Abstract This paper holds that the role of accounting information system in corporate governance needs further comprehensive understanding. Due to vari ous factors, financial accounting information can not fully meet the requirements of corporate governance; Management accounting also needs to reconstruct its goal and method system to make contributions to corporate governance. Management accounting and fin ancial accounting both serve the internal and external of the company, and the difference between them fundamentally stems from whether information disclosure is mandatory. In order to promote the reform and development o f management accounting, we should pay attention to the environmental factors of accounting system, the combination of innovation and standardization of management system and the inherent nature of accounting information.

[Keywords:] management accounting accounting information system corporate governance

First, the role of accounting information system in corporate governance

Accounting information system has a natural connection with corporate governance, and effective disclosure of accounting and auditing information is an important means of corporate governance. According to contemporary enterprise th eory and securities market theory, the functions of a perfect accounting information system in the field of corporate governance are as follows:

First of all, it helps to curb "insider control". The core issue of corporate governance is how investors encourage or constrain managers to operate as hard as poss ible to maximize shareholder value. A perfect accounting information system is conducive to reducing information asymmetry and increasing the transpare ncy of management, thus achieving the purpose of controlling agency costs and restraining "insider control".

Second, it helps to curb management corruption. Although the role of effective accounting and auditing system in curbing management corruption is related to t he corporate governance model, this role cannot be replaced by other governance means.

Third, it helps to improve the incentive mechanism of ceo and executive director. How to match the salary of ceo and executive director with the company's pe rformance in order to achieve the best incentive effect is a topic of great concern in the company system. It is generally believed that the short-term incentive of senior managers should be based on accounting earnings, while the long-term incentive should be based on market value. Therefore, the measurement of accounting surplus is also one of the core foundations of incentive mechanism.

Fourth, it helps the capital market to monitor the company. Although people have doubted the effectiveness of capital market supervision companies since / kloc-0/980s, it is still a common sense that sufficient and effective accounting information can help to enhance this effectiveness. Especially since the / kloc-0/990s, the wave of restructuring companies through the capital market has not subsided. How to improve the transparency and effectiveness of accounting infor mation to reduce the cost of capital reorganization has aroused widespread concern.

Fifth, fundamentally speaking, it helps to improve investor confidence. Because an adequate and effective management and information disclosure mechanism helps to form a good corpor ate governance structure and effectively protect the interests of external investors as "clients", thus enhancing investors' investment confidence.

The author believes that in addition to the above aspects, an effective accounting information system is also directly or indirectly related to the following aspects of corporate governance:

First, the improvement of the effectiveness of the board of directors and the fulfillment of shareholders' responsibilities. In the practice of corporate gov ernance, the role of the board of directors has been paid more and more attention. In order to be truly responsible to shareholders and ensure the realization of the company's goals, board members must become active participants and decision makers to promote the overall success of the company, and this participation depends to a great extent on effective accounting information.

Second, fulfill the responsibilities to other stakeholders. The company's goal is not only to maximize the interests of shareholders, but also to consider the interests of others who have long-term interests with it. Since the 1980s, more than half of the states in the United States have revised their company laws, requiring company managers to serve the company's stakeholders, not just shareholders. Maintaining the rights of all stakeholders and maintaining the good relationship between enterprises and stakeholders also need s to be based on reliable and rich accounting information.

Third, the determination of ceo's performance target. Although the ceo's performance target depends on the company's recognition of the ceo's position and ro le, the target value orientation of different enterprises or the same enterprise will be different in different periods, in any case, the ceo's performance target always contains a series of qualitative and quantitative performance elements, which often need to be reflected by certain accounting indicators, and the performance realization needs to be disclosed through accounting information systems.

Fourth, the performance evaluation of the board of directors and the board of supervisors. Different from ceo's performance evaluation, the performance evaluation of the board of directors and the board of supervisors mainly lies in the evaluation of the effectiveness of their own acti vities, rather than the judgment of the effectiveness of the company's daily business decisions, so this evaluation is often not based on the company's operating results and financial situation. Nevertheless, this performance evaluation will still pay attention to the success or failure of the company's finance, and the evaluation procedures and disclosure methods still need to involve the accounting information system.

Fifth, human capital pricing. Human capital pricing is the basis for determining the salary of managers, especially senior managers. Only on the basis of reasonable pricing of human capital can all kinds of incentive mechanisms for managers operate effect ively. The pricing of human capital is a typical market-oriented behavior, and it must also rely on sufficient and effective accounting information.

To sum up, in order to achieve the goal of corporate governance, we must further understand the role of accounting information system, earnestly safeguard the authority of accounting audit activities, and improve the quality of accounting audit information.

Second, the role of management accounting in corporate governance-why can't financial accounting information fully meet the requirements of corporate governance?

To give full play to the due role of accounting information in corporate governance, it is obviously not enough to rely solely on financial accounting system. Because the disclosure of financial accounting information is a very public behavior, it is limited by the following factors:

First of all, the scope, quantity and quality of information disclosure must follow certain accounting standards. Financial accounting information bears more responsibilities to the public, and it must strictly abide by the requirements of "transparency" and emphasize the standardization of information, which is completely mandatory.

Second, the content of financial accounting report is mainly financial information. Although financial reports now emphasize the need to provide some non-fina ncial information, after all, these non-financial information is only a supplement.

Third, follow the principle of cost performance. Although it is often difficult to accurately measure the costs and benefits of information disclosure, this does not prevent information providers from making their own judgments on related costs and benefits when disclosing information. In addition to the prescribed basic information, only those types of information that are considered to bring certain economic benefits to enterprises can be "extra" disclosed.

Fourth, restrictions on trade secrets. Any information involving trade secrets, especially information that may have adverse effects, will be carefully disclosed.

Fifth, the market and cultural background. The market and cultural background, such as different understanding of insufficient information and excessive information, and different acceptance of "voluntary disclosure" are also directly related to the amount of information disclosure.

For these reasons, the amount of information carried by financial reports is limited, and shareholders and other stakeholders can't get enough information from the current financial reports. The empirical research results also support t his judgment. For example, according to Dr. Wu Liansheng's survey, both institutional investors and individual investors think that future opportunities and risks, financial forecasts, human resources, management's analysis of accounting information and other information are useful, accounting for more than 60%. Traditionally, this information belongs to the category of management accounting, and it is obviously lacking in effective disclosure in current financial reports. In this way, providing information to meet corporate governance objectives depends on management accounting system to a great extent, and management accounting will play an increasingly important role in improving corporate governance structure and maintaining its efficient operation . Unfortunately, however, due to the limitations of traditional theory, the existing management accounting system is still difficult to bear this responsibility. Therefore, it is very important to expand the theory and method system of management accounting.

Third, around the needs of corporate governance, expand the management accounting system-target structure and method structure.

(A) the target structure

1. Two major problems contained in management accounting objectives. In fact, the accounting objectives include two issues: to whom the accounting information is provided (service object) and what it is provided (service scope) . The current management accounting theory has defects in the positioning of these two points.

As far as clients are concerned, it has long been misunderstood that financial accounting and management accounting are divided into external services and internal services. The gener al description is that "financial accounting mainly meets the needs of external information users, while management accounting mainly meets the needs of enterprises". This formulation is vague in theory, which leads to many ambiguities. The most critical thing is, don't internal managers care about the financial reports provided by financial accounting? It has also been noticed that a lot of information that used to belong to management accounting is also very concerned outside the company. Therefore, the internal and external differentiation methods of accounting information system have been more and more contrary to reality. In fact, in line with the ultimate goal of the enterprise system, there is no essential difference between financial accounting and management accounting, and both can and should serve the internal and external of the company. All the formal differences stem from the different degree of information discl osure compulsion. Moreover, the disclosure scope and quality requirements of financial accounting information are also directly related to the needs of government policies, rather than static. Therefore, the author thinks that the names of external financial report and internal management report are better than "mandatory information report" and "non-m andatory information report". In other words, all information that must be publicly disclosed by law belongs to the category of "mandatory information reporting"; Other information that does not need to be disclosed compulsorily, but is related to corporate governance and management, belongs to the category of "non-mandatory information report". It is up to the enterprise to decide who to provide, how much to provide and how to provide it.

As far as the service scope of management accounting is concerned, the mainstream views in the west are: first, to provide information for decision-making and planning, and to participate in the decision-making and planning process as a member of the management team; Second, assist managers to guide and control business activities; Third, motivate managers and other employees to achieve organizational goals; Fourth, measure and evaluate the performance of business activities, departments and other employees in the organization; Fifth, evaluate the competitive position of the organization and cooperate with other managers to ensure the long-term competitiveness of the organization in the industry. Although this statement has been involved in the field of corporate governance, such as encouraging managers to complete organizational goals, on the whole, it does not fully reflect the objective needs of corporate governance. The author believes that the management accounting goal must clearly point out the dual requirements of serving corporate governance and corporate management. Serving corporate governance is the fundamental need of management acco unting innovation. Borrowing the famous saying that "relevance has disappeared", the biggest relevance lost by contemporary management accounting is that it does not pay enough attention to the needs of corporate governance. The tr aditional management accounting concept, which mainly serves the management of the company, has become extremely unsuitable in solving the real information needs.

2. The overall goal and specific goal of management accounting. According to the above analysis, can the overall goal of the two accounting subsystems be expressed as follows: financial accounting is to provide sufficient and effective mandatory i nformation for enterprise stakeholders, and management accounting is to provide non-mandatory relevant information for multiple purposes of corporate governance and corporate management. Aro und its overall goal, the specific objectives of management accounting are:

First of all, provide non-mandatory relevant information to company stakeholders. In this field, there are three aspects that deserve special attention: first, the forecast information in the future. Compared with the financial accounting report that reflects the past financial situation, operating results and cash flow of an enterprise, the future forecast information is more conducive to the economic decision-making of stakeholders. As for predicting the scope, degree and mode of information disclosure, the supply and demand sides of information will reach the "equilibrium point". The second is non-financial information. Non-financial information help s to deeply understand and evaluate the enterprise, and also helps to predict the future of the enterprise. For information users, non-financial information is more valuable than financial information to some extent. The third is social responsibility information. Including credit ors, employees, consumers, suppliers, the government, the community and the public, all need to be properly disclosed.

Second, assist and review management decisions. Although this is the traditional function of management accounting, it should be re-recognized from the needs of strategic development of enterprises and the requirements of optimal utilization of economic resources in long-term operation.

Third, it serves internal control, fast and accurate information transmission and feedback mechanism. The internal control mentioned here includes two levels: one is to control the exec utive director and CEO to meet the needs of corporate governance; Second, as an important form of company management, ceo controls the daily operation of the company.

Fourthly, establish an incentive and salary system to provide a basis for performance evaluation and determination of salary scheme. Including the evaluation an d encouragement of the board of directors, the board of supervisors, the general manager, the responsibility centers and their employees at all levels.

Fifth, provide information support for enterprise management innovation and organizational system innovation.

The above-mentioned specific objectives do not distinguish between those serving corporate governance and those serving corporate management, because they are often intertwined in practice. However, management accounting must serve corporate governance and the goal of corporate management is clear.

(2) Method construction

Goal construction determines the basic direction of method construction, and the quality of method construction will restrict goal construction.

At present, there are two main defects in the method system of management accounting: ① the means of directly targeting the level of "corporate governance" are we ak, which also affects the high-level enterprises' attention to management accounting to some extent; (2) The methods are mostly simple accumulation, lack of systematic integration, and the boundaries with other fields of enterprise management are unclear.

From the perspective of corporate governance, management accounting should create new methods or reform traditional methods to meet the following requirements: ① evaluate the company's value (or enterprise's core competence); (2) Prepare expected financial data; ③ Internal accounting and audit control; (4) Information disclosure on the protection of the interests of shareholders and other stakeholders; (5) The formulation of 5)CEO's performance responsibility; ⑥ Performance evaluation and incentive compensation system design at all management levels (including the formulation of incentive compensation contracts for senior managers); ⑦ human capital pricing, and so on.

As for various management accounting methods (such as forecasting decision-making, budgeting, cost control, responsibility accounting, etc. To realize the management function of the company, it is mainly to meet the needs of internal decision-making and control and realize the optimal allocation of resources. This method (including ideas) should also be constantly innovated, especially the guiding ideology of strategic management should be implemented in management accounting activities.

(C) Re-understanding of the definition of management accounting

According to the discussion on the objectives and methods of management accounting, it is necessary to have a new understanding of the definition of management accounting.

The Management Accounting Committee (cma) under the American Accounting Association (aaa) defines management accounting as: management accounting is to use appropriate technologies and concepts to process the historical and expected economi c data of an entity, help the management to make plans with appropriate economic goals, and make reasonable decisions to achieve these goals. The definition of the Financial and Management Accounting Committee, the permanent branch of the International Federation of Accountants (ifac), is that management accounting refers to the process of confirming, measuring, accumulating, analyzing, compiling, explaining and transmitting the information (finance and business) used by management authorities for planning, evaluating and controlling in an organization, so as to ensure the utilization of its resources and assume the responsibility for its management. The starting point of these definitions is to serve the management of the company, which obviously does not fully conform to the present situation and future development trend of management accounting.

In order to reflect the characteristics of corporate governance at the same time, the definition of management accounting can be expressed as follows: management accounting is a branch of enterprise accounting information system, which provides financial and non-financial information except mandatory financial reports in order to meet the special information needs of corporate governance and corporate management.

From the discussion on the definition of management accounting, we can also draw the following thoughts:

First, about the name of "financial report". As mentioned above, the information handled by today's accounting system is actually no longer limited to the financial category. On Improving Corporate Reports published by the Special Committee on Financial Reports of American Institute of Certified Accountants 1 994 summarizes five types of information that users need, namely, financial and non-financial data, management's analysis of financial and non-financial data, forecast information, information of shareholders and management, and company background. Obviously, it is impossible to use the name "enterprise financial report" to cover all these contents. So I think that the title of future financial reports can be changed to a more accommodating "enterprise economic report". Enterprise economic report includes "core report" composed of balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement and comprehensive income statement (which belongs to the category of "mandatory information report" and mainly provides basic fina ncial information), and "peripheral report" composed of enterprise basic profile, branch report, social responsibility report, human resource report, financial forecast report and special management accounting report (which generally belongs to the category of "non-mandatory information report" to p rovide expanded enterprise economy. This can not only meet the various objectives of enterprise reports, but also provide reports more conveniently. Although the term "corporate financial report" may be used for a long time according to the custom, its connotation has actually changed, and more changes are bound to take place in the future.

Second, the understanding of financial report providers. Obviously, the traditional corporate finance department alone can not complete all the needs of information disclosure today. At present, the function of the finance department is actually close to a comprehensive information department. A more radical solution is to set up an organizati on with more functions, such as the "information department" (including the responsibilities of the accounting department now) . We can also consider setting up a finance department and a comprehensive information department according to different functions, and handing over part of the work of providing information to the comprehensive information department for execution, but this is not as efficient as running a department alone. If the establishment and name of the financial department are still used in the enterprise , it should be clear that its functions are no longer limited to providing "pure" financial information, and other functional departments must also have clear responsibilities and procedures to cooperate with the information disclosure work of the financi al department. Otherwise, it will be more and more difficult for the "Finance Department", an institution with complex functions and heavy tasks, to coordinate the information disclosure with other functional departments of the enterprise.

Third, the understanding of management accounting principles. After introducing the concept of corporate governance into the management accounting system, we need to have a new understanding of some traditional management accounting principles. There are two main reasons for this: first, management accounting activities usually can't ignore accounting standards as understood in the past, otherwise management accounting information can't meet the needs of corporate governance; Second, the quality requirements of management accounting information at different levels are sometimes contradictory. For example, information that is also used for management decisions may have different requirements for the principle of conservatism between the board of directors and the CEO.

Fourth, the understanding of the "fusion theory" of management accounting and financial accounting. There have always been two views on the relationship betwe en financial accounting and management accounting: integration theory and separation theory. As two subsystems of accounting information system, management accounting and financial accounting are closely related. Theoretically, it is absolutely unnecessary for an enterprise to have two different data acquisition and processing systems. Perhaps many years later, the development of information technology (especially network technology) will enable enterprises to collect and provide source data. As for the screening, processing and analysis of information, information users can operate by themselves through special computer software. At that time, scholars will no longer need to take pains to distinguish financial accounting information from management accounting information. However, at least at present, this ideal cannot be realized, and information can only be provided in the form of finished products rather than raw materials. At the same time, as mentioned above, due to the limitations of financial reports, financial accounting can not only contain management accounting at present, but also need to give full play to the diversity and flexibility of management accounting in information release. Therefore, financial accounting and management accounting in accounting information system are neither completely separated (for example, in the collection of original data) nor fully integrated (for example, in information reporting). "Management accounting report" or "non-mandatory information report" will still exist independently for a long time to come.

Fourth, ways to promote the reform and development of management accounting

To complete the expansion and reform of management accounting system, the task is arduous, and the related theories are far from mature. Regarding the ways to promote the development of management accounting in China, this paper will not repeat the opinions that have been formed in the accounting field, such as the professionalization of management accounting, the establishment of professional journals of management accounting, and the popularization of management accounting knowledge among enterprise managers and accountants, but only elaborate the following three ideas:

First of all, we should pay attention to the environmental factors of management accounting system. Changes in environment and organization mean changes in the type s and uses of information used in decision-making. The theory of corporate governance provides a new understanding of the object, task and characteristics of management accounting. On the other hand, because management accounting system must directly serve corporate governance, the characteristics and conditions of corporate governance itself will directly affect the quality and efficiency of management accounting system. Onc e the decision-making level is truly separated from the management, the composition and functions of the board of directors and the board of supervisors will be more perfect (for example, the supervisory power of external directors and non-executive directors will be strengthened, and the nomination Committee, remuneration Committee, investment Committee and budget Committee within the board of directors will be more perfect and play their roles), which will certainly play the role of management accounting more effectively. In addition, it is necessary to further study the positioning of management accounting in the current social and economic environment, not only to create a good enterprise environment for the further development of management accounting, but also to make the techniques and methods of management accounting more suitable for the requirements of the enterprise environment.

Second, management system innovation should be combined with standardization. In management activities, innovation and standardization complement each other. At present, there are serious deficiencies in these two aspects, especially the new creative system is often not standardized in time. For example, CFO system has developed rapidly in recent years, but how to make it operate more effectively has not been considered in combination with the transformation of traditional accounting system (including management accounting system). ( 1) Although the board of directors and the board of supervisors have been set up in the enterprise restructuring, whether their quality can ensure the effectiveness of the governance structure depends on the financial and accounting knowledge background of the mem bers of the board of directors and the board of supervisors, otherwise they cannot undertake the responsibility of supervising the company's performance. ② At present, the effectiveness of internal audit system in many companies depends on the attitude of ceo. From the perspective of standardizing the governance stru cture, the internal audit institution should be directly responsible to the board of supervisors or the board of directors. Whether large enterprises, especially listed companies, should set up audit committees; How to clearly define the authority and occupation of the audit Committee will maintain its considerable independence; How to coordinate the operation of audit committee and management accounting system to reduce supervision cost and improve supervision efficiency needs to be discussed and practiced.

Third, fully understand the quasi-public goods nature of accounting information. The publicly disclosed financial accounting information and management accou nting information have the characteristics of public goods to some extent. Because of the externality of information disclosure, the government can and should play a role. Therefore, not only the standardization of financial accounting information, but also the standardization of management accounting information should be paid attention to by government agencies. On the other hand, from the perspective of information market, the quantity and quality requirements of accounting information depend on the information demanders, so the provision of accounting information will fundamentally form a "buyer's market". Nowadays, accounting information providers are more or less a "seller's market" mentality, "you have to accept what I offer". However, no matter whether it is a financial accounting report or a management accounting report, any improvement will be useless if the opinions of the vast number of information demanders are not listened to. Therefore, it is suggested to set up a special organization to investigate the demand for accounting information regularly. In addition to constantly improving f inancial accounting reports ("mandatory information reports"), it is also necessary to gradually provide various standards for the collection, processing and processing of management accounting information and the disclosure of management accounting information that needs to be released publi cly ("non-mandatory information reports") to help improve the standardization of basic concepts of management accounting and the efficiency of management accounting practice.

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