Applying a New Public Management Model to Public Sector Management Accounting in Vietnam

DOI

10.2991/aebmr.k.211119.042How to use a DOI?

Keywords

management accounting; public sector organization; public accounting; New Public Management

Abstract

The crucial strategies will only work effectively when being combined with information from organizations’ management accounting system. The New Public Management Model is considered to be a modern tool for governance reform in the public sector of any country. This is also an approach to improve transparency of public sector financial and accounting work, enhance the promotion of entities’ management accounting on the basis of increased accountability, promote the budgeting that is depending on the outcome and operating results. Nevertheless, most of the previous studies in management accounting have primarily been conducted at the companies for increasing operational efficiency, while the public sector organizations still need information provided by both management accounting and the firms, especially in this fast economic integration era all over the world. Therefore, the main objective of this article is to provide an overview of this new governance model, together with five key points and eight concerns when being applied into public managerial accounting in Vietnam. Furthermore, the paper uses a mixed method, combining interviews and a survey questionnaire on 252 public sector accountants and managers with the theoretical background and previous researches, to explore the five advanced critical factors influencing the application of NPM to managerial accounting system in Vietnam.

Research purpose:

Public management accounting in many countries has mostly been based on experience but not current information, leading to unclear information provided to the managers. The main purpose of this research is to identify the factors affecting the application of new NPM model into management accounting work in order to lead to increased accountability for those entities.

Research motivation:

Management accounting is part of an organization’s information system. Managers would rely on the system’s information to plan and control an organization’s activities. Based on the information provided by that type of accounting, the managers could provide better-guided activities for the companies. The importance of management accounting is to clearly show how the management controls the financial status of organization. From there, the motivation of internal managers in public sector organizations is to effectively obtain crucial data from accounting system to make accurate and timely unit’s decisions. This can be considered as the main duty to accompany the development and operation of the business. Therefore, management accounting always needs close attention and should utilize new model.

Research design, approach, and method:

Based on previously published studies along with a theoretical basis to identify research gaps, it aims at designing an appropriate research process based on applying mixed methods, which is a combination of quantitative research and qualitative research. In other words, the article combines interviews with survey questionnaires on 252 public sector accountants and managers through.

Main findings:

The structure of related legal documents, risk assessment in accounting procedures, strategic activities of managers in organizations; the information system of accounting and communication as well as the competence of managers and accountants are five important factors affecting the application of the NPM model in managerial accounting in the Vietnamese context.

Practical/managerial implications:

The results of this study have pointed towards two groups of policy implications for theoretical and practical implications. From the theoretical perspective, the study has learned more about the NPM model and discovered new five factors as compared to previous studies. When it comes to the practical field, if leaders would like to successfully deploy the NPM model, the top managers of public organizations need to make changes to the human resource management procedures, understand legal dossiers and create a standard of procedures in order to keep the operation aligned with the set goals.

Copyright

© 2021 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press International B.V.

Open Access

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Nguyen Phuoc Bao AN
AU  - Le VIET
AU  - Pham Quang HUY
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/12/07
TI  - Applying a New Public Management Model to Public Sector Management Accounting in Vietnam
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Emerging Challenges: Business Transformation and Circular Economy (ICECH 2021)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 455
EP  - 461
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/aebmr.k.211119.042
DO  - 10.2991/aebmr.k.211119.042
ID  - AN2021
ER  -