Low employee work motivation a case of south tax consulting co , ltd

Customers leaving South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd is mainly due to dissatisfaction with service quality that the company provided, in specific,inaccuracy in preparing accounting reports..

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-Pham Thi Thuy Trang

LOW EMPLOYEE WORK

MOTIVATION: A CASE OF SOUTH TAX CONSULTING CO., LTD

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2019

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-Pham Thi Thuy Trang

LOW EMPLOYEE WORK

MOTIVATION: A CASE OF SOUTH TAX CONSULTING CO., LTD

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

SUPERVISOR: ASSOC PROF DR NGUYEN THI MAI TRANG

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2019

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 4

LIST OF TABLES 5

LIST OF FIGURES 5

1 Company introduction 7

1.1 Company background 7

1.2 Business performance 10

2 Symptoms 13

3 Problem analysis 18

3.1 Problem identification 18

3.1.1 Initial cause and effect map 19

3.1.2 Potential problems 24

3.1.2.1 Work overload 24

3.1.2.2 Employee with unqualified knowledge, skill and ability 25

3.1.2.3 Insufficient supervisor support 26

3.1.2.4 Low employee work motivation 26

3.1.3 Updated cause and effect map 28

3.1.4 Updated possible problems 29

3.1.4.1 Work overload 29

3.1.4.2 Employee with unqualified knowledge, skill and ability 31

3.1.4.3 Insufficient supervisor support 33

3.1.4.4 Low employee work motivation 34

3.2 Problem validation 36

4 Main problem definition and consequences 38

4.1 Main problem definition 38

4.2 Main problem consequences 39

5 Cause analysis 41

5.1 Potential causes 41

5.1.1 No appreciation for job well done 42

5.1.1.1 No performance appraisal system 42

5.1.1.2 No compliment from manager for outstanding employee 43

5.1.2 No promotion and career advancement for current employee 44

5.1.2.1 Unqualified for mid level supervisor position 44

5.1.2.2 Insufficient trust from manager 45

5.1.3 Unpleasant work space 45

5.1.3.1 Poorly equipped office 46

5.1.3.2 Poorly designed office 47

5.1.3.3 Working office impacted by so much noise 48

5.2 Cause validation 50

6 Alternative solutions 52

6.1 Alternative solution 1: Investing in necessary equipment for working 52

6.2 Alternative solution 2: Redecorating the current office 54

6.3 Alternative solution 3: Renting new office 55

6.4 Solution justification 57

7 Change plan design 59

7.1 Objectives 59

7.2 Targeted outcomes 59

1

7.3 Action plan implementation 60

8 Conclusion 62

9 Supporting information 63

9.1 Methodology 63

9.2 Interview guide 63

9.3 Transcripts 64

References 81

Appendix 90

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Recently, the financial statement of South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd has experienced adrop in revenue This circumstance is mostly impacted by increasing in number ofdefection customers Customers leaving South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd is mainly due

to dissatisfaction with service quality that the company provided, in specific,inaccuracy in preparing accounting reports In order to discover the issues that SouthTax Consulting Co., Ltd is facing with, meeting with CEO of the company as well asinterviewing relevant employee in accounting department and defection customers in

2018 has been implemented

Through interviewing relevant subjects, using data provided by the company and usingrelated theory, main problem was identified as low employee work motivation.Towards main problem of low employee work motivation, three potential causes havebeen found out are no appreciation for job well done, no promotion and careeradvancement for current employee and unpleasant work space After analysis, maincause that chosen to solve is unpleasant work space This study will focus on solution

to solve this cause in order to help the company improve business performance

Firstly, I sincerely thank ISB for giving me useful knowledge which possibly applies

to my study as well as support during the time of thesis Secondly, I would like toexpress my gratitude to my Supervisor - Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Thi Mai Trang whohas supported me during the time doing this thesis Without the guidance and supportfrom Supervisor, my thesis can not be completed promptly Thirdly, I am also grateful

to members of South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd who showed patient and support to help

me prepare this thesis Finally, I would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to

my family members for sympathizing and encouraging me to complete my Masterprogram

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Fundamental information about competitors of South Tax Consulting Co.,

Ltd – March 2019 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)Table 2 Categories of service provided by South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd – March

2019 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)Table 3 Revenue in each group of customer at South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd in

2018 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)Table 4 Fluctuation in number of micro trading customer of South Tax Consulting

Co., Ltd in the period of 2014 - 2018 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co.,Ltd)

Table 5 Details about cases that inaccurate in tax reports in micro trading group –

announced by tax authority in 2018 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co.,Ltd)

Table 6 Number of customers in each accountant‟s portfolio at STC in 2018

(Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)Table 7 Measurement of average time to complete main task for accountant in

South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd (Source: Author synthesis)Table 8 Details about experience of accountants in South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd

– March 2019 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)Table 9 Assessment of knowledge, skill and ability of accountants in South Tax

Consulting Co., Ltd (Source: Author synthesis)Table 10 Measurement of average time to complete main task for manager in South

Tax Consulting Co., Ltd (Source: Author synthesis)Table 11 Assessment of motivation of accountants in South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd

(Source: Author synthesis)Table 12 Fluctuation in number of customers at South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd in

2014 – 2018 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)Table 13 Assessment for “Poorly equipped office” (Author synthesis)

Table 14 Assessment for “Poorly designed office” (Author synthesis)

Table 15 Assessment for working environment in South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd

(Author synthesis)Table 16 Costs for alternative solution 1 (Author synthesis)

Table 17 Cost for alternative solution 2 (Author synthesis)

Table 18 Cost for renting – alternative solution 3 (Author synthesis)

Table 19 Costs for office decoration – alternative solution (Author synthesis)

Table 20 Costs for best solution (Author synthesis)

Table 21 Action plan (Author synthesis)

Table 22 Detailed description and objective for specific task (Author synthesis)

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Company structure of South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd – March 2019

(Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)Figure 2 Number of customers in each group of business of South Tax Consulting

Co., Ltd at the end of 2018 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)

Figure 3: Process in accounting service of South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd – March

2019 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)Figure 4 Revenue and profit from 2014 to 2018 of South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd

(Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)Figure 5 Revenue in each group of customer of South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd in

2018 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)Figure 6 The revenue growth rate of micro trading customers at South Tax

Consulting Co., Ltd from 2015 to 2018 (Source: South Tax ConsultingCo., Ltd)

Figure 7 Number of micro trading customers at the year end in the period of 2014 –

2018 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)Figure 8: Initial cause and effect map (Author synthesis)

Figure 9 Updated cause and effect map (Author synthesis)

Figure 10 The growth rate of revenue from 2015 to 2018 of South Tax Consulting

Co., Ltd (Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)Figure 11 Fish bone diagram of main problem in South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd

(Author synthesis)Figure 12 Final cause and effect map (Author synthesis)

Figure 13 Gantt-chart for action plan (Author synthesis)

1 Company introduction

1.1 Company background

South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd (STC) was established in July 2011 The company islocated in Phu Nhuan District, Ho Chi Minh City The firm‟s business is providingaccounting service for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Phu NhuanDistrict CEO of South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd is Mr Vuong who has over 10 yearsexperience in accounting service area The structure of the company is simple It has

11 employees, in specific, 10 people in Accouting department (4 senior employeesincluding 2 employees with more than 3 years experience and 2 employees with morethan 2 years experience and 6 junior employees under 1 year up to 1 year experience)and 1 delivery man The responsibility of Mr Vuong – CEO is general management,developing new customers (as sales employee role), taking care of existing customersand supervising for accounting department Accountants are responsible for directlyserving the accounting service to customers and delivery man is responsible forreceiving – delivering accounting documents between the company and customers.Company structure is presented as following

Figure 1 Company structure of South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd – March 2019 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)

Up to the end of 2018, STC has got 182 customers In terms of customer‟s businessarea, they have 4 groups of customer, such as service, manufacturing, construction andtrading In terms of customer size, they have 3 groups of customer, such as customerswho have under 10 billion VND in revenue per year, customers who have 10 up to 50billion VND in revenue per year and customers who have over 50 billion VND in

revenue per year At the end of 2018, the main group of customer of South TaxConsulting Co., Ltd are the corporates which run business in trading and have the sizeunder 10 billion VND per year in revenue (counted for 65/182 customers of thecompany) According to Clause 1, Article 6 of Decree 39/2018/ND-CP on 11 March

2018 about Determining Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, this group of customer

is determining as micro enterprises Thus the main group of customers of STC is microenterprises in trading

2018, thus it takes a trivial part of market share of this area in Ho Chi Minh City.Accounting service providers in Phu Nhuan District do not have big difference inservice as well as price offering to customers As responses of Mr Vuong, herecognized 3 companies as his company‟s competitors in the area of Phu Nhuan

District These corporates provides the same service to customers and the price ofservice that they offer to customers are equivalent to each others In the aspect ofcompany size, their revenue in 2018 is around 3.3 – 5 billion VND In details:

Tran Cuong Co., Ltd 2012 3,300,000,000 800,000 - 4,000,000

is not much different Thus the price that they offer to customers is very competitive.Services are offered by the company as follows:

Core service Accounting service:

− Preparing tax reports

− Preparing accounting books

− Preparing financial reports

Supplementary service − Classifying, arranging and storing accounting

documents

Table 2 Categories of service provided by South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd – March

2019 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)

STC has two types of service providing to customers Firstly, core service isaccounting service including preparing tax reports, accounting books and financialreports for customers This is the main source that generates revenue for the company.Secondly, supplementary service is the service added for customers and this type ofservice is free Supplementary service includes classifying, arranging and storingaccounting documents for customers

The process for main accounting service such as preparing tax reports, financialreports and accounting books for customers at STC is presented as below diagram.

Figure 3 Process in accounting service of South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd – March

2019 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)

The Figure 3 shows main steps in the accounting service such as preparing tax reports,financial reports and accounting books for clients at STC from gathering accountingdocuments from customers to the end of the process that finishing tax reports, financialreports and accounting books Tax reports and financial reports after completing will

be submitted to tax authority Accounting books and documents of the whole calendaryear will be returned to customers

1.2 Business performance

Based on the Figure 4, in the period of 2014 – 2018, the company‟s revenue tends toincrease In specific, the revenue in 2018 increases 554 million VND (equivalent to thegrowth rate of 17.6%) compared to revenue in 2014 From 2014 to 2017, the revenueincreases from 3.15 billion VND to 3.75 billion VND (equivalent to the growth rate of

19%) In 2018, the revenue decreases slightly from 3.75 billion VND to 3.7 billionVND (equivalent to the growth rate of -1.22%).

it, the firm‟s business may get worse

Based on data that the company provided, revenue in each group of customer is listed

as follows:

Type of < 10 billion 10 - 50 billion > 50 billion Total (VND)

53.7% over total sales Particularly, the group of micro trading customer takes 65.8%sales in trading group This is the one that contributes the most in total revenue at STC.

Figure 5 Revenue in each group of customer of South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd in 2018 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)

From the company data in Figure 5, there are 3 group of customers which contributedthe most in revenue such as trading – sales under 10 billion VND per year (35.29%),trading – sales from 10 to 50 billion VND per year (16.93%) and construction – salesunder 10 billion VND per year (12.83%) The group of customer in trading – salesunder 10 billion VND per year is the main group of customer of STC whichcontributes the most in proportion of sales for the company Therefore, micro tradingcustomers is the group of customer that the study focuses on The below chart willpresent the revenue growth rate of micro trading customers from 2015 to 2018

Revenue growth rate (%)

Figure 6 The revenue growth rate of micro trading customers at South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd from 2015 to 2018 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)

From Figure 6, the revenue growth rate of micro trading customer group tends todecrease continuously in the period of 2015 – 2018 In specific, the revenue growthrate was 9.52% in 2015 and it decreased consecutively until down to minus 1.79% in

2018 In the next part, the symptom that links to sequential decrease in revenue growthrate of this group of customer will be figured out

2 Symptoms

As interview with Mr Vuong – CEO:

„In recent years, my company performance is not good The revenue growth rate of

my company tends to be slow down, especially the main group of customer – microtrading customers The number of existing customers that leaving my company tends

to increase more than new customers Thus it impacts on the revenue of my company.‟(Mr Vuong, CEO of STC, 34 years old)

As Mr Vuong mentioned, the revenue growth rate tends to be slow down recently Heclaimed for the decrease in number of existing customers had overcome the increase innew customers, thus it impacts to the revenue of the company The chart below willshow the number of micro trading customers at STC at the year end in the period of

Figure 7 Number of micro trading customers at the year end in the period of 2014 –

2018 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)

In general, the number of micro trading customers increase in the period of 2014 –

2018, in particularly, there were from 53 customers in 2014 up to 64 customers in

2018 However, the growth rate of customer of the firm tends to decrease in thisperiod We can see that the increment in number of customers each year from 2014 to

2018 has decreased continuously in this period of time In 2018, number of microtrading customers in STC is 64, decreased 2 customers compared to the one in 2017

On the other hand, the number of customers who stop working with STC tends toovercome the number of new customers of the company That makes the number ofcustomers of the firm decrease, especially in 2018 In the period of 2014 – 2018, thenumber of micro customers in trading stop using the accounting service of STC reach

23 firms, account for 29.87% over the total of ex-customer in this period of time Thisgroup of customer is the main one in STC Thus it impacts the most on the totalrevenue of STC Details are as follows

Table 4 Fluctuation in number of micro trading customer of South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd in the period of 2014 - 2018 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)

Based on data in Table 4, the leaving customer number tends to increase year by yearfrom 2 up to 8 customers from 2014 to 2018, especially increase sharply in the period

of 2016 – 2018 There are 5 customers leaving in 2016, 7 customers leaving in 2017and 8 customers leaving in 2018 In contrast, new customer number tends to downturn,especially from 2016 to 2018, from 9 customers in 2016 down to 6 customers in 2018

It results in the downturn of customer number at the year end from 2014 to 2018 Thedownturn trend of the group of micro trading enterprise is the same as the trend of thetotal customer portfolio of the company Thus it may represent for the whole customerportfolio of the company However, there is a noticeable fluctuation in the period of

2016 – 2018 in this kind of customer The decrease in new customers and loss incurrent customers in micro trading group of customers that partly contribute to thedecrease in sales growth at STC

Furthermore, the revenue of the corporate comes from two sources: revenue fromexisting customers and from new customers Therefore, the issue of decreasing in totalnumber of customers indicates something wrong with the business of STC We need to

consider two aspects of the issue: Firstly, why number of existing customers leaving

the company increase? Secondly, why number of new customers decrease? It is the

starting point that we need to work with in order to find out the trouble in the business

of STC However, based on Pareto Rule (1), it mentioned the rule that a smallproportion of a total input contributed for a large proportion of the total output It iscommonly called as the 80/20 rule (1) In case of STC, the study will focus on themain group of customer – micro trading customers, which possibly represents for theall groups of customer at STC Thus if we can figure out the problem that occurred tomicro trading customers, it can be the one that happened to the company business Inaddition, researchers also stated that in managing customer relationship, it is necessaryfor corporates to emphasize on long-term relationship customers in order to increasetheir profitability (2) Based on the aforesaid study (2), it stresses on the important role

of existing customers towards the company business Thus, in case of STC, this studyfocuses on the issue that why number of existing customers leaving the companyincrease rather than why number of new customers decrease Therefore, the study willfocus on the issue that number of existing micro trading customers leaving STCincreases

Why number of existing micro trading customers leaving the company increase?

As responses of Mr Sang – CEO of Minh Sang Co., Ltd:

„I can not trust in STC when they prepared my company tax reports inaccurately Mycompany was fined by tax authority and this made me unsatisfied with accountingservice provided by STC.‟ (Mr Sang, CEO of Minh Sang Co., Ltd, 38 years old)Due to the reason that Minh Sang Co., Ltd was punished by tax authority and the causewas because South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd prepared their tax reports with deficitcorporate tax value, it leads to the circumstance that customers must submitsupplementary tax and fines for tax authority It caused a loss for customers thus itmade customers feel dissatisfied and unable to trust in accounting service quality thatSouth Tax Consulting Co., Ltd provided to them

As interview Mr Vuong – CEO of South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd:

„There are two elements that we need to satisfy customers‟ expectation: accuracy inpreparing tax reports and timeliness in delivery tax reports Recently, there are variouscases happen in STC mainly related to failure in preparing accurate tax reports forclients, in specific, inaccurate calculation on client‟s corporate income tax.‟ (Mr.Vuong, CEO of STC, 34 years old)

As responses of Mr Vuong, in accounting service, customers require for accuracy in preparing tax reports and timeliness in delivery tax reports from accounting service

provider Based on interview with Mr Vuong and data from company, there is a

serious problem that has happened to STC recently: inaccurate calculation on client‟scorporate income tax After tax finalization in 2018, as statistics of South TaxConsulting Co., Ltd, there were total 25 customers in which there were 8 micro tradingcustomers (focus group of customer) cut accounting service with South TaxConsulting Co., Ltd due to this reason

According to responses from Mr Vuong:

„In corporate‟s tax finalization, corporates are mostly fined by tax authority whenthere is a deficit in corporate tax that submitted to tax authority In case insufficient taxsubmission, the firm is required to submit supplementary tax and fines for submittinglate that amount of tax.‟ (Mr Vuong, CEO of STC, 34 years old)

As Mr Vuong sharing, if his company prepare customer tax reports with deficit incustomer‟s corporate tax value, it leads to the problem that customer will submitcorporate tax insufficiently to tax authority In tax finalization, tax authority will findout the insufficiency in tax value submission from corporate They will ask thecorporate to submit supplementary tax and fines for late submission that amount oftax It leads to the issue that customers were fined by tax authority for insufficient taxsubmission and this made customer dissatisfaction with accounting service quality thatSTC provides and they cut accounting service contract with STC Details about casesthat inaccurate in corporate tax value in tax reports are listed as follows:

Table 5 Details about cases that inaccurate in tax reports in micro trading group – announced by tax authority in 2018 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)

From the data that the company provided in Table 5, there were eight micro tradingcustomers that STC prepared inaccurate tax reports for in tax finalization in 2018.These customers cut accounting with STC in 2018 after this circumstance The totalfine that tax authority announced in these 8 cases reached 103,012,137 VND In thesecases, STC prepared tax reports for customers with inaccuracy in tax reports Inspecific, there was a negative discrepancy in corporate tax value in customer‟s taxreports It leads to the issue that customers will pay corporate tax based on thecorporate tax value that STC calculate in tax reports Then when tax authority checksthese customer‟s tax reports, they will figure out the inaccuracy in the tax reports.They will punished these firms by requesting submit the discrepancy in tax reportcompared to the value that they supposed to submit and a sum of fine for late submitthis amount of tax.

As interview Mr Vuong:

„In 2018, when these unexpected cases occurred, I had to pay the cost for customers.They did not accept to pay the fine due to mistakes came from my company In 2018, Ihad to pay 103,012,137 VND for the fine This expense was not brought to reasonablecost for my company.‟ (Mr Vuong, CEO of STC, 34 years old)

Through the interview with Mr Vuong, he states that when his company preparesinaccurate tax reports for customers, it also impacts to his company in terms of loss Incase his company prepares inaccurate tax reports for customers, it is his company‟sfault and it leads to the issues that customers may have to spend a sum of money fortax fine in tax finalization And customers may ask him to pay this expense Moreover,this kind of cost is not allowed to add in reasonable cost for the company, thus thecompany can not deduct tax for this amount of expense It leads to a loss for STC As

Mr Vuong sharing, tax authorities will request a firm for tax finalization once forseveral years, thus if there is any inaccuracy in tax reports that can not be detectedpromptly, the firm will be fined by tax authority Hence, preparing accurate tax reportsfor customers is very important and the issue of preparing inaccurate tax reportshappened in STC and it results in a loss of 103,012,137 VND for company in 2018.According to research (3), the paper mentioned relationship quality in business tobusiness which comprises of “trust, commitment and satisfaction” had influence oncustomer‟s business retention Besides, according to Lee et al (4), the authors state

that service quality is a frequent element which is used by both researchers andpractitioners in order to evaluate variables of trust, commitment and satisfaction ofcustomer It is generally accepted that the satisfaction of customer depends on theproduct or service quality that offered by provider thus researchers have stressed thesignificant of service quality perceptions and their relevance with customer satisfaction(4) Moreover, according to the research of Jamali in 2007 (5), the author mentionedSERVQUAL instrument which was mostly utilized to measure service quality Authorsmentioned determinant of reliability which affects to service quality and reliability wasdescripted as providing service accurately, on time and dependently.

Combining related theories and the issue of providing inaccuracy tax reports tocustomer of STC, in case of STC, they provide accounting service inaccurately tocustomers thus it leads to customer dissatisfaction to service quality that the firmoffers In case customers do not satisfy with the service from STC, they might stopusing accounting service from the company and even worst, they can choose to switch

to another rival of the company Moreover, with inaccuracy in accounting serviceproviding to customers, it partly has negative impact on customer‟s trust to thecorporate‟s service quality and commitment with doing business with such firm Itleads to a decrease in the strength of business relationship and also limits thepossibility for customers to maintain the business with STC Thus assurance theaccuracy in tax reports for customers play an important role in adapting customer‟sservice quality perception so that it leads to customer satisfaction and repeatingbusiness with STC Therefore, in the scope of this study, I will focus on the issue thatoccurred in STC: deficit in client‟s corporate income tax, which results in thecircumstance that customers submit insufficient corporate tax for tax authority andthey receive punishment from tax authority due to insufficiency in tax submission Inthe next part of problem analysis, potential problems that lead to these symptoms will

be in turn figured out

3 Problem analysis

3.1 Problem identification

In accounting process in STC, there are four elements that participate in the process tomake tax reports such as customers, accountants of STC, accounting supervisor in

STC – Mr Vuong, and accounting software that Mr Vuong‟s company has utilized (CeAC software) Thus there are four aspects that possibly lead to mistakes on client‟scorporate income tax Therefore, interview was organized in order to find out which elements cause the mistakes in customer‟ tax report the STC prepared for customers

3.1.1 Initial cause and effect map

Based on in-depth interview with CEO of STC – Mr Vuong and his accountants – 10accountants at Accounting department (Bui Thi My Oanh, Tran Ngoc Vy, Nguyen ThiNga, Tran Thi Anh Tuyet, Tran Thi Lan, Phan Thanh Thanh, Nguyen Tram Anh, PhanKim Thy, Ta Ngoc Lien and Huynh Thi Hong), the summary of initial cause and effectmap is presented as follows There are three symptoms: deficit in corporate tax value

in client‟s tax reports, insufficient in customer‟s tax submission to tax authority andtax authority‟s punishment for insufficient tax submission Problem leads to deficit incorporate tax value in client‟s tax reports is discrepancy in sales or costs value inclient‟s tax reports From the side of accountants, problems lead to discrepancy insales or costs value in client‟s tax reports are inserting inaccurate invoice value toaccounting software, insufficient invoice input, insufficient manipulation in accountingsoftware and wrong account determination From the side of Mr Vuong as a

supervisor, insufficient manager‟s supervision that results in hidden mistakes inclient‟s tax reports leads to discrepancy in sales or costs value in client‟s tax reports.

problems

Figure 8: Initial cause and effect map (Author synthesis)

Discrepancy in sales or costs value in client’s tax reports

In case of South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd, based on interviews from Mr Vuong and hisaccountants, they mentioned about discrepancies in clients‟ sales or costs which willlead to discrepancy in corporate tax value, in specific:

accountants sometimes miss some particular steps on software; or wrong accountdetermination by accountants Each of these problems will be in turn explained clearly

as following

Inserting inaccurate invoice value to accounting software

In the process to prepare tax reports in STC, customers provide input accountingdocuments for accounting service provider to prepare tax reports for them Afterreceiving invoices and related accounting documents from customers, accountants inSTC will insert information of invoices into accounting software As responses ofaccountants at STC, they usually make mistakes as inserting inaccurate invoice value

to accounting software

As response from Ms Oanh – accountant in STC:

„The stage of inputting information is very important, especially value of invoices Ifthe invoice value is inserted inaccurately, it will lead to inaccuracy in customer sales

or costs in tax reports.‟ (Bui Thi My Oanh, STC accountant, 25 years old)

In case of STC, one of the problems is because STC‟s accountants input invoice valueinaccurately Thus it impacts to the value of revenue as well as expenses of customer‟sfirm This resulted in the discrepancy in customer‟s corporate tax that needed tosubmit to tax authority In most of cases occurred with clients of STC, the tax amountthat the firms submitted at that time was insufficient and the firms must submitsupplementary tax and fines for late submit tax for tax authority

Insufficient invoice input

in negative discrepancy in corporate tax that needs submit to tax authority Thus thetax amount that the firm submitted at that time was insufficient and the firm mustsubmit supplementary tax and fines for late submit tax for tax authority.

Insufficient manipulation on accounting software; Wrong account determination

Through interview Mr Vuong, he emphasized the essential role of accounting software

in his business Suitable accounting software helps decreasing accountant‟s manualmanipulation as well as mistakes in inputting and processing data Mr Vuong mentionsthat his company is using CeAC accounting software with basic package The softwarehas run quite well to support his work However, there are several inconveniencesabout the accounting software that he thinks it might impact on the accuracy ofcustomer‟s tax reports In details:

„There are various functions in the software still not automatic such as accountdetermination, account closing and forwarding, awareness of coincident codes and so

on, accountants must process and recheck manually thus it may result in inaccuracy intax reports.‟ (Mr Vuong, CEO of STC, 34 years old)

After interviewing Ms Nga – accountant in STC, in case of T&F Co., Ltd – thecompany that she handled to prepare tax reports for, she missed a step in manipulation

on accounting software In specific, she forgot to make account closing and forwardingfor account of revenue in May 2017, thus it resulted in the shortage of 527 millionVND in revenue Due to this shortage amount in revenue of T&F Co., Ltd, it impacted

on revenue of the company in Quarter II, 2017 Revenue of the company in this quarterdecreased 527 million VND, equivalent to a decrease of 105 million VND in incometax that T&F Co., Ltd must submit to tax authority Thus, after tax finalization, T&FCo., Lt must submit supplementary tax and fine for late submit this amount of tax totax authority Besides, in case accountants make wrong account determination, it alsoleads to errors in clients‟ tax reports As Ms Thanh – accountant in STC mentioned:

„Account determination is very important However, with inexperienced accountants,

it is difficult for them to accurately determinate account in complex case.‟ (PhanThanh Thanh, STC accountant, 24 years old)

As Ms Thanh explain, one of difficulties that inexperienced accountants may facewith is account determination and with current accounting software in STC, they have

to do it manually thus it is easy to make mistakes in this stage As Ms Thanh sharing,

in accounting reports, there are many types of account and each account has its ownuse If the accountants choose wrong account for a particular expense, it will affect tothe accuracy of client‟s tax reports In addition, as Ms Tuyet‟s response, in case ofHanh Ngan Co., Ltd – the company that she handled to prepare tax reports for, sheadmitted that she often made mistake in determining wrong account when sheprepared tax reports for customer since at that time, she had not much experience aswell as deep knowledge in accounting Therefore, insufficient manipulation onaccounting software and wrong account determination partly impacts on the accuracy

of tax reports that STC prepares for clients

Insufficient manager’s supervision; Hidden mistakes in client’s tax reports

According to responses from Mr Vuong and his accountants, they mentioned about lacking prompt supervision from manager, in specific:

„At the current, there is not enough supervision from manager – Mr Vuong in order torecheck the work result of accountants in accounting team or give us supportpromptly.‟ (Nguyen Tram Anh, STC accountant, 24 years old)

In accounting process, the manager take responsibility to check in 3 stages: afteraccountants input information into accounting software, after exporting draft taxdeclaration and after exporting draft tax reports However, due to taking multiple jobs

in the company such as developing new customers, taking care of existing customers,accounting supervision, general management… thus Mr Vuong does not have enoughtime to complete all the jobs with full of attention, especially supervise accountingteam‟s work result Thus it led to the result that there were many mistakes that couldnot be figured out and it affected to the accuracy of customer‟s tax reports Moreover,sometimes Mr Vuong assigned the job to supervise the junior employee‟s work tosenior employee without cross-check the job that he assigned Those senior employeesalso do not have enough time as well as capability for managing their own job andsupervising job of other junior accountants with the best result Thus it also resulted inthe inaccuracy in customer‟s tax reports It can be shown that supervision formmanager – Mr Vuong is very important in supervising the work quality of accountants

in his company Therefore, without sufficient supervision from manager, mistakes inaccountant‟s work can not be figured out thus it results in the discrepancy in corporatetax in client‟s tax reports

3.1.2 Potential problems

From the aforesaid problem mess, in-depth interview with Mr Vuong and hisaccountants to explore potential problems was continued As result, four potentialproblems identified are work overload, employee with unqualified knowledge, skilland ability, insufficient supervisor support and low employee work motivation

According to responses of accountants in STC, they opine that with such highworkload that they are handling, they have to work up to 10 hours/day and overtimefor Saturday every week, especially it becomes normal in tax finalization in the firstquarter of the year They admit that they just concern about meeting the deadline andfinish all tasks that they are assigned, not about the quality of the work Thus, withhigh workload assigned, accountants just focus on how to complete all the tasks thatthey assigned, in specific, get all customer‟s tax reports done within time given but notpay much attention on the quality of the work that presented through the accuracy incustomer‟s tax reports

As Mr Vuong sharing:

„If we are late in preparing tax reports for customers, it affects to the deadline that wemust submit customer‟s tax reports If it is late, customers will be fined by taxauthority Thus meeting the deadline is very important.‟ (Mr Vuong, CEO of STC, 34years old)

He believes that the most important thing is that his employees complete their assignedjob within deadline so that client‟s tax reports can be submitted to tax authority ontime In case his accountants seem to get behind the schedule, he will push them forcomplete the workload as soon as possible They can stay at the company late fordoing their job, especially in tax season or they can come to the company in Sunday ifthey need more time for the job The accountants admit that they feel extremelyexhausted with the work, particularly in tax season Thus it is easy to make mistakes in

doing assigned job Therefore, one of potential problems that lead to mistakes inclient‟s tax reports made by the accountants in STC is due to high workload that theyhandle daily.

3.1.2.2 Employee with unqualified knowledge, skill and ability

As accountants in STC sharing, they have not received much training for necessaryskill or professional knowledge when they work for STC, in particularly:

„During the time working in STC, I have not received much official training from Mr.Vuong It was just asking for his advice or permission case by case The company alsohas not provided any necessary skill training program for staff.‟ (Ta Ngoc Lien, STCaccountant, 23 years old)

Through sharing from accountants in STC, they all have intermediate or collegediploma in accounting During the time working for STC, the company has not offeredany training program for them to enhance knowledge or skill that may necessary forthem in daily work They just implement the job passively based on Mr Vuong‟sguidance Thus in daily working, they depend much on Mr Vuong‟s guidance

Towards accountants‟ knowledge, skill and ability that make them qualify for the job

at STC, Mr Vuong stated that:

„My company is small thus it is very difficult for me to recruit high level accountants.Thus in recruiting, most of my accountants are fresh and inexperienced At least, theyhave degree in accounting.” (Mr Vuong, CEO of STC, 34 years old)

As Mr Vuong responses, in accounting service, it is necessary for the accountants toknow how to use accounting software and have deep knowledge in accounting andauditing; skills in communication in order to work well with customers and colleagues;and positive attitudes to overcome difficulties in this job In case of inexperiencedemployee, they do not have much experience thus they easily make mistakes in thetasks assigned These employees need more support from Mr Vuong as well as senioremployee to complete the tasks assigned However, Mr Vuong has to handle manykinds of work in the company, most of time, he can not follow junior employee closely

in their daily work, thus in some cases, he can not figure out all the mistakes that theydid in their work Therefore, employee with unqualified knowledge, skill and ability isone of elements that impacts on the quality of the tax reports that STC prepares forclients

3.1.2.3 Insufficient supervisor support

As mentioned earlier in the above part, the accountants in STC depend much on Mr.Vuong‟ guidance and support in their daily work due to lacking of qualifiedknowledge, skill and ability and not receiving enough necessary training from thecompany Towards this issue, Mr Vuong stated that:

„When new employees join in my company, they need my support for guiding,supervising and giving them advices when they have difficulties in their work.‟ (Mr.Vuong, CEO of STC, 34 years old)

Mr Vuong mentions his role in supporting for new employees in his company.However, he has too many works that need to handle in a given day He has to dogeneral management, finding new customers, meeting new customers as well ascurrent customers if there is any occurred that need his participation, doing supervisionrole and so on At the current, he works over 11 hours/day Thus he shares thatsometimes, he feels that he can not do everything with the best effort because he doesnot have enough time for doing everything carefully Therefore, sometimes, mistakeshappen On the other hand, the role of supervising is very important, if he can not do itwell, mistakes that his accountants made in their issuer clients tax reports can not befigured out At the current, in STC, the works of Mr Vuong are too diverse and hehimself can not have sufficient source to deal with Thus, insufficient supervisorsupport from Mr Vuong is one of possible problem that causing mistakes in clients‟tax reports that happened in STC

3.1.2.4 Low employee work motivation

As responses of accountants in STC, they admitted that they do not have muchmotivation for working in STC in a long time, in details:

„I do not have much satisfaction for working here thus not much motives for me towork here in a long-term Perhaps, 2 or 3 years is enough for me.‟ (Tran Thi Anh Tuyet,STC accountants, 24 years old)

After interviewing accountants in STC about their motivation for working, they sharethat they are not satisfied with working in STC thus it impacts on their motivation towork for the firm in a long time or even in the present time In their opinion, they thinkthat they had better working for STC in around 2 -3 years After that, they will jump to

a bigger firm Perhaps they will continue to work for an accounting service firm orchange to work as an accountant in accounting department for a company in the areathat they have experience about from working in STC.

As Mr Vuong‟s sharing:

„I understand and sympathize if my employees do not have strong desire to work forsuch a small company like mine However, I have to accept that truth.‟ (Mr Vuong,CEO of STC, 34 years old)

Mr Vuong sharing that, in his company, the accountants just have basic salary In taxfinalization season, they have to work overtime frequently, even in Saturday In thatseason, every month, Mr Vuong gives them extra 500,000 VND/month for overtime

He thinks that it is a way to encourage his accountants in making their effort in busyseason In the accountants‟ point of view, they admit that they do not feel muchmotivation for the work except for receiving salary at the end of month

As responses of accountants in STC, they mentioned about three aspects that theyconcerned for working for a company, in details:

„To work for a company, I care about three main components: working condition,having a supportive and encouraging boss and a clear career path However, in STC, it

is below my expectation.‟ (Nguyen Thi Nga, STC accountant, 25 years old)

According to responses of accountants in STC, they expect that the firm that they workfor need to have three main elements such as good working condition, a boss who issupportive and know how to encourage employee and promotion in career path.However, STC can not satisfy their expectation Thus it impacts on their motivation forworking in STC at the present and in long-term Due to lack of strong motive forsticking with company, the accountants do not pay full attention on their job It leads tomistakes in their assignments Therefore, low employee work motivation is consideredone of potential problems that impacts on the quality of the work of accountants inSTC

In general, according to general information collected from in-depth interview with

Mr Vuong – CEO of STC and his accountants which was presented in initial cause andeffect map, the potential problems were determined as high workload; employee withunqualified knowledge, skill and ability; insufficient supervisor support and lowemployee work motivation These elements impact on the performance of not only

accountants but also the whole company which was indicated in inaccuracy in client‟stax reports that the company had prepared for them Without accuracy in customer‟stax reports, it affected to the corporate tax that customers must submit to tax authority.Due to insufficient tax submission for tax authority, customers were fined by taxauthority This resulted in customer dissatisfaction with accounting service that thecompany provided to customers Therefore, in the next part, these issues will be deeplyexplored by connecting with relevant literatures After that, the main problem thatimpacts on the accuracy in customer‟s tax reports that STC accountants prepared forcustomers will be discussed to choose amongst potential problems.

3.1.3 Updated cause and effect map

The summary for updated cause and effect map is drawn as follows:

Symptom

Tax authority’s punishment for insufficient tax submission with

in client‟s tax reports Insufficient in ability

(16) Wrong account determination

(17,19)

Hidden mistakes

in client‟s tax reports

Insufficient manager‟s supervision

customer’s tax submission to tax authority

Deficit in corporate tax value in client’s tax reports

Figure 9 Updated cause and effect map (Author synthesis)

After identifying possible problems as mentioned above such as high workload;employee with unqualified knowledge, skill and ability; insufficient supervisor supportand low employee work motivation, literatures related to these aspects were explored

in order to recheck the match between theory and interview with the company and alsofigure out any relevant aspects that link to the issue of STC After that, the next in-depth interview with Mr Vuong and accountants in STC was organized in order tocheck whether the literatures applied in the case of STC and deeply explored forfurther details about potential problems which were found in the first interview Based

on literatures, previous researchers have mentioned the impact of high workload;employee with unqualified knowledge, skill and ability; insufficient supervisor supportand low employee work motivation on work quality as well as performance ofemployee that in case of STC, it is partly measured by preparing accurately incustomer‟s corporate tax value in tax reports Next part will explain in details aboutpossible problems updated with literature

3.1.4 Updated possible problems

3.1.4.1 Work overload

According to research of Wright and Bonett, the authors find out that intense workloadresults in a decline in work performance (6) Besides, Hutchins et al mentioned in hisresearch about the inverse relation between workload and job satisfaction (7) Thushigh workload leads to the negative in employee‟s job satisfaction Shaukat and Nazirstated that low job satisfaction possibly results in low commitment amongst employeeswith their job (8) Chen opined that with weak employee commitment to their job andfurther their organization, there was an influence over employee‟s job performancewhich represented through the quality of the job that they were assigned (9) Thus,with such decline in employee‟s work performance, it affects to the performance of thecompany (9)

According to responses of accountants in STC, they have to manage a lot of kinds ofwork that related to clients‟ accounting documents Senior accountants will managemore customers than junior accountants Below table will show number of customers

in each accountant‟s portfolio that they need to take care of

No Name of accountant Title Years of experience Number of customers

Table 6 Number of customers in each accountant’s portfolio at STC in 2018 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)

Refer to Table 6, senior staffs manage 22 – 28 customers and junior staffs manage 9 –

18 customers in their portfolio Accountants in STC stated that they have a lot of workrelated to customers in their portfolio including preparing tax reports, financial reportsand accounting books for customers Besides, they also have to receiving andresponding for customer‟s email, messages and calls relevant to their documents.Below table shows main tasks that accountants in STC handle daily and timemeasurement for completing each task

in average (hour/day) on the scale 1 - 5

1 Printing, arranging and storing customer's documents 0.25 1

2 Inserting input information into accounting software 1 3

3 Preparing detailed items report - account receivables 1 4

4 Preparing detailed items report - account payables 1 4

10 Account determination in accounting software 0.25 4

13 Receiving and responding client‟s emails, calls and messages 1 3

Total time for 1 issuer client/month 14 Total time for 182 customers/month 2548 Average working time per employee/month 255

Working hour/day for a employee (26 days/month) 10

Table 7 Measurement of average time to complete main task for accountant in South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd (Source: Author synthesis)

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Besides daily task that mentioned above, senior employees are usually assigned tosupervise the work of junior employee This task also takes lots of time for senioremployee As senior employee sharing, they spend about 1 hours/day for helpingsupervising junior employee‟s work Thus in average, senior employees spend about

11 hours/day (6 days/week) for working The workload of accountant especially senioremployees in STC is too heavy especially in tax season Due to high workload, STCaccountants have low commitment themselves with the quality of their work Theirpriority is complete customer‟s tax report within deadline given Thus, mistakes occur

in preparing client‟s tax reports In general, based on interview and literaturescollected, one of potential problems that lead to mistakes in client‟s tax reports isdetermined as high workload in STC‟s accounting team

3.1.4.2 Employee with unqualified knowledge, skill and ability

Based on theory from literatures, researchers claim that if the firms expect to improve their organization‟s productivity, it is necessary to invest in corporate‟s human capital since employee‟s knowledge is one of main factors that help the company provides service or product with good quality (10,11,12) When employees obtain the essential knowledge, they can develop necessary skills which in turn become their own ability

in performing the work as assigned (13) In the research of Palmer et al., the authors mention the knowledge, skills, and abilities for accountants at entrance level as

following: communication skills, problem solving skills, computer skills, knowledge

of general business and accounting, attitudes and competency of employee (14)

Details about STC accountants are mentioned below

1 Bui Thi My Oanh College diploma Senior employee >3 years

2 Tran Ngoc Vy College diploma Senior employee >3 years

3 Nguyen Thi Nga College diploma Senior employee 2 years

4 Tran Thi Anh Tuyet College diploma Senior employee 2 years

5 Tran Thi Lan College diploma Junior employee 1 year

6 Phan Thanh Thanh College diploma Junior employee 1 year

7 Nguyen Tram Anh College diploma Junior employee 1 year

8 Phan Kim Thy Intermediate diploma Junior employee Under 1 year

9 Ta Ngoc Lien Intermediate diploma Junior employee Under 1 year

10 Huynh Thi Hong Intermediate diploma Junior employee Under 1 year

Table 8 Details about experience of accountants in South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd – March 2019 (Source: South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd)

According to sharing of Mr Vuong, 60% accountants in his company have around oneyear experience (junior), 40% accountants have more than two years experience(senior) 70% accountants have college diploma and 30% accountants haveintermediate diploma.

As Mr Vuong evaluated his employees based on the scale from 1 to 5 (1: very bad, 2:bad, 3: acceptable, 4: good, 5: very good) for criteria mentioned in literatures such ascommunication skills, problem solving skills, computer skills, knowledge of generalbusiness, knowledge of accounting, personal attitudes and competency Allaccountants in STC are in turn evaluated by Mr Vuong The result for this assessment

is given below

Table 9 Assessment of knowledge, skill and ability of accountants in South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd (Source: Author synthesis)

According to evaluation of Mr Vuong – CEO of STC about his accountants, in sum,

he appraises that in terms of knowledge, skills and competency, senior employees havehigher appraisal than junior employee; in terms of attitudes, all of his accountants havegood evaluation The juniors need more time to experience, learn new knowledge andpractice necessary skills in order to adapt with working environment and perform thejob better Noticeably, in general, in terms of knowledge, skill and ability, there are20% people that have high appraisal (4/5) They are Ms Oanh and Ms Vy, who haveover 3 years experience The rest is evaluated at the average or below standard (2.6 –3.3/5) Especially, in Mr Vuong‟s point of view, the most important element in theabove assessment is knowledge of accounting Without firm knowledge of accounting,

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the accountants are easily make mistakes in their assignments In the assessment, thereare 80% employees have average and low evaluation in terms of knowledge ofaccounting (2 – 3/5), these employees mostly make mistakes in preparing customer‟stax reports Thus employee with unqualified knowledge, skill and ability is also oneaspect that affects the work quality of accountants in STC, in specific, preparingcustomer‟s tax reports with inaccuracy related to customer‟s corporate tax valuewhich leads to the issue that customers are fined by tax authority for insufficientcorporate tax submission.

3.1.4.3 Insufficient supervisor support

Michael et al., state that direct supervisors have great impact on the performance oftheir subordinates that related to the work (15) Supervisors are linked withmaintaining productivity levels, quality standards, solving complaints and trainingemployee Two of the main channels that a supervisor can affect on the performance oftheir subordinates are through giving them feedback and general support for theirrequirements The perceived feedback and support from supervisor can help increaseemployee‟s commitment and satisfaction with the job (16) Giving feedback andsupport adequately and constructively also help improve employee‟s attitudes,especially when giving with the purpose that help employee enhance their knowledgeabout their assigned roles and duties (17)

As measuring daily working time of Mr Vuong – CEO of STC, the result is presented

as Table 10 Based on Table 10, Mr Vuong does not have enough time for supporting

as well as giving necessary feedback for his employees Comprising with responsesfrom interviewing Mr Vuong, he has many kinds of work to do in a day He has to dogeneral management, finding new customers, meeting new customers as well ascurrent customers if there is any occurred that need his participation, doing supervisionrole and so on At the current, he works over 11 hours/day Thus he shares thatsometimes, he feels that he can not do everything with the best effort because he doesnot have enough time for doing everything carefully Therefore, sometimes, mistakeshappen On the other hand, the role of supervising is very important, if he can not do itwell, mistakes that his accountants made in their issuer clients tax reports can not befigured out Thus, at the current, in STC, the works of Mr Vuong are too diverse and

he himself can not have sufficient source to deal with Furthermore, due to busy withmanagement work, Mr Vuong does not spend enough time for supporting junioremployees when they ask for help Thus it leads to the result that the employee can nothave responses from manager promptly, it affects to the task that they are performing.Therefore, insufficient supervisor support is considered one of possible problems thatresult in the mistakes in clients‟ tax reports.

Time to complete

(hour/day)

1 Checking for arranging and storing customer's documents 0.25

2 Checking for inserting input information into accounting software 0.5

3 Checking for preparing detailed items report - account receivables 0.5

4 Checking for preparing detailed items report - account payables 0.5

5 Checking for preparing detailed items report - inventory 0.5

6 Checking for preparing detailed items report - revenue 0.5

7 Checking for preparing detailed items report - expenses 0.5

8 Checking for preparing detailed items report - trial balance 0.5

9 Checking for preparing Value-added tax declaration 0.5

10 Checking for preparing tax reports - financial reports – accounting 1

books

11 Receiving and responding client‟s emails, calls and messages 1.5

3.1.4.4 Low employee work motivation

According to research of Kreitner & Kinicki (18), the authors mention themeasurement scale to assess a person‟s motivation with three main elements Firstly,expectancy is considered as the probability to gain success or interested outcome inperforming a specific task Secondly, instrumentality is considered as the assessment ifthe person succeeds in implementing the assigned task Finally, valence is considered

as the response to the outcomes that he or she had achieved such as feeling positive orneutral or negative As Sudiardhita et al stated in their study, they claimed thatpositive motivation could help improve employee‟s productivity as well as work

quality (19) Based on the above measurement scale of Kreitner & Kinicki (18), three questions used to ask STC accountants are:

 Do you have high expectation to gain excellent performance in implementing your assigned work? (Expectancy)

 Does STC have proper way to evaluate your excellent performance in

implementing assigned work? (Instrumentality)

 What do you feel after completing your assigned work? (Please choose amongstpositive, neutral and negative) (Valence)

The table to summarize above survey is given below

Table 11 Assessment of motivation of accountants in South Tax Consulting Co., Ltd (Source: Author synthesis)

Applying three components mentioned above into interviewing accountants in STC,the interview is related to their motivation for well performing work The results havesynthesized as above Based on the interview, 70% accountants have neutral expect tosucceed with the tasks that they assigned They explain that it is their duties thus theyjust try to deal with it and complete in given time They know that it they performoutstanding the work, there is no different appraisal from manager like usual and thecompany has not had incentive for encouraging employees to outperform their tasks.They do not pay much attention on performing excellent their assigned job In theiropinion, good or bad performance is considered the same Thus most of accountantsfeel neutral when they complete their assigned tasks There are only 30% accountantsfeel positive about their completion in the work task These 30% employee include 3employees who have more than 2 years experience They said that they wanted to

perform well their work because they would have more experience so that it wasenough for them to leave STC for another bigger company in near future Thus itbegins from their inside motivation to work, not from motivation that created by STCsuch as achieving high appraisal, getting high monetary incentives, getting promotionand so on Moreover, with the result of 70% neutral in expectancy, 70% neutral invalence and 100% no in instrumentality, the assessment points out that the motivation

of employee in STC is very low In specific, most of them do not have strongexpectancy in performing well the assigned task because there is no performanceappraisal for what they did and they also do not receive any outcome from doing theirjob with the best or even worst Thus most of them do not have positive response totheir work result Through the above assessment, it concluded that the work motivation

of STC accountants is low Low work motivation influences over the performance ofaccountants in the company In case performance of accountants decreases, it impacts

to the performance of the company especially accounting service quality that thecompany provides to customers

3.2 Problem validation

As analysis from previous part, potential problems are determined as work overload;employee with unqualified knowledge, skill and ability; insufficient supervisor supportand low employee work motivation Firstly, in terms of work overload, manyresearchers have recognized that work demands for accounting reach its peakthroughout the first quarter of the year and they often call it as the "busy season" or the

"tax season" (20) Work overload, time pressure and overtime requirements arementioned as typical issues in accounting especially in tax season (21, 22, 23, 24) Mr.Vuong said that the workload in his company was high especially in tax season andother companies in accounting service met the same issues as his company Heconsidered working under time pressure and overtime to meet deadline of client‟s taxreport submitting to tax authorities as ordinary issues and employees that chasing thiskind of job had to comply with Thus this potential problem is eliminated

Secondly, in terms of employee with unqualified knowledge, skill and ability, Mr.Vuong said that it was difficulty for him to recruit high level of employee because hiscompany was small and employees just chose his company as a stop station in a short-

term thus normally, they would leave his company within two years for a bigger one inorder to find advancement in their career path He has to recruit fresh men or studentswho have just graduated with relevant degree in accounting It results in inexperienceand mistakes in assignments that new employee acquired Mr Vuong said that he hadconsidered a lot about this problem and training for employee was the proper way.From literatures, many researchers also mentioned training took the mediate role inhelping employee acquire knowledge and skills and it also influenced over theperformance of the corporates (25, 26, 27) Mr Vuong had accepted this circumstancebecause it was hard to change in case of his company and his apparent responsibility istraining and guiding his employee Thus this potential problem is eliminated.

Thirdly, in terms of insufficient supervisor support, researchers emphasized theimportant role of supervisor in keeping their subordinates work under particularstandard and quality (28) In the case of STC, Mr Vuong admitted that he spent notenough support for his employees partly because he had to manage a lot of functions inthe company thus sometimes, he did not have enough time for his employee.According to literatures, authors describe a top manager‟s working day in a small-sized company as “unplanned, informal, hectic and fragmented” (29) and they have tochange their roles and duties continually in a given day (30) This is common issue in asmall firm and STC is in the same situation Mr Vuong believed that in this period oftime, it would be better if he directly handled main functions in STC and he could nothandover these roles to other people Thus this potential problem is eliminated

Finally, in terms of low employee work motivation, Mr Vuong admitted that he hadnever considered about this aspect in managing his firm whereas it might be aconsiderable element As he sharing, he just thought that the most important thing wasthat he could keep good relationship with customers in order to keep the company rundays to days He cares about the survival of the company at the present rather thanlong-term vision that investing in his employees From literatures (31), researchersmentioned that in small company, most of owners run their business primarily forbasic needs such as feeding, clothing and housing for their families and acquiring thesatisfaction that the position of self-ownership brought along Hence, for their purpose,surviving is one of the main motives for them to run the company (31) This is suited

with Mr Vuong‟s purpose for running company On the other hand, encouragingemployee‟s motivation is one of the growing responsibilities that managers need totake in order to run their business well (32) Through this study, Mr Vuong admittedthat figuring out factors that motive employees for working possibly help him solvingthe problem that his company is facing with Therefore, to help the company overcomethe current difficulties and improve its business performance, Mr Vuong is favorablewith figuring out elements that can help improve his employee‟s working motivation

so that his firm‟s problem can be solved Thus low employee work motivation ischosen to be the main problem to be solved in the case of STC

4 Main problem definition and

consequences 4.1 Main problem definition

According to research (33), authors states that the origin of the word “motivation” isfrom the Latin word “movere”, its meaning is "to move or stimulate" Motivation, asmentioned in many researches (34), is defined as the “desire and willingness” to makehigh level of effort in order to meet the corporate's goals; with such effort, it is driven

by the impulse to meet some individual expectation, need or desire Motivation can beconsidered as an intangible concept that forces people to action According to (35),there are two kinds of motivation: “intrinsic motivation” and “extrinsic motivation”.Intrinsic motivation is about the inside desire and considered as self-driven towardssucceed On the contrary, extrinsic motivation occurs when corporates utilizeintentional actions and programs in order to motivate their employees It is externalfactor, in contrast with intrinsic motivation – internal factor According to literatures(36), organizational performance is the primary goal that worth all strategies that thefirm implements It is the ability of the whole corporation to meet its stated objectivesthrough operating and governing As stated in (37), there are three factors thatcontribute to the overall aforesaid organizational performance such as: “financialperformance, operational performance and employee attitudes and behavior” Related

to the component of employee attitudes and behavior, it is claimed that motivation is aone of potential elements that leads to people attitude and behavior (38) Thusemployee work motivation is a factor that affects to organizational performance