Đề xuất mô hình nghiên cứu các nhân tố ảnh hưởng đến việc áp dụng kế toán trách nhiệm trong doanh nghiệp

PROPOSING A MODEL OF FACTORS AFFECTING THE APPLICA-
TION OF RESPONSIBILITY ACCOUNTING IN ENTERPRISES
ĐỀ XUẤT MÔ HÌNH NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC NHÂN TỐ 
ẢNH HƯỞNG ĐẾN VIỆC ÁP DỤNG KẾ TOÁN 
TRÁCH NHIỆM TRONG DOANH NGHIỆP
MA. Chu Thi Huyen - Ass. Prof.Dr. Pham Duc Hieu
Thuongmai University
chuthihuyendhtm@gmail.com
Abstract
Vietnamese economy has been constantly integrating into the world. The integration
process has created opportunities but also posed many difficulties and challenges. Therefore,
local enterprises are searching for effective management tools that assist them in making deci-
sions. One of the key management tools is responsibility accounting (RA). RA is an effective gov-
ernance tool to execute control over both financial and strategic aspects, strengthen sustainable
development of enterprises in integration stage. However, the application of RA in enterprises
depends on many internal and external factors. By reviewing previous research, the authors syn-
thesize and propose a research model for future empirical studies on factors affecting application
of RA in Vietnam. 
Keywords: Responsibility accounting, Influencing factors, Enterprises, Vietnam
Tóm tắt
Nền kinh tế Việt Nam đã và đang ngày càng hội nhập với nền kinh tế thế giới. Quá trình
này đã tạo ra nhiều cơ hội nhưng cũng đặt ra không ít những khó khăn, thách thức. Bối cảnh đó
đặt ra cho các doanh nghiệp Việt Nam phải nghiên cứu các công cụ quản lý hiệu quả nhằm phục
vụ cho việc ra quyết định. Một trong những công cụ quản lý quan trọng đó là kế toán trách nhiệm.
Kế toán trách nhiệm là một công cụ quản lý hiệu quả nhằm thực hiện việc kiểm soát trên cả góc
độ tài chính và chiến lược, tăng cường sự phát triển bền vững cho các doanh nghiệp trong giai
đoạn hội nhập. Tuy nhiên, việc áp dụng kế toán trách nhiệm trong doanh nghiệp phụ thuộc vào
rất nhiều yếu tố cả bên trong lẫn bên ngoài doanh nghiệp. Qua tổng hợp các nghiên cứu tiền
nhiệm, nhóm nghiên cứu tiến hành tổng hợp và đề xuất mô hình nghiên cứu cho các nghiên cứu
thực nghiệm trong tương lai về các nhân tố ảnh hưởng đến việc áp dụng kế toán trách nhiệm ở
Việt Nam.
Từ khoá: Kế toán trách nhiệm, các nhân tố ảnh hưởng, doanh nghiệp, Việt Nam
1. Introduction
In the context of international economic integration, businesses have realized that for better
decision-making they should rely on advanced management techniques. Among them, the one
that helps businesses develop sustainably is responsibility accounting (RA) (Nguyen, 2017; Tran,
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2017; Meda, 2003). RA is a management control system based on the principles of delegating
authorities and assigning responsibilities in an enterprise. The authorities and responsibilities are
delegated to managers of different responsibility centers (i.e. investment center, revenue center,
cost center, and profit center). Therefore, RA is expected to provide financial and non-financial
information useful for evaluating managers or heads of departments performance on what is under
their control. The primary objective of responsibility accounting is to motivate managers and
their subordinates by emphasizing their performance.
Starting with Higgins’ research in 1952, RA is an interesting research topic for more than
70 years. Research findings show that RA has made a significant contribution to the success of
businesses operating in different fields around the world, such as manufacturing (Lin and Yu,
2002; Akenbor et al., 2013), bank industry (Pajrok, 2014; Hanini, 2013), and healthcare services
(Nyakuwanik et al., 2012; Karasioglu et al., 2012). However, not all businesses can successfully
apply RA. In Vietnam, RA is still a new concept in both theoretical and practical aspects and not
widely adopted by local companies. Recently, some empirical researches try to provide and ex-
plain the reasons for the late adoption of RA in Vietnam. However, the findings are contradictory
and lack of generalization due to the absence of a stable research framework. Therefore, this is
the main reason that motivates the authors to develop a research model on factors affecting the
application of RA in Vietnam. The main purpose of this paper is that the proposed research frame-
work will be tested by empirical studies in Vietnam in order to recognize the facilitating factors
for the adoption of RA in Vietnamese firms in the coming time.
The paper is structured as follows. The next section presents theoretical framework that
considers as foundation for RA development. The third section is literature review and research
hypothesis development, followed by the proposed research framework for studying factors af-
fecting RA application in Vietnam. Finally, the paper concludes with conclusions and directions
for future research.
2. Theoretical framework
2.1. Agency Theory
Agency theory refers to shareholders, ‘the principals’, and managers, ... ifications.
3. Literature Review, Hypothesis Development and Proposed Research Model
Company size: Nowak (2000) and Zimnicki (2015) argue that the company size affects
the definition of responsibility centers. They state that besides the size of the company, the types
of centres are affected by the following factors: the scope and specificity of the company’s activity,
the complexity of the economic process, and the ability to define the scope of authorities and re-
sponsibilities. The studies of RaJan (2011) and Alshormaly (2013) conclude that the size of rev-
enue, total assets, employees and financial resources have significant influence on RA application.
Mohamad et al. (2014) show that RA is related with the size of an organization. It is useful for
the large-scale companies, while small-scale companies are not useful as compared to large scale.
According to Kamilah (2012) and Quesado et al. (2016), there is an impact of company size on
the application of RA in a firm. Research shows that large-scale enterprises, to better manage
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them, need to implement decentralization and this affects the RA organization in the business.
Similarly, the studies of Tran (2105), Ngo and Ngo (2018), Le and Pham (2018), Huynh and Ta
(2018), Ma and Tran (2019), Tran et al. (2020) conclude that organization size has a positive im-
pact on the application of RA. Inspired from the above studies, the first hypothesis is generated
as follows:
Hypothesis 1: Company size has a positive influence on the application of RA in Viet-
namese enterprises.
Enterprise’s characteristics: The establishment of RA depends on characteristics of each
enterprise (Shields, 1995). Nowak (2000) argues that the specificity of business operations is one
of the factors affecting the responsibility centers. Meanwhile, the identification of responsibility
centers is an important content of RA. Research by Venkatrathnam and Reddy (2008) also showed
that RA is related to corporate control system because it is based on the principles of authorization
and determination of responsibility. Similarly, Fowzia (2011) also emphasizes that RA is a control
tool under the enterprise’s control system. So the control system is a factor that affects RA in an
enterprise. Nguyen et al. (2019) state that we need to use enterprise characteristics to design the
RA system that is suitable and effective when operating control activities for target objectives.
The divisions of an organization into responsibility centers are based on its operational charac-
teristics (Nguyen, 2020). The researches of Nguyen et al. (2019) and Bui (2019) show that orga-
nization’s operational characteristics affect the application RA of businesses. Therefore, the
second hypothesis is developed:
Hypothesis 2: Firm’s characteristics have a positive influence on the application of RA in
Vietnamese enterprises.
Accountant qualifications: Researches by Haldma and Laats (2002), Alomiri (2003), Is-
mail and King (2007) shows that the accountant’s qualifications are related to the level of RA
application in an enterprise. The qualifications of accountants are considered as one of the po-
tential factors that can affect the organization of RA in the business. McChlery et al. (2004) claim
that qualified accountants helps RA in business growth. The study of Nawaiseh et al. (2014) also
indicated that the insufficiency of employee training programs in managerial accounting in Jor-
danian Industrial Companies listed at Amman Stock Exchange was one of the factors hindering
the implementation of RA at a very high level, accounting for 74.8%. Similarly, the research re-
sults of Ern et al. (2016) also show that the presence of qualified accountants is related to the
high degree of RA application. The research results of Nguyen (2015), Tran and Ly (2018), Le
and Pham (2018), Huynh and Ta (2018), Ma and Tran (2019), Nguyen and Le (2019) showed
that accountant qualifications affect the RA applications. From previous results, the next hypoth-
esis is formulated as follows 
Hypothesis 3: Accountant qualifications have a positive influence on the application of
RA in Vietnamese enterprises.
Management decentralization: Vlogel (1962) refers to the construction and establishment
of RA in an enterprise, the author believes that RA should be built on the basis of management
decentralization to collect information, implement business control, and provide information for
managers to make effective decisions. Similarly, Gordon (1963) shows that RA only actives when
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the business is decentralized and organized. The studies of Belkaoui (1981) and Anderson (1995)
also state that management decentralization has a significant influence on the application of RA
in an enterprise. In 1997, Atkitson et al. concluded that RA can only be implemented when the
business has a clearly decentralized organizational structure. Similarly, by analyzing the factors
that influence the RA system, the studies of Casey et al. (2008), Fowzia (2009), Fowzia (2011),
Smith et al. (2012), Nguyen (2015), Ngo and Vu (2017), Ngo and Ngo (2018), Tran and Ly
(2018), Huynh and Ta (2018), Nguyen et al. (2019), Bui (2019), Ma and Tran (2019), Nguyen
(2020) show that management decentralization affects the application of RA in enterprises. Hence,
the next hypothesis is developed.
Hypothesis 4: Management decentralization has a positive influence on the application of
RA in Vietnamese enterprises.
Manager’s educational background and awareness: Gordon (1963) argued that if econ-
omists were only interested in economic efficiency without caring about attitudes of subordinate
administrators, the RA would not be able to fulfill its inherent role. Koske and Muturi (2015)
argue that when managers understand the usefulness of RA in performance assessment, the more
likely they apply RA for its benefits. Shixian (2014) believes that the application of RA in busi-
nesses is significantly affected by the training and qualifications of business leaders. Nyakuwanika
et al. (2012) identify the relationship between the human factors and RA, without the participation
of managers in the design of the RA system, it will not be effective. The research results of
Nguyen (2015), Tran (2105), Ngo and Vu (2017), Tran and Ly (2018), Le and Pham (2018), Ngo
and Ngo (2018), Huynh and Ta (2018), Ma and Tran (2019), Nguyen and Le (2019), Tran et al.
(2020) show that manager’s educational background and awareness has an impact on the organ-
izations of RA. As a result, the following hypothesis is formulated as follows:
Hypothesis 5: Manager’s educational background and awareness have a positive influence
on the application of RA in Vietnamese enterprises.
Competition: Researches by Hwang (2005), Huang et al. (2010) emphasized the need to
consider the level of competition in management accounting in general and RA in particular. Ac-
cording to Doan (2012), the competition factor implies the extent to which an enterprise have to
cope with rivals in terms of sources of raw materials, human resources, product quality, services,
prices, distribution channels, and diversity of products. The studies of Libby and Waterhouse
(1996), Granlund and Lukka (1998), Mia and Clare (1999), and O’Conner et al. (2004) state that
the keener the competition an enterprise is facing, the more management accounting devices are
employed. Similarly, Doan’s (2012) conclusion also shows that the competition has profound
impacts on strategic management accounting application. The studies of Ahmad (2012), Le and
Pham (2018) show that competition has an impact on the application of RA in enterprises.
Hypothesis 6: Competition has a positive influence on the application of RA in Vietnamese
enterprises.
Legal environment: Li (2017) believes that legal environment is an important external fac-
tor and forms a good foundation for the development of management accounting. RA is a part of
management accounting needs to be flexible in order to adapt to changes in the legal environment
(Shields, 1995). Nguyen et al. (2019) show that legal environment is one of the factors that affect
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the performance of animal feed processing enterprises in Vietnam. Nguyen (2015), Nguyen et
al. (2019) and Bui (2019) believe that the legal environment positively affects organizations of
RA.
Hypothesis 7: Legal environment has a positive influence the application of RA in Viet-
namese enterprises.
From hypothesis development presented above, the factors affecting RA application in
Vietnamese enterprises can be summarized on the proposed research model below. 
(Source: Collected from literature review)
Figure 1: Research model on factors affecting the application of RA in enterprises
5. Conclusions and direction for future research
In the rapid changing business environment, companies are required to utilize all of their
resources to pursue competitive advantage. RA is a way to gain sustainable competitive advantage
by helping manager have valuable information for making decisions. RA can be applied in various
organizations. However, it depends on numerous factors, such as organization size, accountant
qualifications, management decentralization, competition, manager’s educational background
and awareness, legal environment, and enterprise’s characteristics. 
The main aim of this paper is to propose a theoretical model for empirical studies on factors
affecting the application of RA in Vietnam. In the coming time, the empirical studies will be car-
ried out in order to verify the hypotheses generated from proposal research model. The findings
from empirical studies will be foundations for recommendations to facilitate the application of
RA in Vietnamese enterprises. 
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