Determinants of digitalization in the accounting function : A quantitative study

Abstract: Technology grows continuously within the accounting field. A lot of new technologies have been invented in order to make facilities for the accountants and increase the quality of their performance, but there is less research on what accountants need based on the characteristics of the firm that they work for. There are a lot of different kinds of obstacles to investigate and implement new technology. Sometimes it happens that a company implements a new “trendy” technology just to be up to date with the market, but after a while they see that the technology is not suited for their firm’s employees or the size of the firm. Therefore, both investors and technology creators need to be aware of the firm characteristics and its need. On the other hand, employees or graduating students need to prepare themselves for the real competitive market and it is necessary for them to know which kind of skills they need to know and which knowledge they need to learn in order to be able to enter the job market. Consequently, universities as a place that have significant roles to educate and skilling students and make them ready for the real market need to keep the curriculum up to date and in line with the market demands. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to extend the current knowledge of the potential effects of various firms’ characteristics on digitalization in accounting function and the need of new skills by providing an answer to these two main questions:➢ What is the relation between the level of digitalization in accounting function and the characteristics of firms?➢ What is the relation between the level of digitalization in accounting function and the need of skills among the employees of an accounting function?Findings from the empirical data show that accounting functions currently need to have an accountant with IT base knowledge and cloud computing knowledge besides the accounting knowledge. Moreover, results show that not all the firm characteristics have a significant role to develop and implement the new technologies within accounting functions.