Embracing Digital Economy: Drivers, Barriers and Factors Affecting Digital Transformation of Accounting Professionals
Abstract
As their role has evolved dramatically over the years, professional accountants ought to anticipate and accommodate emerging differences in business practices, roles, responsibilities, and regulations, as well as develop the necessary technical knowledge, skills, and ethics, on top of demonstrating interpersonal behaviours and qualities. From big data and data analytics to the internet of things and blockchain, the accounting profession is expected to embrace a new era of digitalization that will change the way traditional accounting practices, from record-keeping to reporting requirements. The role of these professionals will shift and will become highly valued, in a higher chain and moving into new areas and possibilities. Even though some pundits of the industry have predicted that the career of professional accountants will diminish due to automation and cutting-edge technologies, their role in the digital economy is still noteworthy, which then forced them to adapt and adopt the changes to the digital economy, especially during the post Covid-19 era. Most importantly, they are forced to pave the way towards becoming strategic partners of organizations in order to remain relevant. The purpose of the paper is to discuss the changing roles of accountants, barriers for changes and factors that affect readiness of professional accountants in embarking on the digital economy era. The paper is expected to add to the scarce literature on factors influencing professional accountants' readiness to withstand the digital economy, which may shed some light on the challenges that accountants face in blending themselves in as strategic allies for the organisations that they serve. Therefore, the future research may consider more empirical study on factors influencing readiness of accounting professionals towards the implementation of digital economy in Malaysia to better understand how well Malaysian accountants embrace these tremendous changes and prepare themselves in becoming future-fit professionals.
References
Andreassen, R. I. (2020). Digital technology and changing roles: a management accountant’s dream or nightmare? Journal of Management Control, 31(3), 209-238.
Azleen, I., Nasrudin, B., & Rahida, A., R. (2020). Are you ready to embrace new technology? Accounting practitioners in Malaysia. Science International, 32 (2). pp. 199-203. ISSN 1013-5316
Bank Negara Malaysia Annual Report 2017. (2018). Bank Negara Malaysia. https://www.bnm.gov.my/-/bank-negara-malaysia-annual-report-2017
Boritz, J. E., & Stoner, G. N. (2014). Technology in accounting education. In: Wilson, R. M.S. (ed.) Routledge Companion to Accounting Education. Series: Routledge Companions in Business, Management and Accounting. Routledge: London, pp. 247–275. ISBN 9780415697330.
Bowles, M., Ghosh, S., & Thomas, L. (2020). Future-proofing Accounting Professionals: Ensuring Graduate Employability and Future Readiness. Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability, 11(1), 1-21.
Brown, A. (2020, January 22). Aligning business and tech in digital transformation. Foundry4. https://foundry4.com/aligning-business-and-tech-in-digital-transformation
Consultancy.asia. (2020, July 7). Malaysia’s digital economy now contributes one fifth to GDP. https://www.consultancy.asia/news/3370/malaysias-digital-economy-now-contributes-one-fifth-to-gdp
Damerji, H., & Salimi, A. (2021). Mediating effect of use perceptions on technology readiness and adoption of artificial intelligence in accounting. Accounting Education, 1-24.
Digital economy. 2017. In Oxford Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Retrieved from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/digital_economy
EY Asean. (2018, August 13). Driving digital in Asia’s financial services industry. EY. https://www.ey.com/en_sg/financial-services/driving-digital-into-the-heart-of-asia-financial-services-industry
Frolova O.A., Milgunova I.V., Sidorova N.P., Kulkova N.S., Kitaeva E.N. (2021) Development of Accounting in Digital Economy Era. In: Antipova T. (eds) Integrated Science in Digital Age 2020. ICIS 2020. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 136. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49264-9_5
Haug, A., Pedersen, S.G. and Arlbjørn, J.S. IT readiness in small and medium-sized enterprises. Industrial Management & Data Systems 111 (4), 2011, pp. 490-508
Hawker, Emanuela (2018). An outline of cloud accounting software. https://www.accountancyage.com/2018/10/05/an-outline-of-cloud-accounting-software/
Hidayat, Nila Krisnawati (2019) The Changing Role of Finance and Accounting in the Digital Economy: Challenges and Opportunities. Swiss German University. https://sgu.ac.id/the-changing-role-of-finance-and-accounting-in-the-digital-economy-challenges-and-opportunities/
International Telecommunication Union. (2020). Economic Impact of COVID-19 on Digital Infrastructure. https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Conferences/GSR/2020/Documents/GSR-20_Impact-COVID-19-on-digital-economy_DiscussionPaper.pdf
Izma, N. (2018, August 1). MIA Digital Technology Blueprint – Guiding Your Tech Transformation. MIA Accountants Today. https://www.at-mia.my/2018/08/01/mia-digital-technology-blueprint-guiding-your-tech-transformation/
Kotb, A., Abdel-Kader, M., Allam, A., Halabi, H., & Franklin, E. (2019). Information technology in the British and Irish undergraduate accounting degrees. Accounting Education, 28(5), 445-464.
Kotb, A., & Roberts, C. (2011). E-business in accounting education: a review of undergraduate accounting degrees in the UK and Ireland. Accounting Education: An International Journal, 20(1), 63-78.
MIA Professional Practices & Technical Team. (2020, April 15). Technology Adoption by the Accountancy Profession in Malaysia. MIA Accountants Today. https://www.at-mia.my/2020/04/15/technology-adoption-by-the-accountancy-professional-in-malaysia/
Mishra, A., Maheswarappa, S. S., & Colby, C. L. (2018). Technology readiness of teenagers: a consumer socialization perspective. Journal of Services Marketing, 32(5), 592-604.
New Straits Time Press. (2021, May 13). Making the digital economy accessible to all. New Straits Times. https://www.nst.com.my/business/2020/05/592157/making-digital-economy-accessible-all
Nasution, R. A., Rusnandi, L. S. L., Qodariah, E., Arnita, D., & Windasari, N. A. (2018). The evaluation of digital readiness concept: existing models and future directions. The Asian Journal of Technology Management, 11(2), 94-117.
Parasuraman, A. (2000) Technology readiness index (tri) a multiple-item scale to measure readiness to embrace new technologies. Journal of Service Research, 2, 307-320.
Quattrone, P. (2016). Management accounting goes digital: Will the move make it wiser? Management Accounting Research, 31, 118–122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mar.2016.01.003
Radzi, J. (2019). MIA International Accountants Conference [Keynote Presentation]. MIA International Accountants Conference (MIAC) 2019, Malaysia.
Ramasamy, B., A. Chakrabarty, and M. Cheah. 2004. “Malaysia’s Leap into the Future: An Evaluation of the Multimedia Super Corridor.” Technovation 24: 871–83.
Rusly, F. H., Sun, P. Y. T., & Corner, J. L. (2015). Change readiness: creating understanding and capability for the knowledge acquisition process. Journal of Knowledge Management.
Saraswati, A. A. S. D., Dwija, I. G. A. M. A., Suprasto, H. B., & Sari, M. M. R. Influence of Competence and Locus of Control on Readiness of Accounting Department Students Facing the World of Work Era Industrial Revolution 4.0. International Research Journal of Management, IT and Social Sciences, 7(4), 14-23.
Sunil, Priya. (2021) Key highlights of the new Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint, a part of the MyDIGITAL initiative. https://www.humanresourcesonline.net/key-highlights-of-the-new-malaysia-digital-economy-blueprint-a-part-of-the-mydigital-initiative
https://www.nst.com.my/business/2020/05/592157/making-digital-economy-accessible-all
Stentoft, J., Wickstrøm, K. A., Philipsen, K., & Haug, A. (2019). Drivers and Barriers for Industry 4.0 Readiness and Practice: A SME Perspective with Empirical Evidence. In Proceedings of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (pp. 5155-5164). https://doi.org/10.24251/HICSS.2019.619
The Edge Malaysia. (2021, May 13). Malaysia’s digital economy transformation needs more than great headlines. The Edge Market. https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/malaysias-digital-economy-transformation-needs-more-great-headlines
US Department of Commerce. (n.d.). www.commerce.gov. Retrieved May 1, 2021, from https://www.commerce.gov/data-and-reports/economic-indicators
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (2019). Digital Economy Report 2019 (Overview). United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/der2019_overview_en.pdf
World Economic Forum. (2018). World Economic Forum. Retrieved May 1, 2021, from https://www.weforum.org/
