Digital data and management accounting: why we need to rethink research methods

Alnoor Bhimani

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Digitalisation is having profound effects on how enterprises function. Its impact on accounting research is growing as the rise of the internet, mobile technologies and digital economy tools generate depth, breadth and variety of data that far exceed what researchers have had access to in the past. But whilst social scientists interested in organisational issues are starting to question conventional methodological approaches to the study of contexts where digital data forms are drawn upon, little such concern has been voiced in the management accounting literature. This paper seeks to explore the continued applicability of conventional methodological thinking when carrying out investigations within digital data environments to inform management accounting studies. It considers why digitalisation impacts methodological precepts, identifies how descriptive and explanatory modes of questioning which management accountants have conventionally opted for need rethinking, discusses ways in which digital data characteristics alter what can be drawn from empirical studies, and points to the potential offered within digitalised settings for methodological advance. It concludes by highlighting the necessity, where digitalisation exists, to question modes of posing questions and to reconsider the applicability of methodological precepts deployed by management accounting researchers to date.

Keywords: digitalisation; methodology; empiricism; datafication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 15 pages
Date: 2020-04-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ict and nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Published in Journal of Management Control, 1, April, 2020, 31(1-2), pp. 9 - 23. ISSN: 2191-4761

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Journal Article: Digital data and management accounting: why we need to rethink research methods (2020)
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