Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of IT systems on occupational identities of management accountants. The author highlights the pivotal role of the IT system as a central reference point for organisational identity regulation and identity work. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a qualitative case study approach. Findings The IT system presents the central means of establishing appropriate behaviour in case organisation (“identity regulation”). At the same time, the IT system acts as a sense-giving device (“identity work”) – the central reference point for management accountants to make sense of their work. In addition, the system creates more dirty and unclean work (Morales and Lambert, 2013), producing dissonance between the business partner role and the organisational reality, which is resolved by relating dirty and unclean work through use of the SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. Research limitations/implications The paper suggests to understand IT systems as an important driver of the management accounting work shaping the occupational identity of management accountants. Practical implications The author aims to sensitise practitioners and organisations to the potential risks of relying too strongly on IT systems – a behaviour which can limit the professional judgement and business insight of management accountants. Originality/value The author contributes to the discussion on how technological disruptions, e.g. ERP implementation, Big Data, business analytics, digitalisation, change management accountants’ identity and management accounting work. The author shows how organisations establish appropriate behaviour and how management accountants make sense upon dissonances between the professional ideals exemplified by business partner role and the organisational realities.

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the accounting logic inscribed in the SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and how this accounting logic becomes effective in organizations. The authors draw on the notion of accounting logics by mobilizing the institutional logics literature (Thornton et al., 2012). Accordingly, accounting logics are conceptualized as crucial underlying design principles consisting of a system of beliefs, assumptions and ideas how accounting systems should be designed. Design/methodology/approach The authors adopt a qualitative case study approach conducted in a manufacturing company, hereafter called Wood Plc. The primary data source is qualitative research interviews. Secondary data, such as internal documents, were collected to increase validity and reliability through data triangulation (Ahrens and Chapman, 2006; Scapens, 2004). Findings The paper demonstrates how a particular accounting logic – the Germanic accounting logic – gets diffused throughout the organization by the means of the SAP ERP system, and creates challenges for management accounting practices in local entities. The contribution of the paper is to show that ERP systems can foster the diffusion of a specific accounting logic, which is inherently linked to the SAP system, and which enables a specific version of accounting to work in an organization. Research limitations/implications This paper could be viewed as an extreme case of a German organization using the SAP ERP system with its Germanic accounting logic inscribed to make a German accounting logic work in the entire organization. Consequently, further research could unpack the relationship between accounting logics, ERP systems, accounting systems and their use by studying not only different empirical settings with respect to the organizational context but also the ERP software used by organizations. Practical implications This paper aims to raise the awareness of practitioners of the conceptual underpinnings inscribed in the SAP accounting modules while at the same time pinpointing the potential challenges of implementation generated by the accounting logics. Originality/value The paper complements existing studies on accounting and ERP systems by bringing the accounting logic inscribed in the SAP ERP system to the fore. More precisely, this paper shows that in the wake of SAP ERP implementation, the organization studied spread its assumptions and beliefs on accounting, which are manifested in the Germanic accounting logic inscribed in the SAP ERP system, in the organization. This invoked particular challenges in non-Germanic subsidiaries in making accounting work.

No abstract

No abstract

ChatGPT, a language-learning model chatbot, has garnered considerable attention for its ability to respond to users’ questions. Using data from 14 countries and 186 institutions, we compare ChatGPT and student performance for 28,085 questions from accounting assessments and textbook test banks. As of January 2023, ChatGPT provides correct answers for 56.5 percent of questions and partially correct answers for an additional 9.4 percent of questions. When considering point values for questions, students significantly outperform ChatGPT with a 76.7 percent average on assessments compared to 47.5 percent for ChatGPT if no partial credit is awarded and 56.5 percent if partial credit is awarded. Still, ChatGPT performs better than the student average for 15.8 percent of assessments when we include partial credit. We provide evidence of how ChatGPT performs on different question types, accounting topics, class levels, open/closed assessments, and test bank questions. We also discuss implications for accounting education and research.