Accounting Information Systems for Decision Making

Lecture Notes in Information Systems and Organisation 

Accounting

Information

Systems for

Decision Making

Daniela Mancini

Eddy H. J. Vaassen

Renata Paola Dameri Editors

Lecture Notes in Information Systems

and Organisation

Volume 3

Series Editors

Paolo Spagnoletti

Marco De Marco

Nancy Pouloudi

Dov Te’eni

Jan vom Brocke

Robert Winter

Richard Baskerville

For further volumes:

http://www.springer.com/series/11237

Daniela Mancini • Eddy H. J. Vaassen

Renata Paola Dameri

Editors

Accounting Information

Systems for Decision Making

123

Editors

Daniela Mancini

Parthenope University of Naples

Naples

Italy

Eddy H. J. Vaassen

Tilburg University

Tilburg

Netherlands

Renata Paola Dameri

University of Genoa

Genoa

Italy

ISSN 2195-4968 ISSN 2195-4976 (electronic)

ISBN 978-3-642-35760-2 ISBN 978-3-642-35761-9 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-35761-9

Springer Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013932767

Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

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Foreword

I am very pleased to have been invited to present the foreword to this book, mainly

on research presentations at the 2012 Annual Conference of the Italian Chapter of

AIS (ItAIS). I also have interest in sharing research development ideas in

Accounting Information Systems (AIS), as AIS is the field which expresses the

contemporary inter-connection of research questions with future research contri￾butions, par excellence.

Researching AIS problems, tools, and outcomes, provides important distinc￾tions that identify the research area. Like any other field that follows a systematic

research development and analysis, AIS researchers as individuals or groups of

collaboration, communicate important aspects. Research quality is similar to the

alignment of a three-legged stool: there is multi-directional balancing in

(a) offering an understanding of relevant concepts and properties in the field,

(b) which processes and systems of governance are relevant, and theoretically

justified, or indeed there is need to build theory related to them, and (c) which

areas of expansion in both theory and applications the AIS research field may

contribute to. To accomplish these ‘‘trends’’ in the continued development of AIS

research, we globally observe several significant examples, and the 2012 ItAIS is

certainly to be congratulated for carrying out such a task.

AIS research should have a broad perspective. In a field that attracts multiple

issues (multi-selective) of research, it is also characterized by pluralities in theo￾ries, research topics, approaches, and outcomes. While it might be easy for a

reader to determine there is a tradeoff between plurality and intellectual focus, we

can only predict that any such condition only improves research environments.

Indeed, as too diverse a set of interests may dilute the field’s focus and effect, on

the other hand, many think plurality is what makes AIS research exciting and

strong. With the potential mis-thinking that strong fit fields will emerge as the most

narrow-thinking and least creative, a ‘‘scientific revolution’’ cannot be formed to

dynamically change situations. As has very well been said in related fields as ours,

there are very committed ideas of macro-nonsense, due to complementary micro￾rigor beliefs. In AIS, I believe we try avoiding all these issues and rather try to

v

attract interesting topics. There are conditions when one asks about this very

question, and the answer is: as stated above.

While the series of issues in this book examines a wide variety of topics, these

can be logically classified into research groups, with related topical issues. In some

interesting future extensions, for example, arguments about the nature and role of

issues in affecting outcomes can be developed and justified as part of AIS building.

This book overall is a display of plurality in AIS research, which offers many

benefits, however. And this is why this specific research volume is needed: it

presents contributions to AIS research from researchers in the area. I also find this

of significant importance and again I certainly encourage researches to further

develop AIS-theoretical arguments in their future research.

Andreas I. Nicolaou

Professor and Owens-Illinois Chair of Accounting

Editor-in-Chief

International Journal of Accounting Information Systems

Bowling Green State University

Bowling Green

OH

USA

vi Foreword

Contents

Trends in Accounting Information Systems .................... 1

Daniela Mancini, Eddy H. J. Vaassen and Renata Paola Dameri

Are Auditors Interested in XBRL? A Qualitative Survey

of Big Auditing Firms in Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Fabio La Rosa and Carlo Caserio

Internal Control Over Financial Reporting Quality

and Information Technology Control Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Stefano Azzali and Tatiana Mazza

Determinants of Internet-Based Performance Reporting

Released by Italian Local Government Authorities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Luigi Lepore and Sabrina Pisano

Mandatory Compliance in Transparency

of Public Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Massimo De Angelis and Maria Guerra

The Current Environmental Strategy Reporting Model:

What can be Learned from Corporate Reports?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Stefano Garzella and Raffaele Fiorentino

The Role of Continuous Monitoring of Internal Controls

over Financial Reporting: A Case Study of an Italian

Medium-Sized Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Giuseppe Ianniello, Marco Mainardi, Fabrizio Rossi

and Miklos Vasarhelyi

vii

Accounting Information Systems and Knowledge Management

Systems: An Integrated Approach for Strategic Control . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Roberto Del Gobbo

Current Changes in Executive Work and How to Handle

Them by Redesigning Executive Information Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Jörg H. Mayer

Strategic Enterprise Management in the Taps and Fittings

Sector: Application of the Balanced Scorecard Methodology

to Business Intelligence Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Roberto Candiotto and Silvia Gandini

Defining Accounting Information Systems Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Iacopo Ennio Inghirami

Break-Up Analysis: A Method to Regain Trust in Business

Transactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Bruno Maria Franceschetti, Claudia Koschtial and Carsten Felden

Hierarchical and Relational Database Accounting Systems:

Critical Aspects and Trade-Offs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Carlo Caserio, Luciano Marchi and Gabriele Pulcini

Interactive Data: Technology and Cost of Capital. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

S. Sarah Zhang, Ryan Riordan and Christof Weinhardt

Integrated-Multi-Layered Information Systems

in Engineer-to-Order Multinational Business Processes:

Managerial, Accounting and Organizational Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Katia Corsi, Daniele Rizzo and Sara Trucco

IS to Support Project Management: Implications

for Managerial Accounting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

Giuseppina Iacoviello and Arianna Lazzini

Putting IS and Organizational Change into Context:

The Pros and Cons in Kibernetes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

Daniela Rupo

Analysing Flexibility and Integration Needs in Budgeting

IS Technologies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

Wipawee Uppatumwichian

viii Contents

Port Authorities and Water Concessionaires: The Role of Reporting

in Management Control and Information Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

Assunta Di Vaio and Gabriella D’Amore

The Impact of e-Invoicing on Businesses Eco-Systems:

Evidences from Italian Supply Chains and Suggestions

for a Research Agenda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

Francesco Bellini, Fabrizio D’Ascenzo, Alessandra Ghi,

Francesca Spagnoli and Valeria Traversi

The Didactic Challenge of Accounting Information Systems

and ERPs for Business Schools: A Proposal

for the Italian Universities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337

Renata Paola Dameri, Roberto Garelli and Francesca Ricciardi

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351

Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

Contents ix

Editorial Board

Carlo Caserio, University of Pisa, Italy

Katia Corsi, University of Sassari, Italy

Renata Dameri, University of Genoa, Italy

Marco De Marco, University Guglielmo Marconi, Italy

Daniela Mancini, Parthenope University of Naples, Italy

Luciano Marchi, University of Pisa, Italy

Andreas Nicolaou, Bouling Green State University, USA

Paolo Spagnoletti, Cersi-Luiss Guido Carli University, Rome, Italy

Eddy H. J. Vaassen, Tilburg University, Netherlands

Additional Reviewers

Bellini, Francesco

Caserio, Carlo

Castellano, Nicola

Cavallini, Iacopo

Corsi, Katia

Di Vaio, Assunta

Felden, Carsten

Ferruzzi, Concetta

Fiorentino, Raffaele

Franceschetti, Bruno Maria

Guerra, Maria

Iacoviello, Giuseppina

Inghirami, Iacopo

xi

Koschtial, Claudia

La Rosa, Fabio

Lamboglia, Rita

Lazzini, Arianna

Lepore, Luigi

Marchi, Luciano

Pierotti, Mariarita

Trucco, Sara

xii Editorial Board

Trends in Accounting Information

Systems

Daniela Mancini, Eddy H. J. Vaassen and Renata Paola Dameri

1 Introduction

Most of the contents of this book is based on a selection of the research works

presented at the track entitled ‘Accounting Information Systems’ of the 2012

Annual Conference of the Italian Chapter of AIS (ItAIS), which was held in Rome,

Italy, in September 2012. The aim of the track was to sketch a clear picture of the

current state of Accounting Information Systems (AIS) research in a broad sense,

including design, acceptance and reliance, value added, decision making, inter￾organizational links, and process improvements. In particular, despite the fact that

accounting information systems are often considered the instrument by default for

accounting automation the track starts from a wide definition of the accounting

information system, as a complex system composed of a mix of strictly interrelated

elements (such as data, information, human resources, IT tools, accounting models

and procedures), and basically involved in collecting, classifying, elaborating,

recording, storing accounting data. The aim of the track was to give evidence to

the strategic role of the accounting information system in decision processes

within and between companies and to define instruments and practices for iden￾tifying and evaluating this strategic role. The message that comes across is that the

accounting information system has grown into a powerful strategic tool to support

D. Mancini (&)

Parthenope University, Naples, Italy

e-mail: [email protected]

E. H. J. Vaassen

Tilburg University, Tilburg, Netherlands

e-mail: [email protected]

R. P. Dameri

University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy

e-mail: [email protected]

D. Mancini et al. (eds.), Accounting Information Systems for Decision Making,

Lecture Notes in Information Systems and Organisation 3,

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-35761-9_1, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

1

decision-making inside companies, top management’s decision processes, and

outside companies, stakeholders’ decision processes.

The book is a quest for evidence regarding this observation by examining a

wide range of current issues ranging from theory development in AIS to practical

applications of accounting information systems. In particular it focuses on themes

of growing interest in the realm of XBRL and Financial Reporting, Management

Information Systems in specific contexts, IT/IS Audit and IT/IS Compliance,

integration of Accounting and Management Information Systems and so on.

The volume contains 16 research works that were accepted at the Conference

after a double-blind review. They adopt a different theoretical approach to

investigate accounting information systems and the relationship among accounting

models, information technology, reporting tools, organizational aspects and

companies’ behaviour. The contributions also adopt different research methodol￾ogies including single and multiple cases study, content analysis, surveys and

theory development. In addition to these articles, the book contains two research

works selected from the same track belonging to the 2012 European Conference of

Information Systems (ECIS) and three invited research works concerning specific

themes of interest.

2 The Strategic Role of the Accounting Information

System: A Two-Way Relationship

Even if accounting information systems are by now mature tools, they are not only

essential instruments for managing the company, but also important enablers of

business innovation [1]. Indeed, they have always been evolving during time and

there is still a long way to go, for the best alignment between accounting infor￾mation systems and the business. The evolution of accounting information systems

is like a broken line, showing various trend breaches resulting from disruptive

changes in a wide variety of societal and environmental factors [2]. However, there

are three factors that may be considered the main antecedents of accounting

information system changes, i.e.:

• Technology;

• Management practices and models;

• Accounting rules.

The relation between accounting information systems and these factors has

been the object of many studies in recent years. It is considered a complex rela￾tionship where accounting information systems sometimes are the dependent

variable and sometimes the independent variable.

A large part of the studies consider technology as the main variable that has an

impact on management practices and models, accounting rules and on the other

components of the accounting information system. For example, the Internet

deeply influenced accounting information systems, and indeed web technology has

2 D. Mancini et al.

had an impact both on how an accounting information system is built, and on how

it is used. Nowadays it is difficult to imagine how databases and the access to them

are organised without having access to the Internet. And this is not just because of

standardized business reporting as enabled by XBRL but also because of the

emergence of cloud computing. Also the migration from a hierarchical organisa￾tional model towards a process oriented model has been driven by ERP systems,

because of the new technology and the new way of designing accounting software.

In the last decades the word ‘strategic’ has become associated with the

accounting information system as being synonymous to organizational innovation,

efficiency, reliability of information, and relevance of information for internal and

external stakeholders. For many years it seemed that information and communi￾cation technology was the main driver of the strategic role of the accounting

information system and its evolution.

In recent years scholars seem to want to enhance their knowledge of such

relations and stress the idea that maybe, to clearly understand the evolution process

of accounting information systems, it is necessary to start from a point of view that

considers a two-way and interdependent relationship between accounting infor￾mation systems, technology, accounting rules, accounting practices and models.

This is a truly holistic view that provides a much better match with control models

of contemporary organizations than the good old cybernetic view.

In this sense accounting information systems influence the organizational

architecture of the company, so that the interaction between accounting infor￾mation systems and the business indeed becomes deep and, for example, the

relation between accounting information systems and ERP can be read as the

organizational trends that drive the ERP structure. Similarly, some practices and

techniques in management control, like Activity Based Costing or the Balanced

Scorecard, both influence the technology employed and are supported by

accounting information systems. In this context, ‘strategic’ means searching new

ways to combine information and read economic and competitive events, using

technology as a fundamental tool to trigger innovation, and as an important sup￾port for internal decision making processes. Several studies try to understand how

it is possible to implement performance management models through information

systems tools, how it is possible to reach more complete levels of integration

between different tools, and how the alignment between information systems and

the business really takes place.

We firmly believe that the meaning of ‘strategic’ refers to another critical and

two-ways relationship. The International Accounting Standards reliability strongly

have been determining IT governance practices and auditing standards. On the

other hand, accounting information systems have been having a tremendous

impact on business architectures, financial disclosures and data quality [3].

Financial disclosure is really the product of the accounting information system,

therefore, the governance, compliance and control of accounting information

system software, but also of accounting information system management pro￾cesses, are crucial to grant the complete reliability of financial information [4] not

only inside the company but also outside, among different stakeholder.

Trends in Accounting Information Systems 3

Data quality is one of the key issues in managing complex and global com￾panies in a fast changing, heterogenous world with often—what is by now almost

commonplace—big data. To be able to collect in real time, select, process and

distribute data really necessitates a profound knowledge of the company as well as

external consensus rooted in transparency. In this sense ‘strategic’ means the

ability of the accounting information system, as an integrated system, to satisfy

external information needs for decision making and to ensure the required levels of

transparency, accountability and disclosure [5].

The chapters submitted to the conference and the invited chapters as collected

in this book, provide a more comprehensive view on the concept of ‘strategic’

related to the accounting information system.

Even if the accounting information system is a mature tool, it is nevertheless

always in evolution. The main reason is that the accounting information system is

nowadays an integrated, company-wide information system. Hence, all the chan￾ges regarding the company and the economic environment have an impact on it.

Even if the applicable accounting rules and management practices are important

sources of innovation in accounting information systems, the main change driver is

the globally competitive arena. However, the scope of any accounting information

system and its pervasive nature with respect to the business processes influences

the diversity and heterogeneity of AIS research.

However, some topics are more critical than others and—surprisingly—they are

not so different compared to ten years ago. Looking at the chapters submitted for

the AIS track at the ItAIS Conference, we may find that some problems such as

accounting data quality, accounting information system integration, alignment

between the accounting information system and the business or using the

accounting information system for effective management control have always been

the hot spots for this subject.

To understand how research could be useful to face and perhaps solve these

long term issues affecting accounting information system effectiveness in business,

we should deepen our quest by trying to synthesize several contributions to build a

comprehensive model that is able to drive further research. The main contribution

of this chapter is to define a panorama of the main problems and the suggested

solutions regarding the effective use of accounting information systems in financial

disclosure, management control and IT/business alignment.

3 The Quality of Financial Data: Excellence in Accounting

Information System Auditing and Control

The role of the accounting information system in producing reliable financial

information has become increasingly important after the infamous and well-debated

financial scandals all over the world. Indeed, even if the work of auditors had

already been based on accounting information systems, the need to control the

accounting information system for its own sake was not on the corporate agenda

4 D. Mancini et al.