Title: Social enterprise development: implications from activity-based costing

Authors: Kanokwan Kingphadung; Sujin Woottichaiwat; Suphaphat Kwonpongsagoon; Kongkiti Phusavat

Addresses: Department of Food Technology, Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Technology, Silpakorn University, Thailand ' Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Technology, Silpakorn University, Thailand ' Department of Sanitary Engineering, Faculty of Public Health, Mahidol University, Thailand ' Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Kasetsart University, Thailand

Abstract: The case study examines the impacts from integrating activity-based costing (ABC) for the coop's cost management. It operated in the milk industry, which was regulated with price control. Its main challenge was to meet the local municipality's demands for school consumption. Most of the coop's revenue came from the fixed-price contract with the local municipality. In addition, environmental regulations and business uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic motivated the coop to explore ABC as a pilot for cost management. Many issues and shortcomings were discovered. For instance, the environmental cost needs to be directly part of production (instead of the cost of supporting production) to ensure the accuracy and usefulness of the unit cost of the coop's products. Cost drivers were also identified. Many implications relating to the coop's operations and ABC's implementation on enterprise development and learning are discussed such as the importance of technology and workplace learning.

Keywords: activity-based costing; ABC: social enterprise; cost management; learning; collaboration.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMED.2025.147346

International Journal of Management and Enterprise Development, 2025 Vol.24 No.3, pp.280 - 297

Received: 12 Nov 2024
Accepted: 12 Jan 2025
Published online: 14 Jul 2025 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article