Accounting benefits and satisfaction in an ERP environment

Over the past decade, organizations all over the world have adopted enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. There has been little research at a global scale regarding the accounting benefits of adopting enterprise systems. Moreover, there are virtually no studies that examine in detail the relation between accounting benefits and ERP user satisfaction. Sutton (2006) addressed the need for empirical research on the impact of ERP in terms of accounting advantages and disadvantages. The principal aim of our study was to investigate the accounting benefits that the adoption of an ERP system by companies may entail in relation to ERP user satisfaction. This study explored the impact that the ERP system has had on accounting information and practice. This study also examined whether or not there are differences between accountants and IT professionals concerning how each group assesses ERP accounting benefits and ERP user satisfaction. The participants of this study comprised 175 accountants and 96 IT professionals from 193 companies in Greece. The empirical evidence confirms a number of accounting benefits derived from ERP systems particularly for accounting process. No statistically significant differences were found between the perceptions of accountants and IT professionals concerning ERP accounting benefits. Furthermore, this research identifies factors related to accounting benefits and ERP cost which affect the level of ERP user satisfaction. The implications of these results for practice and research are explored. The findings of this study will be of value to any companies considering the inclusion of their accounting techniques and operations in an ERP system. Furthermore, the results of this study will provide stimulus for consequent research in the field in order to further examine and account for the accounting benefits that can occur from ERP system implementation as well as the effect of those benefits on ERP user satisfaction.     

论我国会计信息质量特征体系的构建

会计信息质量特征是现代会计理论体系中的重要组成部分,与会计目标间存在着较为密切的内在逻辑关系.构建一套系统完善的会计信息质量特征体系不仅有利于会计理论的进一步发展完善,而且对于全面有效地提高会计信息质量水准、遏制日益严重的会计信息失真具有重要意义.本文拟借鉴国内外这方面的研究成果,结合我国的会计环境以及已有的原则性规定,提出会计信息质量特征体系构建问题上的一些设想.     

金融风险的信息质量特征与我国金融会计制度改革

本文着眼于巴塞尔新资本协议第三次征求意见稿提出的金融风险监管和信息披露框架,以我国金融会计制度的国际化协调为切入点,分析了信用风险、市场风险和操作风险等金融风险的构成要素,指出现有监管信息系统和会计体系存在的问题.同时,本文还评价了我国新<金融企业会计制度>等规范对金融风险的披露和监管特征,分析了新制度对银行类上市公司所产生的影响,并提出了建立以风险计量会计披露为核心的监管体系的构想.本文最后对协同新巴塞尔协议的监管原则,建立完整的银行业信息披露框架,形成动态信息披露机制提出了一些建议.     

Institutionalising XBRL for financial reporting: resorting to regulation

By integrating and streamlining financial information within and among various organisations, eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) has been developed with a view to enhancing the efficiency, accuracy, and transparency of corporate accounting information. Taking an inter-organisational focus, this paper investigates the process of how XBRL was institutionalised. It explains and offers insights on how institutional arrangements emerge and become relevant as heterogeneous organisations consider adopting accounting innovations while evidence concerning their benefits is unavailable. The original and overall contribution of this study is that it improves current understanding of coal-face actors' perceptions, behaviours, and strategies as they interact in the organisational field and become engaged in developing accounting innovations to produce the macro-level observations documented in existing institutional theory studies.     

Core theory and uniformity in accounting: Rationalizing the accounting rulemaker

If there are serious constraints on investors' abilities to process information, as well as to syndicate and share information, a uniform accounting system may convey substantial benefits to investors. After describing the potential benefits of a uniform accounting equilibrium, this article examines, using core theory, whether an unconstrained competitive environment with unrestricted coalition-formation possibilities amongst firms is likely to yield a uniform accounting equilibrium, or whether an accounting rulemaker is necessary for obtaining uniformity. It shows that an unconstrained competitive system may not yield a uniform accounting equilibrium even though it may be in every firm's (and security holder's) interest to have a uniform system. First, the core of the negotiations game among firms to set up a uniform system may be empty. That is, there may be no allocation of gains among firms resulting from an overall uniform accounting system which satisfies both individual and group rationality. Second, a uniform accounting system may have public goods characteristics which make a competitive uniform accounting equilibrium less likely. Both reasons serve to rationalize the accounting rulemaker.     

关联交易中会计信息与计税基础的趋同性研究

我国企业财务会计信息服务对象的变迁反映出会计准则中多重计量属性所引致的会计规范和税收法规在相关交易规定上存在的差异。而依据税收透明度及企业所得税法提供的相关资料两方面的要求,计税依据与会计信息指标非常必要保持一致。本文认为,关联交易会计计量与计税基础在关联关系判定标准、关联交易认定内容等方面存在差异,应该将关联关系扩大到个人,并将关联企业认定的控制标准设定为20%。     

利益相关者会计行为的分析

本文把利益相关者纳入到会计行为分析的框架中进行分析,认为每一类利益相关者对待会计信息的态度都具有两面性。一方面,每一类利益相关者的经济利益都和会计信息有着密切的联系,自利的本性使他们都有通过操纵会计信息而谋取私利的动机,在条件具备时,这种动机就会转化为实际的操纵会计信息的行为;另一方面,各类利益相关者的经济利益之间存在着相互制约、此消彼长的关系,因此,可能遭受损失的利益相关者就会对其他利益相关者操纵会计信息的行为进行监督。这种两面性说明,每一类利益相关者的利益都可能受到来自其他类利益相关者操纵会计信息的威胁,因此,必须建立利益相关者相互之间进行会计监督的体系。     

Accounting and budgeting systems: The issue of congruency

The importance of designing an accounting system that is congruent with an organization's budgeting system has been noted in the literature. Unfortunately, in many government organization it is common to find incompatible budgeting and accounting systems. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether gearing the accounting information system to a zero-base budgeting system increases the perceived usefulness of the budgeting process. This issue is examined under conditions of both scare and abundant resources. Based on an empirical study, it is shown that the usefulness of a budgeting system to budget recipients may indeed be dependent on the accounting information system, conditioned on the availability of resources. Given the relationship between budgeting and public policy, implications of the study for the public policy making process are discussed.     

Water management accounting and the wine supply chain: Empirical evidence from Australia

Sustainable water management in the supply chain is critical to the long term viability of wine producing organisations. Yet despite its potential importance as a link to convert good intentions of managers into sustainable water use, thus far knowledge concerning how environmental management accounting can assist is largely non-existent. Drawing on contingency theory and new institutional sociology a telephone survey was used to investigate the current use of water-related environmental management accounting information (here termed water management accounting) for assessing the long term implications associated with water management in Australian wine supply chains. Organisational size, regulatory pressure and corporate environmental strategy were found to be consistent drivers of water management accounting use. However, other drivers of supply chain-oriented water management accounting differ depending on whether the information considered is monetary or physical. Existence of a certified environmental management system and involvement of managers with industry associations are points of difference. These findings indicate a two-step incentive process for implementation is likely to be the most effective for promoting the collection and use of physical and monetary information for environmental management in the wine industry.     

论会计在实体经济与虚拟经济互动中的传导作用

论文探讨会计在经济体系(由实体经济与虚拟经济组成)中的作用方式及其后果。实体经济与虚拟经济基于二者之间的价值联系而互动,会计是实体经济与虚拟经济互动运行中的信号传导机制。会计真实反映的特点决定了会计计量会如实反映市场价格波动,并通过财务报告披露的传导、信息使用者非理性行为放大市场价格波动幅度,如此,会计与虚拟经济、实体经济形成一个循环因果累积的过程。经济发展的波动性和周期性是这个循环因果累积过程的结果。论文从宏观视角认识会计的经济角色,解读会计与经济周期性波动的关系,推演出会计信息披露和信息使用的改革方向。     

Valuation and Accounting for Inflation and Foreign Exchange

Inflation and foreign exchange raise new issues with respect to accounting representations of equity value. For example, inflation creates an earnings illusion as an artifact of the mismatching of expenses based on allocations of historical costs with current revenues in determining earnings. This mismatching distorts mappings of aggregate earnings and book values into equity value such that value‐relevant information is lost. In this article we consider the consequences of inflation and foreign exchange accounting policies, including those contained in accounting standards, on the value relevance of bottom‐line accounting numbers. Policies are identified that achieve efficient accounting in the sense that aggregate (comprehensive) earnings and book values are sufficient for an accounting representation of equity value. The linear relations that emerge provide predictions on capitalization coefficients that help explain results of empirical inquiries. As well, our analysis provides a theoretical foundation for policies contained in accounting standards that contributes to the resolution of controversies such as that concerning foreign exchange accounting.     

ERP in action — Challenges and benefits for management control in SME context

ERP systems have fundamentally re-shaped the way business data is collected, stored, disseminated and used throughout the world. However, the existing research in accounting has provided only relatively few empirical findings on the implications for management control when companies implement ERP systems as the technological platform. Especially scarce are the findings concerning the production phase, after implementation, when the information processes, related work practices and the new information contents can be seen as established. In this paper we explored and theorized the benefits, challenges and problems for management control when an ERP system is in use, four years after the implementation. Our findings also illustrate why and under what circumstances these challenges and benefits may exist. For a holistic view of the organization our findings, based on a qualitative case study, are constructed from the viewpoints of people at different levels and functions of the organization. Top management expected a new strategic control system, but due to the many challenges it ended up with merely financial accounting based control. At the operational level, serious challenges lead to inadequate usage of the ERP system. Management control produces the financial basic data and must contend with many practical problems caused by ERP implementation.     

Accounting internships: The state of the art

This paper reports the results of an investigation into the “state of the art” in the use, administration and operation of accounting internship programs. Data was collected via a questionnaire from 153 institutions concerning their use of student internships. These responses were used to determine the extent to which student internships are currently incorporated into the accounting curriculum. Forty-seven institutions stated they did not sponsor student internships and identified the reasons underlying their decision. One hundred and six schools reported offering internships and provided information concerning the administration and operation of their programs.     

论绩效评价导向政府会计体系的构建

政府公共受托责任解除的根本途径是政府绩效信息的全面披露,但定量信息的缺乏制约了政府绩效评价理论与实务的发展。会计作为货币化的经济信息系统,具备提供定量信息的天生优势,本应为政府绩效评价提供数据支持。但现有的政府会计体系在绩效评价支持方面并未发挥出应有作用。因此,有必要以绩效评价为导向构建政府会计体系。     

Acceptance of Accounting Standards

When financial statements are audited, a client and auditor may disagree about an accounting disclosure. While the disclosure of such a disagreement may increase the information content of a statement it may also be socially undesirable in that it signals a difference in views about the state of the reporting enterprise. This in turn may increase agency costs and introduce uncertainty about the state of the firm. In this paper we focus on public policy implications concerning auditor-client disagreements and examine the ex ante probability that such cases will occur. We find that accounting standards that allow two accounting options may be optimal in reducing frequency of disagreements among auditors and between standard-setters and their constituencies, and possibly also between clients and their auditors. The New Zealand model of compliance with accounting standards may be preferable to that practiced in the US.     

Accounting and strategising: A case study from new product development

This paper explores the relationship between accounting and strategy in a context that is characterised by pluralistic demands and high uncertainty about outcomes. By way of an ethnographic field study in an R&D intensive company, we analyse new product development (NPD) projects and the way in which decisions and practices concerning these projects are accounted for. Building upon a practice theory perspective, we find that actors account for the appropriateness of NPD practices not only or primarily on the basis of accounting information, but also by “strategising”, i.e. by mobilising different strategic objectives to which these practices are supposed to contribute. We argue that this has to do with the ambiguous demands on NPD and the limits of calculability inherent in NPD design decisions. At the same time, accounting information is not necessarily irrelevant in such a case; it can enter the picture as a general understanding that guides actors’ strategising efforts by reminding them of the ultimate importance of financial numbers.     

Controllers’ role in managerial sensemaking and information trust building in a business intelligence environment

This study explores how an organization’s controllers (management accountants) give sense to the information provided by its business intelligence (BI) system, and thus shape the construction of information trust. A qualitative case study was conducted within a Finnish food manufacturing company, building on the notion of trust related to management accounting information and sensemaking theory. The study was informed through open-ended interviews and an examination of internal accounting and management reports. The authors found that the company used an integrated BI system that enabled the production of information in a timely and perceivably standardized manner. Controllers managed this accounting information and gave sense to it, helping deliver a shared understanding of the daily business situation. The findings show that controllers play a pivotal role in building information trust by giving sense to the information provided by the BI system.     

信息技术与会计价值超越

会计信息是经济领域最重要的信息之一,然而在信息时代,会计系统所提供的信息已经难以在相关性、可靠性、及时性等方面满足组织内外信息用户的要求,从而引发会计价值危机。信息技术在会计领域的运用将有利于会计价值的回归和超越。信息技术与会计的结合呈现出三个有较大飞跃的阶段,即电算化会计阶段、与管理信息系统的集成阶段和网络会计系统阶段。但尚不能断言信息技术将使会计价值无限提高。     

加强会计指数研究 全面提升会计在经济社会发展中的影响力

会计信息对于真实、准确、完整地反映企业财务状况、经营成果和现金流量具有重要作用。2010年,财政部王军副部长将会计指数作为中国特色会计体系的重要组成部分,向世界会计同行做了阐述。会计指数作为经过提炼的企业会计信息,可以帮助政府及时深入地了解微观经济基础,把握宏观经济走势,做好宏观经济决策。本文立足于基本的会计理论与宏观经济理论,尝试构建基于企业会计信息的一套指数体系,这个指数体系包括宏观的价值创造会计指数、中观的行业评价会计指数以及微观的企业投资价值指数。最后,本文提出了推进会计指数研究工作的相关建议。