Benchmarking the incidence of strategic management accounting in Slovenia
Introduction
The purpose of this research is to benchmark the degree which large companies in Slovenia apply strategic management accounting. This research conducted by Simon Cadez from Department of Accounting and Auditing, Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and Chris Guilding from Service Industry Research Centre, Griffith university, Queensland, Australia. This research is on 2007 at Slovenia. Before this research Guilding have done his research on United Kingdom, New Zealand and United States America. His study represented the first to provide an international comparison, which large companies are applying Strategic Management Accounting practices. This study extends Guilding work by benchmarking the degree of strategic management accounting adoption in Slovenia relative to Australia.
Benchmarking is a measurement of the quality of an organizations policies, products, programs, strategies and their comparison with standard measurement, or similar measurements of it peers. The objectives of benchmarking are to determine what and where improvements are called for, to analyze how other organizations achieve their high performance levels, and to use this information to improve performance.
Slovenia is a former socialist country that began the process of transition to a market economy in the early 1990’s after gaining independent from Yugoslavia. Slovenia is widely noted as a role model of a successful transition from a socialist to a market economy. In 2004, it became a full member of European Union and NATO. In 2007, it was the first of the new countries to adopt the Euro currency. Slovenia is also the most economically developed of the new countries, having already overtaken two old EU member states (Greece and Portugal) in terms of per capita GDP. Further in 2008, Slovenia will be the first of the new countries to take up presidency EU.

Objective
Survey data collected in Slovenia has been benchmarked to survey data collected in similarly sized Australian companies. The study’s objective are to: * Document the degree to which large Slovenian companies are applying strategic management accounting techniques by benchmarking to Australian atrategic management accounting practices. * Appraise the relative degree to which Slovenian companies are applying SMA techniques by benchmarking to Autralian SMA practices.
The first objective has been pursued by way of a questionnaire survey concerned with 16 SMA techniques and administered to a sample large Slovenian companies. The second objectives has been pursued by benchmarking the observed degree of SMA technique adoption in large Slovenian companies to SMA techniques adoption in similarly sized Australian companies.
As the study of SMA is still in its infancy, the decision was taken that the potential for eliciting useful insights would be heightened if a Western Country that has been the subjected limited prior SMA research is selected to serve as the benchmark country. Australia as a developed country for benchmarking carries significant appeal. Moreover, Slovenian and Australian economies exhibit some distinctive characteristics which offer an opportunity to explore for economic contingencies that may affect SMA usage. Finally, it should be noted that the conduct of the study has been facilitated by a working relationship that has developed between a Slovenian and an Australian based researcher.

The country context Slovenia commenced its transition process to a market economy in the early 1990’s. Before this, Slovenian companies own by the government although it has been privatized to burst the market economy. After declaring independence in 1991, Slovenia opened its borders to foreign competition. This new competition place strong pressure on prices, quality and customer service, and resulted in many corporate failures. Slovenian managerial expertise with respect to core commercial activities such as marketing, general management and financial management was notably deficient. Today, however, much appears to have changed. These changes have resulted in rapid in economic growth and Slovenia is quickly catching with up the more established members of the EU. The world fact books indicates that in 2005, 60.3 percent of Slovenia’s GDP derived from services, 36.9 percent from manufacturing and 2.8 percent was provided by agriculture. Exports represent more than 50 percent total GDP, with manufactured goods, machinery and transport equipment, chemicals and food being the main export commodities. The GDP per capita according to purchasing power parity is $US21,500. Australia, on the other hand is a long-standing, well established Western economy. The world fact book indicates the following GDP composition for 2004, 75.2 percent services, 21.2 percent manufacturing and 3.6 percent agriculture. Australia is relatively less engaged in international trade, as it exports represent only about 17 percent of GDP. The main exported commodities comprise coal, gold, meat, wool, alumina, iron ore, wheat, machinery, and transport equipment. Australia’s GDP per capita in 2005 is $US31,600 measured by purchasing power parity.

Purchasing power parity is the rates of currency conversion that equalize the purchasing power of different currencies by eliminating the differences in price levels between countries. In their simplest form, PPP are simply price relatives that show the ration of the prices in national currencies of the same good or service in different countries. PPP are also calculated for product groups and for each of the various levels of aggregation up to and including GDP. To compare the purchasing power parity between Slovenia and Australia, it shows that Australia GDP per capita in 2005 is higher than the GDP per capita in Slovenia. From these economic profiles it is evident that Slovenia derives a substantially larger proportion of its GDP from manufacturing while Australia has a relatively high dependency on the primary industry of mining. By contrast, Slovenia does not have an abundance of natural resources, other than wood. Slovenia is Europe’s most forested country. Second, Slovenia is more engaged in international trade than Australia. This factor may be noteworthy as it signifies that Slovenian companies experience greater international competitive pressure. Further, a differential in the composition of exports is apparent. Compared to Slovenia and many other countries, Australia exports a large proportion of low value added items such as agriculture and mining commodities.

The research method
The research method can be divided into two: 1.1 Sampling procedure
Data were collected using a mailed questionnaire survey administered contemporaneously in Slovenia and Australia. The Slovenian sample was drawn from the Slovenian Chamber of Commerce and Trade disclosure of the 500 largest Slovenian companies in terms of total revenue. A second filter, number of employees, was also applied to more completely ensure that the sample frame represents large Slovenian companies. Only companies with 100 or more employees were selected. Following the elimination of companies where no valid mailing address could be identified, the final sample comprised 388 Slovenian companies.
As part of a strategy to develop an accurate mailing list and secure a high response rate, each Slovenian company was contacted by phone and the name of the most suitable person to complete the survey data was elicited. As anticipated, the individual identified was typically the Chief Accountant, Chief Controller, or Chief Financial Officer. In most cases, the purpose of the research was explained to the indentified contact person over the phone. The mailed survey package comprised an introductory letter explaining the purpose of research, a copy of questionnaire, a glossary of terms used and a postage-paid return envelope. The first mailing resulted in 124 usable responses. A reminder letter was posted one month following the initial mail-out. The follow-up mailing yielded an additional 69 usable responses, thereby the providing a total response rate of 49.7 percent.

The Australian sample was drawn from the Australian business review weekly’s web site listing of top public companies. 298 companies falling within the $AUS20-120 million annual revenue range were identified for inclusion in the sample. The survey package, comprising all the same elements that were mailed to the Slovenian sample, was mailed to Financial Controllers in these Australian companies.
About 20 financial controllers completed and return the questionnaire following the first mailing. Following this, follow up telephone calls were made to 85 of the non respondents, and a further six completed questionnaires were secured. This procedure thus yielded a somewhat disappointing response rate at 8.6 percent. Considerable effort was made to increase the response rate for the Australian sample by way of the phone calls. It appears, however, that like in many other Western Countries, senior Australian corporate officials are becoming negatively disposed to the increased numbers survey questionnaires that they appear to receiving. The phone calls were not only lodged in an effort to increase the response rate, they were also used also to determine the factor behind the Financial Controller recalcitrance to participating in the study. The main reasons cited for not responding to the questionnaire mailing were: participants were voluntary surveys contravenes company policy, and too busy. Two of the non-responding Financial Controllers also indicated that their companies had little use of SMA techniques. This cited reason for non response gives cause for an element of concern over potential non-response bias.

1.2 Variable measurement
The degree of SMA technique usage was measured using instruments developed by Craven and Guilding (2001) and Guilding and Mcmanus (2002). The questionnaire posed the question: “To what extent does your organization use the following techniques?” and immediately following this question, the 16 SMA techniques were listed together with a Likert-type scale ranging from “1” (not at all), to “7” (to a great extent). A glossary was also included with definitions of the SMA techniques to promote consistent interpretation of SMA terminology.

For the Slovenian sample, the questionnaire and the glossary were translated into Slovenian. The translation was completed by one of this paper’s authors who is fluent in both languages. To ensure that the translated version was as close as can reasonably be achieved to the English version, it was validated by two native Slovenian university researchers who are both fluent in English.

The findings For the Slovenian sample, while none of the techniques investigated are applied extensively, it has been found that competitor focused SMA techniques are the most popular. A group of SMA techniques that have a costing orientation are applied more extensively in Slovenian companies than in the Australian benchmark sample. It has also been found that some techniques that have a relatively high popularity ranking in one country, rank relatively lowly in other country. In general both countries apply SMA techniques in their companies. This procedures consist of four components which is costing, competitor accounting techniques, strategic decision-making and customer accounting. Five SMA techniques loaded on the first component. These are: “attribute costing”, “life cycle costing,” “quality costing,” “target costing”, and “value chain costing”. Quality costing is most widely used at Slovenia while Australia uses life cycle costing. Life cycle costing is the least applied costing technique in Slovenia, yet it ranks as second most popular in Australia. Common to all five techniques is the term “costing,” therefore for the purpose of data presentation this SMA grouping will be referred to as “costing”. Five techniques also loaded on the second component. These are “benchmarking,” “competitive position monitoring,” “integrated performance measurement,” “competitor performance appraisal,” and “competitor assessment.” Integrated performance measurement is used more in Slovenian companies. In Slovenia, competitor performance appraisal is the most popular however it ranks only third in Australia. The third component comprises three techniques: “brand valuation,” “strategic costing,” and “strategic pricing.” The three SMA techniques can all be viewed as relating to the notion of strategic decision making and will be collectively termed “strategic decision making.” Strategic costing and brand valuation are applied significantly more in Slovenian companies. The final three techniques load on the fourth component. These are “customer profitability analysis,” “lifetime customer profitability analysis,” and “valuation of customers as assets”, and will collectively referred to as “customer accounting.” The usage of this techniques is averagely used between Slovenian companies and in similarly sized Australian companies.
Conclusion
It appears likely that systematic differences between economies and culture of countries contribute to differential use of SMA. This highlights the importance of management considering economic and commercial context when designing management accounting systems. The strategic orientation of SMA and the fact that SMA techniques have only recently been receiving attention from normative commentators combined to suggest that SMA application might be relatively advanced in Slovenia. In addition to the generally accepted limitations of survey research it should be noted that there is no definitive listing SMA techniques and debate concerning this matter can be expected to continue. A further shortcoming is evident in the cross country comparison aspect of this study as a disappointingly small number of Australian financial controllers committed themselves to participating in the study. The SMA practices are applied in Slovenia varies considerably with competitor performance appraisal being the most extensively applied techniques while valuation of customer as assets being the least applied.