Factors of Budgeting Process and Budget Management that Influence the Efficiency of the Royal Thai Air Force Annual Budget Disbursement

Abstract

This study of the factors of budgeting process and budget management that influence the efficiency of the Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) annual budget disbursement aimed to: 1) study the factors of budgeting process and budget management that affect the efficiency of annual budget disbursement, 2) to study success and obstacle factors that impact on the annual budget disbursement efficiency and 3) to suggest improvement guidelines to increase the efficiency of the annual budget disbursement.

        The sample group included 155 military officers, consisting of the officers from the budgeting section, finance section and procurement section. The study employed both quantitative and qualitative research. The data collation tool for the quantitative method was a questionnaire, which passed content validity and reliability testing. The data collection tool for the qualitative method was a series of semi-structured interviews. The data analysis tools were descriptive statistics as percentage, mean and standard deviation; and inferential statistics for hypothesis testing as one-way analysis of variance, Pearson’s correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis.

        The study results showed that the respondents rated the overall efficiency of the budget disbursement at the highest level. The results of personal factor analysis revealed that age difference impacted on the efficiency of budget disbursement at a statistically significant level of .05. For budgeting process analysis, the results showed that the stage of planning in the budgeting process and budget management impacted on the efficiency of budget disbursement at statistically significant levels of .05 and .01, respectively. Regarding budget management, the results revealed that the aspects of personnel and common values affected the efficiency of budget disbursement at a statistically significant level of .05. The success factors for optimizing the budget disbursement were summarized from the corresponding results of both quantitative and qualitative analysis, namely the presence of a good operating system and common values. Conversely, the barriers to success were the lack of shared databases and continuous training for officers to keep up with changes in circumstances.

Keywords: Budget Process, Budget Management, Annual Budget Disbursement Royal Thai Air Force