مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد قابلیت اجرائی تجزیه و تحلیل کسب و کار برای حسابداری مدیریت – امرالد ۲۰۱۸

۱- Introduction

۲- Driving sources of business analytics1

۳- Discussing the implications for decision making

۴- Conclusion, implications and limitations

Literature

Abstract

Purpose – To identify, discuss and provide suggestions for how the phenomenon of Business Analytics and its elements may influence management accounting and the accountant. Design/methodology/approach –This paper identifies a number of studies from both academic journals but also reports from professional consultancies and professional accounting bodies concerning future opportunities and implications for management accounting in combination with business analytics. Findings – First, it was found that both academic articles but also professional accounting bodies suggest changes for management accounting. Second, it shows that topics such as, a holistic view, fact-based decisions, predictions, visualization, and specific hard core skills for the accountant are the most important mentioned. Finally, the paper demonstrates that there are different ambition levels for the management accountant, depending on if s(he) wants to be on a descriptive, on a predictive, or on a prescriptive level.

Introduction

In a commentary in Accounting Horizons (2012), Moser asks if accounting research is stagnant. His answer to this question is a qualified ‘yes’. There are several reasons for this answer. One of them is that researchers within the field of accounting rarely collaborate with researchers who use different methods or with researchers outside the field of accounting. Researchers tend to work with researchers who use the same research methods. The result is that our research does not have much impact on society and on practice because no one outside the accounting research society cares about our results even though actual management accounting has evolved considerably over time (Birnberg, 2009; Hopwood, 2007; Kaplan, 2011; Zimmerman, 2001). Over the years, the concept of change in management accounting research has been studied from many different angles using different theories, for example functionalist, behavioural relations, institutional theories, actor network theories, interpretive and critical perspectives together with a variety of different methodologies such as field studies, case methods, archival studies, and experimental studies (Berry et al., 2009). Frustration has been that few research results have ever been used in the practical world (Merchant, 2012) in spite of the fact that management accounting is an applied and practical field that constantly faces new challenges from the business world (CIMA, 2009; IMA, 2008a; Kaplan, 1998, 2012; Kasanen et al., 1993; Otley, 2001). For research to merely contribute new theories is not good enough; instead the researchers should try to advance the body of knowledge, i.e. to develop predictive theories that specify both the behaviour and the context required for achieving the specified outcome (Ahrens and Chapman, 2007). McAfee and Brynjolfsson (2012) also argue that ‘all these can be done in areas that so far have been dominated by intuition rather than by data and rigor’.