make the finance personnel to concentrate on achieving set performance level as opposed to streamlining the company’s financial assets to enhance profitability. In such a case, Key Performance Indicator tools would be the best practice.
The results of the study further showed that, in order for a company to grow into a multinational corporation, it needed to adopt the management accounting practices that would enable it to provide integrated universal services that would take care of diverse customers’ needs. The company that was studied clearly demonstrated that such an initiative helped to enhance the organizational growth prospect.
The other significant implication of the study was that it helped in proving the claims of the contingency theory. In that regard, it helped to affirm the claims. Through the study, it was clear that the company did not adopt a single or uniform style of leadership. Each departmental head was left to decide on the best practices that would help the departments in achieving its mission and connecting to the overall goals and objectives of the company. This was consistent with the claim of the contingency theory that there was always no single way to effectively govern an organization. Therefore, the theory still played a major role in the governance of a corporate organization.
Recommendations
There are some important recommendations that need to be made in the context of this research study. It is important to note that the study was qualitative in nature. This implies that it was not as objective as it would have been, were other research methods to be used. Even thought the qualitative methods enabled the researcher to conduct an in-depth study of the company, it lacked enough objectivity. Therefore, one of the recommendations is that future studies should be based on either quantitative or mixed methods to achieve more objectivity in the study process. Specifically, future studies should use quantitative methods to evaluate the relationships between empirical relationships between the use of specific management accounting techniques and company dynamics such as structures and performances.
Importantly, the study was exploratory in nature. As noted with qualitative approaches, an exploratory study only supplies qualitative information, which may not be able to be generalized to other phenomena with similar characteristics as the one studied. Importantly, the study used a case study design in the achievement of its objectives. The problem with case studies is that they only focus on a single object or phenomenon, which may not necessarily represent the characteristics of an entire population. This makes exploratory case study research not to be a very reliable study where the findings are to be generalized to a larger population from which the samples are drawn. Therefore, it is recommended that future researchers should use objective methods to arrive at the findings. This would ensure that there would be less biases of a researcher.
The need to use quantitative methods is explained by the fact that, during the study, the semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions yielded very excessive data, which were difficult to analyze. Additionally, due to the bulk of the data, the analysis process could have excluded some important data. Therefore, it is recommended that future studies should use methods of data collection such as structured questionnaires, which often yields specifically required data.
In addition, in cases of future studies, researchers should use more than one case. The use of more than one sample will be important in term of increasing the credibility of the studies. The justification for this is that the more the sample the more the representativeness of a population in a research study process.
Since the study made a huge contribution to the existing literature on the use of management accounting techniques in asphalt manufacturing industry, future researchers should use the findings as the basis or foundation for further research. This implies that future researchers should focus on building on what this researcher established. In this connection, the scope of this research study was notably limited to only the Thailand’s asphalt manufacturing industry. In order to make more contributions to the relevant literature, future researchers should consider expanding the scope to include other countries, especially the one with similar characteristics as Thailand. Alternatively, the study recommends that future researchers who will still be interested in single case studies should consider multinational asphalt manufacturing corporations. This will definitely widen the scope of th
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