Nghiên cứu được thực hiện nhằm xem xét vai trò trung gian của nhận thức tính hữu ích của hệ thống thông tin kế toán đối với mối quan hệ giữa chất lượng hệ thống thông tin kế toán (AIS) và sử dụng Hệ thống thông tin kế toán trong môi trường ứng dụng hệ thống hoạch định nguồn lực doanh nghiệp (ERP) tại các doanh nghiệp tại Việt Nam. Mời các bạn cùng tham khảo!
Trang 1THE MEDIATING ROLE OF PERCEIVED USEFULNESS
ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN QUALITY
OF ACCOUNTING INFORMATION SYSTEM AND USAGE ACCOUNTING INFORMATION SYSTEM
VAI TRÒ TRUNG GIAN CỦA NHẬN THỨC TÍNH HỮU ÍCH LÊN MỐI QUAN HỆ GIỮA CHẤT LƯỢNG HỆ THỐNG THÔNG TIN
KẾ TOÁN VÀ SỬ DỤNG HỆ THỐNG THÔNG TIN KẾ TOÁN
TS Lương Đức Thuận; ThS Trương Thị Thu Hương
Trường Đại học Kinh tế TP.HCM
thuanluongktkt@ueh.edu.vn
Abstract
The study was conducted to examine the mediating role of perceived usefulness of Ac-counting Information System on relationship between quality of acAc-counting information system (AIS) and usage of Accounting Information System in application enterprise resource planning (ERP) in enterprises in Viet Nam Formal research samples of 104 subjects, including account-ants and managers involved in the use AIS in the ERP Research data were collected primarily through questionnaire survey (July, 2019 – September, 2019) and then it is used to analyze de-scriptive statistics and perform hypothesis tests The result shows that perceived usefulness do not plays a mediating role in the relationship between quality of accounting information system and the usage of accounting information system There is significant direct effect but not signif-icant indirect effect.
Keywords: Quality of Accounting Information System, Perceived usefulness of Accounting
Information System, Usage of Accounting Information System.
Tóm tắt
Nghiên cứu được thực hiện nhằm xem xét vai trò trung gian của nhận thức tính hữu ích của hệ thống thông tin kế toán đối với mối quan hệ giữa chất lượng hệ thống thông tin kế toán (AIS) và sử dụng Hệ thống thông tin kế toán trong môi trường ứng dụng hệ thống hoạch định nguồn lực doanh nghiệp (ERP) tại các doanh nghiệp tại Việt Nam Mẫu nghiên cứu chính thức gồm 104 đối tượng, bao gồm cả nhân viên kế toán và nhà quản lý tham gia vào việc sử dụng AIS.
Dữ liệu nghiên cứu được thu thập chủ yếu thông qua khảo sát bảng câu hỏi (từ tháng 7 năm
2019 đến tháng 9 năm 2019) và sau đó được sử dụng để phân tích thống kê mô tả và thực hiện kiểm định giả thuyết Kết quả cho thấy nhận thức tính hữu ích không đóng vai trò trung gian trong mối quan hệ giữa chất lượng hệ thống thông tin kế toán và sử dụng hệ thống thông tin kế toán Có sự ảnh hưởng trực tiếp đáng kể nhưng sự ảnh hưởng gián tiếp là không đáng kể.
Từ khóa: Chất lượng Hệ thống thông tin kế toán, Nhận thức tính hữu ích của hệ thống
thông tin kế toán, Sử dụng hệ thống thông tin kế toán.
Trang 21 Introduction
In the field of AIS research, the use of AIS is considered a new issue attracting the research interest of researchers According to the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) of Davis (1989), information system usage (IS) behavior is understood as the usage process of the system users when they realize the usefulness and the ease of use of a new system or technology In addition,
in DeLone & McLean’s successful IS model, the use of the system is mentioned, which is the extent and way in which employees use the IS capabilities and to engage in behavior of usage IS need a quality IS The usage AIS played a crucial role which enhance company’s value added by providing internally generated financial statements that would help the company to make better and efficient strategic plan
Regarding the research on decisions or behaviors using IS, using enterprise resource plan-ning system (ERP), a lot of research has been done and mainly based on the Technology Accept-ance Model TAM The TAM model was first introduced by Davis in 1989, up to now there are many different versions of the TAM model to reinforce and further improve the applicability of this model in the assessment of attitudes and behavior of usage information technology, usage
IS Researches in the world and in the country have used successful IS theory and TAM model
to measure and evaluate the factors affecting the behavior of using IS
Thus, the combination of successful IS theory and TAM model will help to see the inter-action between AIS quality and the behavior of using AIS through users’ perception in the system about the usefulness of AIS In this study, applies a combination of successful IS theory and TAM model in explaining the mediating role of perceived usefulness of AIS in the relationship between AIS quality and usage AIS
2 Literature review and research model
2.1 Literature review
2.1.1 Quality of Accounting Information System
The views on the quality of AIS are mainly based on the view of the quality of IS imple-mented in previous studies and analyzed from the quality point of view of the information systems model by DeLone & McLean According to DeLone & McLean, 2003, system quality is associ-ated with success and they use a scale of quality of information system consistent with the de-veloped model, including: ease of use, system functions, reliability, flexibility, data quality, portability, integration, and materiality In the successful information systems model, DeLone & McLean (2003) proposed that the success of the information system is considered through six factors, namely: (1) system quality, (2) quality of information, (3) quality of service, (4) use of the system, (5) user satisfaction and (6) net benefit Information system quality is concerned with measuring the desirable system characteristics: availability, validity, reliability, adaptability, and response time In the study of Peter et al (2008) on measuring the success of information systems
in relation to models, aspects, building scales and relationships, the author said that the quality
of information systems shows desirable system properties such as ease of use, flexibility, relia-bility, ease of understanding, system sophistication and response time
On the basis of the concept of the quality of the information system, there are many
Trang 3opin-ions of many authors on the quality of the accounting information system, because in terms of the intrinsic relationship, the accounting information system is also an information system and also has all the characteristics of an information system Specifically:
iThe quality of accounting information comes from the implementation of quality ac-counting information systems The quality of acac-counting information systems is the integration
of the quality of hardware, software, people, engineering and technology networks, databases and user satisfaction (Sacer et al, 2006) Some authors have described the quality of the account-ing information system through the followaccount-ing characteristics: efficiency, usefulness, efficiency, user satisfaction
iThe concept of quality in the accounting information system is that a reliable accounting information system will create information quality (Romney & Steinbart, 2018) The effectiveness
of an accounting information system is a measure of the success in meeting established goals, or user satisfaction (Reynolds & Stair, 2018) According to them, the quality of accounting infor-mation systems is often flexible, efficient, accessible and timely
2.1.2 Perceived Usefulness of Accounting Information System
According to Davis (1989); Saade & Bahli (2005), perceived usefulness is the belief in improving work performance by using new technology, using specific information system Stu-dents who perceived usefulness of a system have a stronger aptitude for acceptance (Lee et al 2009; Liu et al, 2010) Perceived usefulness is the primary determinant of intention to use (Cheng 2012) People believe that using AIS can lead to positive results as well as more favorable in-tentions and attitudes when using such technologies and systems Perveived usefulness most likely leads to improved productivity and users’ motives or behavior Thus, the perceived use-fulness of AIS is the degree to which the accountants believe that using AIS will improve their work performance
2.1.3 Usage Accounting Information System
The behavior of usage IS according to the TAM model is influenced by the perceived use-fulness of IS (Davis, 1989) According to these theories, using IS is the behavior of the user to manipulate IS during the operation on a regular basis, repeating and expected to continue in the future The view of usage IS has been inherited and used in many studies on choosing and using
an ERP system (Nwankpa, 2019) Using ERP refers to how users use ERP features to perform tasks and run jobs (Nwankpa & Roumani, 2014) If the process of usage IS fails or the user does not use it correctly, the system will develop serious problems, usage AIS is understood as a user using AIS components and tools including using using software in processing, participating in using prodedures and processes in the system and under the supervision of system security control procedures Usage Information system increased performances and operations efficiency espe-cially in large companies and as well good management of resources and better control of ex-penditure, budgeting and forecasting Accounting information systems also provide information
on both actual and budgeted data which would help companies to establish, plan and control op-erations (Tilahun, 2019) Studying the usage AIS in this topic and the factor affecting the usage AIS to explain the actual usage AIS in Vietnamese enterprises
Trang 42.2 Reasearch model and Hypothesis
2.2.1 The relationship between quality AIS and perceived usefulness AIS
Accounting Information System quality represents the quality characteristics of a system and should satisfy the user of the system Academic studies on the IS quality have shown that the
IS quality includes conceptual components: ease of use; full features; reliable; flexibility; inte-gration; easy research; response time (DeLone & McLean, 2003; Iivari, 2005; Peter et al., 2008; Seddon & Kiew, 1996) Researches on the IS quality and the quality of ERP systems show that the quality of the ERP system is one of the important factors affecting user satisfaction, affecting the use of the system The model of Wixom & Todd (2005) and research of Uzoka et al (2008) show that the IS quality the quality of ERP affects the perceived usefulness of the system In ERP, this is explained from the point of view of the users of information system When the user
of the system is convinced that the system is qualitative through its characteristics, the user be-lieves it is a good and useful system Accordingly, if AIS has quality characteristics, it will help AIS users to recognize the quality characteristics of that system and influence their perception of usefulness, which in turn affects their usage AIS Based on the above arguments, the research hypothesis is given as follows:
H1: Quality AIS has a positive effect on perceived usefulness of AIS.
2.2.2 The relationship between quality AIS and usage AIS
System quality refers to the quality of the performance of the information system and its functionality (DeLone & McLean, 2016) System quality can be defined as the desirable charac-teristics provided by an information system (Petter et al, 2008) System quality is the key factor for the success of the information systems (Delone and McLean, 2016) From a different view-point, Hassanzadeh et al (2012) noted that the system quality affects learners’ satisfaction and intention to use, leading to enhanced learner usage of the elearning system Mohammadi (2015) found that system quality is the key predictor of satisfaction and intention to use This leads to the following hypothesis:
H2: Quality AIS has a positive effect on the usage AIS
2.2.3 The relationship between perceived usefulness of AIS and usage AIS
Starting from the TAM model, the perception of the usefulness of information system is formed and studied in most studies on ERP application in enterprises Davis (1989) defines per-ceived usefulness as the degree to which a person believes using a particular system will improve productivity The TAM model recognizes that use system is determined by the behavioral inten-tion to use a system, where the inteninten-tion to co-use the system is determined by an individual’s attitude towards using the system and perceptions about the usefulness of the system, when they realize the usefulness of the system, it leads to improving the efficiency of the work and the mo-tivation of users (Davis, 1989) Researches on ERP application in recent years have applied the TAM model in the explanation of ERP applications in enterprises all show that the perception of the usefulness of ERP affects the behavior of using ERP ( Gyampah, 2007; Amoako-Gyampah & Salam, 2004) In this study, the author inherits the research of applying TAM model
in ERP research and considered for a specific AIS to test the hypothesis of the impact of perceived
Trang 5usefulness of AIS on the usage AIS In addition, according to the research model, AIS quality af-fects the perceived usefulness of AIS, perceived usefulness AIS afaf-fects the usage AIS Therefore,
it can be seen that perceived usefulness AIS can act as a mediating role in the relationship between AIS quality and the usage AIS Thus, the hypotheses offer:
H3: Perceived usefulness AIS has a positive effect on the usage AIS
H4: Perceived usefulness AIS plays a mediating role in the relationship between AIS quality and the usage AIS.
Figure 2.1 Research model
3 Research method
3.1 The Instrument
In this study, the author carried out quantitative research method The important content
in quantitative research is a detailed questionnaire with information about the scales related to the measurement of PU according to the scale of Davis (1989); Calisir et al (2009); Rajan & Baral (2015), specifically, the PU scale includes 6 observed variables (PU1 to PU6), the ASU scale includes 5 observed variables (ASU1 to ASU5) from the scale of DeLone & McLean (2016) The scale quality of AIS variable is a result scale, including 9 observed variables (ASQ1
to ASQ9), measuring the quality of AIS, selected by the author from the study of DeLone & McLean (2016) These observed variables are measured on a 5-point Likert scale (1: Strongly disagree; 5: Strongly agree)
3.2 Sampling
The data collection tool in the study is a questionnaire, the author conducts direct and in-direct survey of individuals who using in-directly AIS and individuals participating in using AIS in the ERP environment The research is mainly conducted in enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City and some other provinces from July to September, 2019 Sample 104 was chosen according to the non-probability method, with this approach, the author has collected the necessary sample size for the study
The sample of 104 surveyed individuals included: 71 accountants (68.3%) and 33 managers who used AIS (31.7%), 37 male (35.6%) and 67 women (64.4%) Number of respondents aged from 30 to 40 accounts for the highest proportion of 62 people (59.6%) Professional qualifica-tions accounting for the highest proportion are university (69.2%), followed by postgraduate
Trang 6(20.2%) and college 10.6% Work experience of employees accounts for the highest rate from 5
to 10 years (43.3%), work experience of less than 5 years accounts for 38.5% and work experience over 10 years has the rate 18.3%
4 Data analysis and Results
4.1 The measurement model
This paper used the partial least squares (PLS) technique in SmartPLS to analyze data Fol-lowing the two-stage analytical procedure of PLS, the measurement model was examined before analyzing the structural model We assessed the reliability and validity of constructs in the meas-urement model by examining indicator reliability, internal consistency reliability, convergent va-lidity, and discriminant validity
Five items were eliminated due to insufficient factor loadings or cross-factor loadings (< 0.5) They were one item for Usage Accounting Information system (ASU1), four items for Ac-counting Information system quality (ASQ4, ASQ6, ASQ7, and ASQ9)
Convergent validity is verified through assessing using average variance extracted (AVE)
In PLS, it is comparable to the proportion of variance explained in factor analysis (value form 0
to 1) In this study, the loading of each item significant at the p < 0.001 level, shows good
con-vergent validity In addition, table 4.1 shows that the average variance extracted (AVE) of each
construct excesses 0.5 (Fornell and Larcker, 1981), thus displaying sound convergent validity
Table 4.1 shows two criteria for inside consistencies including composite reliability (CR) and Cronbach’s alpha As advocated by Hair et al (2016), all the constructs had a Cronbach’s
alpha over 0.7 A CR of all the constructs was also higher than 0.70, implying high internal con-sistency (Nunnaly & Bernstein 1994)
Table 4.1 Measurement model Items Loadings a AVE b CR c Rho_A d
Accounting
Quality
Usage
Accounting
Trang 7The discriminant validity is justified by three pieces of evidence including the HTMT
cri-terion, Fornell – Larcker criterion and cross-loadings Table 4.3 indicates that the square root of
the AVE of each construct is higher than its highest correlation with any other construct (Fornell and Larcker, 1981) All HTMT of constructs are importantly smaller than 1 (Henseler et al, 2015) (Table 4.4) Those figures imply satisfactory discriminant validity In addition, item loadings on corresponding constructs are higher than the cross-factor loadings (Table 4.2)
Table 4.2 Indicator Item Cross Loading
Item removed: indicator items are below 0.5: ASU1, ASQ4, ASQ6, ASQ7, ASQ9
a All item loadings > 0.5 Indicates indicator Reliability (Hulland, 1999)
b All Average Variance Extracted (AVE) > 0.5 as Indicates Convergent Reliability (Bagozzi &
Yi (1998); Fornell & Larcker (1981)
c All Composite reliability (CR) > 0.7 indicates Internal consistency (Gefen et al, 2000)
d All Cronbach’s alpha > 0.7 indicates Indicator Reliability (Nunnaly & Bernstein 1994)
Quality Accounting Information System Usage Accounting In- formation System Perceived Usefulness
Trang 8Table 4.3 Discriminant validity (Fornell and Larcker criterion)
Table 4.4 Discriminant validity (HTMT)
4.2 The structural model
Results of the PLS analysis indicate the explanatory power of the model as coefficients of determination (R2) of Accounting information system usage at 0.201, Perceived usefulness of AIS is medium at 0.476 In this paper, the goodness-of-fit index (GoF) was chosen to investigate the quality of the whole model SRMR index < 0.1 so the data fits the model (Henseler et al, 2014) The value of VIF <5 shows that the collinearity between the research variables is not a problem of the structural model
The value Effect size (f2) shows ASQ strong effect to PU (0.91), has a weak effect of 0.045
on ASU and PU has almost no effect on ASU (0.033)
The structural paths are reported in Figure 4.1 In the structural model, we utilize the boot-strapping technique with 5000 resamples to estimate the magnitude and significance of path co-efficients (β) at the confidence level of 95% Accounting Information system quality (β = 0.684,
p < 0.01) confirming H1, Accounting Information system quality (β = 0.277, p < 0.05) confirming H3 significantly influence the same direction to Usage of Accounting Information system Per-ceived usefulness (β = 0.22, p > 0.05) do not significantly relate to Usage of Accounting Infor-mation system, unsupported H3
Quality Accounting In-formation System Usage Accounting In-formation System Perceived Usefulness Quality Accounting
Usage Accounting
Quality Accounting In-formation System Usage Accounting In-formation System Perceived Usefulness Quality Accounting
Information System
Usage Accounting
Trang 9Table 4.5 Hypothesis testing: Bootraping Direct effect result
Note: *** p<0.01, **p<0.05
Figure 4.1 Results of PLS path modeling.
4.3 The mediating role of perceived usefulness AIS
Mediation analysis of PU in the model, we tested the significance of the indirect effect and direct effect in two situations – exiting PU and no exiting PU The direct effect is positive, but indirect effect is not significant Hence, we conclude that PU represents direct-only nonmediation
of the relationship from Accounting Information system quality to Accounting Information system usage
Table 4.6 Indirect relationship for Hypothesis testing
5 Conclusion and research implication
5.1 Conclusion
From previous studies on usage IS, applying the successful IS model of DeLone & McLean and TAM model, the author has built a relationship model between quality of Accounting Infor-mation System, Perceived Usefullness and Usage Accounting InforInfor-mation System The results show that the measurement scales of research concepts are highly reliable The accepted
hypothe-ypothesis Relationship Beta Std Error Std t-value Decision f2 95%
CI LL
95%
CI UL
H1 ASQ —> PU 0.684 0.08 8.770*** Supported 0.91 0.546 0.803 H3 PU —> ASU 0.22 0.147 1.522 Unsupported 0.033 -0.029 0.458 H2 ASQ —> ASU 0.277 0.12 2.18* Supported 0.045 0.073 0.473
ASQ -> PU -> ASU 0.152 0.107 1.452 No -0.009 0.345
Trang 10ses include hypotheses H1 and H2, whereby the quality AIS has an impact on the perceived use-fulness of AIS and quality AIS that affects the usage AIS However, perceived useuse-fulness AIS does not act as a mediating variable in the relationship between AIS quality and the usage AIS
5.2 Research Implication
With the research results shows that the need to improve the quality of AIS in enterprises AIS is now a system with the support of IT, mainly in the application environment of accounting software and ERP, so improving the quality of AIS should focus on:
- Continue to improve processes and procedures in the process of collecting, processing, storing data and providing information to different users, creating ease of access and use the sys-tem These procedures should be specific in writing and stored in the system with system docu-mentation tools such as data flow diagrams and flowcharts for each of the different processing processes, but have full approval
- Increased AIS connectivity further with other systems in the enterprise through the help
of processing software Orientation and apply technology effectively in accounting and manage-ment, creating convenience and ease in using the system
- Control the ERP software evaluation and selection process in AIS, regularly update new software versions and suit business needs, to ensure flexibility, integration, and customization requirements and high control over software According to the survey results on the use of ERP systems, there are 2 groups of ERP software used by enterprises, which are domestic and foreign software For domestic software, although the cost is lower, it is necessary to pay attention to control and integration features to contribute to improving the quality of AIS
- Further improve the quality of data of enterprises and business operations of enterprises, create a diverse and scaled data warehouse to serve the needs of data mining and analysis to sup-port more useful information for administrators
- Improve the quality of IT infrastructure, regularly monitor and manage computer systems, peripheral devices, and communications to promptly detect problems and risks and take appro-priate corrective measures Strengthening network security solutions, especially in the case of information transfer on computer networks When the AIS on the computer platform has stable operation and effective management, the quality of AIS will be enhanced
- Improving the quality of AIS will contribute to improving the quality of accounting in-formation, currently most businesses have applied IT in accounting, although the level of IT ap-plication in accounting is not the same, but basically businesses are applying accounting software and ERP system in accounting work and enterprise management The level of IT application will affect the way of collecting, processing data and providing accounting information, thus affecting risks as well as the management and control of AIS The awareness and assessment of the possi-bility of errors and frauds for AIS in the computer environment, thereby having important control procedures, will contribute to improving the quality of AIS In AIS control, it is necessary to focus on general control and application control, general control including control activities re-lated to the entire processing system and affecting all processing application systems in business