Management Control in a Thai-Owned Chicken Company in Thailand

The purpose of this study is to add knowledge of the composition and exercise of management control systems. The study focused on a Thai-owned chicken processing company in Thailand. Thailand was chosen for this study both because the researcher (the first-named author) is Thai and because few previous management control studies have been about Thailand even though Thailand has a high level of foreign investment. Although Thailand has been influenced significantly by Western ideas, it differs from many of its South and Southeast Asian neighbours in having maintained a much greater degree of formal political autonomy than its neighbours. This ethnographic research shows that only some factors from previous studies, namely national culture and demographic characteristics, are relevant to the Thai-owned chicken company’s MCSs. Other factors not identified in previous studies were found to be important; for example, being a family business, competition in the markets for labour and custom, and labour laws have influenced and shaped the Company’s MCSs