Community Capability Development in Accounting for Housing Cooperative to support Baan Mankong project of Bangkok Metropolitan

Abstract

The objectives of this research was to 1) investigate the problems and the constraints of the community book-keeping catering to Ban Mankong Project in Bangkok Metropolitan, and 2) the community capability development for book-keeping in comply with the housing cooperative format catering to Ban Mankong Project.  Participatory Action Research (PAR) was the research methodology.  The target group were the committees of the Savings Cooperatives or the Housing Cooperatives and the community accountants from four communities, four persons from each community for the total of sixteen persons.  These four communities were:  Soi Saphan Ruam Chai Community; the Southern Side of Na Sanambin Community; Tan Khu Community, and; Kao Na Community.  The research tools were one on one in-depth interview form, SWOT Analysis, and focus group discussion.  The data were received from the review of the literature, one on one in-depth interviews, focus group discussion, sharing opinions, training, field studies at the standardized Housing Cooperatives, book-keeping workshops, lesson-learned from doing trial book-keeping, and the outcome report meeting.

            The results showed that first there were problems and constraints in terms of management, these were: the accountants, the community, budget, management and resources.  In other words, the problems and the constraints could be summed up into four M of Management.  The details were as follows: 1) Man – In this case, they were the accountants who lacked knowledge in book-keeping, and the majority of them were from the middle age group (the average age = 55 years old).  In addition, the fact that they were all the committee members selected as volunteer to do book-keeping for the community cooperatives, however, they still had full-time jobs to support themselves and their families.  Therefore, they lack enthusiasm and cooperation. 2) Money – The budget was insufficient 3) Management – the internal management of the cooperatives and the operational steps were unclear, disorganized, and not followed the cooperative rules and regulations, and 4) Materials – the cooperatives were lack of modern office equipment.  Second, the guidelines of the community capability development for book-keeping in comply with the Housing Cooperative format catering to Ban Mankong Project were consisted of six steps of participatory capability development, these were as follows: providing knowledge and understanding in doing book-keeping in comply with the Housing Cooperative format catering to Ban Mankong Project; organizing four field studies to the standardized or well-organized housing cooperatives; practicing and training trial book-keeping in comply with the Housing Cooperative format; arranging four lesson-learned arenas with coaching to use in work place; conducting evaluation meeting and sharing results, and; making guidelines of doing book-keeping for housing cooperatives for self-study.