Firm size, business sector and quality of accounting information systems: Evidence from Vietnam

 are designed to provide 
common features for all types of businesses, while few businesses design their own packages software depending on their 
organizational characteristics. Although a software package has many functions, its tools are still not appropriate for all users. 
So if firms have enough resources, they should design their system. The system quality of the trade and services sector is rated 
by users as the lowest among the three sectors. The most likely causes of this situation are business characteristics of the trade 
and services sector which are simpler than the other types. Thus, the firms in this sector invest in the accounting information 
system at a lower level. The results of information quality in 3 business sectors show that although the system quality of the 
trade and services sector is lower than the quality of the other two sectors, information quality is evaluated better by users. This 
can be explained by the organizational characteristics of the trade and services sector which are less complicated than the other 
two sectors, so the information needs of stakeholders are better met. The results in this research make theoretical contributions. 
Firstly, the study reinforces the previous research results that the quality of accounting information systems is complex and 
illusive (Petter et al., 2008). So the use of multi-criteria scales will reflect the aspects of quality. Secondly, the result also agrees 
with the assertions of previous researchers such as Delone and McLean (2002) that system quality and information quality are 
the two best measures. The combination of system quality and information quality reflects both the quality of data processing 
and the quality of output information. Both system quality and information quality in Vietnamese enterprises are not really 
outstanding. This can lead to unreliable accounting information for decision-making, similar to the result of Nguyen (2018). 
5.2 The results of hypotheses testing 
Regarding the system quality, the hypothesis H1 examines the relationship between the system quality and the firm size while 
the hypothesis H3 tests the relationship between the system quality and the business sector. Test of homogeneity of variances 
using Leneve statistics is shown in Table 2, there is no significant difference between the two group’s variance of the firm size 
and among the three group’s variance of the business sector. The assumption of homogeneity of variance is met. The firm size 
has a significant impact on the system quality (F(1,502) = 24.693, P-value = .000) while business sector has no effect on the system 
quality (F(2,501) = .508, P-value = .602). For the information quality, the hypothesis H2 and H4 test the relationship between the 
information quality and the firm size, and between the information quality and the business sector. The F value of Leneve 
statistic of the hypothesis H2 is 5.964, with P-value = .015 (P-value < .05) that shows a no homogeneity of variance between the 
two groups of the firm size. Thus, that is no conclusion on the difference in information quality based on the firm size. 
Meanwhile, the Leneve test result of hypothesis H4 meets the assumption of homogeneity of variance (F = .248, P-value = .780), 
but the ANOVA result accepts the null hypothesis that is no significant difference in information quality of accounting 
information system based on the business sector. With four proposed hypotheses, the results of this study do not conclude about 
V. T. T. Binh et al. /Accounting 6 (2020) 333
the hypothesis H02 due to the heterogeneous variance between two groups. The null hypothesis H01 is rejected exposing a 
relationship between the size of firm and system quality. The descriptive result in Figure 3 demonstrates that large-companies 
have a higher system quality than SMEs. SMEs in Vietnam face many resource constraints and suffer from barries to investing 
in infrastructure of the accounting information system. The large-scale firms have more abundant resources to facilitate their 
information system. This result reinforces the study of Thong (1999) or Hajiha and Azizi (2011) on advantages of firm size to 
system quality. The acceptance of null hypotheses H03 and H04 show that there is no relationship between the business sector 
and the quality of accounting information systems. Each business sector has a different business process that leads to a difference 
in the accounting information system quality (Ladewi et al., 2017; Meiryani & Syaifullah, 2015). However, many other 
determinants affect the quality of accounting information systems such as top management support, manager participation in 
implementing accounting information systems, information technology, accounting staff, and so on. These determinants help 
eliminate disparity in the quality of accounting information systems among business sectors. 
6. Conclusion 
This research has explored the quality of accounting information systems. The quality of accounting information systems is 
measured by a multidimensional scale. Whilst system quality refers to the quality of information processing, information quality 
performs the characteristics of output quality. System quality and information quality are two good measures to evaluate the 
quality of accounting information systems. The level of accounting information system quality of firms in Vietnam is not first-
rate. This paper has compared system quality and information quality under a diversity of conditions and demonstrates some 
different characteristics in each group of business sector or firm size. The result has found support for hypothesis H01, which 
proposes a link between system quality and firm size. The results do not support the association between information quality 
and firm size. There is no link between system quality and business sector and no association between information quality and 
business sector as well. The results suggest that the size of firms (which based on the total capital) is a determinant impact on 
the quality of accounting information systems in the aspect of information processing. Based on the results, the study has 
implications for managers to improve business performance. Businesses in different size groups or businesses in different 
business sector groups need to overcome limitations on system quality and information quality. In the context of the IR4.0, 
many transactions are digitized such as transactions with e-tax system or e-banking system. Thus, firms need to invest to 
technology, because technologies impact accounting (Kruskopf et al., 2019), to increase the characteristics of information 
processing systems like “quick response to an inquiry” or “short-time lag in batch processing”. The results of this study are 
crucial because they highlight that state agencies should determine which policies issued for SMEs or which issued for large 
companies. Making support policies appropriate to each type of business to improve the effectiveness of these policies. 
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