An analysis of the adoption, perceived benefits, and expected future emphasis of western management accounting practices in Chinese SOEs and JVs

Abstract

This paper considers the adoption, perceived benefits, and expected future emphasis of western management accounting practices in the Chinese emerging market economy based on a sample of 64 joint ventures (JVs) and 115 State Owned Enterprises (SOE) gathered from a questionnaire survey. The study finds that the level of adoption of management accounting practices is most influenced by ownership type of the enterprise (JV or SOE) and to a lesser extent by the nature of the management accounting techniques to be adopted. A further significant finding is that management accounting practices such as budgeting for controlling costs, profit and sales budgeting, and target costing are perceived to be more beneficial for SOEs compared to JVs. However, responsibility accounting which is traditionally associated with SOEs and accounting for decision making is perceived to be less beneficial to SOEs compared with JVs.