BSC does not only set priorities for organizations to focus on important processes, it can also identify new processes that need to be established for organizations to achieve breakthrough targets. Additionally, BSC provides measurements - such as the shortening of order cycle and the reduction of the time to approach the market - for the evaluation of the benefits of plans to transform and restructure the organization. Because of these measurements, transformation plans are not simply cost-reduction plans any longer. Lastly, BSC combines the process of preparing strategic plans and budget plans, which are two processes that were previously separated and incompatible. With this unification process, the process of creating long-term strategic plans will be performed alongside the process of creating annual budget plans. The result of this is a list of measurements and targets that the organization must follow to achieve long-term plans.

Performance of Organizations

According to Otley (1999), the performance of the organization is shown in different aspects including: targets, strategies, performance indicators, reward systems and IT systems. Organizations' performance also helps managers maintain and improve the standards in the organization. According to Kaplan & Norton (1992), Organization Performance Structure was developed to measure the organization's overall performance. Additionally, the organization's performance could also be measured using financial and non-financial criteria. Financial criteria include total profit, market share, ROA, ROI, etc. Non-financial criteria include customer satisfaction, quality of products, service, development and training

Table 1 Common Financial Ratios to Evaluate Listed Companies' Performance
Ratios	Measurements
Market shares	Customer rate, Revenues, Volume of sales in compared with industrial average.
Return - On - Assets (ROA)	ROA = Net Income (Profit after tax)/Total Assets
Return - On - Investment (ROI)	ROI = Investment Gain / Investment Base
Marginal Revenue (Chenhall, 2007)	Change in total revenue / Change in quantity sold
Total Profit	Total Profit = Total Revenue - Total expenses
Other resources	Ty le gia tang nguon luc
Acquired customers	- Amount of new Customers - Revenues generated from new Customers - Revenues generated from new customers divided by total revenue
Retained customers	- Percentage of revenue generated by current customer base over total revenue. - Loyal customer rate: % of growth rate associated with current customer base.
Profit generated by customers	- Quarterly changes in profits generated by customers - Ty le khach hang mang lai lo so voi khach hang mang lai lai

Table 2 Common Non-Financial Ratios to Evaluate Listed Companies' Performance
Ratios	Benchmarks
Attitudes and Ethics of staffs	Chi so tuan thu menh lenh cap tren Chi so chu dong trong cong viec Honesty and Integrity Cooperation between collegueas Learning & Growth Motivation
Customer satisfaction	Number of successful transactions. Number of returns and refunds. Number of customer satisfaction regarding designs and quality of product. Number of complaints about quality of product.
Product and service quality	Product Quality: based on its standards and benchmarks. Time: Refected by quality of product and delivery time. Satisfy customers' requirements. Price: Reflected by production cost and cost to utilize the product.

BSC's Role in the Improvement of Performance

According to Kaplan & Norton (1996), successful implementation of BSC would provide managers with a better overview of the organization's performance compared to the resources available. Based on such information, managers could create solutions to optimize the resources usage to improve the organization's performance. This will be shown in details below:

BSC is a measurement system: Even though financial measurements can visualize past events, they are not suitable for emphasizing the value creation process of organizations. These are intangible assets such as knowledge, information, network, etc. Those financial measurements are refered to as “lagging indicators”, which show results of a series of past actions. Furthermore, BSC supplements those "lagging indicators" with "leading indicators" that would help managers with strategic decisions that would create economic benefits in the future. However, those measurements, including both "lagging indicators" and "leading indicators", all originated from the organization's strategy. Additionally, BSC could be seen as a tool to clarify organizational strategies and targets.

BSC is a strategic management system: Initially, BSC was a system consisting of measurements used for balancing and clarifying financial indicators which can measure the efficiency of the organization and its strategy. However, as time goes on, more organizations use BSC as a tool to link short-term campaigns with the organization's strategies. To achieve this, BSC replaced many theoretical aspects with measurements and implementation of the strategy. Moreover, BSC helps overcoming the obstacle of guiding people towards the common goal by explaining the strategy in details: BSC aims to share knowledge and transform the organization's strategy into specific criteria, measurements and indicators. When using BSC as the foundation to explain the strategy, organizations create a new measurement method to guide people towards achieving the strategy.

BSC is a communication tool used for overcoming HR barriers: For the strategy to be successfully achieved, it must be implemented and understood at all levels of the organization. Furthermore, to create the opportunity for workers to connect their daily works with the organization's strategies, BSC must be implemented in every department of the organization. Additionally, all departments of the organization should also recognize their roles, positions and value-added activities through the connection between their responsibilities and the organization's targets. Moreover, BSC provides responses from staffs to BOM, which allows the constant update of the status of the strategy's implementation.

BSC provides solutions to overcome resources related barriers: Resources are critical for the development of organizations. Most of the organizations are executing their strategies without sufficient resources. So how should resources be divided and allocated? It could be seen that without BSC, most organizations are planning their strategies and budgets separately. However, with BSC, organizations can combine the two processes; aside from setting targets, benchmarks, indicators of 4 aspects, BSC also takes into account ideas and action plans to help the organizations achieve their targets.

BSC is an information exchange tool: Exchange of information happens between managers and employees. In recent years, there have been several documents related to the knowledge management strategy in organizations. The common characteristic of those strategies is how they want the employee's hidden knowledge to be exposed and shared. Employees, unlike organizations that depend on their tangible assets, rely on their knowledge. Nowadays, operations must face the challenge of systemizing and control that knowledge.

Research Methods, Models and Hypotheses

Research Data and Methods

By using non-probability sampling method, authors were able to collect information from 550 companies listed on HOSE and HNX; among 518 survey forms, only 496 forms were valid for the analysis (22 forms were invalid due to missing information or unsuitable answers for the authors' requirements). Respondents are board of directors' representatives in charge of the organization's accounting and finance. Due to several reasons and conditions, the authors couldn't collect information from more organizations. The authors employed Google documents to collect information from 10/2019 to 1/2020 in primary fields such as consumer goods industry; food and catering industry; High-tech industry; Medical indsutry, etc.

The main method of research used for this research is Structural Equation Method (SEM) with the help of 2 main softwares, AMOS – SPSS. According to Geogre Tauchen (1986), to achieve a reliable estimation for this method, the sample size must be greater than 200. With 15-44 observations for a variable, the mininum sample size needed for this research would be 280 = 35x8, or n > 50 + 8x varaibles = 50 + 8x8 = 114 (Hair et. al., 2010). By combining these rules, the mininum sample size that the authors chose was n > 280. Therefore, with 496 samples collected, the mininum sample size requirement of 280 samples has been surpassed.

Research Models and Hypotheses

Contigency Theory was developed and utilized by management accounting researchers from the 1970s to the 1980s. Contigency Theory researchs management accounting, in general, and BSC, in specific, in organizations based on the relationship between the organizations and surrounding environments. In another way, how an accouting system fits the organization depends on the organization's characteristics and the specific working environment. This means that building an efficient BSC system requires the compatibility with each organization, as well as its internal and external environment. Furthermore, Contigency theory shows how characteristics and environmental factors impact the usage of information that was provided by BSC. Gordon & Miller's research results (1976) was applied to the research, by which contigency theory will be utilized to explain the effects of factors such as: Level of competition, Business strategy, Organizational size, the organization's management system, and IT level to the application of BSC in the organization.

According to Nick & Clive (1993) Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) started in 1808 when Albert Gallatin mentioned it in an irrigation project while comparing the costs and benefits of the project. In 1936, CBA was officially mentioned in a flood control regulation in the US, in which costs and benefits must be considered before proceeding with the project. CBA then get researched and expanded on for Welfare Economics by Eckstein (1958). CBA points out that benefits gained from the supply of information must be compared against the costs of creating and supplying that information. In general, benefits of accounting information can be used by: relevant parties, investors and organizations; while the costs are beared by accounting information reporters and more generally, society. Therefore, there must be frequent inspections and balancing to make sure the costs do not exceed the benefits. The goal of management accounting is to satisfy the organization's management needs, therefore, each organizations have different requirements for their management accounting information system and different ways of using their management accounting technical tools. The theory helps explaining the factor of the managers' awareness; the performed methods and techniques; the employees' profiency as well as the IT level of the organization when using management accounting as well as BSC for the organization.

Based on past experiments and foundation theories, the authors built a research model and hypotheses as below:

To consider the influence level and importance of factors that affect BSC’s usage in listed companies in Vi?t Nam, several hypotheses were constructed:

H1: The factor of Manager's awareness has direct relationship (+) with the application of BSC to heighten performance of listed companies in Vietnam.

H2: The factor of Level of Competition has direct relationship (+) with the application of BSC to heighten performance of listed companies in Vietnam.

H3: The factor of Business strategy has direct relationship (+) with the application of BSC to heighten performance of listed companies in Vietnam.

H4: The factor of Organizational size has direct relationship (+) with the application of BSC to heighten performance of listed companies in Vietnam.

H5: The factor of Characteristics of management system has direct relationship (+) with the application of BSC to heighten performance of listed companies in Vietnam.

H6: The factor of Methods and techniques applied has direct relationship (+) with the application of BSC to heighten performance of listed companies in Vietnam.

H7: The factor of Skill level of Staff has direct relationship (+) with the application of BSC to heighten performance of listed companies in Vietnam.

H8: The factor of IT level has direct relationship (+) with the application of BSC to heighten performance of listed companies in Vietnam.

H9: The Application of BSC has direct relationship (+) with the increase of performance of listed companies in Vietnam.

Regression Analysis

The authors built a multivariable regression model to test hypotheses

Theoretically, Regression Analysis is expected to reflect the relationship between factors that affects the application of BSC to improve the performance of listed companies in Vietnam.

VD = β0 + β₁NT + β₂CT + β₃CL + β₄ QM + β₅BM + β₆PK + β₇TD + β₈CN + δ

In which:

β0, β_1, β_2, β_3, β_4, β_5, β₆, β₇: regression functions

δ: Variance

Dependent Variable e.g: Application of BSC.

Independent variables

NT: Managers' awareness;

CT: Level of competition;

CL: Business strategy;

QM: Organizational size;

BM: Characteristics of management system;

PK: Methods and Techniques applied;

TD: Skill level of staff;

CN: IT level.

Research Results

Evaluate Scales of Measurement

By appying Cronbach's Alpha to test for reliability, it could be observed that 43/43 observed variables of 10 factors in the research model are qualified. Since minimum corrected item-total correlation of each factor is greater than 3.0 while Cronbach's Alpha is greater than 0.7, all measurements are valid and have good reliability.

Table 3 summarizes the result of analysis of reliability in the model.

Table 3 Result of Cronbach’s Alpha Test
STT	Measurements	Amount of initial observed variables	Amount of observed variables after tested	Cronbach’s Alpha	Minimum Corrected Item - Total correlation
1	Managers' awareness (NT)	5	5	0.908	0.677
2	Competitive level (CT)	5	5	0.878	0.665
3	Business strategy (CL)	6	6	0.881	0.644
4	Organizational Size (QM)	3	3	0.805	0.630
5	Charateristics of management system (BM)	3	3	0.813	0.641
6	Methods and Techniques applied (PK)	4	4	0.899	0.899
7	Staff Skill (TD)	5	5	0.865	0.612
8	IT level (CN)	4	4	0.815	0.613
9	Application of BSC in listed companies in Vietnam (VD)	4	4	0.830	0.611
10	Perfomance of listed companies in Vietnam (TQ)	4	4	0.820	0.610

Exploratory Factor Analysis

The authors carried out Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) using Principal Component Analysis as the Extraction method with Varimax Rotation and end points with Eigenvalue >1. Results of EFA showed that KMO = 0.906; meanwhile, Barlett's test ended up with Sig. =0.000 (<0.05). Therefore, EFA is considered to be appropriate.

Table 4 Kmo and Bartlett's Test
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy.		0.906
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity	Approx. Chi-Square	12552.390
	Df	990
	Sig.	0.000

At Eigenvalue =1.416>1 extracted from 10 factors in 43 observations with total average variance extracted of 69.452% (>50%) and no new factor was discovered. Therefore, after EFA, those 43 observed variables were qualified and no factor was eliminated.

Table 5 Average Variance Extracted - Total Variance Explained
Factor	Initial Eigenvalues				Extraction Sums of Squared Loadings			Rotation Sums of Squared Loadingsa
	Total	% of Variance		Cumulative %	Total	% of Variance	Cumulative %	Total
1	11.365		25.255	25.255	10.988	24.418	24.418	7.117
2	3.716		8.258	33.513	3.325	7.388	31.806	5.462
3	2.636		5.859	39.372	2.253	5.008	36.814	5.899
4	2.548		5.662	45.034	2.172	4.827	41.640	4.853
5	2.364		5.252	50.286	1.973	4.385	46.025	5.052
6	2.174		4.832	55.118	1.834	4.075	50.100	6.308
7	1.925		4.277	59.395	1.527	3.394	53.494	7.609
8	1.599		3.553	62.948	1.232	2.739	56.233	3.450
9	1.511		3.358	66.306	1.139	2.531	58.764	3.647
10	1.416		3.147	69.452	1.002	2.226	60.990	3.863
11	0.742		1.648	71.101

By applying EFA, the authors analyzed each variable to test for multidimensionality and evaluate its measurements.

Table 6 Results of EFA
STT	Measurement	KMO	Eigenvalues	Average Variance Extracted	Notes
1	Managers' awareness (NT)	0.896	3.668	66.931	Accepted
2	Competitive level (CT)	0.880	3.365	59.219	Accepted
3	Business strategy (CL)	0.905	3.803	56.122	Accepted
4	Organizational size (QM)	0.702	2.166	58.804	Accepted
5	Characteristics of management system (BM)	0.713	2.194	59.869	Accepted
6	Methods and techniques applied (PK)	0.833	3.069	69.292	Accepted
7	Staff skill (TD)	0.859	3.276	57.264	Accepted
8	IT level (CN)	0.798	2.573	52.486	Accepted
9	Application of BSC in listed companies in Vietnam (VD)	0.800	2.652	55.309	Accepted
10	Performance of listed companies in Vietnam (TQ)	0.801	2.605	53.584	Accepted

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Table 7 Results of CFA in the form of Standardized Regression Weights
			Estimate
NT3	<---	NT	00.817
NT2	<---	NT	00.839
NT4	<---	NT	00.852
NT5	<---	NT	00.863
NT1	<---	NT	00.684
CT1	<---	CT	00.813
CT2	<---	CT	00.791
CT3	<---	CT	00.781
CT5	<---	CT	00.739
CT4	<---	CT	00.721
CL3	<---	CL	00.738
CL1	<---	CL	00.733
CL4	<---	CL	00.724
CL6	<---	CL	00.762
CL2	<---	CL	00.683
CL5	<---	CL	00.799
PK4	<---	PK	00.913
PK2	<---	PK	00.837
PK3	<---	PK	00.827
PK1	<---	PK	00.670
TD2	<---	TD	00.811
TD1	<---	TD	00.703
TD5	<---	TD	00.831
TD3	<---	TD	00.678
TD4	<---	TD	00.752
HQ4	<---	HQ	00.713
HQ1	<---	HQ	00.739
HQ2	<---	HQ	00.768
HQ3	<---	HQ	00.703
VD4	<---	VD	00.680
VD2	<---	VD	0.775
VD3	<---	VD	0.724
VD1	<---	VD	0.790
CN1	<---	CN	0.750
CN3	<---	CN	0.727
CN2	<---	CN	0.715
CN4	<---	CN	0.648
BM3	<---	BM	0.816
BM1	<---	BM	0.724
BM2	<---	BM	0.778
QM1	<---	QM	0.830
QM3	<---	QM	0.739
QM2	<---	QM	0.728

As it can be seen in Table 4.5, all Standardized Regression Weights are greater than 0.5, which means that all variables have convergent validity and P-value has statistical meaning.

Result shows that the research model is appropriate with data, since Chi-squared = 1121.552; Degree of Independence =815; CMIN/df =1.376 <2; P value =0.000. Other measurements also meet the necessary requirements: CFI = 0.971 > 0.9; GFI = 0.906 >0.9; TLI =0.968>0.9; RMSEA = 0.028 <0.05. All weights of variables are greater than 0.5, and P value = 0.000 so there is statistical meaning.

Testing the Theoretical and Hypotheses Structure using Structural Equation Modeling

Testing Theoretical Structure

Result shows that the research model is appropriate with data, since Chi-squared = 1178.301; Degree of Independence = 823; CMIN/df =1.432 <2; P value =0.000. Other measurements also meet the necessary requirements: TLI =0.963; CFI =0.966; GFI =0.902 > 0.9; RMSEA = 0.030 <0.05. All weights of variables are greater than 0.5, and P value = 0.000 so there is statistical meaning. This suggests that the research model is appropriate with data. Result also showed that all variables had direct positive impact on the application of BSC to improve the performance of listed companies in Vietnam.

As can be seen in the table, all hypotheses in the research model were confirmed by SEM. Estimations of all weighted values were positive and had statistical meaning, which suggested that all factors in the research model, including Managers' awareness, Level of Competition, Business strategy, Methods and Techniques applied, Staff skills, IT level, Characteristics of Management system, and Organizational size had direct impact on the application of BSC to improve the performance of listed companies in Vietnam.

Bootstrap Test

Bootstrap test is used to test the variables that were measured using Maximum Likelihood)

Table 8 Result of Bootstrap Test With N = 1000
Parameter			SE	SE-SE	Mean	Bias	SE-Bias	|C.R|
Application of BSC in listed companies in Vietnam	<---	Managers' awareness	0.042	0.001	0.238	-0.001	0.001	1
	<---	Level of Competition	0.043	0.001	0.228	0.001	0.001	1
	<---	Business strategy	0.040	0.001	0.213	0.001	0.001	1
	<---	Methods and Techniques applied	0.043	0.001	0.105	0.002	0.001	2
	<---	Staff skills	0.044	0.001	0.108	-0.002	0.001	2
	<---	IT level	0.042	0.001	0.159