Investigating Accountants' Resistance to Move beyond Excel and Adopt New Data Analytics Technology

Abstract

A call to action has been sounded in accounting: Become a profession utilizing data analytics or become a profession bound for the history books. Accounting firms and corporations are investing in data analytics capabilities, but it is not clear whether accounting professionals are following their lead. Practitioner press indicates accountants resist the move beyond Excel even as organizations hire data scientists rather than accountants. This paper uses Status Quo Bias Theory to examine the resistance to data analytics technology by accounting and finance professionals. Surprisingly results indicate the perceived value does not mediate the effect of switching benefits and costs on resistance. Rather, switching benefits and perceived value are aligned as a single factor to reduce resistance, while switching costs directly increase resistance. Researchers have focused substantial effort toward data analytics in education and business. The troubling findings here suggest a number of accounting professionals resist adopting new analytics technology.

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“…Krahel and Titera (2015) argue in the essay that a transformation in accounting and audit standards focusing on data, the innovative processes that generate them and their analysis, rather than their presentation, will add value and relevance to the accounting profession, empower end-users and increase the efficiency of the capital markets (Krahel and Titera 2015). Concerning the practitioners, Schmidt et al (2020) investigate their resistance to move beyond Excel and Adopt New Data Analytics Technology (Schmidt et al 2020).…”

“…To apprehend in what way MAs' tasks are distressed by DA, in the inductive practiceoriented papers, Spraakman et al (2015), Cavelius et al (2020) and Schmidt et al (2020) conducted interviews with MAs to gather evidence concerning the impact of BDA on the accounting profession and MAs tasks or the resistance to emerging DA technology (Spraakman et al 2015;Cavelius et al 2020;Schmidt et al 2020). Heinzelmann (2018) interviewed accounting professionals, controllers and managers about IT systems' effects on MAs' work within organizations (Heinzelmann 2018).…”

“…The accounting profession is embracing new information sources and digital technologies (Moll and Yigitbasioglu 2019;Schmidt et al 2020) in its attempt to be promoted from a technician role to a "Business Partner" role (Cockcroft and Russell 2018). BD and DA offer to MAs the prospect of shifting to a strategic, proactive future-oriented role in business (Warren et al 2015;Nielsen 2018; ACCA 2020a, 2020e) with both benefits and risks.…”

“…Nowadays, in conjunction with the extensive use of emerging technologies, the MA's role in the company in general, and the MA's tasks in particular, have become more significant and, as a result, the MA profession may take the opportunity to extend its capabilities in the BD and DA areas. MAs must link theory and already existing concepts and knowledge to real-world application, in the context of digitalization (Richins et al 2018;Schmidt et al 2020). Being equipped with new tools and innovative processes enables MAs to build value in companies (Dilla et al 2010;IBM 2013;Griffin and Wright 2015;Krahel and Titera 2015;Drew 2018;Knudsen 2020).…”

“…Respectively, assurance is enriched through a more remarkable capability of identifying performance gaps (Schneider et al 2015). Currently, Excel and Access are most commonly utilized to execute a wide variety of DA activities, from simple descriptive reporting to more advanced data modeling, trend analysis and forecasting (Luen et al 2015;Appelbaum et al 2017;Richins et al 2018;Rikhardsson and Yigitbasioglu 2018;Schmidt et al 2020).…”