3. Majority of the ITB respondents agreed that barriers which they had encountered when using
management accounting techniques were the delay and incomplete data received by the accounting
department, a lack of proper accounting system, and accountants having inadequate knowledge in
management accounting. On the other hand, Non-ITB’s barriers were a lack of proper accounting
system, accounting officers having insufficient knowledge in management accounting and the
management lacking skill to adopt management accounting.
4. There were fourteen common aspects of management accounting techniques surveyed in this
SMEs research and the previous research done by Phadoongsitthi (2003) on Thai public companies.
The comparison of those fourteen common techniques between two research findings, in other words,
between Thai public companies and Thai SMEs was made. The comparison showed both similarities
and differences. The similarities were operating budget and financial budget, while the differences
were absorption costing, standard costing, normal costing, actual costing, capital budget, variable
costing and segment report. However, because of the limitation of existing data, the inferential
statistics could not be performed to determine the significant association between the characteristic
of being SME or public company and the employment of the management accounting techniques
difference or not.
CONCLUSION
The results of this research support the results from many survey researches done previously
in several countries, as mentioned in introduction part. The results on the use of management
accounting techniques indicated that traditional management accounting techniques were used more
than advanced management accounting techniques. Thai SMEs who applied for advisory support
from the public sector for investment advice and upgrading of management capability, as called
“ITB” in this research, and Thai SMEs who did not applied for advice, as called “Non-ITB mentioned
similar techniques that were unknown to them but mentioned techniques they knew but never used
differently. Top five techniques that they knew and intended to use were still traditional management
accounting techniques. However Non-ITB knew and intended to use some advanced management
accounting techniques such as benchmarking and balanced scorecard, which were the tools forplanning, controlling, and implementing the corporate strategies. The results showed significant
association between business characteristic, as being ITB or Non-ITB, with almost all management
accounting techniques, except standard costing, job order costing, process costing, and keizen
costing. The barriers that Thai SMEs encountered were a lack of proper accounting system and
accountant having insufficient knowledge in management accounting. Finally, the research results
showed that top five of management accounting techniques adopted by both Thai public companies
and Thai SMEs were still traditional management accounting techniques.