How digitalisation is reshaping accounting

Alnoor Bhimani

Chapter 1 in Research Handbook on Accounting and Organizational Change, 2025, pp 2-16 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Digitalisation is changing the functioning of every enterprise in every industry. It is regarded as unstoppable and, like all prior major technological advances, it is impacting management and accounting processes extensively. Organisations that are “going digital” are seeing alterations in the type and structure of accounting information production as decision-makers, management action, and control processes witness a sea of evolutionary changes. The primary focus of accounting on the economic implications of organisational actions is no longer tenable. This chapter discusses how management fundamentals and accounting precepts are shifting towards growing reliance on predictive information, machine-based decision-making, more diverse data forms, and the prioritisation of qualitative insights. The impact on accounting research is no less extensive as web-based systems, mobile technologies, and digital economy tools affect the depth, breadth, and variety of data available to scholars. In this light, the chapter points to the need to widen the focus of conventional methodological precepts. It does so by considering why descriptive and explanatory approaches in research need rethinking and discusses the potential of abductive methods for investigating digitalised empirical contexts.

Keywords: Digitalisation; Management accounting; Predictive information; Machine-based decision-making; Unstructured data; Abductive research methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781803928906
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