Accounting Technology: How Does the New Technology Changes the Traditional Accounting System?

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ACCOUNTING TECHNOLOGY: HOW DOES THE NEW TECHNOLOGY CHANGES THE TRADITIONAL ACCOUNTING SYSTEM? INTRODUCTION Advances in information technology (IT) have transformed many firms in professional services industries, but perhaps none as much as those in the public accounting industry. Once a slow-paced and conservative industry, public accounting underwent tremendous changes at the turn of the new millennium, sparked largely by the rapid changes in its IT environment. Accounting software and knowledge-sharing applications are two crucial components of these changes. Automation of accounting tasks and use of specialized accounting software has substituted IT for labor and changed the structure of accounting teams. Equally important is the use of advanced systems to share knowledge bases across different parts of the organization that has enabled professional services firms to leverage their human resources more effectively (Banker, Chang, & Kao, 2002). With rapid advances in IT, numerous articles have appeared in practitioner-oriented accounting journals that discuss how to invest in IT to keep up with the current technology. To justify an IT investment, managers need to understand the potential benefits resulting from the investment. Although there is a general perception that IT investments by public accounting firms can improve firm’s productivity, the impact of IT on firm performance is not directly observable. Public accounting firms need to understand how the technology can transform their work and whether such transformation will ultimately lead to productivity gain. While the recent IT research literature documents a positive marginal contribution of incremental IT expenditure using cross-sectional analysis across several firms, empirical evidence at the firm level has not been reported. Longitudinal analysis before and after IT implementation is

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