The paper aims to investigate the impact of budgetary goal on profit growth directly and indirectly through managerial performance. Two main characteristics of budgetary goal mentioning in the study are the clarity of budget goal and the difficult of budget goal. Data of the research collected from survey with 197 department managers and supervisors of 80 SMEs in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City who have budgeting responsible. Firstly, by using quantitative research method Cronbach’s Alpha and Exploratory Factor Analysis, the research show that characteristic of budgetary goal has significant and positive impact on profit growth directly. Secondly, the regression analysis among variables show that budget goal clarity was positively and significantly related to growth of sale revenue, growth of profit and managerial performance. Therefore, the empirical findings show that that managerial performance has mediating role in the relationship between budgetary goal characteristic and financial performance. The findings of this study suggest that that managers need focus on setting clearer and more difficult but attainable budget goals to increase firm performance. This paper also provides a new insight the relationship between managerial performance and financial performance. Budgetary goal characteristics still have positive but insignificant impact on growth of sales revenue.

Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Literature Review
    2.1. Locke’s Goal-Setting Theory in FirmBudgeting
    2.2. The Impact of Budget Goal Characteristic onFirm Performance
    2.3. The Relationship between ManagerialPerformance and Firm Performance
3. Data and Research Methods
    3.1. Data Collection
    3.2. Research Methods
4. Results and Discussion
5. Conclusion
References

• Thang Ngoc LE(School of Accounting and Auditing, National Economics University)
• Dung Duc NGUYEN(School of Accounting and Auditing, National Economics University) Corresponding Author