International Journal of Accounting Information Systems最新文献

Inadequate information technology (IT) management can lead to system ineffectiveness and operational stagnation within enterprises. While the application of IT governance provides a means for companies to validate IT functionality, oversee IT operations, and mitigate IT-associated risks, there is a paucity of research examining its implications of IT governance on IT controls, particularly within the context of a firm’s Internal Audit Function (IAF). Addressing this gap in the literature, this research delves into the relationship between the characteristics of the IAF and IT governance within the IAF. It further probes the linkage between IT governance associated with the IAF and IT control activities. We analyze survey data from 414 internal auditors across various Taiwanese companies using partial least squares regression. The findings suggest that IT knowledge and internal auditing roles have a significantly positive relationship with the quality of the IAF-IT relationship and IT governance processes. Similarly, IT audit competencies exhibit a significantly positive relationship with IT governance processes. Furthermore, properly structured IT governance processes and a high-quality IAF-IT relationship demonstrate a positive association with the effectiveness of general controls. This research amalgamates and extends prior investigations into IT governance and internal auditing, underlining their critical role in successfully implementing superior IT controls.

Although the benefits of technological innovation are widely recognised, the accounting profession continues to undervalue and inadequately leverage technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotic process automation and blockchain. This study builds on earlier work on the antecedents and barriers to technology adoption and considers the role of technological, organisational and environmental factors in the accounting context. The mixed methods design involved surveying 585 accounting managers in Australia and parts of South-East Asia and interviewing 20 Australian accounting managers. Using the Technology–Organisation–Environment model, the study explored differences in the importance of factors by region and organisational type and investigated manager perspectives on strategies to support adoption. Findings indicated that security and privacy concerns are paramount to decision-making, while environment-related factors were of less importance. Prioritised strategies included staying informed of technological innovation, encouraging staff engagement and support, and implementing effective project management. The study illuminates the critical role of professional associations and industry bodies in providing tailored support for members to foster greater technological orientation and advance in the accounting profession, including advocating for high-level, technology-related strategies to drive organisational transformation.

This study examines factors that influence auditors’ intention to use blockchain. From the dual-factor perspective, it argues that auditors’ knowledge about the implications of blockchain for auditing enables their intention to use the technology. However, professional skepticism and perceived adequacy of accounting standards present barriers to the use, which reduce the effect of knowledge on use intention. These claims are tested with a survey of 118 auditors in the U.S. The results show that auditors’ knowledge about blockchain is positively associated with their use intention, indicating their optimism about this technology. Their professional skepticism has no effect on intention, but perceived adequacy of accounting standards has a negative effect, which also weakens the effect of blockchain knowledge on intention, revealing the status quo bias in blockchain use. This study extends the literature on the acceptance of blockchain technology by accounting and auditing professionals by showing how the need to improve accounting standards, which are important attributes of their professional judgments, may influence their blockchain use. It has implications for promoting blockchain among auditors.

The Theory of Technology Dominance (TTD) provides a theoretical foundation for understanding how intelligent systems impact human decision-making. The theory has three phases with propositions related to (1) the foundations of reliance, (2) short-term effects on novice versus expert decision-making, and (3) long-term epistemological effects related to individual deskilling and profession-wide stagnation. In this theory paper, we propose an extension of TTD, that we refer to as TTD2, primarily to increase our theoretical understanding of how, why, and when the short-term and long-term effects on decision-making occur and why advances in technology design have exacerbated some weaknesses and eroded some benefits. Recently, researchers have called for reconsideration of how we design intelligent systems to mitigate the detrimental effects of technology; in TTD2 we provide a theory-based understanding for capturing the complexity underlying the occurrence of the effects.

In this paper, we present a novel approach for reimagining the scope and impact of design science and behavioral science accounting information systems (AIS) research. We do so by first explicitly considering the broad impact of accounting on business functions. The proliferation of information technology throughout the organization coupled with the blurring of the lines between “accounting” and “business” activities has spawned a world where (technology-enabled) accounting has truly become the language of (technology-driven) business. Leveraging the International Standards Organization model of the phases of business activity, we highlight how utilization of information systems artifacts in each business activity phase yields a broad array of AIS research questions. Second, we encourage design science and behavioral science AIS research to work synergistically, such that the outputs of each paradigm inform the research conducted in the other paradigm. We suggest that a more purposeful integration of design science and behavioral science AIS research over time can improve the rigor and relevance of AIS research to advance knowledge in the field, amplify the impact of AIS research for our colleagues in both accounting and information systems, and improve the practical applicability of the research findings.

By facilitating the derivation of knowledge and qualitative measures from textual data, text mining techniques have come into vogue in various domains and industries. Namely in accounting, text mining outputs can elucidate, complement, and validate the customary quantitative data. This study creates an up-to-date view of text mining applications in accounting practice. Through a critical review of text mining literature, insight is given into the stages of a typical text mining process, contemporary text mining techniques that have been named valuable in an accounting context, and the information that can be obtained by applying these techniques.

As Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) information has become an essential resource for investors, regulators have attempted to assure its quality. While more companies offer ESG disclosure, it is usually not fully substantiated with supporting information. Assurance is needed to verify that ESG reports are free of substantive errors. However, traditional financial audit approaches are less effective in providing ESG assurance due to the difference in the nature of evidence, difficulty in measuring and verifying ESG measures, and ever-changing ESG performance. To increase the effectiveness of ESG audit approaches, this study proposes Audit 4.0-based ESG assurance, which uses Big Data and emerging technologies of Audit 4.0 to capture evidence from the physical world and provide accurate assurance on ESG reports in a timely manner. We further perform a case study as a proof of concept of the proposed approach, which explores the integration of satellite-based methane estimation as ESG audit evidence. The use of satellite images provides opportunities for regulators and companies to monitor and assure ESG reports in a continuous manner.

Recent calls in the information systems research community argue that we know intelligent systems deskill users, and future research should focus on how to design systems that do not deskill, rather than continue to examine whether the phenomenon occurs. This should be a wakeup call for public accounting firms focused on implementing restrictive audit support systems, which leads to de-skilling of novice accounting professionals. Our research focuses on redesigning knowledge-based systems to facilitate expertise development and counteract the de-skilling effects that result from use of such systems. Specifically, we manipulate the design of the system interface by providing information cues in a screen format consistent with expert knowledge representations and manipulate automatic provision versus voluntary use of explanations for users during task completion. Results show that after using the knowledge-based system to complete a series of reenacted client engagements over a three-day period, both the interface design manipulation and automatic provision of explanations had a positive effect on novice accounting professionals’ development of expert-like knowledge structures. The results of the study have important implications for the development of knowledge-based systems intended to support accounting professionals’ (and other knowledge workers’) expertise development processes.