Market Environment Accounting of Costmetics Business in Thailand: Effects on Sustainable Competitive Advantage and Business Performance

Abstract

The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of market environment accounting on sustainable competitive advantage and business performance via the moderator of learning capability. Data were collected from 391 cosmetics businesses in Thailand. Both structural equation model and multiple regression analysis are applied to examine the research effects. The results suggest that market environment accounting plays an important role in explaining and determining both sustainable competitive advantage and business performance. Next, sustainable competitive advantage has a significant effect on business performance and it is a mediator of the market environment accounting-business performance relationships. In addition, learning capability is not the moderator of the research effects. Moreover, market environment accounting helps firms achieve both sustainable competitive advantage and business performance. The results also suggest that firms need to support their employees in understanding and utilizing the concepts of market environment accounting in an organization by explicitly allocating and investing their budgets for development and improvement of the market environment accounting system. To conclude, successful market environment accounting is positively related to potential competitive advantage, long-term performance and sustainable success and growth.