STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING BY PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES IN VIETNAM: COMPARISON BY ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE

Abstract

The study aims to compare the use of strategic management accounting (SMA) by organizational structure (level of autonomy, year of establishment, and student size) of Vietnamese public universities. Survey data was collected from 142 accountants of Vietnamese public higher education institutions through questionnaires and regression analysis using SPSS 22 software. The results show that in terms of autonomy, the fully autonomous universities have the most impact on the use of strategic management accounting, followed by non-autonomous universities, and semi-autonomous universities only have an impact on the use of financial metrics. In terms of year of establishment, only universities established less than 20 years old have an impact on the adoption of strategy and use of financial metrics. In terms of student size, the university that enrolls over 5000 students/year has an impact on the use of strategic management accounting in 04 contents, and the one with an enrollment size of fewer than 2000 students/year has an impact on 02 contents of strategic management accounting. The research results help universities to put more emphasis on strategic management accounting information in decision making taking into consideration the organizational structure. This study complements the existing literature review regarding strategic management accounting content and the impact of organizational structure (ownership, age, size) on the use of strategic management accounting by public universities in Vietnam.