Mediating effect of strategic management accounting practices in the relationship between intellectual capital and corporate performance: evidence from Vietnam

Abstract

The organizations with strong level of intellectual capital should have developed management accounting with strategic directions that support such endeavors. In the history of IC accounting research, the focus of empirical studies has always been the direct relationship between intellectual capital components and corporate performance. A little research investigates that intellectual capital has an indirect relationship to corporate performance via the mediating role of management accounting. Furthermore, Vietnamese managers have not actually realized the critical value of intellectual capital in their managing process; hence, this study is expected to raise Vietnamese managers’ awareness in terms of intellectual capital. This study investigates empirically the issue of whether an organization develops strategic management accounting (SMA) system that supports intellectual capital (IC) which in turn to enhance its financial performance. If doing so, how SMA manages IC components to boost an organization’s financial performance. Using secondary data drawn from Vietnamese listed companies and Public’s Value-Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAICTM) as the efficiency measure of IC components and primary data through questionnaire survey to investigate the level of SMA practices, the author constructs regression model to examine the relationship between IC components and corporate performance via the mediating role of SMA practices. In addition, this study also analyses which group of SMA practices are related to manage which components of IC. The results support the hypothesis that firms’ IC has a positive impact on the level of SMA practices and corporate performance. The author finds that under the mediating role of SMA practices, SMA practices fully or partially mediates the positive influence of IC components over corporate performance. Finally, in terms of IC management, the study highlights only strategic accounting approaches are used to manage human capital. The findings validate the usefulness of all groups of SMA practices as techniques to manage structural capital. Except for strategic accounting approaches, three remaining groups of SMA practices are most appropriately situated as techniques of relational capital management. This study contributes to bridge the research gap and adds to existing resources management literature on the Resources (i.e. intellectual capital) – Practices (i.e. SMA practices) – Performance (i.e. financial performance) link. It discoveries three-stage value creating process and thereby presents the implications for integrations of SMA practices into IC management. In addition, this study contributes to a growing body of literature providing empirical evidence on IC and SMA practices roles in improving investment efficiency. This study provides an alarming to Vietnamese managers to become more aware of the role played by intellectual capital in generating a firm’s value, with support from the techniques of SMA. Therefore, new demands of Vietnamese managers are being imposed on management accounting to capture, measure and report IC value and performance.