Nội dung

Editor in chief NGUYEN BACH KHOA Deputy Editor in Chief SECTRETARY OF EDITORIAL OFFICE PHAM MINH DAT Editorial SCIENTIFIC COUNCIL Dinh Van SON - Thuong mai University, Vietnam - President Pham Vu LUAN - Thuong mai University, Vietnam - Vice President Nguyen Bach KHOA - Thuong mai University, Vietnam - Deputy President THE Members Vu Thanh Tu ANH - Fulbright University in Vietnam, USA Le Xuan BA - Centural Institude for Economic Managerment, Vietnam Hervé B. BOISMERY - University of La Reuinion, France H. Eric BOUTIN - Toulon Var University, France Nguyen Thi DOAN - Vietnam Learning Promotion Association, Vietnam Haasis HANS - Dietrich - Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics (isl) Bremen - Germany Le Quoc HOI - National Economic University, Vietnam Nguyen Thi Bich LOAN - Thuong mai University, Vietnam Nguyen Hoang LONG - Thuong mai University, Vietnam Nguyen MAI - Vietnam Economist Association, Vietnam Duong Thi Binh MINH - University of Economics HoChiMinh City, Vietnam Hee Cheon MOON - Korean Trade Research Association, South Korea Bui Xuan NHAN - Thuong mai University, Vietnam Luong Xuan QUY - Vietnam Economicst Association, Vietnam Nguyen Van Song - Vietnam National University of Agriculture Nguyen TAM - California State University, USA Truong Ba THANH - University of Danang, Vietnam Dinh Van THANH - Institude for Trade Research, Vietnam Do Minh THANH - Thuong mai University, Vietnam Le Dinh THANG - University of Québec à Trois Riviéres, Canada Tran Dinh THIEN - Vietnam Institute of Economics, Vietnam Nguyen Quang THUAN - Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, Vietnam Le Nhu TUYEN - Grenoble École de Managment, France Washio TOMOHARU - Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan Zhang YUJIE - Tsinghua University, China Journal of Trade Science 4:2 (2016) 2 - 11 ’S JTS Pham Duc Hieu Thuongmai University Email: hieuphamduc@gmail.com Received: 15th August 2016 Revised: 31st August 2016 T he paper studies the status of management accounting practices in manufacturing companies located in three provinces of Hanoi, Vinh Phu and Phu Tho; at the same time looks into the level of satisfaction with information provided by management accounting in the surveyed companies. Quantitative research was conducted via questionnaires with accountants and managers in 161 manufacturing enterprises; statistics analysis provides three significant findings: (i) Vietnam manufacturing enterprises mostly apply traditional management accounting tools to support the process of control and short-term decision making; (ii) new management accounting techniques such as strategic analysis, target costing, activity-based costing, etc. are not highly appreciated; (iii) the level of meeting information demand for management accounting remains low. Research findings are the foundations for making proposals to promote and enhance the application of new management accounting techniques in Vietnam enterprises in the present context of international integration and changing business environment. Keywords: Management accounting, manufacturing enterprises, management accounting practices. 1. Introduction In the last 15 years, studies of management accounting and management accounting practices attract the attention of researchers and accounting professionals in many countries around the world, especially in transitional ones (Lin & Yu, 2002; Sulaiman et al, 2004). There are several explanatory reasons, but the major amongs them is due to increases in the competitiveness of domestic and foreign markets, impacts of globalization, declines of profit margins, and increases in the inputs because of energy and economy crisis. As a result, many companies in developing and in transition countries are interested in implementing new organizational and management techniques that were previously only applied in businesses in developed countries. In parallel with the increase in management accounting applications, studies on this topic originally carried out mainly in developed countries have extensively spreaded to developing countries. 2 JOURNAL OF TRADE SCIENCE However, as Lin & Yu (2002), Sulaiman et al (2004) identified, the application of management accounting in developing countries fells to a modest degree, does not really meet managers' demands; and academic research in this area is also quite limited. According to these authors, this situation has been rooted from differences in the level of development of the economy and of business administration between developed and developing countries. Economic transformation in Vietnam was a key driver for development of the economy and businesses. In the process of integration with the international accounting, Vietnam enterprises have gradually applied the advanced accounting techniques, in line with market mechanisms. Over the past decade, since it has been officially recognized in the Accounting Law 2003 and in the Circular 53/2006/TT-BTC, management accounting in Vietnam has certain development stages. Especially, management accounting has journal of Trade Science been designed as a separate module in the accounting curriculums in many universities within the country. However, compared to other countries in the world or/and in the region, management accounting in Vietnam is still considered as an annex of financial accounting (Adams and Do, 2005). In fact, there exists a 'significant gap' in research on the status of management accounting applied in enterprises in Vietnam compared to the studies conducted in developing countries and in other transitional economies like India, China, Thailand, Malaysia. This study aims to examine the current status of management accounting practices in manufacturing enterprises in Vietnam, through quantitative surveys for the manufacturing enterprises in three provinces in the northwest of Hanoi, including: B?c T? Liêm, Mê Linh (Hà n?i) - Phúc Yên, V?nh Yên (V?nh phúc) Vi?t Trì, Phong Châu (Phú th?). Two specific objectives are identified: i) assess the status of management accounting practices in manufacturing enterprises in Vietnam through the surveyed sample, and ii) examine the target objectives and the corresponding level of management accounting in meeting management demands in manufacturing enterprises in Vietnam. Research results will be compared to previous studies in developing countries in the region and around the world to examine the similarities and differences in the application of management accounting by Vietnam enterprises. The article is structured as follows. The second section presents the theoretical framework and literature review. The third section presents the methods and scope of the research. The fourth section is to analyze and interpret the survey results. The fifth section presents recommendations and conclusions. Limitations and directions for future research are presented at the end of the article. 2. Theory framework and literature review 2.1. Theory framework The study is based on two theoretical frameworks of the development of management accounting practices in the world: (i) by the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) published in January 3, 1998, and (ii) by a Japanese professor Nishimura announced in 2003. 2.1.1. IFAC 1998 framework IFAC (1998) suggested that the scope and applica- ’S JTS tion of management accounting at the various levels (narrow or expand) associated with the development of enterprise management, in which management accounting is seen as an information channel providing useful information for the fulfillment of management functions within enterprise, including: planning; directing and motivating; controlling and monitoring; and decision making. Along with the development of enterprise management, according to IFAC (1998) management accounting practices have gone through four stages of development, says: costs determination and financial controls; information for planning and control; reduction of waste of resources in business operations; and creation of value through effective resource use. All stages are detailed below: - Stage 1 (until 1950): the attention is directed to determining costs for pricing; and financial control by determining and analyzing the fundamental financial ratios based on annual and/or periodic financial statements. Therefore, at this stage, the application of management accounting is rather limited and management accounting is not really 'independent', separated from financial accounting. - Stage 2 (from 1950 to 1965): during this stage, the main purpose was to distinguish management accounting information for decision making, planning management processes and controlling them. This stage is characterized by company's internal analysis. The techniques of management accounting commonly used are: standard costing; analysis of CVP; breakeven analysis; and responsibility accounting. According to IFAC (1998), management accounting at this stage with its strong development has been away from the 'shadow' of financial accounting. - Stage 3 (from 1965 to 1985): management accounting practices focus on reduction of waste of resources in business processes through the elimination of activities that do not create added values. This stage is characterized by extensive use of mathematical models, typically: application of multivariate regression models; EOQ model in inventory control... Management accounting at this stage has created a link (at certain level) with enterprise management processes, especially in evaluating non-added value activities within an organization. JOURNAL OF TRADE SCIENCE 3 Journal of Trade Science - Stage 4 (from 1985 to 1995): management accounting practices focus on creation of value through effective resource use. This means to create more added values by using less imputs. To accomplish this goal, management accounting applications have expanded, not limited to 'internal' environment but also included 'external' one. This stage is characterized by the emerging techniques like: customer profitability analysis, shareholder value added analysis, JIT, BSC, strategic management accounting… IFAC (1998) suggests that in developed countries, management accounting practices have reached the stage 4 of management accounting development. 2.1.2. Nishimura 2003 framework If IFAC (1998) framework is said to be based on the development of Western management accounting, the model of Nishimura (2003) is relied on summarizing the development of management accounting in Asian countries, which represented the development of management accounting application in Japan. Basically, Nishimura (2003) describes the development of management accounting practices as a fourstage framework, namely: Drifting, Traditional, Quantitative, and Integrative. Specifically: - Stage 1 (Drifting): in this stage, there is no independent system of management accounting in organizations. The main focus of the stage is not management accounting itself but is the application of financial accounting information to management and control requirements. Accounting practices widely adopted in this stage are financial ratio analysis and business comparative analysis (trend analysis). - Stage 2 (Traditional): Nishimura regards this stage as the formative phase of management accounting. The practices, namely, budgeting, standard costing, CVP analysis, responsibility accounting, and cost variance analysis are dominantly used in this stage. Moreover, according to Nishimura (2003), feedback control is developed and has a strong influence on the whole accounting system. The basic contents of management accounting in this stage still have deep influences on today's management accounting system. Therefore, this stage can be named as 'traditional' management accounting. - Stage 3 (Quantitative information): this stage was in 1970s; in this stage, management accounting concentrates on how to optimize profit-based manage- 4 JOURNAL OF TRADE SCIENCE ’S JTS ment. The fundamental point of this stage is to control the planning process, which depends on management's ability, and to make performance evaluation more reliable. There are some dominant management accounting practices such as: profit prediction model, linear regression model, opportunity cost analysis, relevant information analysis and so on. During this period, according to Nishimura (2003) both feedback control and feedforward control are used in a management accounting system. Due to the advantages, feedforward control has gradually prevailed at this stage (Nishimura, 2003). - Stage 4 (Integrated): in this stage, management accounting is integrated with other management mechanisms such as organizational management, strategic management, and feedforward concept. In constrast to feedback control, feedforward control is a preventive and proactice control system. Managers who support this control concept utilize various kinds of methods to frequently adjust original plan and control planning process. The objective of feedforward control is to achieve the targets in current and future periods by adjusting current activities. Management accounting practices which are widely adopted in this stage are lean production management system, target costing, kaizen costing, activity-base management, balanced scorecard, value chain analysis, life cycle analysis, quality costing system, JIT, TQM and so on. Fundamentally, Nishimura (2003) model seems to be consistent with IFAC (1998) model in terms of dividing the development of management accounting into four stages. The degree of sophistication increases with the stages. However, Nishimura model clarifies management accounting practices widely adopted in each stage and the development of management accounting from a feedback (Traditional Management Accounting - TMA) to a feedforward control system (Strategic Management Accounting - SMA). Therefore, we use Nishimura model as the main theoretical framework of our study in the context of management accounting practices in Vietnam manufacturing enterprieses. 2.2. Literature review Along with the increasing role of management accounting in the realization of the objectives of enterprises, many studies on management accounting practices are also carried out recently in developing coun- journal of Trade Science tries and in transitional economies (Joshi, 2001; Nishimura, 2002). In a study with 40 companies in the industrial sector in Greece, Van Triest and Elshalat (2007) showed that management accounting information is used at the basic level, mainly for product pricing rather than internal management (eg. performance measurement). The authors also found that the use of advanced techniques of management accounting as Activity-Based Costing (ABC) does not seem to exist. A comparative study conducted by Joshi (2001) also shows that Indian manufacturing enterprises rely mainly on the traditional techniques of management accounting such as cost determination, product variable costing; operational budgeting; capital budgeting; evaluation of return on investment by NPV, IRR. The new techniques of management accounting such as life cycle costing; Activity-Based Budgeting, value chain analysis, Balanced Scorecard ... are applied fairly limited. Similar to the results of Langfield-Smith Chenhall (1998), Joshi (2001) also find that the size of enterprise is a decisive factor that influences on the adoption of new techniques of management accounting; and the adoption rate tends to increase in large enterprises. In Turkey, Yalcin (2012) used questionnaires to investigage the use of management accounting in manufacturing firms. He found that traditional management accounting, particularly traditional budgeting and costing practices (job order costing or process costing), had higher adoption rates than contemporary practices like ABC, life cycle costing and target costing.Sulaiman et al. (2004) studied the application of management accounting in four Asian countries as Malaysia, Singapore, China and India. The authors found that most contemporary techniques of management accounting were not applicable in the surveyed countries, while traditional techniques were assessed as 'very useful'. Ghosh and Chan (1997), in a study on the development of management accounting practices in Singapore, has found that many different techniques of management accounting in enterprises are applied. However, new techniques such as total quality management (TQM) and Activity-Based Costing (ABC) are applied very limited by domestic companies compared to multinational companies based in Singapore. In 2002, Chan conducted a comparative study to evaluate the development of management accounting ’S JTS applications in Singapore. The results showed that there were no significant changes in management accounting practices in Singapore from 1997. According to Chan (2002), cost determination techniques had not been applied effectively, and Singapore businesses were not interested in, even avoided implementing contemporary management accounting practices. Many companies consider that advanced techniques of management accounting are often associated with the level of complexity and require certain resources for implimentation. Nishimura's study (2002) in Japanese firms operating in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand shows that the application of management accounting in these countries are in transition between the initial phase (Drifting) and traditional phase (Traditional). Nishimura (2002) found that the advanced techniques of management accounting have not been used in Japanese companies operating in three surveyed countries. Over time, recent studies on the application of management accounting in developing countries in the Asian region such as: Mahfar and Omar (2004), Ahamd (2012, 2014) in Malaysia; Sumkaew et al. (2014), and Tayles Nimtrakoon (2015) in Thailand; Islam and Kantor (2005), Huang et al. (2012) in China ... showed the same results that businesses mostly rely on traditional techniques of management accounting because they are simple to apply, for example: operational budgeting and standard costing. However, due to the impact of current business environment, several contemporary techniques of management accounting also attracted attention of many managers and the majority of them said that they would apply new techniques in the future when conditions permited. However, the authors metioned above agree that in general management accounting practices in developing countries and in transitional economies in Asia are only in phase 1 and 2 of Nishimura's framework; the majority of enterprises still mainly rely on financial data for decision-making; and control process is still basically feedback control based on the variation between actual and budget. Along with the development in other countries in the region, management accounting and management accounting practices in Vietnam also have significant progress. Many university textbooks and studies on management accounting have been conducted for the JOURNAL OF TRADE SCIENCE 5 Journal of Trade Science last ten years. There are some relevent examples, such as management accounting textbooks published by leading universities in Vietnam (NEU, Academy of Finance, Thuong mai University, Ho Chi Minh University of Economics...).These textbooks focus mainly on cost classification, cost allocation, the methods of determining cost (job-order costing, process costing, ABC), standard costing, budgeting, breakeven analysis, and other topics related to control and making decisions (short terms and long terms decisions)... Besides learning materials as textbooks, studies on management accounting, cost accounting are also conducted by many authors, mostly in doctoral dissertations at the universities in Vietnam. However, these dissertations mainly focus on implementing approach, applying one or some specific methods of management accounting in a certain industry or sector, such as pharmaceutical industry, agriculture, construction, milk processing... (Pham Thu Thuy, 2007; Nguyen Quoc Thang, 2011; Nguyen Thi Minh Phuong, 2013). The research approach towards assessing the application of management accounting in enterprises in Vietnam and comparíon with other countries in the region is almost absent, except for two current studies (Doan, 2012; Nguyen, 2013). Therefore, there is a need for additional studies to narrow 'a research gap' on the status of management accounting practices in Vietnam enterprises. From this perspective, the paper will contribute to the development of the theory and practice of management accounting in Vietnam in particular, and in the transitional economy in general. 3. Research methodology and surveyed sample Data for this study were collected through questionnaires with manufacturing enterprises in three provinces in the northwest of Hanoi, including: Bac Tu Liem, Me Linh (Hanoi) - Phuc Yên, Vinh Yên (Vinh Phuc) - Viet Tri, Phong Chau (Phu Tho). For the research purposes, foreign invested companies (100% foreign owned and joint ventures); micro-enterprises with 10 or less than 10 employees and new businesses (under 3 years of operation) are not suitable and excluded from the sample frame. Among contacted enterprises, 161 businesses agreed to answer the questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed in the form of multiple-choice questions, open-ended questions, and Likert-scale questions. The questions were based on previous studies (Van Triest & Elshahat, 2007; 6 JOURNAL OF TRADE SCIENCE ’S JTS Doan, 2012; Admand, 2012; Nguyen, 2013), and amended following consultations of practioners and lecturers in the univiersities in order to make the questions more suitable with the current business environment in Vietnam. The data were collected from Feburary 2016 to May 2016; the data processing was done by statistical software SPSS 20. The questionnaire consists of three parts: (i) general information of enterprise; (ii) management accounting practices in enterprises; and (iii) assessment of the role of management accounting practices and the level of satisfaction of management accounting information in meeting management's demands within enterprise. In order to collect the full set of data on each part of the questionnaire, the target respondents are identified, including both chieft accountants and CEOs. The first part of the questionnaire will be answered by the CEOs; meanwhile the second part will be filled out by the chief accountants. The combination of two kinds of respondents on the same ansersheet will encourage the double check; hence resulting a more objective and general view when evaluating the current status of management accounting practices in these enterprises. Moreover, this combination also reduces bias data, thus eliminating the likelihood of unmatched data if two questionnaires are used separately for the accountants and for the CEOs. In total, there are 161 questionnaires distributed to the accounting department and management of enterprises, the collected number is 101 at the rate of 62.7%. After removing the missing data, 63 questionnaires (corresponding to 63 companies, at 39.1%) can be useable for statistical analysis. General information about the companies participating in the survey can be seen in the table below (Table 1). According to Table 1, by ownership the majority are joint stock companies (34 companies) at 54%, followed by limited liability companies (21 companies) with 33.3%, SOEs with a modest rate of 12.7%, or 8 enterprises. By size based on the number of employees, a large part belongs to small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises with 51 companies (80.9%), only 13 companies in the survey are large with over 300 employees (19.1%). The majority of surveyed companies operate more than 10 years, 43 companies (68.2%), while 20 companies (31.8%) are between 3 and 9 years. journal of Trade Science ’S JTS Table 1: General information of enterprises in the study cation rate will be 100% (equal to 63 votes as 63 enterprises), on the other hand at the lowest level the application rate will be 0% (none enterprise). Hence, the Classification Number Percent (%) range between the highest and the lowest was 63; and 1. Ownership structure the distance among three groups will be 21 (63/3 = 21). As a result, following these classification criteria, three - SOEs 8 12.7 groups by descending order are: (i) from 0-21: low - Joint stock Co. 34 54.0 level; (ii) from 22-42: moderate level; and (iii) from 43-63: high level. The empirical results on the applica- Limited liability Co. (Ltd) 21 33.3 tions of management accounting in the enterprises are Total 63 100.0 presented in the table below (Table 2). 4.2. The development stages of management 2. Operation period (years) accounting practices in studied enterprises - Below 10 years 20 31.8 The last column of Table 2 helps to identify and - from 10 to 20 years 30 47.6 determine the stage of development of management accounting in the studied enterprises. 8 techniques - above 20 years 13 20.6 classified as high levels are under stage 2 of Total 63 100.0 Nishimura's model (2003). This finding suggests that the techniques of stage 2, namely traditional tech3. Number of employees niques are dominated in manufacturing enterprises in - from 11 to 200 44 69.8 Vietnam. They are cost determinations for pricing; budget for operational expenses; cost variance analy- from 201 to 300 7 11.1 sis; financial performance evaluations ... Moreover, the - above 300 12 19.1 first half of 28 techniques listed in Table 2 are on the Total 63 100.0 second stage of management accounting development. Thus it can be concluded that management accounting 4. Data analysis and discussion 4.1. The status of management accounting prac- in Vietnam has reached a full development of stage 2 the 'traditional stage' (except for flexible budget tices in studied enterprises In the second part of the questionnaire, participants remains limited use). For stages 3 and 4 of management accounting develwill respond to the application of management opment, the data show that the applications are still at a accounting in their enterprises. There are 28 applicable low level from 0% to 28.6%. However, positive points techniques based on the four stages of development of can be seen because among 13 techniques of contempomanagement accounting of Nishimura's model (2003). rary management accounting, only one (1) technique Each application of management accounting in enterwas not selected, the remaining techniques have been prises will be ranked according to the applicable perunderstood and applied to some extent by studied entercents (%). Table 2 presents the results of empirical surprises. A notable difference is that quantitative methods vey of management accounting practices at 63 studied of stage 3 of management accounting are not highly companies. In which: appreciated by Vietnam manufacturing enterThe number of enterprises selects prises. The selection of advanced management technique i Application rate (technique i) = accounting techniques in stage 4 is partly All enterprises in the empirical study explained by the uncertainty of the current (N= 63) business environment, and by the level of To facilitate the analysis, the applications of mandeeper integration of Vietnam's economy. However, in agement accounting are divided into 3 groups: high; order to put these techniques into applications it requires moderate; and low levels. This classification is based efforts not only of accountants and but also supports on the assumption that at the highest level, the applifrom enterprise management. JOURNAL OF TRADE SCIENCE 7 Journal of Trade Science ’S JTS Table 2: The status of management accounting practices in studied enterprises (N=63) Management accounting practices in surveyed enterprises High level Product costing and product pricing by absorption cost Budget for operational expenses Budget for cooperation amongs responsibilities within enterprises Job order costing or process costing Cost variation analysis Budget for cash flows Financial ratio analysis (ROI, ROA…) Investment decision making (NPV, IRR, Time pay back_Tp) Moderate level Variable and Fixed cost analysis CVP analysis Segement reports Standard costing Variable costing and variable pricing Product profitability analysis Low level Life cycle costing analysis Customer, competitor and business environment analysis Financial performance evaluation Strategic forcast Shareholders/customer value analysis Value chain analysis Just – in – time inventory system (JIT) Economic – order- quantity (EOQ) Flexible budgets Target costing Acitivty-based budgeting (ABB) Acitivy-based costing (ABC) Balanced score card (BSC) Kaizen costing Application rate 96.8% 95.2% 95.2% 90.5% 82.5% 79.3% 71.4% 69.8% 65.1% 61.9% 55.6% 44.4% 39.7% 34.9% 28.6% 28.6% 25.4% 20.6% 17.5% 15.9% 15.9% 12.7% 12.7% 9.5% 7.9% 7.9% 4.7% 0% 4.3. The roles of management accounting practices in Vietnam enterprises In the next section, the managers will be required to evaluate the importance of management accounting applications in their enterprises based on a Likert scale where 1 = not important, 5 = very important. The average value (mean) in Table 3 shows the important roles by descending order of management accounting applications in enterprises; the first one is for cost control purpose (4.21), the consequitive places are budgeting and planning (4.08), performance evaluation (3.98), product pricing (3.95), for management reporting 8 JOURNAL OF TRADE SCIENCE (3.85), for short-term decisions (3.73), and the last one is supports for longNo. Development term decisions (3.64). One Ranking enteprises stage sample t-test for the over(score) all generalization suggests 1 61 2 that managerial accounting 2 60 2 applications for long-term 2 60 2 decisions (3.64) is not statistically significant (sig. = 4 57 2 5 52 2 0.711> 0.05). Research 6 50 2 findings show that the 7 45 2 applications of manage8 44 2 ment accounting in Vietnam enterprises main9 41 2 ly focus on the daily activ10 39 2 ities for short-term deci11 35 2 sions. These findings 12 28 2 reconfirm the data analysis 13 25 2 in Table 2 presented 14 22 2 above, when businesses 15 18 4 still rely mainly on the 15 18 4 applications of traditional 17 16 4 management accounting 18 13 4 for short-term goals; appli19 11 4 cations of contemporary 20 10 4 management accounting 20 10 4 for long-term strategic 22 8 3 objectives are led behind 22 8 2 with very limited use. 24 6 4 4.4. The satisfaction of 25 5 4 information needs from 25 5 4 27 3 4 management accounting 28 0 4 practices in enterprises The next section of the questionnaire assesses the management satisfaction level of current management accounting applications in studied enterprises. The managers were asked to rate their satisfaction levels based on a Likert scale, where 1 = very dissatisfied and 5 = very satisfied. For the data analysis, one sample t-test was performed (Table 4). The results showed that among 7 objectives of the use of management accounting information, only 2 objectives are met with a significance level of 5%, they are: budgeting and planning, and product pricing; one objective is met with a significance level of 10%, that is cost control. Thus, the satisfaction level of informa- journal of Trade Science ’S JTS Table 3: The role of managerial accounting applications in enterprises (test value = 3.5) tion provided by management accounting One-Sample Statistics practices in meeting N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean management demands For cost control purposes 63 4.2097 .94326 .11979 in Vietnam enterprises For budgeting and planning 63 4.0806 .94606 .12015 is still quite modest. For performance evaluation 63 3.9839 .89611 .11381 One sample t-test Product princing purposes 63 3.9500 1.03623 .13160 continues to be used for Management reporting 63 3.8500 1.20450 .15422 final question: "Overall Short-term decision making 63 3.7341 1.03211 .13325 assessment of manageLong-term decision making 63 3.6426 1.07080 .13824 ment accounting pracOne-Sample Test tices in your compaTest Value = 3.5 nies"; mean value is 95% Confidence Interval of the 3.55, but sig. = 0.667> Difference Sig. (2Mean 0.05 with test value = t df tailed) Difference Lower Upper 3.5. Thus, it can be conFor cost control purposes 5.924 62 .000 .70968 .4701 .9492 cluded that the overall For budgeting and planning 4.833 62 .000 .58065 .3404 .8209 scores of management For performance evaluation 4.252 62 .000 .48387 .2563 .7114 accounting practices in Product princing purposes 3.377 62 .001 .45000 .1834 .7166 manufacturing enterManagement reporting 2.532 62 .014 .35000 .0734 .6266 Short-term decision making 2.758 62 .000 .23410 .0632 .6612 prises in Vietnam are Long-term decision making .372 62 .711 .14260 .0659 .7511 only at 3.5 points, so the ability to meet enterTable 4: Management satisfaction level of current management accounting applications prise management (test value = 3.5) information One-Sample Statistics demands remains N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean low. Furthermore, Budgeting and planning 63 3.9355 .88468 .11235 oneway ANOVA test Product pricing 63 3.7966 .99619 .12969 is computed to see if Cost control 63 3.7581 1.06641 .13543 there are differences Management reporting 63 3.7167 1.05913 .13673 among enterprises in Performance evaluation 63 3.7097 1.10716 .14061 terms of ownership Short-term decision making 63 3.5082 1.02669 .13145 structures in the satLong-term decision making 63 3.4590 1.10414 .14137 isfaction level of One-Sample Test management Test Value = 3.5 accounting informa95% Confidence Interval of the tion (Table 5). Difference Sig. (2Mean ANOVA analysis t df tailed) Difference Lower Upper showed no difference Budgeting and planning 3.876 62 .000** .43548 .2108 .6601 in satisfaction levels Product pricing 2.287 62 .026** .29661 .0370 .5562 between groups of Cost control 1.905 62 .061* .25806 -.0128 .5289 enterprises by ownerManagement reporting 1.585 62 .118 .21667 -.0569 .4903 ship structures (sig. = Performance evaluation 1.491 62 .141 .20968 -.0715 .4908 0.470> 0.05). So it Short-term decision making .062 62 .950 .00820 -.2548 .2711 Long-term decision making -.290 62 .773 -.04098 -.3238 .2418 can be confirmed that the ability to meet the ** sig. at 5%; * sig. at 10%. information needs of JOURNAL OF TRADE SCIENCE 9 Journal of Trade Science ’S JTS Table 5: ANOVA test Sum of Squares Between Groups df Mean Square 1.244 2 .622 Within Groups 45.468 60 .812 Total 46.712 62 F .766 management accounting practices in manufacturing enterprises in Vietnam is still low and there is no difference in satisfaction level among SOEs, joint stock, and limited liability companies. 5. Conclusion and Recommendation The findings of this study generate an overall picture of management accounting practices in manufacturing enterprises in three provinces: Hanoi - Vinh Phuc - PhuTho. The conclusions from this study can contribute to some extent to the theoretical and empirical studies on management accounting in Vietnam, and in transitional economies as well. The main findings from this study are: - The applications of management accounting in manufacturing enterprises in Vietnam are in stage 2 of Nishimura' model (2003) and at the same level of development in other countries in the region (Malaysia, Thailand, China). - The applications of management accounting in manufacturing enterprises in Vietnam are also in the transition phase towards the application of contemporary management accounting associated with strategic management, although still at relatively low levels. These findings are to some extent differences in comparison with the conclusions of Nishimura (2002) and Doan (2012) but consistent with Nguyen's findings (2013). - The applications of management accounting in Vietnam manufacturing enterprises mainly focus on short-term goals, 'day-to-day' operations, such as budgeting and planning, product pricing, and cost control. - The satisfaction level of management accounting information in Vietnam's manufacturing enterprises are still quite low and there is no difference in satisfaction level among enterprises in forms of ownership structures. The study results show that manufacturing enterprises in Vietnam still relies on traditional management accounting to provide information for management in the current business context. Therefore, the lack of information and the low level of satisfaction are understand- 10 JOURNAL OF TRADE SCIENCE able. In order to promote the applications of advanced techniques of management accountSig. ing, the following isues are recommended: .470 - Review, renew and update the accounting curriculums, textbooks and other learning materials for accounting and auditing majors in universities and colleges in Vietnam. - Improve management knowledge for both accountants and management of enterprises. Create the linkages between infomation demands of management and information supplies of accounting system within enterprise. - Enhance the applications of mathematical models through available enterprise management softwares, of which ERP is a typical example. - Apply new advanced techniques such as target costing, activity-base costing (ABC), Balanced Scorecard (BSC), value chain analysis ... in the current business environment, in line with demands and abilitíes of enterprises. 6. Limitation and direction for future research Due to the sample includes the majority of small and medium manufacturing enterprises, so the findings may not represent the adoption of management accounting in large enterprises. On the other hand, the results of the study are limited in the manufacturing enterprises therefore they can not be generalized to enterprises of other fields. Moreover, the investigation carried out only within the manufacturing enterprises operating in three provinces, so the results can not be generalized to the whole country. In the future, it requires extended reseach comprising companies in various sectors, in different provinces in Vietnam. Simultaneously, the sample size should be increased in order to be able to apply not only quantitative but also qualitative research with case studies; as a result, it can be able to generate specific and deeper conclusions on the status of management accounting practices in Vietnam enterprises. References 1. Adams, H.A & Do, T.L. (2005), VNGAAP and VNGAAS: convergence to international accounting and auditing principles. Hanoi: National Political Publisher.