Interaction of Management Accounting Information System and Logistics Functions: A Case of a Developing Country-Vietnam

Abstract

Research by Pomberg, Pourjalali, and Aptel (2009) provided insights into hospitals’ logistics department functions in Vietnam. The current study examines the relationship between management accounting and logistics functions of hospitals in Vietnam, in particular how hospitals have improved/intend to improve their accounting and logistics activities to decrease costs and how they have tried to implement known managerial (accounting) systems to improve efficiencies. For the first time, a study shows the influence of management accounting on maturity of logistics functions in hospitals in an environment that is rapidly changing from centrally governed to a more open capital market environments hospitals. Based on survey data from 53 hospitals in Hanoi and surrounding provinces, the study reports whether those environmental changes have resulted in actual or planned changes in management accounting and logistics activities. Our results show that in response to environmental and regulatory changes, Vietnamese hospitals have improved both accounting and logistics function in recent years and are planning to continue their development further. We also found that there is a direct relationship between accounting information and maturity of logistic functions. Our sensitivity tests revealed that our results are not derived from methodology used in developing indices for accounting and logistics functions.

Keywords: Hospital costing, logistics, accounting information systems, Vietnam

JEL Classification: M40, J53, M11