Digitalization in Accounting- Construction of identity in new role by accountants during digitalization

Abstract: Digitalization is being used across all sectors to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of any organization and the field of accountancy is not immune to it either. Due to advancements in technologies, the accountants’ role has become broader in terms of responsibilities. The accountants are expected to carry multi-dimensional roles including accounts and having basic exposure to IT. In such a scenario, the paper describes how digitalization helps accountants formulate and adapt to their new changing roles. We have conducted a qualitative study with 17 in-depth interviews within 3 different organizations where such digitalization is being carried out. Since the companies are bigger, we were not able to cover the entire digitalization process but only a few relevant instances. We believe that 3 different organizations help us to give different perspectives and further support our study. Further, we have also conducted document analysis by going through relevant research reports. Furthermore, the analysis section aims to understand the work and efforts, the accountants put in the construction of their identity to fit in their roles. Lastly, the paper contributes that digitalization has led to change in the role of the accountants, which appear to be a positive change in the view of accountants. However, this also leads us to a possible research gap that, what appears to be a positive change in the role of the accountants in large organizations, could be on contrary viewed as a negative change in the role by accountants working in a small-sized organization. Further, there is also a possibility that the digitalization phase has only been undertaken by large organizations and this has still not covered the smaller organizations.