Reviewer’s Comments on CPA 047
Accounting in Transition in the Transitional Economies in ASEAN:
Comparative Study on Cambodia and Vietnam
This paper examines the practice and profession of accounting in Cambodia and Vietnam in the context of imperialism. The paper attempts to outline the development of the accounting practice in the two countries by outlining the history of both the legal and political system and by tracing the accounting practices that followed during the period 1953 to the present. The paper delves into the process of the development of the accounting practice given the numerous contextual factors present that may have affected the development of the professional bodies and concludes that the accounting profession may be more influenced by globalization.
This paper is positioned in the accounting literature dealing with accounting and accounting institutions in developing countries and the links between the profession and imperialism/colonialism. This is a unique and interesting study as it documents the process of the development of the accounting bodies in a specific context that is different compared to prior studies in developing countries.
While the paper does a good task at tracing the history of the countries’ legal and political systems and position the paper appropriately within the defined literature, there are two areas where I believe the paper can be improved. First, the engagement with the prior literature required a bit more detail. The selection of prior literature and the situating of this study within this body of literature may be appropriate however, the prior works have highlighted many contextual factors that affect the development of the profession in developing countries and it may be worth mentioning that those factors were considered during this study. Alternatively, prior findings may provide a more thorough approach to this analysis which may enrich the study and allow some insights to extending theory in this area. Although the author acknowledges the existence of this literature, I think, to further our knowledge in this area requires a deeper explanation and linkages to prior research. While the paper is quite interesting and insightful at a descriptive level, the reader is not afforded any larger theoretical insights. Does the Cambodia and Vietnam case extend our knowledge about accounting professionalization more broadly?
How does this case challenge our prior understandings, extend them, or support them?
And second, the author ties the development of the accounting profession to globalization in the conclusion of the paper, but the process and links to globalization has not been developed throughout the paper. The author suggests that this case is different and as a reader I am interested in knowing what were the accounting practices prior to globalization and how did they change as a result of globalization pressures. Additionally, are the changes due to globalization pressures unique to this case?
My two main suggestions then are more deeply engaging with both the prior literature on both accounting professionalization and globalization and performing further analysis of the accounting practices that existed during each stage of the process to show how practice changed over time. I think the paper is interesting and insightful and I hope my comments help.