Adoption and Benefits of Management Accounting Systems: Evidence from Finland and Australia

This study provides empirical evidence on management accounting practices in Finnish manufacturing companies. It identifies the adoption of the management accounting practices, received benefits from the adoption and intentions to emphasize the practices in the future. The results indicate that financial measures like product profitability analysis and budgeting for controlling costs is likely to be important in the future, but it is also clear that greater emphasis will be placed on newer practices like customer satisfaction surveys and employee attitudes. The results of the management accounting practices are compared to the findings of a similar study based on Australian data.     

Ownership and performance in Chinese manufacturing industry

The relation between various ownership types and performance measures for 1036 firms in China is examined. State owned enterprises (SOE) are consistently less profitable than mixed enterprises (ME), collective owned enterprises (COE), joint ventures (JV), and foreign owned enterprises (FOE). The SOEs and FOEs are also less productive than MEs, COEs and JVs. The surprisingly low productivity for FOEs may result from the learning curve for international investors doing business in China. Owned by local governments, COEs are more profitable and productive than the central government owned SOEs, possibly because of closer monitoring and harder budget constraints, and better employees and management. The performance of MEs, mostly newly privatized firms, is weaker when related to assets, possibly due to the anomaly that capital investments following their public offerings are not yet on line. The co-existence of economies of scale and over-employment is also evident among Chinese enterprises.     

Political governance in China’s state-owned enterprises

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are both the economic and political bases of the Chinese Communist Party (the Party) and the Chinese state. The overarching principle of SOE reform is to firmly implement the Party’s leadership and the modern enterprise system. This principle creates a political governance system in China’s SOEs—a Party-dominated governance system characterized by Party leadership, state ownership, Party cadre management, Party participation in corporate decision-making, and intra-Party supervision. This survey explains the logic of political governance in China’s SOEs, presents the evolution and current practices of each element of the system, and discusses findings from both academic research and the field.     

管理控制工具的整合模式:理论分析与中国企业的创新——基于中国国有企业的多案例研究

引入和应用西方管理会计(控制)工具是近年来我国企业的一个热门话题,纵观相关文献就会发现每一个管理控制工具(包括预算管理、平衡记分卡、EVA、作业管理等)都试图被定位于一个"全能"的管理控制系统,有意无意地忽略了与其他工具之间的相互补充与整合。由于种种原因,这一问题尚未得到国内学术界足够的重视,而且对西方管理会计工具的介绍性文献远远多于以我国企业为背景的应用研究文献。有鉴于此,本文首先通过对相关理论的归纳、剖析,并依据我们对中国华润集团、中化集团和五矿集团这三个大型国企管理控制工具运用的实地调查,力图对这一问题进行深入的理论分析和实践总结,以期丰富我国企业管理控制的理论,并予以引导实践。     

Budgeting practices and performance in small healthcare businesses

We present evidence linking primary healthcare business characteristics, budgeting practices, and business performance. Based on a sample of 144 responses from a survey of members of the Australian Association of Practice Managers (AAPM), we find that factors identified by contingency-based research are useful for predicting a business's budgeting practices. Specifically, we find the adoption of written budgets to be related to size and structure, and for businesses using written budgets, the extent of use is related to business structure, strategy and perceived environmental uncertainty. Finally, we find evidence of a relationship between budgeting practice and performance. Here, we initially find a business's performance to be positively associated with the use of written budgets. More refined tests of the “fit” between business contingency factors and extent of operating budget use then provide evidence of a positive association between the extent of “fit” and performance.     

Tracing back to the source: Understanding the corporate governance of boards of directors in Chinese SOEs

Based on the relevant theories of corporate governance and the special institutional background of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs), this paper systematically reviews the literature on the independence and governance effect of SOE boards. We find that the governance effect of SOE boards is driven by the dual characteristics of SOEs: state involvement in ownership and market incentives. With the state involved in ownership, SOEs adhere to the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), which results in an enhanced governance effect. Under market incentives, SOEs tend to have an optimal board structure that helps mitigate both the shareholder–management agency problem (Type I agency problem) and the controlling shareholder–minority shareholder agency problem (Type II agency problem). In terms of the governance effect of boards, directors appointed by non-controlling shareholders are effective in alleviating Type I and Type II agency problems, and this highlights the importance of mixed-ownership reforms in SOEs. Independent directors, especially those with a professional background, also play a role in improving corporate governance. However, independent directors in SOEs have relatively weak incentives to monitor, which limits their governance effect. This paper shows positive implications for promoting mixed-ownership reforms and improving board governance in SOEs.     

State ownership and the structuring of lease arrangements

The existing literature provides extensive evidence that firms intentionally structured lease arrangements to achieve off-balance-sheet accounting treatment prior to ASU 842 (FASB, 2016) and IFRS 16 (IASB, 2016). However, this study finds the opposite for Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs): compared to non-SOEs, SOEs in China have a higher tendency to use finance leases rather than operating leases. This result remains significant after we control for the possibility that Chinese capital providers are discriminatively extending credit to SOEs in the form of finance leases. We explain SOEs' preference for finance leases by their executives' empire building incentives. Such incentives are created by the executives' hunger for compensation, promotion and subsidies, which are determined by the government. Consistently, we find that SOEs' engagement in finance leases increases with their incentives to expand the firms' size. And indeed, SOE executives obtain more compensation and subsidies by growing their firms with finance leases. Finally, we find that SOEs with higher borrowing costs structure more finance lease arrangements. Such structuring further increases SOEs' financial leverage and, to some extent, decreases their corporate value. Taken together, these results suggest that the benefit of the ASU 842 (or IFRS 16), which aims to bring leased assets onto the balance sheet, may be impaired in situations where executives have strong incentives to build empires.     

Cloud-based client accounting and small and medium accounting practices: Adoption and impact

Cloud accounting represents a major disruptive technology for the accounting industry. This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews to collect data from eight small and medium accounting practices (SMPs) to test a preliminary model of the determinants and impact of cloud-based client accounting adoption by SMPs. Accordingly, the SMP was the unit of analysis. The complex triadic relationship between SMPs, their clients and cloud accounting provider necessitated an interorganisational perspective. Four factors contributed to SMPs’ adoption decisions: perceived benefits of cloud-based client accounting, perceived benefits of partner programs, organisational readiness (IT sophistication and client readiness), and external pressure (client and competitive pressures). Subsequent to adoption, SMPs experienced a decline in the levels of traditional (statutory) services provided. However, most noted increases in income from business advisory. All firms were at least as well off after adoption. Improvements in client relationships and the perceived value of accountants’ services were also noted. An adoption/impact typology predicted and found positive impacts for cloud initiators, in particular. The findings have implications for owners of SMPs, their SME clients, and for accounting professional bodies.     

Diffusion of Management Accounting Practices in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries*

This study examines how management accounting practices (MAPs) have been adopted and diffused by publicly listed firms in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. The results of our survey show that the adoption rates for MAPs in the area of cost management and strategy are low while those in the area of performance measurement are moderate. Overall, the respondents favorably perceived their success in implementing MAPs. Power and politics, not economic (or cost–benefit) reasons, were considered to be the most influential reasons for nonadoption of MAPs. The results provide partial support to the view that there is a global convergence of management accounting system designs and ideas and also indicate that the role of cultural differences is diminishing over time.     

政府会计基础比较研究——传统的收付实现制与崛起的权责发生制,孰优孰劣?

传统上 ,政府受托责任的核心是反映政府部门预算执行情况以及支出是否符合有关法律法规要求 ,这一定位并不完全适应剧变了的经济环境的内在要求。在当今经济全球化的大背景下 ,政府受托责任的具体内容与形式发生了根本性的变化。是关注现金流以做到切实遵守预算 ,还是注重资源及其使用以提高效率和效果 ,这种由不同的公共管理理念决定的会计目标差异 ,必然导致不同的会计技术选择 ,更直接地说 ,它决定了政府会计方法基础的选择。本文通过对两种会计基础的深入研究 ,认为在政府会计领域采用传统的单一会计基础有一定局限性 ,应该借鉴国际经验有选择地进行权衡取舍 ,循序渐进地实施相关改革。     

Agency costs and tax planning when the government is a major Shareholder

In state owned enterprises (SOEs), taxes are a dividend to the controlling shareholder, the state, but a cost to other shareholders. We examine publicly traded firms in China and find significantly lower tax avoidance by SOEs relative to non-SOEs. The differences are pronounced for locally versus centrally-owned SOEs and during the year of SOE term performance evaluations. We link our results to managerial incentives through promotion tests, finding that higher SOE tax rates are associated with higher promotion frequencies of SOE managers. Our results suggest managerial incentives and tax reporting are conditional on the ownership structure of the firm.     

THE RELUCTANT MANAGERS: CLINICIANS AND BUDGETS IN THE NHS

A review of the literature on management budgeting, combined with recent fieldwork in a number of health authorities, points to major weaknesses in both the theory and practices of management budgeting. The lack of major incentives to clinician participation and of significant penalties for non-participation are seen as central to the failure of management budgeting to achieve either rapid or widespread adoption. In addition, it has been insufficiently appreciated that many managers themselves are less than enthusiastic about the prospects for workload-related budgeting. Finally, it is suggested that, though novel in some important aspects, resource management may often suffer similar difficulties.     

Does Internal Corporate Governance Complement or Substitute for External Auditing? Evidence from China's Anti‐corruption Campaign

Two competing hypotheses have been developed for the relationship between internal corporate governance and external auditing. One proposes a complementary relationship, while the other suggests it is substitutable. This study takes advantage of China's recent anti‐corruption campaign as a quasi‐natural experiment to explore this relationship. Using a difference‐in‐differences approach, we find that, after the campaign, internal corporate governance improved more in SOEs (state‐owned enterprises) than in non‐SOEs. SOEs were less likely to choose Big 10 auditors after the campaign, while audit firms assigned less experienced auditors to their SOE client firms and charged lower audit fees. These effects were more pronounced in SOEs that exhibited greater improvement in corporate governance. Overall, we find the anti‐corruption campaign improved corporate governance in SOEs but, at the same time, reduced external audit quality, which supports the substitution view. We argue that this result might be driven by the fact that SOEs have limited demand for high‐quality accounting information because the Chinese government maintains strong control over the capital markets.     

Accounting and budgeting systems: The issue of congruency

The importance of designing an accounting system that is congruent with an organization's budgeting system has been noted in the literature. Unfortunately, in many government organization it is common to find incompatible budgeting and accounting systems. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether gearing the accounting information system to a zero-base budgeting system increases the perceived usefulness of the budgeting process. This issue is examined under conditions of both scare and abundant resources. Based on an empirical study, it is shown that the usefulness of a budgeting system to budget recipients may indeed be dependent on the accounting information system, conditioned on the availability of resources. Given the relationship between budgeting and public policy, implications of the study for the public policy making process are discussed.     

Financial restructuring of state owned enterprises in China: the case of Shanghai Sunve Pharmaceutical Corporation

This paper studies the financial conditions of a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE) under economic reform. To derive useful financial information from Chinese SOE's socialist accounting records, I analyse the firm's financial structure, measure the implicit economic compensation for workers, and estimate the implicit taxes in the form of compulsory social services. These analyses cast light to various issues related to the reform of SOEs. The paper suggests possible models of financial restructuring of SOEs. A case study on Shanghai Sunve Pharmaceutical Corp illustrates the financial restructuring of SOEs in China.     

Top management turnover,firm performance and government control: Evidence from China's listed state-owned enterprises

Using a sample of 916 Chinese listed state-owned enterprises (SOEs) from 2001 to 2005, we find that the likelihood of top management turnover is negatively associated with firm performance, suggesting the existence of an effective corporate governance mechanism in an emerging economy that is highly controlled by government. We also find that the negative turnover–performance relationship is stronger when the SOE is directly held by the central or local government, holding a monopolistic position in a local economy or in a strategic/regulated industry. The results indicate that the market-based corporate governance mechanism that disciplines top executives as a result of poor performance is not only used in Chinese SOEs, but is used more frequently when the governance control of SOEs is more intense. Our findings support the notion that government control strengthens rather than weakens the turnover–performance governance mechanism. Our additional analysis shows that this complementary effect is stronger in regions that lack pro-market institutions, such as investor protections and a functioning capital market.     

MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Most of the management accounting activity in local government has traditionally been thought of as being confined primarily to the requirements of budget preparation and budgetary control. The budget is generally recognised as being at the heart of planning, decision-making and control and yet there have been many examples of the limitations in conventional budgeting and budgetary control practices being pointed out. It might have been expected that the period of consistent financial stringency faced by local government from 1979 onwards would have quickly exposed any limitations and brought about changes. In reality it seems that the management accounting and budgeting practices in local government responded surprisingly slowly to the financial pressures and it is only with the relatively recent introduction of the 'private sector' philosophies of devolved management and market testing that widespread developments in management accounting have begun to occur. Many of these developments are still evolving and because of this it seemed inappropriate at this stage to attempt a cross-sectional survey of current practices. This paper therefore concentrates on the position in two specific local authorities and examines the current DSO accounting practices. In addition, the analysis undertaken by one of the authorities of the steps needed to implement internal trading accounts for financial support services is discussed and the interesting experimental attempt by one of the authorities to introduce zero base budgeting for a major service is also examined.     

体制不协调与监管瓶颈:我国会计监管体制的演变及路径选择

我国的会计制度改革是为满足国企改革的需要而启动展开的,是我国体制转轨中的一项基础性制度建设。在改革起点上,首先是解决市场会计规则的制定和施行问题,通过新、旧会计制度转换,为国企产权改革提供支持。当国企进入以现代企业制度建设为目标的改革阶段之后,随之出现的大面积会计行为失范和会计秩序混乱,从反面提出了加强会计监管的改革需求。本文认为,在我国体制改革初期制定的会计监管框架与委托代理关系的企业制度存在脱节和错位,会计监管之所以成为制度瓶颈,原因在于对现行会计监管安排的路径依赖。     

IPSAS in Latin America: innovation,isomorphism or rhetoric?

ABSTRACT

Over the past 30 years, many initiatives have been undertaken to reform public administration in Latin American countries. Among other aspects, the reforms seek to improve the transparency and accountability of the public sector by modernizing public accounting and budgeting systems. The adoption of accrual accounting in the public sector has been seen as an innovation and it is driven by the implementation of IPSAS. This paper sheds light on the process of reform of public financial management in Latin America and the state of implementation of IPSAS. The paper analyses the driving forces for adopting or adapting IPSAS, as well as the obstacles and challenges in doing so.     

Anticipating the Impact of IFRS on the Management of German Manufacturing Companies: Some Observations from a British Perspective

The introduction of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in 2005 marked a significant departure from Germany's traditional financial accounting practices. This paper questions whether this change may have consequential effects on the distinctive traditional management accounting practices in the field of Controlling. We examine the possible impact on manufacturing companies drawing upon perceptions and expectations of managers in three Bavarian companies and two management consultancy firms. We consider whether financial accounting will assume an increased importance within firms, and whether this may lead to abandonment of some traditional management accounting practices and the adoption of different techniques in internal reporting compatible with the new IFRS regime for external reporting. This prompts consideration of whether such changes would lead to financial accounting domination of management accounting in Germany analogous to that argued by Johnson and Kaplan in 1987 in their ‘Relevance Lost’ thesis. We conclude that, at this juncture in the development of their information systems, German managers face an important choice between integrating external and internal reporting in ways that might fundamentally change established Controlling practices, or of continuing to operate dual accounting systems in much the same way as in the past so that adoption of IFRS is restricted to external reporting.