Practical implications of management accounting information : a personal journey

Abstract

Purpose: This study focused on the usefulness of management accounting information to small-medium-sized service enterprises other than manufacturing business. The size and industry classification are important proxies among firms to have market concentration. Design/Methodology/Approach: Median, Spearman Rho, Mann-Whitney U Test, KruskalWallis, and post Hoc test were used to analyzed the relationship of variables and test of difference between and among the service activities based on the data surveyed from 180 respondents. Findings: The evidence suggests that statement of cash flow analysis, capital budgeting decisions, financial budgets, and managing customers’ relationship are the very useful management accounting tools enough to response for their urgent needs to operate and grow. There is always non-uniformity of accounting techniques because of the industry classification, enterprise size, the nature of their operation, different managers interpretations placed on particular tool and the knowledge and skills in adopting accounting methods make comparison difficult. Therefore, the choices are associated on the particular problem at hand and the potential problems in the future. Practical Implications: To provide for more valuable representation about the usefulness of management accounting information this time across SMEs service activities. This is because previous research findings has focused more on large and private industries and the current research investigated mostly on small-medium-sized manufacturing activities. Originality/Value: Surveyed accommodation and food service activities, financial and insurance activities, and professional, scientific and technical activities in the research design to give importance and be certain to evaluate the level of its usefulness, test the relationship of net income and capital on the level of usefulness of MATs used, test the difference of the level of usefulness between and across SMEs and identify the problems encountered in the application of management accounting tools used as techniques across service business type of activities.