THE IMPACT OF ACCOUNTING INFORMATION DISCLOSED BY LISTED COMPANIES ON INVESTORS’ DECISIONS ON VIETNAM STOCK MARKET

1 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRANNING NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY  RESEARCH REPORT THE IMPACT OF ACCOUNTING INFORMATION DISCLOSED BY LISTED COMPANIES ON INVESTORS’ DECISIONS ON VIETNAM STOCK MARKET Specialty: Accounting Code: KTQD/E2016.02 Leader of the group : MB DANG THI THUY HANG 2 Hanoi, 2016 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRANNING NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY  RESEARCH REPORT THE IMPACT OF ACCOUNTING INFORMATION DISCLOSED BY LISTED COMPANIES ON INVESTORS’ DECISIONS ON VIETNAM STOCK MARKET Specialty: Accounting Code: KTQD/E2016.02 Leader of the group : MB DANG THI THUY HANG Members of the group: PhD TS Pham Duc Cuong PhD Tran Thi Nam Thanh MBA Han Thi Lan Thu MBA.Vu Thi Lan Huong Ngo Thi Thanh Thuy Nguyen Dang Kien Nguyen Thi Hong Ngoc 3 Hanoi, 2016 TABLE OF CONTENT TABLE OF TABLES, CHARTS Tables: Charts: INTRODUCTION Research Idea Today, in order to survive and develop in the increasingly internationalized world, listed companies must be disclosed as much information as they can to satisfy the demands of investors In the corporate information disclosures, accounting information disclosures which typically are presented on the financial statements, as a basic source of validity information to be used by different group of users in making investing decision, including investors There are many studies on corporate information disclosures around the world, even in the developed countries (US, UK, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, ) or in the developing countries (Iran, Jordan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Vietnam, Tunisia, ), and in the emerging economies (UAE, Greece, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, ) Most of these researchs try to find out the impact of factors such as firm size, structure of ownership, auditing company-big 4, etc on corporate disclosures (Ahmed et al 1994, 1999; Akhtaruddin et al 2008, 2009; Barako et al 2006; Buzby, 1975; Chau et al., 2001; Chen et al., 2000; Cooke, 1992; Donnelly et al., 2008; Firth, 1979; Gerald et al., 2002; Gul et al., 2004; Haniffa et al., 2002, Ho et al., 2008; Inchausti, 1997; Jiang & Habib, 2009; Makhija &Patton, 2004; Meek et al., 1995; Owusu-Ansah, 1998; Raida & Hamadi, 2008; Soh, 1996; Tạ Quang Bình, 2012; Wallace et al., 1995; Xiao & Yuan, 2007) In the contrast, number of studies on the influence of corporate disclosures on the decision making of users is not too much, for example, the researchs of (Abbad, 2012; Abu-Nassar & Rutherford, 1996; Al-Ajmi, 2009; Al-Sawalqa, 2012; Anderson, 1981; Baker & Haslem, 1973; Chen et al., 2001; Mirshekary & Saudagaran, 2005; Norman, 2012) In fact, there are not too much researchs on mandatory disclosures, while many studies concentrate on voluntary disclosures In addition, researchers around the world not only study on corporate disclosures, but also on non-profit organizations ’ disclosures, for example, Flack and Douglas (2007) investigate the disclosed information by charity organizations in Australia, or Gordon et al.(2002) compare the level disclosures of the public universities and the private universities in the US The majority of disclosed information researchs concentrate on the disclosed infrmation of listed companies, on the other hand, the minority of studies about information disclosures of small and medium companies Researchers also study the disclosed information of banks (Maingot & Zeghal, 2008), and some other special industries as oil, gas industry (Craswell & Taylor, 1992) Besides, there are studies how to measure either Madatory Disclosure Index and Voluntary Disclosure Index or Aggregate Disclosure Index in a country or a stock exchange market (Adelopo, 2011; Al-Akra et al., 2010; Benjamin & Stanga, 1977; Omar & Simon, 2011; Mohamed & Zahirul, 2010) In summary, the issue of information disclosures is still very rich nutritional field for researchers (Healy & Palepu, 2001), and being concerned in the new stock exchange market However, according to some recent studies of Ngo Thu Giang (2011), Dang Thi Thuy Hang (2014, 2011) published accounting information of companies listed on Vietnam's stock market currently not meet the needs of users In fact, in the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE), there is usually a high number of listed companies that infringe the disclosed information regulations, for example, they not provide full, reliable disclosures on time In 2011, there were only 24 companies, but this number was higher than times in 2012 (204 companies) and on December 4, 2013 was 153 companies, according to The Report of HOSE (2013) Additionally, the Vietnamese financial statements are prepared under the historical cost principle than the fair value, this is one of the barriers slowing down the listing progress of a number of Vietnamese listed companies in abroad in order to increase in capital when domestic funds is limited Another reason prevent the companies attracting money from investors is the quality of financial statements, because there is a different existance between this statements before and after to be audited This situation makes investors losing their belief what the companies present in financial statement, and in turn the Vietnamese stock market has a down trend during a long time Therefore, research on the impact of accounting information released to the issuance of investors on Vietnam's stock market is really very necessary and meaningful in both theory and practice In theory, the study will enrich the theoretical frameworks of the relationship between published information of listed companies and the decision making of investors in the stock market in the emerging economy like Vietnam In the practice, the results of the study will help the professional organizations in the promulgation of accounting standards, financial reporting standards and auditing standards; the State management agencies in the promulgation of regulations related to information disclosure of listed companies on the Stock Exchange; the listed companies in disclosing of useful information for investors; and securities companies in providing services to clients are investors In addition, investors can also be based on the research results to make effective investment strategy Research Ojective The objective of the study is to explore and examine the influence degree of accounting disclosures of listed companies in making decision of investors in Vietnam Stock Exchange Research questions In order to reach the objective, the study try to find out the answers for these questions as below: Question 1: What are accounting disclosures having impact on the decision making of investors in Vietnam Stock Exchange? Question 2: How does the disclosed accounting information affect on the decision making of investors in Vietnam Stock Exchange? Research subject and scope The research subject of the study is the impact of accounting disclosures on decision making of individual investors in Vietnam Stock Exchange Research scope: In the study, disclosed accounting information is all information provided by accounting department and presented in financial statements of listed companies, including mandatory and voluntary disclosures Research sample is a group of individual investors who are selected by ramdom method from the population of all individual investors participating in Vietnam Stock Exchange The survey period: month, when and after listed companies in Vietnam Stock Exchange disclosed their annual financial statements (from April 14th, 2015 to May 15th, 2015) Research contributions The study comprises some contributions as below: (1) In this study, authors only concentrate to research on the impact of accounting disclosures on decision making of individual investors in Vietnam Stock Exchange (2) The authors has developed a system of indicators to measure the published accounting information classified by the content of information, financial statements where information was presented, mandatory or voluntary disclosures, unlike the past researchs measured directly the affected score of financial statements or published information of companies by 5-point Likert scale Therefore, the research results are able to make conclusions for the population and indicate the difference in the influencing degree of various accounting disclosures in decision making of investors (3) Under accounting perspective, the authors have developed a system of accounting disclosures that have impact on decision making of individual investors in Vietnam Stock Exchange This system includes 11 general accounting information (factors) and 82 detail accounting information (items) (4) The results from the quatitative analysis have found out some different points compared with the similar studies in the past Firstly, the accounting information presented in Balance Sheet (BS) has the least impact on decision making of invetors investing in Vietnam Stock Exchange, compared with other financial statements, while it has the most important for investors in the other stock markets around the world Secondly, the information disclosed in Statement of Cash Flows has the influencing score only behind Insome Statement (ranking at the first) This indicates that cash flows in companies are now more important for individual investors when they make investing decisions than in the past Thirdly, voluntary disclosures have more impact 10 on decision of investors than madatory ones, which is has not been found by the privious researchs The structure of report The report comprises chapters: Chapter 1: Literature Reviews, Chapter 2: Theoretical Frameworks and Research Design, Chapter 3: Research Methodology, Chapter 4: Results and Discussions, Chapter 5: Implications and Recommendations Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW Accounting information is as part of the information disclosed in the annual reports of companies-enterprises Research into the disclosed information of companies and influence of those information on Decision of investors attracted interests of many researchers from both internal and external of country 1.1 Research in the World The overview of reseacrh into the important of company-disclosed information for different information users including invetors is illustrated in the figure 2.1 below Chart 1.1: Overview of external research 1.1.1 Annual report is an important source of information for users to make economical decisions Information from annual reports (Financial statements – Annual report, report of chairman of managing board, auditing report…) of companies have been 141 INTRODUCTION Research Idea Today, in order to survive and develop in the increasingly internationalized world, listed companies must be disclosed as much information as they can to satisfy the demands of investors In the corporate information disclosures, accounting information disclosures which typically are presented on the financial statements, as a basic source of validity information to be used by different group of users in making economics decision, including investors However, according to some recent studies, published accounting information of companies listed on Vietnam's stock market currently not meet the needs of investors Therefore, research on the impact of accounting disclosures on decision making of investors on Vietnam Stock Exchange is really very necessary and meaningful in both theory and practice In theory, the study will enrich the theoretical frameworks of the relationship between published information of listed companies and the decision making of investors in the stock market in the emerging economy like Vietnam In the practice, the results of the study will help the professional organizations in the promulgation of accounting standards, financial reporting standards and auditing standards; the State management agencies in the promulgation of regulations related to information disclosure of listed companies on the Stock Exchange; the listed companies in disclosing of useful information for investors; and securities companies in providing services to clients are investors In addition, investors can also be based on the research results to make effective investment strategy Research Objective The objective of the study is to explore and examine the influence degree of accounting disclosures of listed companies in making decision of investors in Vietnam Stock Exchange Research questions In order to reach the objective, the study try to find out the answers for these questions as below: Question 1: What are accounting disclosures having impact on the decision making of investors in Vietnam Stock Exchange? Question 2: How does the disclosed accounting information affect on the decision making of investors in Vietnam Stock Exchange? 142 Research subject and scope The research subject of the dissertation is the impact of accounting disclosures on decision making of individual investors in Vietnam Stock Exchange Research scope: In the dissertation, disclosed accounting information is all information provided by accounting department and presented in financial statements of listed companies, including mandatory and voluntary disclosures Research sample is a group of individual investors who are selected by ramdom method from the population of all individual investors participating in Vietnam Stock Exchange The survey period: month, when and after listed companies in Vietnam Stock Exchange disclosed their annual financial statements (from April 14th, 2015 to May 15th, 2015) Research contributions The study comprises some contributions as below: (1) In this study, authors only concentrate to research on the impact of accounting disclosures on decision making of individual investors in Vietnam Stock Exchange (2) The authors has developed a system of indicators to measure the published accounting information classified by the content of information, financial statements where information was presented, mandatory or voluntary disclosures, unlike the past researchs measured directly the affected score of financial statements or published information of companies by 5-point Likert scale Therefore, the research results are able to make conclusions for the population and indicate the difference in the influencing degree of various accounting disclosures in decision making of investors (3) Under accounting perspective, the authors have developed a system of accounting disclosures that have impact on decision making of individual investors in Vietnam Stock Exchange This system includes 11 general accounting information (factors) and 82 detail accounting information (items) (4) The results from the quatitative analysis have found out some different points compared with the similar studies in the past Firstly, the accounting information presented in Balance Sheet (BS) has the least impact on decision making of invetors investing in Vietnam Stock Exchange, compared with other financial statements, while it has the most important for investors in the other stock markets around the world Secondly, the information disclosed in Statement of Cash Flows has the influencing score only behind Insome Statement (ranking at the first) This indicates that cash flows in companies are now more important for individual investors when they make investing decisions than in the past Thirdly, voluntary disclosures 143 have more impact on decision of investors than madatory ones, which is has not been found by the privious researchs The structure of report The report comprises chapters: Chapter 1: Literature Reviews, Chapter 2: Theoretical Frameworks and Research Design, Chapter 3: Research Methodology, Chapter 4: Results and Discussions, Chapter 5: Implications and Recommendations Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEWS 1.1 Studies in the world 1.1.1 The information presented in annual reports is the important source in the decision making process of users There have been many studies around the world indicated that annual reports have been the most information source in the making decision of users in general and investors in particular (Abu-Nassar & Rutherford, 1996, Al-Ajmi, 2009, Al-Razeen & Karbhari, 2004, 2007, Al Sawalqa, 2012, Mirshekary & Saudagaran, 2005, Anderson, 1981, Buzby, 1974, Naser, Nuseibeh & Al-Hussaini, 2003) 1.1.2 There is a difference of the important level of each report in annual reports in the decision making of users The majority of studies found out that BS and IS were the most important reports for users However, there were still researches indicated that Auditors ’ Report were considered more important than BS and IS by users In addition, recent studies show that users concern more about Notes because they can find out the additional information disclosed outside other financial statements (Mirshekary & Saudagarank, 2005) 1.1.3 The important level of the detail information presented in annual reports for users’decision making The important information includes: the current and future profitability, devidend policy, supports from the Government, stock price and the future growth, members of director board, business activities (Abdelsalam, 1990 & Abdulla, 1992, in Al-Ajmi, 2009; Al-Attar & Al-Khater, 2007; Al-Razeen & Karbhari, 2004, 2007; Mirshekary & Saudagaran, 2005) 1.2 Studies in Vietnam There are some studies examining the impact of disclosed information showed in annual reports, financial statements on decisions of different group of users Dang Duc Son et.al (2006) studied the perceptions and using information presented in financial statements of medium and small companies, of various groups of users According to Le 144 Tu Oanh’s dissertation (2012), the published information in annual statements of listed companies has impact on investors’ decisions Some other studies on factors affecting on disclosures of listed companies in Vietnam Stock Exchange, were implemented by some PhD Students namely Ta Quang Binh (2012) and Ngo Thu Giang (2014) Moreover, the research on behaviour of individual investors also studied by Nguyen Duc Hien (2012) 1.3 Research gap The author recognizes that almost of previous studies approach towards asking directly users about their perceptions about the important rate of one or all of annual reports; have not research on the difference of the influencing score of mandatory and voluntary disclosures; were implemented in the developed countries, the developing countries and the emerging economies; evaluated each disclosed information separately; have not tested the difference of the important level of detail published information between various groups of users From the above reasons, the dissertation will develop a system of items used to measure the influence of dislosed information in decision making, then assesses the important degree of each report, evaluates and compares the influencing level between mandatory disclosures and voluntary ones; will be implemented in Vietnam – a country having an emerging economy; groups the information disclosures base on the relevant criteria; tests the difference of the important level of detail published information between various groups of users Therefore, it is very necessary to implement one research on the impact of accounting disclosures on decision making of investors in Vietnam Stock Exchange Chapter 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND RESEARCH DESIGN 2.1 Accounting disclosure 2.1.1 Definition of accounting disclosures Accounting disclosure includes all information related to financial position and business performance of companies and be provided by the accounting department In the narrow sense, accounting disclosure is understood that is the information provided by accountants and the majority of them to be presented in financial statements of companies 2.1.2 The role of accounting disclosure Accounting disclosure is showed in annual financial statements, likes a bridge connecting companies to outside users, and is an official information channel with high legal value compared to other sources of information 145 2.1.3 Classification of accounting disclosures • Classification of accounting disclosures base on financial statements: The information is disclosed in BS, IS, CFS and Notes • Classification of accounting disclosures according to the nature of information: Mandatory disclosures (the information must be disclosed base on the requirements of law, regulations of state agencies, State Securities Commission, Accounting Standard Board) and Voluntary disclosures (the accounting information is not required to disclose, companies disclose voluntarily) 2.2 Decision of investors 2.1.1 Definition of investor: is an organization or a person that have investing activities In the Stock Exchange, investor is whoever paticipate buying, selling and holding securities (including stocks, bonds, certificates of investment funds, etc) 2.1.2 Classification of investors Base on different criteria, investors are classified into two groups , for example, the group of individual investors and the group of institutional investors (according to benefits from invetsment), the group of professional and non- professional investors (according to professional skills), the group of investors with qualification and the group of nonqualification, investors with experience and investors with little experience (according to the time period which investors have participated stock exchange), investors invest in the primary market and investors invest in the secondry market (securities market) 2.2.3 The role of investors Investors supply capital for companies through the buying or holding stocks, bonds that are issued by listed companies Investors are creditors of the companies when they hold bonds and be owners when they hold shares 2.2.4 The objective of investors The objective of investors is to gain profits from the investment in the stock exchange market: the first gains are dividends of stocks or interests from bonds of issuers; or the second gains are usually bigger, come from the trading (buying and selling) securities in the market 2.2.5 Decisions of investors Decisions of investors are investing decisions in the financial market When investing into the securities market, the decision is expressed by buying, selling or holding activities of securities such as stocks and bonds 2.2.6 Factors have impact on the decision making of investors 146 - Characteristics of investors: ability, qualification, psychology, gender - The information is provided by various information sources: annual reports, nonofficial information, press, the information in the stock market, advices of related people, the information via going to the companies and meeting directly with companies’ people - Other factors 2.3 Related theories 2.3.1 Decision Theory According to Decision Theory, collecting and evaluating information is one of the most important in the decision making process In order to make an optimal decision, investors have to rely on the information they get, and the more accurate information they have, the better decisions are created This theory includes the rules for both individual and a group of individual with the same certain charcteristics 2.3.2 Agency Theory This theory examines the relationship between two opposite interest groups: principal and agent This relationship always has a conflict because the related issues such as benefits, costs, information asymmetry 2.3.3 Efficient Market Theory Efficient Market Theory is an financial theory, and the main idea of this theory is to research on the ralationship between price of securities in the stock exchange market and the related information In the efficient market, the price of stock will adjust immediately to the new information about that stock 2.4 Research design 2.4.1 Reserach model Information about expenses Information about Profit Information about cash flows Information about revenues and income Information about financial ratios Information about Information about accounting policies stockholders equity Information about Liabilities Decisions of individual investors Information about forcast Other Information Information about assests 147 Firgue 2.3: Proposal research model The contents of accounting disclosures are divided into 11 groups of accounting disclosures – general accounting disclosures, include: information about assets; information about liabilities; information about stockholders ’ equity; information about revenues and income; information about expenses; information about profits; information about cash flows; information about financial ratios; information about accounting policies; forecast information; other disclosures Each general accounting disclosure is measured by a group of detail accounting disclosures (items), and each item is measured by 5-point Likert scale 2.4.2 Research hypotheses Hypothesis 1: All of 11 factors in the research model have impact on the decision making of individual investors in the Vietnam Stock Exchange Hypothesis 2: There is a difference of the influencing degree of various accounting disclosures in the decision making of individual investors in the Vietnam Stock Exchange Hypothesis 3: Information about profits of listed company has the most influence in the decision making of individual investors in the Vietnam Stock Exchange Hypothesis 4: Information presented in Income Statement of listed company has the most influence in the decision making of individual investors in the Vietnam Stock Exchange Hypothesis 5: Voluntary disclosures affect on the decision making of individual investors in the Vietnam Stock Exchange more than Mandatory disclosures Chapter 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research procedure The author has conducted a quantitative research with a comprehensive survey questionnaire The collected data by the survey is processed via SPSS 22 software, and the results continuously are analyzed to find out answers for the research questions 3.2 Data collection and processing 3.2.2.1 Data collection A survey questionnaire was conducted base on the previous studies, the results of the qualitative research of the author and the current accounting regulations in Vietnam After that, the questionnaire was consulted by experts before be used for the large-scale survey The author applied cluster sampling technique (cluster 1: including securities companies in Hanoi, cluster 2: including securities companies in Ho Chi Minh city); in 148 each cluster, representing securities companies were selected; in each selected securities company, brokers were randomly selected; each broker managed a list of individual investors, so the sample of investors was randomly selected from this list The questionnaires were sent to selected investors directly, via stockbrokers, by post and by email with the link is created on docs.google Questionnaires were collected through brokers or automatic online update 3.2.2.2 Processing of data - Processing of the collected questionnaires: There were 530 respondents, including 56 online respondents, 474 respondents answered the printed questionnaire and collected questionnaires were not appropriate because the answers were ticked according to the certain rules) Therefore, the sample has 527 individual investors that is greater than the minimum sample (383) In the survey, the number of male investors is nearly that of female ones (57.1% and 42.9%), and more than 50% of the respondents are in the 30-40 age group and more than 85% of them are under 40 years old The majority of investors in the sample have undergraduate and postgraduate degree (68.5% and 24.3% respectively); Their study majors are accounting, finance (accounting for 43%), economics (21.3%); with the amount of investment under billion (accounting for nearly 75%); the mainly investment purpose is to gain dividends and profits from the sale of securities (over 50%) and to sell in the short term (37.7%) According to the statistical results, there was no significant difference between the number of investors participating Vietnam Stock Exchange over and under years (45.3% and 54.7 respectively) - Processing of data: In oder to test reliability of the indicator: the authors used Cronbach Alpha and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) Applying parametric testing for continuous variables, for example: F -test, T -test, One- way ANOVA Applying non-parametric testing for discrete variables such as Friedman, Mann Whiney, Wilcoxon tests Chapter 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Testing reliability of the indicators (items) The author has conducted testing reliability of all indicators of factor: Content of accounting disclosures which divided into 11 General accounting disclosures 149 4.1.1 Cronbach Alpha test: all indicators are reliable 4.1.2 Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA): there is a convergence of all items into 11 groups (the general accounting disclosures) exactly the same 11 factors of the proposal research model, the remaining 82 of 91 items are reliable 4.2 Evaluating the influencial degree of accounting disclosures in the decision making of individual investors in Vietnam Stock Exchange 4.2.1 The impact of general accounting disclosures (factors) on the decision making of investors The testing results for the research population are showed as below: - The greatly influencing group of accounting disclosures: including the information about profits, revenues, financial ratios, forecast information and other information - The morderately influencing group of accounting disclosures: including the information about stocks and dividends, cash flows, expenses and liabilities - The slightly influencing group of accounting disclosures: including the information about assets, accounting principles and policies The information about profits of the companies has the greatest impact in 11 general accounting disclosures (Hypothesis is correct) The second rank is belong to the information about revenues, the third position is the information about financial ratios, other information, forecasts, stocks and dividends The fourth place is the information about cash flows, the fifth is the information about expenses, the sixth is the information about liabilities Finally, the lowest position is ocupied by the information about assets, accounting principles and policies In summary, all 11 general published accounting information have affected on the decision making of individual invetstors in Vietnam Stock market with the influencing scores from and above the average level (2.8 < mean ≤ 4.0) (Hypothesis is proved) and the degree of influence of the information is different (Hypothesis is correct) 4.2.2 Comparing the degree of influence between the detailed accounting disclosures in the same group of general accounting disclosures By comparing the weights of the items of one factor, the statistical results indicate that which the detailed accounting disclosures of one the general accounting 150 information have the highets and lowest impact scores on the decision making of investors compared to the remaining accounting disclosures 4.3 The impact of accounting information disclosed in Financial Statements on the decision making of investors According to One- Sample T-Test, the results showed that the influence rates of all four financial statements were from or above the average level Of these, IS and CFS have great impact, Notes has a moderate impact and BS has a nearly average impact level The information from IS has the greatest impact on the decision making of investors in Vietnam Stock Exchange (Hypothesis is true), the information from CFS is ranked at the second point, the third point is the information from Notes and the last point is belong to the information povided by BS of the listed companies 4.4 The impact of madatory and voluntary accounting disclosures on the decision making of investors The testing results showed that the average level of influence of voluntary disclosure is higher than that of mandatory disclosure (Hypothesis is proved), and both the groups have impact on investors’ decisions at the moderately influence at the statistical significance level of less than % Chapter 5: IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS BASE ON THE RESEARCH RESULTS 5.1 Implications base on the research results 5.1.1 Construction a system of accounting disclosures affecting on the decisions of individual investors in Vietnam Stock Exchange This information system not only contributes to additional theoretical research on the issue, but also helps the professional organizations issue standards related to accounting information disclosure, the state agencies promulgate regulations of the required accounting disclosures, and listed companies should disclose the information to meet the needs of users 5.1.2 There is a difference of the influencing degree of accounting disclosures in the decisions of individual investors The information about profits is the greatest impact, followed by the information about revenues - as a source of making profits of companies This proves that the profits always has been an indicator to evaluate the company’s performance and attract the attention of investors when making buying, selling or holding securities decisions The 151 information about financial ratios is also one of the three top groups of accounting disclosures that are the most interested information despite the companies donnot emphasis much on the publication of financial ratios in the present In contrast to past studies, the information about assets of listed companies is not assessed by invetors as the important information when making decisions This proves that individual investors participating in the Vietnam stock market focuses on profits rather than the scale os listed companies (measured through indicators on assets) The information about accounting principles and policies have not a significant impact on the investors’ decisions, perhaps because of this information requires the readers to have certain knowledge of accounting, from which they can understand the specialized terminology are presented in reprorts The thesis also pointed out in each general accounting disclosure which detail accounting disclosures are interested by investors at the most and least This is the basis for listed companies, accounting professional organizations, authorities consider the promulgation of standards, regulations or the disclosure of accounting information IS is the most important report, followed by CFS, Notes and BS This results indicate that new research context (Vietnam stock market ), as well as a number of recently accounting scandals has made investors pay more attention to the CFS and Notes reports The voluntary disclosures have more impact in individual investors’ decisions than mandatory disclosures This indicates that investors are increasingly interested more in the voluntary disclosures of listed companies, and it also means that the mandatory disclosures have not met the requirements of investors The characteristics of the investors, such as gender, age, education degree, study discipline, experience, the amount of investment and the investment objectives have impact on the influential relationship of the influence of accounting disclosures on decisions of investors This is the basis for the companies and brokers to meet the needs of announced information by the investors as owners of listed companies and customers of the securities companies Time of disclosure has greater degree of influence over the disclosure ways of accounting information Thus, the companies should pay attention to the issue of timely disclosure rather than the use of which anyways to disclose information 5.2 Limitations of the study and directions for further studies Because of limited time and resources, so the author has not examined how buying decision, selling decision, holding decision of individual investors will be affected 152 by the published information of listed companies In addition, the study only researched the impact of accounting disclosures on the decision making of individual investors participating in Vietnam Stock Exchange, the research has not examined the impact of the disclosures on other users such as institutional investors, foreign investors, credit institutions, 5.3 Recommendations base on the research results 5.3.1 Recommendations for the State agencies The State management agencies should cooperate in enacting the regulations on information disclosure for listed companies The rules should focus on two immediate issues such as the content of information published, for example the companies should be required announcing the following information: the detailed information about market or fair value of assets, the information within the last years, the information about financial ratios and some other information; and secondly, the time of disclosure of information is recommended between 20 and 30 days after the end of the accounting period (quarter, year) that is to ensure timeliness In addition, the regulations require strict implementation of sanctions and penalties for companies violating regulations on information disclosure 5.3.2 Recommendations for listed companies The listed companies should publish information on time, enhance the increase of voluntary disclosures beside the compliance of mandatory disclosures, focus on the information disclosure assessed as the important information as the information about profits, revenues, financial ratios, Last but not least, the companies should consider the characteristics of the main investors of them, and then prepare an effective disclosure strategy, so that will meet the required information of investors and increase capital for the companies 5.3.3 Recommendations for securities companies The securities companies can apply the results of the thesis to create the intersting and satisfying analysis reports for their customers, therefore they are able to consult useful for their customers-individual investors with different characteristics 5.3.4 Recommendations for individual investors The research findings may be a reference source to help investors to collect accounting information of listed companies to make the right investing decisions However, individual investors should also equip themselves with the necessary knowledge that is enough to be able to read and analyze the basic accounting information published by listed companies Thus, the investors have the necessary information and can check the 153 information In addition, investors should also adjust behaviors accordingly, should not rely on the informal information sources to make decisions, to avoid the losses byself CONLUSION This report presents the research on the perceptions of individual investors about the impact of accounting disclosures on their decision making in the stock exchange market The authors has used the quantitative method with survey questionnaires to be sent to investors parcipating in the Vietnam stock market By using SPSS 22, the research has (1) developed a research model with 11 accounting information groups (factors) are measured by 82 items; (2) found out that the income information has significantly affected while the information of assets, the information about the accounting principles and policies have little impact; (3) the voluntary disclosures have more impact than mandatory disclosures on investors' decision making Because of the limitation of ability and other resource, the study has been not unavoidable some limitations Therefore, the authors wish to receive the good ideas from other scientists to improve the value of this study Thanks for yours contribution