Planning comprehensiveness and resource consumption in Chinese small enterprises

Purpose This paper explores the comprehensiveness of management accountants’ planning and the resource consumption associated with it in Chinese small enterprises (SEs). Design/methodology/approach The methodology involves correlation and regression analyses of online survey responses. Findings The study findings are as follows: planning comprehensiveness and the resource consumption associated with it vary greatly across Chinese SEs; there is a trade-off between these two aspects of planning; and provision of linkages within and across plan types, employment of valuation analytics and the use of future-oriented techniques and tools, as well as joint venturing with a foreign partner explain roughly three-quarters of the observed differences in planning behavior. Research limitations/implications With no readily accessible source to ensure random selection of the units of analysis, this study relies on a convenience sample. Participants’ survey responses may contain a residual element of key informant bias. Originality/value This study uses primary data exclusively. It demonstrates a general trade-off between the comprehensiveness of management accountants’ planning and the associated resource consumption in Chinese SEs. Its novelty also derives from an approach that explains intercompany differences in the observed behavior via variables heretofore seldom used in empirical research.