3.1 ISO 9000 certified companies in Thailand
ISO 9000 is managed by the International Organization for Standardization, an international federation with members in over 130 countries (Larson and Kerr, 2007). It focusses on quality management and assurance and assists firms in successfully documenting quality systems and in their implantation and maintenance. ISO 9000 companies tend to be more profitable than non-ISO 9000 firms so many companies pursue this in order to control and reduce costs (Goodman, 1998). In Thailand, 1,835 companies in 64 industrial categories have so far adopted ISO 9000. The largest of the categories are metal products, wholesale and retail, tools and electrical equipment, transportation and support activities, and plastic products (http:// app.tisi.go.th/syscer/9000_t.html, accessed September 1, 2012).
The characteristics of the companies in this study are shown in Table I. The organizations in the sample are found in various industrial categories: metal products, wholesale and retail trade, electrical machinery, transport and related activities, plastic products, other chemical products, cement and concrete, basic chemicals, computer and related activities, construction, maintenance and repair of motor vehicles, rubber products, and motor vehicles and transport equipment. All have been in operation for more than 15 years, employ fewer than 300 staff and have successfully implemented ABC. Non-response bias is always a concern in survey research so to examine the likelihood of this, a comparison of mean scores between early and late respondents (first two weeks against second two weeks) on major constructs (i.e. TMS and NAO) was conducted by t-test. This revealed no significant differences and so we conclude that non-response bias is not a problem in this study (Armstrong and Overton, 1977).