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Recent trends in accounting and information system research: a literature review using textual analysis tools.

1. Introduction

2. literature analysis, 2.1. materials and methods, 2.2. results, 2.2.1. results for the first period (2000 to 2009).

• The dissemination of information via the Internet, such as web reporting, e-commerce models, or web-based business or services (e.g., [ 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 ]);
• The use, implementation, and implications of continuous auditing or continuous monitoring (for instance, [ 49 , 50 ]);
• The use or implementation of languages or taxonomies based on Extensible Markup Language (XML) or Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), sometimes also linked to previous themes (e.g., [ 49 , 51 , 52 , 53 ]);
• The implementation of internal control system models in the IT area, such as control objectives for information and related technology (COBIT), the relevance of IT certification, such as WebTrust, and also the topics from the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) curricula (for instance, [ 54 , 55 , 56 ]);
• Finally, although less incipient in this period, some studies on the emerging technologies from the beginning of this century, such as neural networks (e.g., [ 57 ]), or business intelligence (e.g., [ 21 ]).
• Accounting : accounting academics, accounting data points, accounting information, accounting knowledge, accounting research productivity, accounting system design, accounting systems research, accounting tasks , database accounting, differentiating accounting systems , financial accounting literature, leading accounting, managerial accounting perspective, quality accounting publication ;
• Audit : audit automation constructs, audit committees, audit documentation, audit engagement risk, audit opinion, audit trail, audit work, auditing education, auditing literature, computer-assisted auditing techniques, continuous audit, current audit environment , specific auditing concerns, various audit domains;
• Business : business clients, business information , business operations, business organizations, business process diagrams , business process level , business process modelling conventions , business world, Canadian business units, everyday business communications, extensible business, strategic business planning, web-based business;
• Control : control group, control objectives, control relationships, designing control systems , external controls, hierarchical control structures , informal controls, internal control, international control guideline, proper control procedures, using control charts;
• Data : accounting data points , data quality , data streams, data warehouses, electronic data interchange, financial data, including data flow diagrams, normal form data structure , numerical data increases, secondary data analysis, site data, specific data, spending data, underlying data trends, unnormalized data structure , using data;
• Decisions : bonus allocation decisions, decision aid research , decision aid use, decision aids, decision facilitation, decision process , investment decisions, management decision models , multiple decision, novice decision makers, operational decisions, repetitive choice decisions, repetitive valuation decisions, user decisions;
• Environment : alternative environments, continuous reporting environment, current audit environment, external environment, manufacturing environments, traditional reporting environment, virtual team environment;
• Individual : individual characteristics, individual decision-makers, individual determinants, individual faculty members, individual faculty productivity, individual level, individual provider attributes, individual units, judging individuals, perceiving individuals;
• Information : accounting information , advanced information technology , business information , computer-supported information systems , corporate reporting information, decision-making information, emerging information needs, emerging information technologies, financial reporting information, financial statement information, future-oriented information, human information processing, important information processing mechanism , information age, information content, information integrity attributes, information load, information location, information requests, information security, information system designs , information systems research , informationally equivalent, inter-organizational information sharing, low information quality seal , management information systems , management information value chain , nonfinancial information, online information, open information sharing, output information, preliminary information, specific information technology , supporting information technology , varied information, vast information source;
• Knowledge : accounting knowledge , additional knowledge, causing knowledge acquisition, expert-like knowledge structures , feedback impacts knowledge acquisition, filtering knowledge, improving knowledge workers, knowledge management focus , knowledge management practices , knowledge management system , procedural knowledge;
• Management : cost management systems, effective management , hybrid manager profile, impression management, knowledge management focus, knowledge management practices, knowledge management system, management decision models, management information systems, management information value chain , senior managers, top management support;
• Model : business process modelling conventions , conceptual model, contingency model, enterprise modelling, er model, management decision models , mathematical model, research model , residual income valuation model, task circumplex model , theoretical model;
• Performance : firm performance, managerial end-user performance , organisational performance, organizational performance, performance evaluation, performance outcomes, subsequent decision-making performance, superior performance, task performance , traditional performance measures;
• Process : assurance process, business process diagrams, business process level, business process modeling conventions , decision process, event process chains, extensive sample selection process, human information processing, important information processing mechanism , little processing, process level risk assessment, processing view, production processes, stable processes, standard development process;
• Quality : data quality , disseminating quality, low information quality seal , quality accounting publication , quality measurement component, quality outlets, quality perspective, service quality, system quality ;
• Research : accounting research productivity , accounting systems research , additional research, ais research, attitudinal ambivalence research, case research, current research work, decision aid research, development research, empirical research, field research, future research, information systems research , little research, past research, previous research, prior research, recent research, research community, research domain, research findings, research hypotheses, research instrument, research issues, research method opportunities, research model , research propositions, research prototype system , research questions, research survey, rich research opportunities, various research methods;
• System: accounting system design, accounting systems research , alternative measurement systems, automated record system, computer-supported information systems, cost management systems , current system, designing control systems, differentiating accounting systems, electronic audit-work paper system , enterprise systems implementation, expert system groups, expert system types, expert system users, information system designs, information systems research, key system components, knowledge management system, management information systems , medical record system, research prototype system , successful system, system acceptance, system acquisition, system design alternatives, system effectiveness , system implementation changes, system integration, system outputs, system quality , system transformation, system usage, systems design scenarios, tertiary assurance system, work systems;
• Task : accounting tasks , brainstorming tasks, complex tasks, decision-making tasks, financial tasks, optimisation tasks, querying tasks, simple tasks, specific design tasks , task accuracy, task characteristics, task circumplex model , task completion, task force, task performance , task requirements, task routineness;
• Technology: advanced information technology, emerging information technologies, emerging technologies, learning technology, specific information technology, supporting information technology, technological advances, technological determinism, technological discourse, technology complexities, technology features, technology fit, technology medium;
• Use: auditor use , continued use, decision aid use, expert system users , user acceptance, user decisions , user requests, user satisfaction, using activity, using control charts , using data , using eighty-nine, using paper methods.

2.2.2. Results for the Second Period (2010 to 2019)

• Continuous auditing or continuous monitoring (e.g., [ 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 ]);
• Languages or taxonomies based on XML (less expressive) or XBRL, in a more expressive number than those found in the previous period (e.g., [ 73 , 74 , 75 , 76 , 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 ]);
• Business intelligence or business analytics (mostly) (e.g., [ 19 , 81 , 82 , 83 ]);
• Artificial intelligence, data analytics, big data treatment, and the use of machine learning and data mining techniques (mostly), which are sometimes associated with previous themes and, in many cases, dedicated to the definition of processes related to the detection of fraud, misreporting or tax evasion (e.g., [ 84 , 85 , 86 , 87 , 88 , 89 , 90 , 91 , 92 ]);
• Cloud computing (e.g., [ 67 , 93 , 94 , 95 ]);
• Blockchain-based technologies, which are mostly evidenced at the end of this decade (for instance, [ 96 , 97 ]).
• Accounting : 129 accounting students, accounting benefits, accounting domains, accounting information systems academics , accounting information systems field , accounting journals, accounting literature, accounting processes , accounting publications, accounting researchers , accounting standards , annual bank account balances, especially management accounting, firm accounting performance, outsourcing accounting functions ;
• Audit : audit analytics, audit arena, audit fraud brainstorming , audit process , audit standards , audit support systems , audit team, auditing literature, budgeted audit hours, chief audit executives, computer audit specialist, continuous auditing methodology, current audit practice , financial audits, internal audit function , internal auditing department, prior year audit, reduced audit fee increases , small audit firms , traditional audit paradigm ;
• Business : business networks, business operations, business process agility , business process standards , business value research , computing-related business objectives, existing business processes , extensible business, hindering business efforts, intermediate business processes , overall business performance , reporting business information ;
• Control : control compliance, control issues, corrective controls, effective controls, ineffective controls, informal management control systems , internal control deficiencies, internal control environment, internal control overrides, internal control reporting requirements , internal control weakness, internal control weaknesses, it-related controls;
• Data: applying data mining techniques, corporate data, data analysis tool, data patterns, descriptive data mining approach, descriptive data mining strategy, financial data, global data ecosystem, journal entry data sets, out-of-sample data, panel data, perceptive field survey data, precise data values, prediction data mining techniques, process-level data, procurement data, proprietary data, quantitative data, researching journal entry data mining, semi-monthly data, soft copy data, tagged data, using data;
• Decisions : compared decisions, deception detection decision aid, decision aid reliability, decision aid reliance behavior, decision aids, decision problems, decision processes , decision trees, experimental decision aid research spans , governance decision making , optimal decision, outsourcing decision, reliance decision;
• Disclosure : cybersecurity disclosure guidance , cybersecurity risk disclosure , disclosure credibility, disclosure role, environmental disclosures, extensive disclosure, financial statement disclosures , improving disclosure timeliness, issuing video disclosures, unauthorized disclosure;
• Effective : brainstorming effectiveness, compromising regulation effectiveness, detrimental effect, differential effect, effective controls , halo effect, information environment effects , interactive effect, mean effects, positive effect, profound effect;
• Firm : aggregate firm level, appointing firms, durable goods industry firms, firm accounting performance , firm productivity, firm profitability, firm value , firm years, registered firms, small audit firms , superior firm performance , threatened firms;
• Function : bi-planning functionality, bi-reporting functionality , incompatible functions, internal audit function , outsourcing accounting functions;
• Information: accounting information systems academics, accounting information systems field, bank trading information systems , capturing context information, chief information officer, deceptive information, detail-tagged footnote information, financial reporting information, health information technology expenses , information asymmetry, information environment effects, information quality , information release, information security risk management, information systems professionals, information systems researchers, information technology literature, information technology outsourcing , integrating information, performance measurement information , qualitative information, recent high-profile information security breach incidents, reporting business information, risk information increases , supplemental information displays, ™ information processing costs, user satisfaction measure information system success, using information ;
• Management : bank management, cloud management committee, entail managers, environmental management approach, especially management accounting, informal management control systems, information security risk management , management assertions, management support, managing expectations, resource management;
• Measures : measuring spreadsheet infusion, perceptual measures, performance measurement capabilities, performance measurement information, quality measures , quantitative measure, strategic performance measurement system , subjective measures, user satisfaction measure information system success ;
• Performance : average performance, firm accounting performance, firm-level performance , future performance goals, internal process-level performance , organizational performance, overall business performance, performance measurement capabilities, performance measurement information, strategic performance measurement system, superior firm performance , supply chain performance;
• Process: accounting processes, assurance process, audit process, business process agility, business process standards , close process, decision processes , estimation process, existing business processes , implementation processes, intermediate business processes , labor process, manual process, natural language processing, order fulfilment processes, process efficiency, process level, strategic erm processes, ™ information processing costs , work processes;
• Reporting : annual reports, digital reporting, discretionary reporting, financial reporting information, financial reporting systems, internal control reporting requirements , internet reporting, reporting business information , reporting language, reporting timeliness, required reporting deadlines, standard reports, traditional business-to-government reporting ;
• Research : artificial intelligence research, broad research streams, business value research , collaborative design research, experimental decision aid research spans , expert systems research , future research, multi-method research, potential research, prior research, research discipline, research environments, research methodology, research perspectives, research program, research quality , research settings , researching journal entry data mining , right research, traditional research classification ;
• System : 43 expert systems, accounting information systems academics, accounting information systems field , accounting-related expert systems papers, audit support systems , automated systems, bank trading information systems , computer-mediated communication system, decision-aid system , enterprise resource planning systems adoption, enterprise systems results, expert system publications, expert systems research, financial reporting systems, incentive systems, informal management control systems, information systems professionals, information systems researchers , manual systems, restrictive systems, strategic performance measurement system, system quality , transparent system, user satisfaction measure information system success ;
• Technological: health information technology expenses, information technology literature, information technology outsourcing , supporting technologies, technological competence , technological domain, technological solutions, technology dominance;
• Using : emergent use, managerial use, media use, practice use , spreadsheet use, user satisfaction measure information system success, using activity theory, using data , using a hospital, using information , using responses.

2.2.3. Results for the Latest Period (2020 to 2022)

• Accounting : 136 accounting professionals, accounting context, accounting data, accounting fraud data mining literature, accounting fraud detection models, accounting information systems case study, accounting information systems scholars, accounting literature , aggregated accounting numbers, cloud-based client accounting, developing accounting information systems , different accounting standards, highest-ranked accounting journals, laggard accounting systems, management accounting , professional accounting bodies, recent accounting fraud theory, robust account;
• Audit : 4 audit firms , asset-related audits, audit conclusions, audit fee premiums, audit framework, audit hours, audit personnel, audit practice, audited entity, auditing parties, auditing profession, computer-assisted audit tools, contemporary audit standards, continuous audit procedures, cybersecurity audit effectiveness , digital audit evidence, financial statement audits, improving audit quality , increasing audit productivity, internal control audit work , manual audit procedures, recurring audit deficiencies, relevant audit standards, reliable audit evidence;
• Business : business digitization, business information technology intensity , business model transformation indices, business operations, business processes , business professionals, business rules, general business descriptions, increasing business competition, strategic business partner role;
• Case : accounting information systems case study, compelling use case, in-depth case study, participatory case study, specific case, various use cases;
• Cybersecurity : 52 cybersecurity comment letters, cybersecurity audit effectiveness , cybersecurity breach incidents, cybersecurity incidents, cybersecurity risk disclosure practices , cybersecurity risk disclosure trends , organizational cybersecurity risk exposure, overall cybersecurity risks, proprietary cybersecurity information , regarding cybersecurity;
• Data : accounting data , accounting fraud data mining literature , available data, big data capabilities, big data technologies , climate data, collected data, data analytics, data breach, data processing integrity , data quality research , data standards, data visualization software, financial data, general ledger data, interactive data visualization, interview data, legal-entity data segmentation, novel data analysis technique, novel data mining technique, real-life data, social media data, textual data, unstructured data, using data ;
• Disclosures : corporate disclosures, cryptocurrency disclosures, cybersecurity risk disclosure practices , cybersecurity risk disclosure trends , disclosure location, firm disclosures , remediation disclosures;
• Firms : 4 audit firms , adopting firm, firm disclosures , firm resource, firm samples, firm size, firm tenure, incentivizing client firms, Korean-listed firms;
• Information: accounting information systems, accounting information systems case study, accounting information systems scholars, agricultural information systems , budget information, business information technology intensity , clarifying information, developing accounting information systems , existing information systems, information content, information dissemination, information overload, information processing capabilities, information quality, information systems discipline, information systems theories, information technology experts, integrated information systems, personal information management capabilities , private information, proprietary cybersecurity information , qualitative information, quantitative information, social responsibility information, specific value information, text information;
• Literature : accounting fraud data mining literature , accounting literature , current literature, existing literature, extensive literature review, natural language processing literature , prior literature, research literature, systematic literature review;
• Management: cyber risk management effectiveness, cyber risk management maturity, knowledge management research, management accountants, management accounting, management reporting , personal information management capabilities, supply chain management, top management commitment, top management support, workflow management;
• Model : accounting fraud detection models , business model transformation indices , developed models, digital maturity model, filed model, force field model , model performance, predictive models, proposed model, research model, theoretical model, wave theory life cycle model ;
• Reporting : financial reporting, management reporting , report length, social responsibility reports, unique reporting requirements;
• Research : answering research questions, data quality research , design science research contribution, empirical research, extending research, future research, knowledge management research , prior research, recent research, research initiative, research literature , research model , research studies;
• Risk: cyber risk management effectiveness, cyber risk management maturity, cybersecurity risk disclosure practices, cybersecurity risk disclosure trends, organizational cybersecurity risk exposure, overall cybersecurity risks , regulation risks, risk assessment;
• Service : assurance services, consumer services, payment services, service components, service quality , shared service mode;
• Study: accounting information systems case study , cross-sectional field study, existing studies, in-depth case study , longitudinal study, multi-case study approach, participatory case study, research studies ;
• System: accounting information systems, accounting information systems case study, accounting information systems scholars, agricultural information systems, developing accounting information systems, enterprise resource planning system design agenda, existing information systems, information systems discipline, information systems theories, integrated information systems, intelligent systems, laggard accounting systems, system quality, system usage;
• Technology : above-mentioned technologies, big data technologies, blockchain technology applications, blockchain technology solutions, business information technology intensity , computer technology, emerging technology adoption, information technology experts , learning technologies, ledger technology, past technology experience, technological advancements, technological developments, trending technology;
• Use : compelling use case , cost-effective use , decision-making use, effective use , organizational use, user satisfaction, using data , using DevOps, using propensity score, various use cases .
• A more diversified set of subtopics within the topics found;
• The increasing relevance of matters regarding social responsibility, climate, and budgetary information;
• A more evident link, from the subtopics, identified, between accounting and other social sciences through the consideration or inclusion of a wide-ranging of explanatory factors, such as “individual factors”, “environmental factors”, “organizational complexity factors”, “psychological factors”, and “social-psychological factors”;
• A diverse set of underlying theories and research methods used, particularly those focusing on case and experimental studies, as well as literature reviews (for this reason, “case”, “study”, and “literature” appears as novelties within the most relevant topics, besides those previously found, such as “research” and “model”);
• Besides general references to “emergent technologies” or “trending technologies”, the most significant number of indications on specific uses of those tools as precise topics or subtopics, for instance, “blockchain”, “crypto assets” or “cryptocurrencies”, “intelligent systems”, “cloud-based accounting”, “big data”, “data analytics”, “data mining, “learning technologies”, and “natural language”;
• “Risk”, “cybersecurity” and “tax” are included in the set of main topics, which demonstrates the growing relevance of those topics (the latter as a particular novelty for this period).

3. Discussion

3.1. research limitations, 3.2. future avenues in accounting and information system research, author contributions, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Albuquerque, F.; Dos Santos, P.G. Recent Trends in Accounting and Information System Research: A Literature Review Using Textual Analysis Tools. FinTech 2023 , 2 , 248-274. https://doi.org/10.3390/fintech2020015

Albuquerque F, Dos Santos PG. Recent Trends in Accounting and Information System Research: A Literature Review Using Textual Analysis Tools. FinTech . 2023; 2(2):248-274. https://doi.org/10.3390/fintech2020015

Albuquerque, Fábio, and Paula Gomes Dos Santos. 2023. "Recent Trends in Accounting and Information System Research: A Literature Review Using Textual Analysis Tools" FinTech 2, no. 2: 248-274. https://doi.org/10.3390/fintech2020015

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Strategic management accounting and performance implications: a literature review and research agenda

• Jafar Ojra 1 ,
• Abdullah Promise Opute   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6221-1856 2 , 3 &
• Mohammad Mobarak Alsolmi 4  

Future Business Journal volume  7 , Article number:  64 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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The important role that management accounting plays in driving organisational performance has been reiterated in the literature. In line with that importance, the call for more effort to enhance knowledge on strategic management accounting has increased over the years. Responding to that call, this study utilised a qualitative approach that involved a systematic review to synthesise existing literature towards understanding the strategic management accounting foundation, contingency factors, and organisational performance impact. Based on the evidence in reviewed literature, we flag key directions for advancing this theoretical premise towards providing further insights that would enable practitioners strategically align their strategic management accounting practices for optimal organisational performance. The limitations of this study have been acknowledged.

Introduction

Successful managerial decisions enable organisational profitability and accounting aids effective managerial decisions [ 75 ]. Aimed at optimising the decision-enabling substance of accounting, management was criticised in 1980s as being too focused on internal operational issues that offer little to management from the point of strategy formulation and sustaining competitive advantage (CIMA Report Footnote 1 ). Recognising the importance for a broader impact of accounting on managerial decision-making, Simmonds [ 82 , p. 26] introduced and defined strategic management accounting (SMA) as “the provision and analysis of management accounting data about a business and its competitors, for use in developing and monitoring business strategy” .

Subsequently there has been increasing efforts that stress the importance for organisations to embrace strategic management accounting theory towards boosting strategic decision-making and organisational performance (e.g. [ 4 , 8 , 9 , 17 , 23 , 53 , 58 , 86 , 90 , 48 ], amongst others). As rightly noted by Turner et al. [ 86 ], organisations that aim to enhance their competitiveness and performance, must not only develop but also “implement internal policies and procedures such as strategic management accounting that are consistent with their business strategies and account for changing competitive demands” (p. 33). Doing that will enable the strategic management accounting tool to be effectively used to drive corporate success. This is the underlying argument in this study.

The task of profitably satisfying customers is becoming more challenging [ 61 , 65 , 67 ]. Meeting that challenge requires that organisations recognise the importance for effective decision-making. Accountants play a significant role in enabling effective decision-making in organisations (e.g. [ 21 , 23 , 27 ]). Accounting information enables the organisation determine the going concern [ 6 , 36 ]. Accounting provides the management with relevant information for ensuring and sustaining growth and profitability. The strategic management accounting foundation emphasises that in order to fully fulfil its management decision-making enabling function, accounting practices must not only focus on the internal but also on the external components relating to the organisation's operations. In other words, accounting should embrace a much broader and market-oriented approach and focus on costing (e.g. [ 8 , 17 , 58 , 78 ]); planning, control and performance measurement (e.g. [ 17 , 58 ]), strategic decision-making (e.g. [ 8 , 58 ]), customer accounting (e.g. [ 58 , 86 ]) and competitor accounting (e.g. [ 17 , 58 , 86 ]).

Given the importance of strategic management accounting to effective management decision-making and corporate success, there remains a growing interest in understanding the topic. Little wonder therefore that the advocacy for more research towards a better understanding of what strategic management accounting practices organisations adopt and what motivates their preference for one technique over the other (e.g. [ 4 , 53 , 58 , 86 , 90 ]) remains current. While embracing strategic management accounting is a critical path for enabling effective managerial decision-making and boosting organisational performance (e.g. [ 3 , 9 , 58 ]), the enablement outcome of strategic management accounting practice would hinge on the effectiveness of the organisation in tailoring its strategic management accounting practices to its strategy and environment [ 9 , 11 , 58 ].

Following that contingency logic, this research is a response to the aforementioned call and the aim in this study is to contribute to strategic management accounting discourse by critically analysing the body of knowledge towards enhancing the understanding of how knowledge has evolved in this theoretical domain and also to contribute to knowledge by flagging directions for further knowledge development. To achieve the aim of this study, the theoretical focus in this study is premised along three questions:

What strategic management accounting techniques can organisations use towards driving organisational performance?

What factors would influence strategic management accounting techniques usage and performance association? and

What future research gaps exist based on the explored literature?

Literature review

This study follows the theoretical foundation that strategic management accounting would aid effective management decision-making, and ultimately boost organisational performance. In line with the aim of this study, relevant literature is reviewed to explain the theoretical premise of this study. The literature review is organised along three core themes in strategic management accounting discourse, namely, strategic management accounting techniques, contingency factors of strategic management accounting usage, and the impact of strategic management accounting on organisational performance.

Strategic management accounting: definition and techniques

Management accounting is noted to involve the “generation, communication, and use of financial and non-financial information for managerial decision-making and control activities” ([ 28 ] p. 3). One major criticism of accounting in the 1980s relates to the fact that accountants have hardly taken a proactive role in the strategic management process [ 7 , 8 ]. According to Nixon and Burns [ 55 , p. 229], although strategic management has been variously defined, there is “broad consensus that the key activities are (1) development of a grand strategy, purpose or sense of direction, (2) formulation of strategic goals and plans to achieve them, (3) implementation of plans, and (4) monitoring, evaluation and corrective action”. The role of management accounting is to enable effective decision-making, and it involves typically information gathering and analysis, identifying options, implementation, monitoring and evaluation [ 16 ]. Thus, the focus in strategic management accounting, rephrased also as accounting for strategic positioning [ 73 , 74 ], is to embrace a broader approach that incorporates a strategic management focus into its dynamics towards effectively enabling management decision-making and organisational performance [ 8 , 80 ]).

Since the first attempt by Simmonds [ 82 , p. 26] who defined strategic management accounting as “the provision and analysis of management accounting data about a business and its competitors, for use in developing and monitoring business strategy” , there have been numerous attempts to enhance that definition and identify core techniques of strategic management accounting. For example, CIMA [ 16 ] describes strategic management accounting as a management accounting form that emphasises focusing on information relating to external factor of the entity and also on non-financial information as well as information that is generated internally. In a much earlier contribution, Bromwich [ 7 , p. 28] offers a description of strategic management accounting as involving “the provision and analysis of financial information on the organisation’s product markets and competitors’ costs and cost structures and the monitoring of the organisation’s strategies and those of its competitors in the market over a number of periods” (Cited in [ 56 , p. 14]).

In their 2008 study, Cadez and Guilding asked the question “what is strategic management accounting?” (p. 838). In that same study, they conclude, based on evidence from reviewed literature, that there are two perspectives of strategic management accounting. While one perspective focuses on strategically oriented accounting techniques, the other focuses on the actual involvement of accountants in the strategic decision-making process. Following the former perspective (e.g. [ 8 , 9 , 17 , 58 ]), existing literature distils sixteen (16) strategic management accounting techniques that are categorised under five SMA themes (e.g. [ 9 , 11 , 58 ]):

Strategic costing;

Strategic planning, control and performance measurement;

Strategic decision-making;

Competitor accounting; and

Customer accounting.

Strategic costing

According to literature (e.g. [ 8 , 11 , 23 ]), strategic and marketing information-based cost data can be leveraged by organisations to ensure effective strategies for achieving sustainable competitive advantage. Thus, organisations must recognise the importance of integrating cost strategies and undertake multiple strategic cost analyses. Literature distils five key costing techniques: attribute costing (e.g. Roslender and Hart 2003), life-cycle costing (e.g. [ 8 , 17 ]), quality costing (e.g. [ 17 ]), target costing (e.g. [ 8 , 17 ]) and value chain costing (e.g. [ 8 ]).

Strategic planning, control and performance measurement

Literature has also underlined the need for organisations to give due attention to planning, control and performance measurement features of the strategic management accounting, as doing that is important in the pro-active market orientation approach for competing effectively in the marketplace (e.g. [ 8 , 58 ], Chenhall 2005). Core components under the strategic planning, control and performance measurement tool includes benchmarking (e.g. [ 8 , 17 ]) and integrated performance management (Balanced Scorecard) (e.g. [ 8 , 17 ]).

Strategic decision-making

As a strategic management accounting tool, strategic decision-making is a critical tool for supporting strategic choice [ 11 ]. Core strategic decision-making options include strategic costing (e.g. [ 58 ]), strategic pricing (e.g. [ 11 , 58 ]) and brand valuation (e.g. [ 11 , 58 ]).

The importance of addressing strategic costing as a key strategic decision-making element has been emphasised in the literature (e.g. [ 58 , 78 , 79 ]). In this discourse, it is underlined that effectively driving competitive advantage requires cost analysis that explicitly considers strategic issues. In line with that viewpoint, Cadez and Guilding [ 8 ] note that strategic costing involves “the use of cost data based on strategic and marketing information to develop and identify superior strategies that will produce a sustainable competitive advantage” (p. 27).

In the literature too, strategic pricing is underlined as another core element the strategic decision-making typology of strategic management accounting (e.g. [ 8 , 58 ], Simmonds 1982). According to scholars, understanding market competition level, which as noted by Guilding et al. [ 29 , p. 120] entails the appraisal of the following factors: “competitor price reaction, price elasticity; projected market growth; and economies of scale and experience”, is important (e.g. [ 8 , 11 , 58 ]).

Within the strategic management accounting literature, brand valuation is the third element of the strategic decision-making technique. The brand valuation component “involves combining projected brand earnings (an accounting-orientated measure) with a multiple derived from the brand’s strength on strategic factors such as the nature of the brand’s market, its position in that market and its level of marketing support” [ 29 , p. 118]. In the view of Cescon et al. [ 11 ], brand valuation enables organisations to understand market reputation trends over time and potential implications for marketing executives and strategic accounting. Cescon et al. [ 11 ] contend that organisations would achieve a variable brand valuation that would provide a potential measure of marketing achievement when perceived quality and branded products are considered, while Guilding et al. [ 29 ] remind that achievable impact of brand valuation would hinge, amongst others, on the valuation method used.

Competitor accounting

According to Porter [ 72 ], strategy involves developing appropriate tools that enable a firm to analyse and determine its position in a competitive market. Thus, a firm selects suitable strategies that enables it compete more effectively over its rivals. To effectively do that, a firm needs to collect competitor accounting information. The importance of giving due attention to competitor accounting has been underlined in the literature (e.g. [ 11 , 17 , 58 ]). Three forms of competitor accounting tools are described in the literature, namely, competitor cost assessment (e.g. [ 11 , 17 , 58 ]), competitor position monitoring (e.g. [ 11 , 58 ]) and competitor performance appraisal (e.g. [ 11 , 17 , 58 ]).

Customer accounting

The fifth cluster of strategic management accounting techniques described in the literature relates to customer accounting (e.g. [ 49 , 58 ]). Customer accounting concerns practices aimed at appraising profit, sales or costs related to customers or customer segments [ 58 ]. Core customer accounting techniques include customer profitability analysis (e.g. [ 30 , 58 ]), lifetime customer profitability analysis (e.g. [ 58 ]) and valuation of customers as assets (e.g. [ 30 , 58 ]).

The contingency factors of strategic management accounting

According to management accounting discourse, when organisations carefully embrace appropriate strategic management accounting practices, they would ensure successful managerial decisions that would ultimately lead to optimising organisational performance (e.g. [ 48 , 53 , 56 , 58 ]). Thus, the extent of improved performance that an organisation would achieve would depend on its careful utilisation of appropriate strategic management techniques. As noted by Roslender and Hart (2003), p. 4 and further supported by subsequent literature (e.g. [ 34 , 58 ]), “the adoption of strategically oriented management accounting techniques and accountants’ participation in strategic management processes”, is a core research premise. In line with the carefulness notion mentioned above, the contingency perspective has been widely utilised in the effort to understand strategic management accounting practices and performance impact (e.g. [ 8 , 12 , 30 , 34 , 58 ]). The underlying foundation in the contingency perspective is based on the notion “that an organisation maximises its efficiency by matching between structure and environment” [ 22 , p. 49]. According to Otley [ 68 ]:

The contingency approach to management is based on the premise that there is no universally appropriate accounting system that applies equally to all organisations in all circumstances. Rather, it is suggested that particular features of an appropriate accounting system will depend on the specific circumstances in which an organisation finds itself. Thus, a contingency theory must identify specific aspects of an accounting system which are associated with certain defined circumstances and demonstrate an appropriate matching (p. 413).

Thus, the central foundation in the contingency perspective is that no one single accounting system is universally fit for all organisation in all circumstances (e.g. [ 41 ]). No one accounting control system can be seen as “best” for all situations; rather, the appropriateness of any control system would depend on the organisation's ability to adapt effectively to the environment surrounding its operations [ 41 , 58 , 86 ].

From reviewed literature, numerous researchers have flagged key contingency factors that should be considered in relation to strategic management accounting practice. Four factors were identified as critical contingency factors in the strategic management accounting systems design in Cadez and Guilding's [ 8 ] study, namely: business strategy, strategy formulation pattern, market orientation and firm size. On their part, Islam and Hu [ 41 ] identify core organisational effectiveness factors to include technology, environmental volatility, organisational structure, information system and size of the organisation.

Analysed together, the conceptualisation in the aforementioned studies [ 8 , 41 ] reflect perspectives that have been recognised in the 1980s. For example, Merchant [ 50 ] describe contingency factors to include firm size, product diversity, extent of decentralisation and budgetary information use. In their study of accounting information systems, Gordon and Narayanan [ 26 ] classify three core contingency factors to include perceived environmental uncertainty, information characteristics and organisational structure. Based on a study that examined the extent to which accountants were involved in the strategic management process, CIMA Footnote 2 reports three key contingency factors: “organisational influences, accountant led influences and practicalities” (p. 12). Exploring strategic management accounting practices in the Palestinian context, Ojra [ 58 ] conceptualised a comprehensive contingency perspective that considered (1) organisational structure (involving formalisation and decentralisation), (2) organisational size, (3) technology and (4) organisational strategy. In more recent literature, Pavlatos [ 70 ] suggests seven factors that affect strategic management accounting usage in the hospitality industry (hotels) in Greece, namely, “perceived environmental uncertainty, structure, quality of information systems, organisational life cycle stage, historical performance, strategy and size” (p. 756).

The contingency framing in this study draws from the theoretical guideline which suggests that both the internal and external environments of organisations should be considered in the effort to advance strategic management accounting literature (e.g. [ 58 , 70 ]). The conceptual framing in this study includes two external (perceived environmental uncertainty—competitive intensity, and market turbulence) and three internal (organisational structure—formalisation, and decentralisation, and organisational strategy) factors.

Perceived environmental uncertainty and strategic management accounting usage

From the perceptual lens, the environment could be viewed as certain or uncertain only to the extent that decision makers perceive it to be (e.g. [ 1 , 11 ]). Perceived environmental uncertainty is described as the absence of information relating to organisations, activities and happenings in the environment [ 20 ]. According to Cescon et al. [ 11 ], organisations must give due attention to their operational environment because engaging with environmental uncertainty factors would enable them identify key change drivers.

Prior literature has documented that perceived uncertainty significantly influences the extent to which firms would embrace strategic management accounting practices (e.g. [ 49 , 58 , 70 ]). According to that foundation, how firms respond from the point of strategic management accounting practices that they would endorse would depend on the nature of environmental uncertainties that surround their operational activities.

Studying the hotel property setting, Pavlatos [ 70 ] documents a positive correlation between the degree of environmental uncertainty and the use of strategic management accounting tools. In other words, the higher the perceived environmental uncertainty, the higher the need for use of strategic management accounting tools. Intensified use of strategic management accounting tools is essential because that will enable the hotels to manage the uncertainties, and be more effective in managerial decision-making, and ultimately improves organisational performance [ 70 ]. The notion of a significant influence of environmental uncertainty on strategic management accounting practices is supported by prior literature (e.g. [ 15 ]). According to them, managers who operate in highly uncertain environments would require information that is timely, current and frequent. Other scholars have also argued that environmental uncertainty would be associated with more pro-active and externally focused accounting systems (e.g. [ 32 , 38 ]).

In their study of Italian manufacturing companies, Cescon et al. [ 11 ] found a positive association of perceived environmental uncertainty and strategic pricing usage as a feature of the strategic decision-making SMA technique. In other words, the more the perceived environmental uncertainty, the higher the usage of the strategic pricing feature of the strategic decision-making SMA component.

In the perceived environmental uncertainty literature, two core dimensions have been distilled, namely competitive intensity and market turbulence (e.g. [ 30 , 58 ]). Market turbulence—a subset of environmental turbulence [ 47 ], is defined by Calantone et al. [ 10 ] as characterised by continuous changes in customers’ preference/demands, in price/cost structures and in the composition of competitors. In settings where there is high market turbulence, organizations would need to modify their products and approaches to the market more frequently [ 44 ]. On the other hand, the notion of competitive intensity relates to the logic that organisations compete for numerous resources, such as raw materials, selling and distribution channels, as well as quality, variety and price of products [ 26 , 46 ]. Achieving organisation-environment alignment in highly competitive environments requires that organisations have the capacity to effectively detect environmental signals and timely communicate environmental information (e.g. [ 88 ]).

Exploring Australian hospitality industry, McManus [ 49 ] examined the association of competition intensity and perceived environmental uncertainty on customer accounting techniques usage. The study suggests that competition intensity positively associates with customer accounting practices but also found that higher perceived environmental uncertainty would not lead to greater usage of customer accounting techniques in the explored hotels. In a much similar conceptualisation, Cescon et al. [ 11 ] examined the association of environmental uncertainty and competitive forces on strategic management accounting techniques usage in large Italian manufacturing firms. Empirically, that study found that external factors (environmental uncertainty and competitive forces) positively associate with SMA usage (strategic pricing, balanced scorecard, risk analysis, target costing, life-cycle costing). Based on the two-dimensional conceptualisation, Ojra [ 58 ] examined the relationship between perceived environmental uncertainty and SMA usage in Palestinian firms. Ojra [ 58 ] hypothesised a positive correlation of perceived environmental uncertainty (conceptualised to include competition intensity and market turbulence) but found no support. To the contrary, Ojra [ 58 ] documents a potential for negative influence of perceived environmental uncertainty on strategic management accounting techniques usage, however only significant for the market turbulence dimension. In other words, Ojra [ 58 ] suggests that market turbulence associates negatively with strategic management accounting techniques usage in medium Palestine firms.

Organisational structure (formalisation) and strategic management accounting usage

Across the various streams of management, formalisation has been mentioned as a key contingency factor in understanding the operational dynamics of organisations (e.g. [ 58 , 63 , 64 ]). With regard to strategic management accounting discourse, this notion has been numerously supported (e.g. [ 26 , 58 , 85 ]).

Studying the influence of formalisation in the functional relationship between the accounting and marketing departments, Opute et al. [ 64 ] suggest a positive association. In other words, they argue that the more formalised the processes in the firm, the higher the achieved integration between both functional areas. However, Opute et al. [ 64 ] note that whether this positive association is achieved would depend on the integration component (information sharing, unified effort and involvement) considered.

In the strategic management accounting domain, there is mixed evidence of the association of organisational structure on strategic management accounting usage. For example, Ojra [ 58 ] hypothesised that less formalised organisational structure would lead to higher use of strategic management accounting techniques in Palestinian firms but found no support for that hypothesis. In that study, no support was found for the notion that less formalised structures would lead to higher use of strategic management accounting techniques, both for total SMA as well as for all the dimensions of SMA. Thus, that study concludes that formalisation has no significant influence on strategic management accounting techniques usage in Palestinian firms. That conclusion supports the findings in Gordon and Narayanan [ 26 ], but contrast the view in Tuan Mat’s [ 85 ] exploration of management accounting practices.

Organisational structure (decentralisation) and strategic management accounting usage

Similar to formalisation, management scholars have noted decentralisation as a core organisational structure factor that should be given due attention in the drive to enhance the understanding of contingency theory (e.g. [ 58 , 62 , 63 ]). Organisational structure has been noted to influence the strategic management accounting practices of a firm (e.g. [ 58 , 70 ]). Within that foundation, decentralisation (or its opposite) has been flagged as a major factor. A contention that has been underlined numerously in the discourse is that strategic management accounting usage would be higher in organisations that embrace decentralised structure. Following that foundation, Pavlatos [ 70 ] hypothesised that SMA usage is higher in decentralised hotels than in centralised hotels in Greece. The results support the hypothesis: there is higher need for strategic management accounting practices in decentralised firms, as lower-level managers require more information to aid decision-making.

The above conclusion supports as well as contrasts prior literature, namely Chenhall [ 14 ] and Verbeeten [ 87 ], respectively. According to Chenhall [ 14 , p. 525], “strategic management accounting has characteristics related to aspects of horizontal organisation as they aim to connect strategy to the value chain and link activities across the organisation…”. Chenhall [ 14 ] adds that a typical approach in horizontal organisation is identifying customer-oriented strategic priorities and then exploiting process efficiency, continuous improvements, flattened structures and team empowerment, to initiate change, a conclusion that suggests that higher use of strategic management accounting practices would seem ideal in such decentralised organisational structure. The reason for that outcome is that in decentralised structure, lower-level managers can adapt their MACS as necessary to meet requirements [ 52 ], a logic that finds support in McManus [ 49 ] who found that customer accounting usage is higher in Australian hotels that are decentralised than those that are centralised. In contrast to that logic, Verbeeten [ 87 ] found decentralisation to associate negatively with major changes in the decision-influencing components of MACS.

Insight about the less developed context, namely about Palestinian firms lend support to, as well as contrast past literature. According to Ojra [ 58 ], decentralisation has a tendency to associate negatively with strategic management accounting usage. Therefore, although statistically insignificant, the results indicate that explored Palestinian firms that endorse decentralised decision-making process would seemingly have lesser need for strategic management accounting practices. On the evidence that decentralisation may have a negative influence on strategic management accounting usage, Ojra [ 58 ] supports Verbeeten [ 87 ] but contrasts Pavlatos [ 70 ].

Organisational strategy and strategic management accounting usage

An internal organisational factor that has been considered important in the understanding of contingency perspective of management accounting relates to organisational strategy (e.g. [ 8 , 17 , 58 ]). Hambrick [ 33 ] defined strategy as:

A pattern of important decisions that guides the organisation in its relationship with its environment; affects the internal structure and processes of the organisation; and centrally affects the organisation’s performance (p.567).

In the strategic management accounting discourse, organisational strategy has been mentioned as one of the key factors that would condition strategic management accounting practices of a firm (e.g. [ 9 , 58 , 70 , 86 ]). For example, Turner et al. [ 86 ] note that in hotel property setting, strategic management accounting use would hinge on the market orientation business strategy of the firm. Given the notion that strategic management accounting would aid management decision-making and lead ultimately to improved organisational performance, there is some legitimacy in expecting that organisations that align their strategic management accounting practices to the strategic orientation of the firm would achieve a higher organisational performance.

Following Miles and Snow’s [ 51 ] strategy typology (prospector, defender, analyser, and reactor), efforts to understand the association of strategy to strategic management accounting tools usage have also tried to understand how the various strategy typologies play out in this association. For example, Cadez and Guilding [ 9 ] considered the prospector, defender and analyser typologies in the Slovenian context, while Ojra [ 58 ] considered the prospector and defender typologies in the Palestinian contexts.

Cadez and Guilding [ 9 ] report that companies that endorse the analyser strategy, which is a deliberate strategy formulation approach, are not highly market oriented, but tend to show high usage of SMA techniques, except for competitor accounting technique. Further, they report that prospector strategy-oriented companies also pursue a deliberate strategy formulation approach, but are highly market oriented, and SMA techniques usage is fairly high (for competitor accounting) and averagely high (for strategic costing). For very high prospector-oriented companies, they are highly market oriented, have a strong strategy drive and a very high SMA techniques usage. For the defender strategy-type companies, they suggest that such companies are not only average in their market orientation, but also in their usage of SMA techniques.

In the study of Palestinian companies, Ojra [ 58 ] offers insights that resonate relatively with the findings in Cadez and Guilding [ 9 ]. Ojra [ 58 ] suggests that prospector companies have a higher usage of SMA techniques than defender-type companies. So, SMA technique usage is positively associated to prospector strategy (see also [ 8 ]. Elaborating the findings, Ojra [ 58 ] reports that prospector-type companies focused more on four SMA techniques (mean values reported), namely SMAU-Planning, Control and Performance Measurement (4.601), SMAU-Strategic Decision Making (4.712), SMAU-Competitor Accounting (4.689) and SMAU-Customer Accounting (4.734), statistical results that are significantly higher than the results for 'defender'-type companies. Cinquini and Tenucci [ 17 ] lend support to Ojra [ 58 ]: 'defender'-type companies give more attention to the Costing dimension of SMA.

Without emphasising the strategy typologies, Pavlakos (2015) comments that organisational strategy affects SMA usage in the Greek hotel industry.

Strategic management accounting and organisational performance

A central tenet in the strategic management accounting foundation is that management accounting would significantly aid organisations to achieve sustained competitiveness [ 7 , 82 ]. Implicitly, these scholars argue that in order to stay competitive in the marketplace, organisations should not only focus on cost-volume-profit issues, but rather embrace a broad externally focused management accounting approach that is strategically driven and provides financial information that enables management to effectively formulate and monitor the organisation's strategy. Thus, management accounting should also focus on competitor information as that will enable management effectively organise the firm's strategic structure.

Over the years, there is growing recognition of the importance of strategic management accounting to organisations, leading therefore to increasing research attention. One area that has received attention in the strategic management accounting discourse relates to the organisational performance enhancement notion (e.g. [ 23 , 56 , 58 , 77 , 86 ]).

Insights from Malaysia also add to the discourse on the impact of strategic management accounting usage on organisational performance. In their study of Malaysian electrical and electronic firms, Noordin et al. [ 56 ] examined the extent of usage of strategic management accounting and influence on the performance of the participating firms. The study found that in explored Malaysian companies, the extent of strategic management accounting usage was significantly related to organisation’s performance. That conclusion supports Cadez and Guilding [ 8 ] who contend that there is a positive association between strategic management accounting usage and organisational performance.

In a performance perspective that considers the ISO 9000 Quality Management System (QMS) aspect, Sedevich-Fons [ 77 ] examined the connection between strategic management accounting and quality management systems performance. The findings show that strategic management accounting and quality management are complementary and their effective implementation would enhance overall performance. Sedevich-Fons [ 77 ] notes further that when both are used in conjunction that would spread SMA techniques and enable full exploitation of Quality Management Systems.

Insights from the less developed economy context also associate organisational performance to the implementation of strategic management accounting practices (e.g. [ 3 , 57 , 58 ]). In a conceptual approach that aimed to address one major gap in previous literature, Ojra [ 58 ] examined both the financial and non-financial dimensions of organisational performance. According to Ojra [ 58 ], strategic management accounting usage does not impact the financial dimension of organisational performance but exerts significant positive impact on non-financial performance. That finding resonates with Perera et al. [ 71 ] conclusion that various forms of management accounting associate positively with the use of non-financial measures.

On their part, Oboh and Ajibolade [ 57 ], in their investigation of the association between strategic management accounting practices and strategic decision-making in Nigerian banks, found that explored Nigerian banks “practice SMA not as a concept, but as a principle of operation, and that SMA contributes significantly to strategic decision-making in the area of competitive advantage and increased market share” (p.119).

Alabdullah [ 3 ] offers evidence that adds support to the insights in the aforementioned studies [ 57 , 58 ]. In a study that explored the Jordanian service sector, Alabdullah [ 3 ] found that strategic management accounting enables performance in the service sector in Jordan. If strategic management accounting is effectively implemented, that will enable optimal strategic decision-making and ultimately improve organisational performance.

Research methodology

Research design.

Qualitative research method [ 18 , 76 ] is used in this study to achieve the objectives of this research. Following the methodological approach, as well as responding to the research call, in a past study on the contingency perspective of strategic management accounting [ 41 ], a study which was literature review-based, literature review-based qualitative research approach was deemed fit in this study.

A systematic review approach (e.g. [ 5 , 39 , 81 ]) is used in this research on the topic of strategic management accounting. Using the systematic review approach in this study is appropriate because it enables a systematic and transparent approach in identifying, selecting, and evaluating relevant published literature on a specific topic or question [ 42 , 83 ]. Furthermore, systematic review approach was deemed appropriate for this study as it has been documented to aid core research gaps identification and steering future research (e.g. [ 40 , 59 , 66 ]).

Alves et al. [ 5 ] forward a two-stage guideline for systematic review of literature: planning the review and conducting the review and analysis. As they noted, researchers should describe how the systematic approach was planned (in the former) and also describe the phases of the review and selection of literature (in the latter). In this research, effort was made to combine the best evidence: careful planning was used to determine literatures for inclusion or exclusion (e.g. [ 5 , 65 , 67 ]). The planning was focused at identifying relevant publications in various academic journals on the topic of strategic management accounting. First, the theoretical themes to be considered in the conceptual premise of this study were confirmed and academic resource for tracking relevant publications determined [ 5 , 66 , 83 ].

In the preliminary stage of the literature review, electronic search was carried out to identify relevant literature relating to strategic management accounting. Three steps were taken in the systematic review: we searched the literature, analysed and synthesised the literature, and wrote the review. Several databases were scanned using key search terms to capture relevant literature [ 81 ]. Core search terms were used, such as strategic management accounting, historical aspects of strategic management accounting, contingencies of strategic management accounting practices, strategic management accounting and organisational strategy, strategic management accounting and organisational performance, amongst others. Relevant publications were also found using data extraction tools such as Google Scholar, Emerald Insight and Research Gate.

Using the aforementioned methodological approach, a collection of relevant articles published in academic journals was identified. Identifying the relevant literature in this study followed methodological guideline [ 69 ]: criteria of language, relevance and type of research to identify relevant studies were embraced, and articles that contained non-English contents and also articles that did not fit closely to the thematic premise of this study were excluded. It is important to emphasise here that this study recognises that not all publications relating to the topic of strategic management accounting may have been considered in this research. However, for the scope of this piece of research, the body of literature covered in this study was deemed adequate for the conceptual framing.

Table 1 shows a sample of selected literature covered in this piece of research, pinpointing clearly the focus, context of the studies and findings from the studies.

The analysis

The interpretive approach of analysis was followed in processing the qualitative data to achieve reliable meaning in this study (e.g. [ 59 , 65 , 67 , 84 ]). Following that precedence, an iterative approach that involved reading reviewed literature back and forth, was used in this study. Using that approach, a synthesis of literature was undertaken to capture the core threads, debates and themes in the literature (e.g. [ 65 , 67 ]). Guided also by that methodological approach, relevant directions for future research have been flagged towards enhancing the knowledge about strategic management accounting and performance association.

Subjectivity is a major concern in qualitative researches (e.g. [ 18 , 76 ]). To address that concern, steps taken in this research to validate the articles incorporated into this research include rigor of conduct and strength of evidence by cross-referencing, as well as undertaking a duplicate check (e.g. [ 76 , 81 ]).

The findings

Prompted by the central threads that emerged from the analysis of the selected literature, the findings from this study are organised along three core themes: strategic management accounting techniques, contingencies of strategic management accounting techniques usage and the organisational performance implications of strategic management accounting usage.

The importance of management accounting, and in particular the strategic management accounting element as a tool for enabling top management to make effective decisions that enable organisation compete effectively in the marketplace, is gaining increasing mention in management discourse. In that discourse, five core categorisations of SMA techniques: strategic costing; strategic planning, control and performance measurement; strategic decision-making; competitor accounting; and customer accounting. While literature distils numerous forms of strategic management accounting techniques that organisations may embrace towards enabling effective management decision-making and organisational performance, evidence was found in reviewed literature that in some organisations, practitioners do not believe that strategic management accounting as a separate concept is a notion they subscribe to (e.g. CIMA Footnote 3 ; [ 48 , 55 ]). For example, CIMA Footnote 4 documents that participants unanimously do not subscribe to the notion, a conclusion which lends support to prior literature [ 48 , 55 ] that notes that strategic management accounting as a term, did not exist in the lexicon of accounting practitioners.

Grounded on the substance that effective use of the SMA techniques would improve organisational performance, immense research effort has focused on how organisations can effectively align the SMA usage towards achieving desired performance improvement. Premised in that theoretical domain, this study examined existing literature on the contingency factors of competitive intensity, market turbulence, formalisation, decentralisation and organisational strategy and SMA usage. Cumulative evidence obtained from the review of literature reinforces the need for organisations to pay particular attention to their operational environment in their use of SMA techniques. Reinforcing the fit principle, the cummulative evidence underlines that optimising the benefits of the strategic management accounting techniques in enabling effective customer orientation and boosting organisational performance is dependent on the organisation's ability to effectively align strategic management accounting practices to its operational environment. In other words, what works for an organisation would depend on the organisational dynamics, internal, as well as external. For example, formalisation may work for some but not for some, as decentralisation could work for some but not for some. Similarly, the utility of SMA techniques would hinge on the competitive intensity and market turbulence features of an organisation. Thus, aligning SMA practices to the internal and external features of an organisation is essential to enable them adapt effectively to their circumstances, make rational decisions and optimise their performance. So, alignment is critical because there is no one-size fits all approach for achieving customer orientation and organisational performance goals.

The third focal point of this study relates to the association of SMA techniques usage to organisational performance. Reviewed literature shows that organisations are achieving higher performance through the use of SMA techniques. In other words, effective use of SMA techniques would improve organisational performance. The plausibility in that performance outcome lies in the fact that organisations are able to utilise appropriate SMA measures to ensure effective, customer, competitor, strategic decision-making, costing, and planning and control orientation in their operational activities. Further on the performance point, literature also suggests that management control systems (MCS)–performance relationship is mediated by business strategy (e.g. [ 2 ]). Also, that study documents that the impacts (both indirect and total) of MCS on performance are stronger for family businesses than non-family businesses.

Conclusions

Conclusions and implications.

One of the major challenges that organisations are facing in today's dynamic marketplace is to steer their organisations in a way that they can stay competitive. In the contemporary world, where globalisation and technological evolution have expanded the options that customers have (e.g. [ 31 , 61 , 65 , 67 ]), organisations must strive hard to win the loyalty of customers. For organisations wishing to achieve that, strategic management accounting practices offer a strategic pathway. Organisations must embrace strategic management accounting practices that would enable them understand the market, their competitors, and the customers and leverage the intelligence from that knowledge to organise their operations towards profitably satisfying the customer. To effectively do that, organisations must avoid the mistake of focusing only on the internal issues; rather, their effort must be tailored towards embracing strategic management accounting practices that would enable them to be fully informed of the market trends, customer dynamics and competitor trends. Thus, organisations must ensure that good costing, planning, control and performance measurement; strategic decision-making, customer accounting and competitor accounting measures are embraced to enable them compete effectively.

Furthermore, in that drive to compete effectively in the market and profitably satisfy customers, organisations would not only need to embrace appropriate strategic management accounting techniques but also do that bearing in mind the environments that surround the operational activities. In other words, organisations must give due attention to the contingencies of their operational setting. Organisations must ensure a good blend of critical factors that would enable their optimal operation. Due attention must be given to organisational structure (centralisation or decentralisation of decision-making process), external environment (dynamism and turbulence), technological development, strategic approach, size of the organisation, amongst others. Doing that is critical for corporate success because there is no one size fits all approach—the outcome achieved would depend significantly on the dynamics surrounding the operational activities of the firm.

Thirty-three months on after Covid 19 was documented, Footnote 5 the pandemic is still ever present and has remained a daunting global challenge. Competing effectively in the dynamic marketplace is a major challenge for organisations, and with the Corona pandemic exerting unprecedent effects on organisations globally, most organisations are facing a more daunting challenge to survive (e.g. [ 65 , 67 ]). Organisations must strive to strategically orientate their management accounting practices to enable them find ways to effectively navigate the daunting challenges they face in this Corona era.

Implications of this study

The implications of this study are organised along managerial and theoretical implications.

Managerial Implications —Managers are reminded that optimal use of strategic management accounting techniques would boost organisational performance. Achieving high levels of organisational performance would however hinge on an organisation's ability to effectively align its SMA techniques usage to its internal and external dynamics. In other words, managers must bear in mind that there is no one-size fits all approach; therefore, they should endorse SMA techniques usage that fits their operational dynamics.

Theoretical Implications —In line with the central objective of this paper to sensitise the need for enhancing the understanding of the contingency perspective of strategic management accounting, the theoretical implications of this study are tailored towards specifying core gaps in the reviewed literature.

Overall, evidence from reviewed literature underlines the criticality of SMA techniques usage to organisational performance. Thus, if organisations strategically align SMA techniques usage to their operational setting, this would positively impact organisational performance. Within the goal of enhancing the literature on how to optimise the performance impact, much gaps still exist from the point off illuminating how differences in marketing and national culture differentiate SMA acceptance, usage, contingencies and performance impact.

Finally, on the point of performance, reviewed literature documents an obvious gap in the literature from the point of illuminating SMA techniques usage impact along the performance dimensions. As noted by Ojra [ 58 ], for some societies (especially ones that are Islamic cultured), non-financial performance is of central importance. Theoretical development from the point of SMA techniques usage, contingencies and non-financial performance impact is scanty.

Limitations of the study

Based on systematic review approach, this study aimed to drive further knowledge development on the contingency perspective of strategic management accounting, drawing on the evidence from reviewed literature to understand the core debates in the literature and pinpoint directions for future research. Two core limitations of this research relate to the conceptual framework and volume of literature reviewed.

The conceptual framing of this study embraced only three themes in the SMA discourse, namely perceived environmental uncertainty, organisational structure and organisational strategy. Elaborated, the contingency premise considered in this study relates to perceived environmental uncertainty (competitive intensity, and market turbulence), organisational structure (formalisation and decentralisation), and organisational strategy. This study recognises that there are other contingencies of strategic management accounting practices that have not been included in the conceptual framing of this study.

To capture the central debates in the SMA discourse, extant literature was reviewed. It is however important to acknowledge that this study may have ignored some literature relevant to the conceptual premise of this study. Finally, although efforts were made by the researchers to ensure validity in this research by adopting an analytical approach that involved thorough reading of literature to ensure valid meaning in the interpretation, it must be reminded that subjectivity is a concern in every qualitative research.

Future research directions

In explaining the theoretical implications of this study, core gaps in the literature were underlined (Section “ Implications of this study ”), while the limitations of this study were acknowledged in Section “ Limitations of the study ”. Building on these, this Section “ Future research directions ” extends the contribution of this study by specifying core directions for further knowledge development on the contingency perspective of strategic management accounting.

No doubt, this study has limitations, amongst which are the conceptual framework and the literature review scope. In their study, Naranjo-Gil et al. [ 54 , p. 688] note that “future research is needed to examine other factors to add a more comprehensive view of management accounting”. Given the conceptual limitation of this study, this study reinforces the research call by Naranjo-Gil et al. [ 54 ]. Future research could expand the work done in this research and knowledge development by incorporating contingency factors that have not been considered in the conceptual framing of this study. More research is required in that regard, both from the point of a systematic literature review approach, as well as from the point of empirical investigations that seek to illuminate the contextual (industrial sectors and geographical settings) differentiators to the contingency impacts on the use of strategic management accounting techniques.

Furthermore, more research effort is required from the point of gaining deeper understanding of the various strategic management accounting techniques. Marketing dynamics (e.g. [ 62 ]) and national culture [ 35 , 60 ] differ from one setting to another, therefore exploring the nature of strategic management accounting techniques that organisations endorse and why are core premises for research.

As flagged in the findings, there is a growing support of the notion that accounting practitioners do not subscribe to the use of the term strategic management accounting (e.g. CIMA Footnote 6 ; [ 48 , 55 ]). Further research could help to shed more light not only on why practitioners may not subscribe to the use of the term strategic management accounting, but also on the understanding of how practitioners would prefer to describe the management accounting practices that they embrace, and also why the specific practices are prioritised.

Furthermore, on the point of the content of strategic management accounting, researchers have also noted that not much effort is given to highlighting clearly the accounting information that organisations should give much attention to towards boosting organisational performance (e.g. [ 53 , 89 ]). Future research should aim to fill this gap. Doing that is critical to fully optimising the performance benefits of strategic management accounting [ 56 ].

Reviewed literature has documented that the extent to which strategic management accounting practices would aid management decision-making and organisational performance would depend on the contingency dynamics of the organisation (e.g. [ 11 , 58 ]). Understanding the contingency premise of strategic management accounting utility in driving effective management decision-making and organisational performance is a critical research premise, and future research should aim to shed more light on that. No one size fits all approach that works for all organisations in all contexts. Therefore, future research should seek to enhance the 'fit' foundation of strategic management accounting relevance and performance outcome. In that regard, future research should seek to illuminate further how perceived environmental uncertainty, decentralisation, formalisation, strategy and other contingency factors not considered in this study, would influence strategic management accounting techniques usage and organisational performance impact. In the particular case of perceived environmental uncertainty, more research is not only required from the point of understanding the influence of the construct, but also clarifying the competitive intensity and market turbulence associations.

An insight that emerged from the reviewed literature relates to the fact that majority of efforts to improve strategic management accounting discourse have considered mainly financial aspects of organisational performance (e.g. [ 58 , 86 ]). Focusing only on financial performance is inadequate as the customer perspective of performance is neglected [ 45 , 58 ]. The importance of focusing on customer performance has been re-echoed in further literature: organisational-level customer satisfaction associates positively to financial performance (e.g. [ 24 , 86 ]), and customer performance enables business strategy and an organisation's ability to deliver value to its shareholders as well as customers [ 25 ]. Supporting prior research (e.g. [ 49 , 58 , 86 ]), this study underlines the need for more studies that illuminate non-financial performance aspects and strategic management accounting association.

Finally, the Corona pandemic, which remains a global crisis, has exerted unprecedent global economic damage. Organisations are facing daunting challenges as a result of the Corona pandemic and are still seeking ways to successfully navigate these challenges. Future research should illuminate what strategic management accounting practices organisations are endorsing in the effort to effectively navigate the Corona-crisis-induced challenges.

Availability of data and materials

This study is based on the review of literature.

Management Accounting in support of the strategic management process. https://www.cimaglobal.com/Documents/Thought_leadership_docs/Management%20and%20financial%20accounting/Academic-Research-Report-Strategic-Management-Process.pdf .

January 9—WHO Announces Mysterious Coronavirus-Related Pneumonia in Wuhan, China.

Abbreviations

• Strategic management accounting

Strategic management accounting usage

Chartered Institute of Management Accountants

Management accounting and control system

Management control systems

Quality management system

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Digitalisation in accounting: a systematic literature review of activities and implications for competences

• Julia Pargmann   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3616-0172 1 ,
• Elisabeth Riebenbauer 2 ,
• Doreen Flick-Holtsch 3 &
• Florian Berding 1  

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The digitalisation of processes is a current topic in accounting. New technologies can change activities which in turn may require different skills from accounting graduates. This paper aims to shed light on the changes that digitalisation brings about in various areas of accounting by assessing the types of activities (non-routine and routine) and corresponding competences in the context of progressing stages of digitalisation. In addition, it is analysed how different technologies are used in these activities and where their execution is placed within the supply chain. The systematic literature review shows a lack of expertise in the field of digitalisation that enables graduates and employees to successfully manage respective processes in the workplace. While routine activities are continuously being automated or digitalised, non-routine activities and the corresponding skills have a similarly increasing importance for employees in accounting as the acquisition of general digital competences.

Introduction

In the context of digitalisation, it is part of everyday life for customers to purchase products and services with the aid of an application online and in physical stores. The streams of products and finances within and between companies are also highly interconnected when they are based on digitalised processes (Appelfeller and Feldmann 2018 ). Digitalisation thus encompasses the entire supply chain of a product or service. Accounting is one area of the company that documents these processes with customers and other companies, enables these processes, supports them technically, and connects them with internal and external interfaces (Bleiber 2019 ; Klein and Küst 2020 ). In this context, companies nowadays face the challenge to make decisions on the introduction of new technologies and digitalised business processes into the area of accounting, among others (Appelfeller and Feldmann 2018 ). Digitalisation can address various stages, from substitution (e.g., self-check-out counters in retail shops) to business process innovation (e.g. automated storage and payment with RFID chips; see for these examples e.g. Litfin and Wolfram 2010 ). It is expected that not only costs and productivity are essential decision criteria for the introduction of technologies and digitalised business processes (Ashoka et al. 2019 ; Chen et al. 2012 ) but also the extent to which employees can master and employ technologies and possess the competence to fulfil new or evolving tasks (Aepli et al. 2017 ; Bonin et al. 2015; Cong et al. 2018 ; Egle and Keimer 2017; Seeber and Seifried 2019 ).

In this context, it is necessary to describe how digitalisation affects the requirement profile regarding the competences of employees in accounting. On the general level, the concept of competence is discussed in many ways and often focused on mastering domain-specific tasks and requirements (Hartig et al. 2008 ; Weinert 2001 ). The types of activities themselves range from manual routine tasks (e.g. paper-based bookkeeping) to interactive activities (e.g. solving problems with automated digital bookkeeping) (Seeber et al. 2019 ; Seeber and Seifried 2019 ). Hence, in order to learn more about relevant competences in accounting in a digitalised world, we have to analyse the different tasks and actual accounting activities that result in changing competence requirements as a basis. There are insightful studies available that analyse changes and developments of domain-specific requirements and competences as well as types of activities in the context of digitalisation (Aepli et al. 2017 ; Iten et al. 2016 ; Sachs et al. 2016 ; Seeber et al. 2019 ). However, rather little information is offered by these reports when it comes to accounting and its specific activities as well as technologies as tools for these activities. Thus, we assume that knowledge about these (new) activities in accounting and the corresponding digital technologies provide a good starting point to infer possible changes in necessary competences for acting in professional situations. Thus, our research questions are:

RQ1:Which activities are concerned with digitalisation in which areas of accounting?

RQ2:How do accounting activities differ in their respective stages of digitalisation?

RQ3:Where are these activities placed within the supply chain?

RQ4:Which technologies are used to perform these activities?

RQ5:Which advantages and disadvantages are connected to these activities?

The results aim to provoke further curricular and didactic discussions about learning and teaching accounting in vocational education and training on the one hand and higher education on the other.

Starting from a specification of digitalisation along its stages and types of activities, we explain in the following the approach for the systematic analysis based on a review of relevant literature. To actually gain insight into concrete developments of activities in accounting, we provide a systematic overview of the types of activities and the stages of digitalisation. Moreover, we consider the specific stages of digitalisation in combination with the different types of activities, as we expect differences between certain types of activities (e.g. interactive activities) and specific stages of digitalisation (e.g. innovation). In modern accounting, technologies are the main set of tools accountants use to execute their tasks, much like the tools of a craft. When technologies change, so do activities. Therefore, technologies need to be considered in this review as well. In addition, the placement of activities within the supply chain is included, as different departments require different competences and develop different digitalisation projects since the stakeholders differ. Furthermore, the advantages and disadvantages of digitalisation are to be surveyed since they offer insights why activities are digitalized.

In the German-speaking countries, one’s ability to follow an occupation successfully is described by the concept of vocational action competence. Established competence frameworks usually differentiate between professional, social, and self-competences as major dimensions with methodological and technological competences anchored horizontally across all major dimensions. To decide which competences are needed for which occupation, activities are analysed that allow these competences to be fostered. Thus, it is relevant to analyse activities in accounting to derive necessary changes in curricula. Our research systematises digitalised activities that we employ to draw conclusions for the competence development of future accountants.

Framework for categorising digitalisation and types of activities

When discussing the consequences of digitalisation for accounting activities, at least two aspects must be considered in depth: first, the specific stages of digitalisation and, second, the types of activities.

Figure  1 shows an overview of three different stages of digitalisation in the context of accounting, each of which is disruptive to a different degree for activities and thus competences (Bleiber 2019 ; Hübl 2020 ): substitution , process change, and innovation . While in stage 1 analogue data or activities are substituted by digital ones, new technologies lead to changes in processes in stage 2. Stage 3 addresses innovation, both processes and their respective outcomes are changed.

Stages of digitalisation in accounting

An insightful framework of digitalised activities is suggested by Aepli et al. ( 2017 ), who adopted the classification from Spitz‐Oener ( 2006 ) and validated it in expert interviews. The framework was chosen because digitalisation is more likely to change activities in a profession rather than erase it in their entirety (Aepli et al. 2017 ; Arntz et al. 2016 ; Autor 2015 ; Seeber and Seifried 2019 ; World Economic Forum 2018). In addition, some activities are more prone to digitalisation than others.

Table 1 illustrates this approach using types of activities (left column) which are intended to provide deeper insight into the facets of potentially digitalised activities with generic examples (middle column) and specific accounting-related examples (right column).

Based on Dengler et al. (2014), we suggest to include automated routine activities, even though they are not performed by professionals (e.g. the automatic import of outgoing invoices from invoicing to accounting). Due to the increasing number of automated workflows in accounting, this adaptation provides the ability to better record and illustrate these changes as they reflect all activities that take place in the different areas of accounting. Thus, the six types of activities provide a comprehensive and differentiated range of activities. This categorization of activities will serve as a framework for our literature review in order to establish comparability and transferability to other (commercial) fields and professions as well.

Research design and methodology

A systematic literature review was conducted to find out how the accounting activities of future accounting professionals have changed due to digitalisation. The four-step process (Fig.  2 ) started with (1) the definition of up to fourteen keyword groups consisting of technical search terms in both English and German, which for example include “computer-assisted,” “data processing,” “technological speed of change,” “digitalisation rate,” “ERP,” “enterprise-resource-planning,” “accounting software,” “OCR,” “optical character recognition,” “big data,” “blockchain,” or “process mining.” Since the choice of keywords directly impacts the search hits, we used four strategies to ensure that we were able to use as many relevant terms as possible: (a) We conversed with an accounting professor about trends and current developments regarding digitalisation in the field, (b) we scoped the databases that we used for our full search and analysed the most frequently occurring trends and technologies, (c) we analysed accounting curricula from vocational education and higher education institutions to adjust our concepts of different competence frameworks, and (d) we used a synopsis from different curricula and textbooks to systematise activities. The keywords were grouped because of technical limitations regarding the valid number of connectors, particularly in Google Scholar. To ensure comparability between databases, we used these groups throughout our search.

Flow chart of research design

After the definition of suitable terms, (2) a search was performed in the Google Scholar , ERIC , EBSCO, and Web of Science databases and complemented by specific relevant international journals (“Journal of Accounting Education,” “Journal of Emerging Technologies in Accounting,” “Journal of Information Systems”) which were chosen due to their topicality regarding the research questions. They were selected based on their impact and the number of search hits. Due to the increasing speed of digitalisation, the period between 2000 and 2020 was selected. In the later stages of the study, the research group also decided to include a 2021 article due to its topical suitability.

While performing the content analysis, we applied a strategy that limited the number of hits. Only the first 30 pages of search hits for each keyword group were scoped for relevance. This was necessary because of the broad scope of the search terms. This specific cut-off point was chosen because, in a preliminary scope, the number of potentially useful search hits declined drastically. On average, no more (potentially) relevant hits were identified after 29 to 30 pages, thus setting this number for the full search as well. This process yielded a total of 9,553 potentially relevant hits across all media. A scan of both titles and abstracts resulted in (3) a total of 190 potentially suitable sources of which 72 articles proved relevant to the research questions. Irrelevant publications either referred only to accounting or digitalisation, were purely didactic, or had a general IT-orientation without an accounting focus. If the relevance could not be decided, the full text was scanned for the connection between accounting and digitalisation. The last step (4) was the content analysis. A total of 70 articles were retrievable and thus used in the coding process. The coding manual was developed and completed with appropriate anchor examples to illustrate the variety of possible accounting activities and to align our general understanding of the categories. The coding ensued in pairs to promote discussion.

Analytical framework

The coding tree (Fig.  3 ) consists of (a) publication information, (b) the publication’s main foci and (c) types of activities (automated, manual and cognitive routine activities, manual and analytical and interactive non-routine activities) in different areas of accounting (financial accounting, controlling, balancing, financial forecasting, managerial accounting, ‘other’). Moreover, the coding tree included (d) respective digitalisation stages of the activity (substitution, process change, innovation) as well as (e) advantages and disadvantages of digitalisation in context of the activities (e.g. financial and time-specific aspects, complexity, required expertise, transparency, data protection).

Coding tree with sample sub-categories

As a starting point, a few base publications were chosen to be scanned for relevant aspects regarding the research questions. From these notes and discussions, the coding tree was further developed and adapted after the first publications were coded. Advantages and disadvantages were developed inductively while doing the first base coding. The framework was developed further by using the basic principles of content analysis (Kuckartz 2018 ).

In the course of a special coding training, the final coding tree in the software MaxQDA was then distributed to two coding teams (three and two people each) along with the coding manual (Fig.  4 ). The sub-categories in the main category “Activities in Accounting” were further distinguished according to the aforementioned types of activities (Table 1 ), reaching from automated routine to interactive non-routine activities (Fig.  9 ). This more detailed structure allowed interpretations about the manners in which activities might have changed due to digitalisation.

Overview of the coding manual for accounting activities

To help the coding process, anchor examples were selected for all categories. As this paper is centred around activities, we are going to illustrate this process for the activity-related categories. For example, an automatic activity in accounting is characterised by a fully automated workflow like an automated deduction of worst-case scenarios with algorithms. A manual routine task does not require cognitive activation as its execution is part of the employee’s regular working routine, for example sorting accounting documents by date or verifying by hand if the positions on an invoice are complete and filled in correctly by the software. In contrast to this, a cognitive routine activity is constituted by a cognitive activation as it would be needed for manual corrections in bookkeeping or the adjustment of false journal entries. An analytical non-routine task could, for example, be the preparation and analysis of various financial statements, while manual non-routine activities encompass all tasks that are not part of everyday tasks, like solving technical problems or handling issues regarding hardware maintenance. Lastly, interactive non-routine tasks require a communicative element, like onboarding processes in the division or consultation with management. Thus, there are different levels of activities that need further specification and presumably undergo different changes through digitalisation.

To identify the extent of changes in the field, activities were assigned to a digitalisation stage. Hence, we applied the three aforementioned stages of digitalisation based on Bleiber ( 2019 ) and Hübl ( 2020 ) to identify the scope of changes in accounting: substitution , process change, and innovation (Fig.  1 ).

Stage 1, substitution, is completed whenever analogue data or activities are exchanged for automated or digital ones. Neither process nor output is changed, however. This stage applies to activities using, for example, OCR or robotic process automation (RPA) or whenever the publication implies that a manual activity was exchanged for automation.

In stage 2, process change, workflows, and processes are altered by the use of technology while the output of the process remains the same. This stage applies to all activities that use improved RPA technologies as well as process optimising or mining tools, such as partially automated bookkeeping.

Stage 3, innovation, implies that both processes and their respective outputs are transformed through the use of technology, like artificial intelligence (AI), (deep) learning systems, machine learning, and neural networks. An example of this stage is a fully autonomous bookkeeping workflow.

Bibliographic information and main foci of publications

The majority of publications are in German (n = 51) and in English (n = 19). The dominance of German publications occurred due to the exclusion criteria. In our original set of 190 possibly relevant publications (Fig.  2 ), the distribution was fairly balanced with 98 publications in German and 92 in English. However, we excluded those publications which dealt with IT in a general manner (missing a direct link to accounting) and those which focused on other aspects of accounting but did not explicitly mention accounting activities. Most of these publications were in English, hence the large difference in the final data set. While most publications are either book chapters (n = 22) or journal articles (n = 21), whitepapers (n = 17), books (n = 5), and university publications (n = 5) constitute the minority. Looking at the year of publication, most sources were published between 2015 and 2020 (Fig.  5 ), fewer sources between 2000 and 2005. This rapid increase in publications indicates that digitalisation in accounting has gained popularity within the past five years and is now a leading topic in accounting publications.

Bibliographic information (year of publication, kind of publication and language of publication

The sub-categories in “main focus” could be coded multiple times within the same publication. Besides the technologies and software systems in use, the two most frequently mentioned aspects regarding the main foci are developments in accounting/accounting 4.0 (n = 144) and implications for accounting education (n = 108), a category that describes possible changes in the configuration of activities. (Fig.  6 ). These two categories are future-oriented and involve both the (technical) developments and the industry’s dynamic requirements for accounting graduates and implications for education.

Main foci of publications (number of codes, multiple codes per paper possible)

Regarding the developments in accounting , authors primarily describe processes that are improved and standardised to maximise productivity and the accountant’s value to the company (Baier 2019 ; Müller and Reichmann 2010 ). Especially technologies like advanced analytics and RPA are becoming increasingly important in accounting 4.0 (Egle et al. 2020 ; Koch 2017 ; Losbichler and Gänßlen 2018 ; Satzger et al. 2018 ).

Special aspects that were not mentioned in an educational context, such as the related legal requirements (n = 75) or the generally increasing data availability (n = 39), are shown in separate categories. Several publications also deal with the concrete implementation and procedure of electronic invoices (n = 34). The categories definition of automation (n = 4) and definition of digitalisation (n = 8) are mentioned the least frequently.

RQ 1: Activities concerned with digitalisation in the different areas of accounting

Areas and types of activities in accounting.

A total of n = 285 activities are distributed across six accounting areas including “other” activities (Fig.  7 ). Most frequently mentioned are activities concerning financial accounting (n = 131) and controlling (n = 103). In contrast, all other divisions together make up roughly 25% of the activities described in the publications. The financial accounting code is given to all activities that are rooted in the accounts payable, accounts receivable, banking, payroll, and asset accounting areas (Fig.  8 ). The activities in the area of financial accounting are dominated by accounts payable accounting (n = 98). Many publications focus on e-invoicing, a technology employed to increase productivity in both accounts payable and accounts receivable accounting , the second most mentioned sub-division (n = 23). In addition, OCR and RPA technologies are often used to increase efficiency in both divisions.

Areas of activities in accounting divisions

Areas of activities in financial accounting sub-divisions

The second most frequently mentioned category regarding activities, controlling, mainly encompasses aspects such as reporting, communication, and interpretation of data (Bär et al. 2019 ; Egle and Keimer 2017; Heupel and Lange 2019 ). In contrast to financial accounting, the category of controlling does not focus as much on technologies but rather on specific changes in the job profile (Becker et al. 2020 ; Losbichler and Gänßlen 2018 ; Schindera et al. 2018 ).

The types of activities in the different areas of accounting (Fig.  9 A) are differentiated by their mean of action. More specifically, Fig.  9 A describes what kinds of activities typically occur in the different areas of accounting according to our analyses. In Fig.  9 , those numbers are given as relative numbers because a publication had sometimes multiple codes of the same activity. To account for these duplicates and to maintain proportions, the absolute frequencies are divided by the respective totals per sub-category. As an example, the category financial accounting is mentioned 131 times of which 58 mentions are for automatic activities. Thus, there are automatic activities without manual dimensions and others that are routine activities (manual and cognitive) and non-routine activities (manual, interactive and analytical).

A – C Types of activities in different accounting areas

In the area of financial accounting, most reported activities are either automatic or manual routine activities. Automatic activities are mentioned frequently, for example the automatic recognition of invoices via RPA or their generation directly from the ERP system, although a fully automated process is not common practice yet (Appelfeller and Feldmann 2018 ; Jordanski 2020 ; Kreher 2021 ; Schömburg and Breitner 2010 ; Tanner 2016 ). Instead, some parts of the process are automated and some remain manual. This explains the ratio of manual routine activities, as publications often address the manual correction or computation of invoices (Bernius and Kreuzer 2014 ; Koch 2017 ; Menges 2012 ; Wilczek 2014 ). Other areas of accounting like balancing or controlling display a similar amount of automatic activities that primarily include the use of AI in balancing (Kink 2007 ; Le Guyader 2020 ). Another aspect is the automated detection of variances and automated reporting through machine learning in controlling (Alexander et al. 2019 ; Ashoka et al. 2019 ; Jonen 2020 ). In contrast to publications that focus on financial accounting, authors who address managerial accounting topics identify a high proportion of analytical non-routine activities that primarily include the use of RPA to distribute reports and allocate resources which then have to be analysed by human employees (Langmann and Turi 2020 ).

RQ 2: Accounting activities in different stages of digitalisation

The codes regarding areas of activities in accounting alone, however, do not provide any information regarding the quality of the activities or the respective stages of digitalisation that were presented earlier in this paper. To formulate statements about the quality of accounting activities, it is necessary to analyse the stage of digitalisation and the respective frequencies in publications (Fig.  9 B–C).

Stages of digitalisation in the different areas of accounting

Regarding the stages of digitalisation, the first stage (substitution) is assigned the most across all accounting divisions (Fig.  9 B). Especially activities that remain in the first stage of substitution are attributed to financial accounting. In contrast to this area of accounting, both financial forecasting and managerial accounting areas show a larger proportion of digitalisation that has progressed to stages 2 and 3, process change and innovation. As to managerial accounting, this extends to the integration of a controlling software that introduces innovations in processes in the respective divisions and the implementation of new processes (Kink 2007 ; Raschig and Schulze 2020 ; Selb 2020 ). In financial forecasting, most processes are still in the substitution stage (Klein and Küst 2020 ), but some have progressed to integrate process change or innovation, such as the software-based analysis of reporting data for a proactive controlling approach as shorter product lifecycles necessitate shorter planning horizons (Kink 2007 ; Sledgianowski et al. 2017 ).

Stages of digitalisation in the different activities

In extent to the types of activities (Fig.  9 C), most routine tasks (see Table 1 for these categories) are still mainly in the substitution stage. For instance, RPA technologies are used regularly to substitute manual with automated processes (Gadatsch 2020 ) or electronic invoicing is integrated (Jordanski 2020 ; Klein and Küst 2020 ; Pagel 2019 ; Schömburg and Breitner 2010 ). Approximately one third of automated activities are in the stage 2 of process change, for example when the invoicing process is adapted to a digital format for both incoming and outgoing transactions (Kreher 2021 ).

For non-routine activities , the trend is mostly different. Interactive non-routine activities consist of a larger proportion of stage 2 digitalisation. Those process changes established in the publications include vendor inquiries through automated online portals (Binkow 2015 ) or the supervision of RPA systems or AI algorithms (Hmyzo and Muzzu 2020 ; Klein and Küst 2020 ). Processes need to be standardised to allocate controllers more resources to handle more detailed analyses, interpretations, and communications of results and to minimise their routine activities (Keimer and Egle 2020 ). Schindera et al. ( 2018 ) express that, while the chief financial officer slowly transforms into a chief performance officer, employees in the controlling division are confronted with a changing of roles, too—into that of a business partner. This change is conditioned by the use of big data analytics. Thus, analytical non-routine activities gain in importance. Across the areas of accounting, there is a connection between the kind of activity and its respective stage of digitalisation that has not yet been quantified. While the majority of automatic and routine activities remain in stage 1 digitalisation, interactive non-routine activities predominantly are assigned to stage 2. This finding can be explained by the successful implementation of software solutions and technologies such as AI leading to more activities involving it in the second stage (Chen et al. 2012 ; Heupel and Lange 2019 ; Le Guyader 2020 ; Losbichler and Gänßlen 2018 ).

Analytical non-routine activities, however, show a contrasting result with most activities in stage 1 as employees need to make manual corrections (Jordanski 2020 ). Thus, a human component is required in most processes. However, technologies such as blockchain or AI provide the chance to increase the stage of digitalisation in the future (Chen et al. 2012 ; Grönke and Heimel 2015 ; Trachsel and Bitterli 2020 ). In contrast to manual routine activities (e.g. e-invoicing), the integration of software solutions for analytical non-routine activities requires more resources, hence the lower threshold (Arbeitskreis Externe Unternehmensrechnung der Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft für Betriebswirtschaft e. V. 2018 ; Egle et al. 2020 ; Pagel 2019 ; Weiber et al. 2002 ).

RQ 3: Placement of activities within the supply chain

Different types of the described activities in different accounting areas can be established and interlinked within a company with the aid of interfaces (Fig.  10 ). Within a single company, there can be a multitude of interfaces across divisions and along the supply chain. These interfaces are often connected to the activities, for example internal and external financial accounting, which process inbound and outbound invoices or to the procurement division that interacts with vendors. Most papers address one or more relevant interfaces. Most frequently mentioned are internal interfaces (n = 46), especially regarding the adaptation of accounting and controlling division structures to new business processes or ERP implementation (Binkow 2015 ; Gadatsch 2020 ; Heupel and Lange 2019 ; Najderek 2020 ; Suden 2010 ). The rising focus on process management to increase productivity is depicted in the interfaces; more extensive cooperation between financial divisions due to cross-sectional processes gains in importance (Arbeitskreis Externe Unternehmensrechnung der Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft für Betriebswirtschaft e. V. 2018 ; Bayerl et al. 2020 ). A functioning flow of information and close cooperation between divisions can aid the success of digitalisation projects. Implementing standardised software across the company is identified as a suitable approach to minimise interface issues (Becker et al. 2020 ; Gadatsch 2020 ; Hecht and Scherrer 2020 ).

Interfaces (placement of activities within the supply chain) addressed in the publications

Interfaces with vendors (n = 29) or customers (n = 31) are also mentioned. The main context of vendor interfaces lies in the dimension of electronic invoicing and the conditions for successful implementation as well as specific processes (Appelfeller and Feldmann 2018 ; Klein and Küst 2020 ; Menges 2012 ; Najderek 2020 ; Pagel 2019 ; Suden 2010 ; Tanner 2016 ). It is necessary to harmonise the vendor’s system requirements with the company’s system requirements (Tanner 2016 ). Sometimes, companies establish a supplier self-service that enables the vendors to manage processes such as invoicing or the placement of orders within the company’s interface (Appelfeller and Feldmann 2018 ). At the same time, interfaces with customers are mostly focused on improving their experience by distributing invoices digitally or implementing customer self-service (e.g. checkout via smartphone), thus optimising the company’s commodity, liquidity, or information flows (Appelfeller and Feldmann 2018 ; Binkow 2015 ; Cong et al. 2018 ; Egle and Keimer 2017; Jonen 2020 ; Klein and Küst 2020 ; Nagel 2018 ).

RQ 4: Technologies used to perform the accounting activities

Most publications address one or more technologies in the context of accounting (Fig.  11 ). The specific technologies mentioned most frequently are big data analytics (n = 32), RPA (n = 26) and AI (n = 26). Process mining, which allows companies to analyse their processes through digital technology, is mentioned least frequently (n = 8). This result supports the perception of those technologies as the main disruptors in the industry. Other technologies are mentioned in 44 publications. These are mostly generalised statements that refer to basic technologies and software like ERP systems or technology that can be used to process e-invoices (Gadatsch 2020 ; Koch 2017 ; Schindera et al. 2018 ; Schömburg and Breitner 2010 ; Tanner and Wölfle 2005 ; Wilczek 2014 ).

Frequency of mentioned technologies

Ashoka et al. ( 2019 ) suggest that the use of AI in accounting will free up employees’ time capacities and reduce repetitive activities. They also predict a shift towards internet-based reporting. Egle and Keimer (2017) add that the number of repetitive activities will likely be reduced through AI and big data analytic tools, primarily by minimising the number of manual decisions accountants and auditors have to make in their routine activities. These internal factors are supplemented by external aspects that address the customer journey. Especially, AI is used to improve the customer experience (Appelfeller and Feldmann 2018 ; Bayerl et al. 2020 ; Egle et al. 2020 ). In addition, big data is often mentioned in the context of customers (Gadatsch 2020 ; Losbichler and Gänßlen 2018 ; Schindera et al. 2018 ). Yet, certain advantages for other areas of accounting are made visible as analysis tools may aid, for example, auditors in data management or controllers in forecasting (Pan and Seow 2016 ). This may be the first indication of a shift in the scope of activities in accounting and controlling towards increasing digitalisation.

Especially, repetitive and physical activities such as monthly reporting or e-invoicing profit from the implementation of RPA (Bowles et al. 2020 ; Sandner et al. 2020 ). However, controlling and accounting divisions can be further improved, too (Bayerl et al. 2020 ; Koch 2017 ; Langmann and Turi 2020 ). Through RPA solutions, up to 50% of all back-office tasks—like the synchronisation of supplier and customer accounts—could be automated in the upcoming years (Koch 2017 ). Additionally, the number of employees necessary to manage the workload can be reduced or shifted to new tasks (Kirchberg 2017 ). Up to 36% of companies already use RPA or AI for individual tasks in their accounting department (Kreher 2021 ).

RQ 5: The advantages and disadvantages of digitalised accounting activities

In the review, a variety of advantages and disadvantages of digital technologies in accounting became apparent (Fig.  12 ). In total, we found almost three times as many advantages (n = 618) named than disadvantages (n = 249).

Advantages and disadvantages of digitalisation in accounting (number of publications)

The advantages mentioned most frequently were saving costs (n = 90), increasing efficiency (n = 76), and saving time (n = 73). One example is that digital tools help accountants to manage their workload better and at lower costs (Pan and Seow 2016 ). Keimer and Egle ( 2020 ) state that technologies such as big data analytics or cloud solutions are useful to reduce the susceptibility to errors while simultaneously increasing efficiency in the controlling division. In addition, process automation is perceived as a key aspect of efficiency enhancement in the auditing sector (Werner and Gehrke 2011 ). The advantage of saving time is connected to two time-related opportunities. Firstly, Pagel ( 2019 ) mentions the aspect of processes optimised by digital technologies; lead time for invoices was reduced by up to 15 days, leveraging liquidity on the biller’s side. The freed-up worktime indicates the second perceived opportunity: The specialised workforce in the controlling division can shift their responsibilities to less administrative tasks, thus extending current activities to strategy-oriented areas (Egle and Keimer 2017).

These productivity-related factors are mentioned in half of the publications. The advantages of economies of scale (n = 7) and productivity (n = 11) are only rarely mentioned. For example, Egle and Keimer (2017) discuss productivity as an advantage that results from saved time and error reduction.

“Other” advantages (n = 57) range from employee engagement and motivation (Langmann and Turi 2020 ) to simplified auditing processes (Sledgianowski et al. 2017 ) or improved understanding of financial events (Ashoka et al. 2019 ). But customer satisfaction (Binkow 2015 ) and sustainability-driven aspects such as CO 2 reductions (Bernius and Kreuzer 2014 ) were mentioned as additional aspects as well.

Regarding the disadvantages, content analysis shows the highest risks with digital technologies in accounting in the areas of interface management (n = 40), financial investments (n = 42), and missing expertise (n = 31), mainly with new technologies (Fig.  12 ). Gadatsch ( 2020 ) appoints the central issue of interface management to the complex implementation and its extensive time frame. In addition, data redundancies created by the parallel upkeeping of former and new ERP systems might further increase interface issues, effectively increasing the workload. Thus, there is a need for technological and methodological skills for successful interface management. Schömburg and Breitner’s ( 2010 ) explanations support this result. They identify the main reasons for companies to defer process digitalisation as a lack of expertise, necessary investments, and implementing suitable software. This finding primarily connects to electronic invoicing (Jordanski 2020 ; Koch 2017 ; Nagel 2018 ; Najderek 2020 ; Schömburg and Breitner 2010 ; Tanner 2016 ; Tanner and Wölfle 2005 ) and ERP-specific areas (Appelfeller and Feldmann 2018 ; Binkow 2015 ; Chen et al. 2012 ; Cong et al. 2018 ; Fuller and Markelevich 2020 ; Gadatsch 2020 ; Jonen 2020 ; Wilczek 2014 ). The “other” disadvantages (n = 32) focus on the risks of decentralised innovations that are not implemented company-wide (Schindera et al. 2018 ) as well as the amount of time needed for software maintenance or to train employees (Gadatsch 2020 ). In addition, a few technology-specific disadvantages are mentioned: On the one hand, the implementation of RPA does not require the innovation of new processes, thus old, ineffective processes could stall future changes (Gadatsch 2020 ). On the other hand, blockchain could hinder scalability due to slow transaction speeds and challenging error corrections (Fuller and Markelevich 2020 ).

Discussion and summary

Digitalisation is changing numerous processes in the working lives of accounting professionals. This also applies to processes associated with accounting. Against the background of the question of how accounting graduates will have to be trained in the future, we have identified requirements and activities with the help of a systematic literature review. The literature review was conducted based on a conceptual framework of six types of activities and three stages of digitalisation. Figure  13 gives a condensed overview of the most important findings:

Overview of findings

Regarding the foci of publications dealing with digitalisation in the field of accounting, we found that developments in accounting and implications for accounting education dominate. These findings indicate that the discourse in the field has moved beyond the definitory stages and towards the identification of needs of action, including, among others, the advancement of accounting education and adjustments of curricula.

Results for RQ (1) which deals with activities in the areas of accounting that are subject to digitalisation hint at financial accounting and controlling divisions being the main areas of change. While in financial accounting, there is a focus on technology-based change, the area of controlling mostly encompasses changes in the controller’s job profile that are ensuing due to the increasing digitalisation of current tasks. As most activities in financial accounting are based in the area of accounts payable, the focus on technologies could be connected to efficiency-related opportunities that technological updates may implicate. Out of the six types of activities, analytical non-routine, automatic, and manual routine activities are the predominant categories (see Table 1 for an overview of definitions). This finding can be linked to the different degrees of automation in the different areas: In financial accounting and balancing, a large share of tasks has been automated, for example by RPA. In controlling, financial forecasting, and managerial accounting, however, the leading tasks are data analysis (cognitive routine) and consultancy (analytical and interactive non-routine). These results also provide first hints at the stages of digitalisation in the different areas of accounting (RQ 2).

In RQ (2), we identified different stages of digitalisation in the different areas. The results show that the proportion of digitalised activities is largely dependent on the area, yet most activities currently remain in the substitution stage. This indicates that the integration of technologies and process changes is still underway. The combined analysis of areas, activities, and stages was particularly revealing because it allowed differentiated interpretations. The analysis showed, among other things, that types of activities and different accounting areas are digitalised at different stages. Stage 1 (substitution) is to be expected, for example, in financial accounting and analytical non-routine activities. In contrast, interactive non-routine activities can be found more often in the second stage of digitalisation because current processes are supplemented by new technologies. This finding matches the results from a study by Sachs et al ( 2016 ) who focused on changing job descriptions in the commercial field. Interaction is required to communicate results and consult with management. This leads to expanding job profiles and further required competences that trace back to updates in accounting education.

All the activities we identified require different skill sets and are placed at different interfaces along the entire supply chain (RQ 3). This implies the supply chain’s continuous digitalisation requiring new technical standards and agreements. For example, the increasing popularity of e-invoicing has motivated efforts regarding the standardisation of software and workflows.

Another aspect that shifts competence requirements is the implementation of major technologic trends such as AI and big data analytics in the industry (RQ 4). Frequently mentioned technologies and corresponding business processes need to be integrated into accounting curricula to meet industry needs. On the one hand, technology itself and its evaluation could be addressed. On the other hand, the handling of technology could be prepared when it is integrated into industry practice. Learning materials need to reflect these changes and thus become more digitalised as well.

With RQ (5), we analysed the advantages and disadvantages that the publications under analysis identified during the process of digitalisation in the field of accounting. Even if the advantages mentioned in the publications, such as efficiency reasons, outweighed the disadvantages, risks such as interface management and accounting professionals’ lack of skills and competences must still be considered. In consequence, companies lack the expertise to successfully manage digital transformation processes, underlining the importance of specific competence development. Other factors that are main motivators are of a classic economic nature, such as an increase in overall productivity by saving time and financial resources. Both technologies’ specific disadvantages and the process of digitalisation in accounting more generally suggest the need for improved accounting graduate education and further training or at least for more guidance for both employers and employees. This need applies to concise abilities, such as the assessment of digital technologies and processes, and the criteria-based evaluation of the potential of software implementation. Depending on how quickly corresponding competences can be developed in the company’s workforce, flexibility in competence acquisition for varying technologies and the successful implementation as well as maintenance of technological interfaces is needed. Thus, the field of accounting has reached a level of digitalisation that entails changes in competence profiles to enable both accounting professionals and graduates to manage new demands.

Limitations

Methodological limitations.

Concerning limitations, our paper focuses primarily on results from a literature review and not on the analysis of real company situations or accounting professionals’ reports. The activities, stages, and combinations described in the articles were evaluated according to the number of codes. Whenever a publication mentioned the same code in a different context, it was coded as a new mention. This could potentially distort results. In addition, we did not analyse the extent to which technologies have actually been established in companies and in particularly in accounting. The papers might reflect the past and current states of the discussion.

The next limitations stem from the selection process of publications and their respective language of publication. While there were specific journals in English selected as relevant, we did not select specific German journals. Regarding the dominance of German-speaking publications, it is possible that the databases we used, particularly Google Scholar, produced a bias due to their search algorithms that might include geolocation. To balance this out, we searched for our keywords in both English and German. However, we cannot ignore that this might have implications for the results of our study. In German-speaking countries, accounting methods are rather defensive compared to English-speaking countries, where future-oriented perspectives are more common. In consequence, it is possible that some of our results only pertain to Germany and other German-speaking countries as well as to some to other countries, especially those results that are connected to the flexibility and design of accounting curricula or the stage of digitalisation in the industry.

Content-related limitations

Another limitation is the focus on controlling and financial accounting in the keyword groups as other areas of accounting might have been underrepresented. As for the integration of digitalisation into accounting curricula and learning materials, our paper does not consider external factors that might influence the creation and adaptation of accounting curricula like accountancy professional bodies and other accrediting organisations.

Implications for accounting education and professional practice

The lack of expertise takes a prominent position in our analysis, which is mainly reflected by the prevention of digitalisation processes and innovation of accounting activities. Particularly, technological and methodological skills are needed to integrate new technologies, innovate processes, and, in consequence, produce a shift in activities. The following key implications can be deducted for accounting education and professional practice (see for more details Berding et al. 2022 ):

Adaptation of curricula to reflect the change of focus from financial accounting and routine activities to the area of controlling and non-routine activities (" RQ 1: Activities concerned with digitalisation in the different areas of accounting " and " RQ 2: Accounting activities in different stages of digitalisation " section).

Intensification of the use of technological and analytical tools in accounting education curricula to motivate early contact and contribute to the holistic understanding of processes as the importance of independent reporting and interpretation of financial key figures increases (" RQ 1: Activities concerned with digitalisation in the different areas of accounting " and " RQ 4: Technologies used to perform the accounting activities " section).

Combined focus on technical and professional competences in the different areas of accounting that recognises the increasing importance of meta-competences such as proactive thinking, self-control, creativity, and interdisciplinary action. This is particularly important to ensure that graduates and employees stay capable to navigate the field of accounting and adapt to the changing parameters flexibly (" RQ 2: Accounting activities in different stages of digitalisation " section).

Integration of data and process management and new technologies into compulsory curricula and professional development courses to generate a holistic understanding of processes and manage change across the entire supply chain (" RQ 3: Placement of activities within the supply chain " and " RQ 4: Technologies used to perform the accounting activities " section).

Employees in the areas of accounting and controlling need improved communicative and entrepreneurial skills to market the added value of digitalisation to companies (" RQ 5: The advantages and disadvantages of digitalised accounting activities " section).

Overall, the analysis provides valuable hints for future-oriented accounting education that supports companies in realising a maximum of expertise to manage their digital transformation. This extends to the opportunity to think about implications for professional practices (How digitalised can the field be and how can digitalisation change job profiles?), for accounting students/employees (Am I willing to engage with changing technologies to improve my skill set and potentially work on entirely different activities within the next few years?), and even for society (How can these changes and their implications on competences help in finding creative solutions to 21 st -century challenges?). This review can serve as a starting point for these and similar considerations.

This paper was intended to contribute to the discussion of future (competence) requirements for graduates in accounting. The detailed analyses provide an in-depth insight into six types of activities and the different stages of digitalisation for specific areas of accounting. This systematic and detailed analysis was necessary to gain knowledge on how to initiate concrete improvements in the content and methodology of the education and training of accountants (see for example Author 1 et al. 2022). It became clear, for example, that a deeper look into these areas is valuable as the same technologies are not likely to prevail in all areas at the same stage and for the same types of activities. In the area of financial accounting, for example, the duration of tasks decreases due to the large proportion of routine activities that can be automated or substituted, freeing up time for other activities or areas of accounting. One of these is controlling, where there are more non-routine activities that require new skills. However, it also became clear that interface management in particular is essential for linking the numerous technologies. Against this background, the didactics of accounting are also challenged to educate and train graduates in a differentiated manner.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Artificial intelligence

Enterprise resource planning

Optical character recognition

Robotic process automation

Research question

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Pargmann, J., Riebenbauer, E., Flick-Holtsch, D. et al. Digitalisation in accounting: a systematic literature review of activities and implications for competences. Empirical Res Voc Ed Train 15 , 1 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40461-023-00141-1

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Literature Review for Accounting/Auditing

Main Objectives, Procedures & Resources

What is a literature review and what is the purpose?

A literature review consists of simply a summary of key sources, and it usually combines both summary and synthesis, often within specific conceptual categories. A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information in a way that tells how you are planning to investigate a research problem.

A literature review is conducted during the first phase of the research process (in the exploration stage). The purpose of a literature review is to:

• To survey the current state of knowledge in the area of inquiry (concerning the research questions and/or related topics)
• To identify key authors, articles, theories, and findings in that area
• To identify gaps in knowledge in the research area

In this document, we will focus on the steps to follow in doing a literature search on a topic or author. While the steps below are listed in numerical order, some steps may need to be repeated, revisited, and/or skipped as you go through the process.

• Consider a topic for the research question and determine the breadth and depth of your topic that is manageable in scope - hence preferably, not too wide nor too narrow.  For instance, the topic - Audits and IPOs – could be a good one in this regard.  
• Audits > Auditor, auditors, auditing …
• IPOs  >  IPOs, Initial Public Offerings …

     Thus, we can change our original topic - Audits AND IPOs – into a new search statement as below:

• (Audit * ) AND (IPOs OR Initial Public Offerings)
• AND -- this narrows a search by telling the database that ALL keywords used must appear in the same records/results.
• OR -- this broadens a search by telling the database that ANY of the words it connects are acceptable in the search results.
• * -- this asterisk is a wildcard character , so using: Audit * = the search results may contain Audit, Audit s, Audit or, Audit ing
• Link 1 - Results   - Getting Search Results:  182 (as of 10/16/23)
• Link 2 Results   - Getting Search Results:  498 (as of 10/16/23)
• Audit risk issues
• Financial statements  
• Management structure or corporate governance
• Compliance  
• Mergers or Acquisitions
• Now, with the help of Boolean operator “ AND ” we can easily combine theses three concepts/keywords, thus forming some seemingly intricate, yet more promising search statements as below.  That way, we could be able to pull out more meaningful, focused, and relevant results from a huge databases:
• (Audit * ) AND (IPO * OR Initial Public Offerings) AND ( Risk * ) > Results from EBSCO
• (Audit * ) AND (IPO * OR Initial Public Offerings) AND ( Financial statements ) > Results from EBSCO
• (Audit * ) AND (IPO * OR Initial Public Offerings) AND ( management structure or corporate governance ) > Results from EBSCO
• (Audit * ) AND (IPO * OR Initial Public Offerings) AND ( compliance ) > Results from EBSCO
• Su (Audit * ) AND Ti (IPO * OR Initial Public Offerings) AND Su (merger * OR acquisition * OR m&a * ) > Results from EBSCO

Please note: (1) Following each of the search statements above, there is a link to results from our library subscription databases - EBSCOhost .    EBSCOhost is one of our recommendation databases for any literature review as it is the largest databases for journals/articles coverage we subscribe to so far, and Business Source Complete ls just one of them. (2) #5 above is different from other in that the Fields - Su and Ti Fields - have been added and used in the search statement.  Why Fields search will be discussed in the next Step (Step 5).     

• With the power of computing and databases, more often than not, users would get  overwhelming results from whatever keywords used.  How to overcome that? You can reduce the overwhelming number of results, and in the meantime not sacrifice any relevant and high-quality results by taking advantage of the content-related fields in structured databases – the fields that is already build-in with almost all databases, such as EBSCOhost .  We are particularly interested in the following content-related fields:
• Title  - TI field
• Subject - SU field
• Abstract  - AB field 

As a result of using fields, you are actually limiting (forcing) the keywords of selection only appear in certain fields you’ve specified.  Think about this: if in a title of an article, there is a word XYZ, the chances are content of the article is pretty much about XYZ.  The same applies to the fields of subject and abstract.

• au (Raman, K) AND ab (audit*) =  60 results > Results from ProQuest
• au (Raman, K) AND su (audit*)   = 42 results > Results from ProQuest
• au (Raman, k) AND litigation = 18 results > Results from ProQuest
• As the search results are returned, it is best to preview the results by looking for articles that are relevant to your specific research questions. Try to pay attention to words around the highlighted keywords (it may reveal why a particular article has been pulled out), skim the abstract and the introduction section, even try to read the literature review sections of these articles. This will help to determine the suitability of that article for a further review.
• Overall, a well conducted literature review should indicate whether the initial research question or topics have already been addressed in the literature, whether there are newer or more interest research questions available, and whether the original research question should be modified or changed in light of findings of the literature review.  
• Last but not least, it is highly recommended to search the following UTSA subscription databases considering these databases’ coverage and relevancy to your academic discipline.  Certainly, you can use the techniques and procedure we’ve discussed above within all of the databases below. 
• Academic Search Complete  is a flagship of EBSCOhost
• Business Source Complete – another sub-database of EBSCOhost —that also c overs Working Papers
• including ABI/INFORM Collection and 
• Accounting, Tax & Banking Collection  
• NBER Working Papers
• Provides access to books and journals in accounting and finance, economics, and more
• Last Updated: Oct 16, 2023 9:40 AM
• URL: https://libguides.utsa.edu/auditing
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Accounting services quality: a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis

Asian Journal of Accounting Research

ISSN : 2459-9700

Article publication date: 7 December 2020

Issue publication date: 18 February 2021

The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze the literature related to accounting and auditing services quality.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors performed a systematic literature review that considered 22 papers on the topic. The authors also applied a bibliometric analysis in order to identify the main characteristics of these studies to discuss and provide research opportunities in this field.

The bibliometric results indicate that most papers were published in services and marketing journals. The accounting service quality theme has been rarely researched in accounting field. In addition, based on our review, it was possible to identify that most papers use quantitative methods, such as surveys. The papers' conclusions diverge from each other, demonstrating a still fragmented literature.

Research limitations/implications

Taken together, the paper shows how accounting services quality is relevant and emerging topic that demands future research about accounting professionals' skills, their activities and how their customers perceive quality in an environment of constant change.

Originality/value

The analyses indicate that there are six broad areas for future research on this topic: successes and failures of accounting services providers; the role of “client centricity”; digital accounting services; services quality and accounting education; services quality when considering different types of accounting and auditing services and development of a measurement scale and a theoretical model for accounting services quality. This paper contributes for the ongoing debate about how competition, technology and innovation are changing the landscape for accounting and auditing services providers.

• Service quality
• Systematic review
• Bibliometric
• Accounting services

Azzari, V. , Mainardes, E.W. and Costa, F.M.d. (2021), "Accounting services quality: a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis", Asian Journal of Accounting Research , Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 80-94. https://doi.org/10.1108/AJAR-07-2020-0056

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Vitor Azzari, Emerson Wagner Mainardes and Fábio Moraes da Costa

Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

Competition, innovation and technology are changing the prospects for accounting and auditing services providers ( Arnaboldi et al. , 2017 ; Botha and Wilkinson, 2019 ). The migration toward international sets of accounting standards and the provision of automated routines pose a challenge on how firms can pursue new, credible and more efficient ways to produce information for their clients ( Santos-Vijande et al. , 2013 ).

Recent studies (e.g. Groff et al. , 2015 ) argue that the services quality and professional qualification are key aspects for client retention. Service quality is defined as customer's overall assessment of the service delivered ( Zeithaml, 1988 ). Also, it can be defined as the difference between customers' expectations and the actual service's performance ( Parasuraman et al. , 1985 ). Consequently, accounting services providers are investing to be perceived as more empathic, reliable and responsive to individual clients demands ( Aga and Safakli, 2007 ; Groff et al. , 2015 ). In an environment with adverse conditions and high competitiveness, it seems increasingly the focus on services quality in order to meet customer expectations ( Lee et al. , 2016 ).

On the other hand, few studies have focused on assessing empirically the accounting services quality (examples of papers about this topic are: Aga and Safakli, 2007 ; Freeman and Dart, 1993 ; Keng and Liu, 1998 ; Lee et al. , 2016 ; Phiri, 2017 ). As an emergent field, the knowledge about accounting service quality is fragmented and dispersed. The prior literature reaches different conclusions in order to validate (or not) certain dimensions of quality perception, such as tangibility, reliability and responsiveness. These variety of views generates disperse results and conclusions, leaving a gap in the development of a consolidated theory of accounting service quality. In addition, to the best of our knowledge, there is no systematic literature review on this topic aiming to identify and discuss the theoretical and methodological bases applied in the literature so far. Given that, an effort must be made to converge the accounting service quality knowledge, integrating future researches opportunities and providing more relevant impact about this theme on society.

Therefore, our research questions are: What is the current state of accounting services quality literature? What are the advances possibilities in this field? To answer our research questions, we aimed to review the existing research on accounting service quality and to point out where additional studies are called for. We used Boolean operators and several keywords related to the theme. Given that, we have identified 635 papers published in journals indexed by SCOPUS and Web of Science databases from 1989 to 2018. It is important to note that the “service quality” addressed in this study does not cover earnings management, reporting quality and other subjects related to quality of accounting information. We considered the context of a service delivered and the customers' expectations and perceptions, following Parasuraman et al. (1985) definition. Thus, after analyzing and classifying each of these articles, we were able to select 22 papers related to the accounting (or auditing) services quality concept which we are using in this study.

We examined these 22 papers in detail using bibliometric methods and performing a systematic literature review. The use of bibliometric methods and a systematic literature review could allow a broader view of this specific field and may contribute to the identification of causes of phenomena related to the most significant works and the main themes in the field. As results of our bibliometric analysis, we were able to identify that although most of the papers were published in non-accounting journals (nineteen papers). However, more than half of the citations on this topic come from two papers published in accounting journals (Accounting Horizons and Accounting, Organizations and Society). Most of the papers rely on services quality and clients' perception literature and usually apply a quantitative approach.

Our detailed analyses provide three main contributions. First, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first literature review that focuses on accounting services quality, providing a framework for understanding the knowledge produced up to this date on this topic. Second, we created a cluster framework and we identified the following three streams of research: firms and competitive advantage, client perception and accounting as a Knowledge Intensive Business Service (KIBS). Third, each stream of research allowed us to suggest a research agenda that covers six main areas: (1) the success and failures of accounting services providers; (2) the customer centricity in accounting and audit services; (3) the digitalization of accounting and auditing services; (4) how services quality is related to new skills and accounting education; (5) the comparison between different types of accounting services and (6) the development of a theory and measurement model for the accounting service quality. We hope that our findings may provide a starting point for future research on this topic.

2. Theoretical framework

2.1 service quality.

Service quality is the general judgment of the customer regarding the service provided ( Hussain et al. , 2015 ). Parasuraman et al. (1985) argue that service quality could be explained as the gap between perceived and expected quality of services by customers. Quality can be interpreted in different ways, and it depends on which stakeholders and which industry and/or service are being analyzed ( Garvin, 1984 ).

For the perception of the quality of services provided, one of the main aspects considered by consumers refers to the failures and successes made by an organization ( Sivakumar et al. , 2014 ). In an era of constant pressure for companies to cut costs and to shrink the workforce, the pursuit of error-free service becomes an arduous task ( Hussain et al. , 2015 ; Sivakumar et al. , 2014 ). Thus, efficiency and quality are points that must be constantly analyzed by managers. Moreover, provide services with high quality can be important for companies in different ways. Previous studies argued that service quality is related to customer satisfaction ( Nagel and Santos, 2017 ; Narteh, 2018 ), loyalty ( Hapsari et al. , 2017 ), willingness to pay a premium price ( Bünnings, Schmitz, Tauchmann and Ziebarth, 2019 ) and firm reputation ( Wang et al. , 2003 ).

During the 1980s and 1990s, the academic community paid close attention to service quality theory. At that time, different models and theories emerged that sought to conceptualize and measure quality (e.g. Cronin and Taylor, 1992 ; Gronroos, 1984 ; Parasuraman et al. , 1988 ). One of the most famous models used until today is “SERVQUAL”, developed by Parasuraman et al. (1988) . The scale considers five dimensions of service quality: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. This measurement model was created to capture service quality in different industries, and it is used in several different contexts until today.

2.2 Accounting services management

The current business environment has been changing the characteristics of management accounting practices ( Albu and Albu, 2012 ). The development of management accountants is also determined by the need to meet stakeholder expectations for credibility, transparency in corporate reporting and their involvement with social responsibility ( Zyznarska-Dworczak, 2018 ).

Lukka and Vinnari (2014) and Zyznarska-Dworczak (2018) address the changes in management accounting over the years. Customer orientation has become the current focus of managers. Although accountants deal with a specific type of service that is generally provided to other organizations, the management of accounting firms (or offices) needs to be performed similarly to other sectors that are also valued for information and knowledge of the service provided ( Borodako et al. , 2014 ).

This means that accounting services need to focus on customer needs and their perceptions of accounting service quality, as well as constantly investing in the good skills of the business team ( Jia et al. , 2016 ; Lee et al. , 2016 ; Zyznarska-Dworczak, 2018 ). As the traditional services provided by accountants for decades are likely to be replaced by technological development, accounting firms which want to compete in this new context will potentially need to deliver high-quality services to their customers. Otherwise, they are likely to disappear.

The first step in our study is to identify the relevant papers that relate services quality with accounting services. To do this, it took different stages as: definitions of databases, definition of keywords, elimination of repeated articles and alignment by reading the title, abstract and main findings. As discussed by Carvalho et al. (2020) , these stages are present in different frameworks used as guidelines for systematic literature review.

We start by using two major Journal Databases: SCOPUS and Web of Science. Taken together, the databases cover the most relevant scientific journals. Therefore, we do not filter our search by journals, but by databases, as done by previous studies (e.g. Castilla-Polo and Gallardo-Vázquez, 2016 ; Nouri and Parker, 2020 ). For the keywords, we used the term “service quality” with the Boolean operator “AND” providing combinations with the following terms: “account*”, “audit*”, “tax account”, tax service, “CPA”, and “Certified Public Accountant”. We considered title, abstract and keywords as the search fields and filter the results only for scientific journals.

Without restricting our sample period, we were able to identify 635 papers (this search was conducted in June 2018). We then used the software EndNote X7 in order to organize and standardize all the references and to eliminate potential duplicates since we considered two different databases. Following the approach presented and used before by other studies ( Carvalho et al. , 2020 ; Valmorbida and Ensslin, 2017 ), we exclude papers that are outside the scope of our research by analyzing their titles, abstracts, keywords and main findings. In order to mitigate bias, all papers were analyzed by three experienced judges.

From our initial search, 524 papers were identified as being related to service quality in other sectors, such as health, banks, transport, IT services, hospitality, etc. This could be explained because the keyword “account*” can have different meanings that are not related only to the accounting services itself. In addition, 25 papers were related to accounting information quality, but not to accounting service quality. Finally, 55 papers were neither related to service quality or accounting services. These 55 papers approached diverse themes related to marketing, such as brand equity, decision-making, post-choice experience, optimal service price and consumer satisfaction and did not specifically focused on the quality of services of accounting service providers. After the analysis, our final sample comprises 22 papers that focus on services quality and accounting or auditing services.

The next step was to apply a systematic literature review on the 22 papers. We extracted and analyzed the following information: year of publication, journal, methodological approach (e.g. conceptual; survey), number of citations for the paper, theories used to support their hypotheses and conclusions. We used the software VOSviewer 1.6.5 in order to identify clusters. We identify each cluster based on keywords co-occurrence, as proposed by van Eck and Waltman (2010) . This technique considers the relation between different keywords. For example, if the same paper has the keywords A and B, and the same keywords were also present in another paper, the connection between keywords A and B will be greater. Thus, VOSviewer analyze two different weighting attributes. The first one is the number of links (co-occurrences) among keywords. The distance between the clusters' circles indicates the attribute of relation's strength. The closer two keywords are on the network, the higher is the number of articles in which these keywords appear associated. And the second one is the size of each circle representing the proportion of occurrence for each keyword in relation to all keywords of the sample. Figure 1 presents the methodological procedures in order to achieve our research goal.

It is noteworthy that the groupings elaborated through VOSviewer 1.6.5 are relevant to uncover links between themes, allowing to trace the development of a particular field of research. In addition, this method can help identifying specific topics of interest to the scientific community by suggesting topics with a potential association that can be explored in future research ( van Eck and Waltman, 2010 ).

4.1 Most relevant journals and how the discussion evolved in the literature

According to our results, the earliest identified paper that relates services quality and accounting services was the study developed by Ferguson and Higgins (1989) . The paper analyses if the “Certified Public Accountant” certification and the amount of fees charged by an accounting firm may impact the expected quality and the quality perceived by the customer. The paper is aligned with other studies in the services quality literature in the 80s: to develop exploratory research to better understand what may be relevant for quality perception and how to formulate strategies in order to achieve a desired quality perception by the customers ( Zeithaml et al. , 1996 ).

Since Ferguson and Higgins (1989) , other 21 papers were published relating services quality and accounting services. There is an increase in this research topic in the mid-90s (up to six per year). However, we do not identify papers between 2001 and 2005. Recently, the number of publications per year averages three. Three journals concentrate more half of the papers: Journal of Relationship Marketing (05 papers), Service Marketing Quarterly (04 papers) and Actual Problems of Economics (02 papers). Journal of Relationship Marketing and Service Marketing Quarterly are US-based journals that are focused on marketing-related topics. Actual Problems of Economics is a Ukrainian journal that focuses on Economics. Most of the journals are focused on services management and marketing. Only three papers were published in accounting journals.

4.2 Citation analysis, methodologies and theories

In order to evaluate the impact of each paper, we considered the total number of citations, according to the Google Scholar platform. Most cited papers are presented in Table 1 .

Among the five papers with the highest number of citations, three of them focus on services quality for auditing services ( Behn et al. , 1997 ; Cameran et al. , 2010 ; De Ruyter and Wetzels, 1999 ). Our results indicate that there are a small number of papers covering the subject of accounting services quality which have a considerable number of citations.

We also considered the main theories and concepts applied in our sample. We observed an already expected use of service quality theory as the basis for 16 papers. We find five papers that are based on customer perception, such as their evaluation and satisfaction with the service delivered. These aspects are seen in previous studies as possible antecedents and consequences of the quality of services ( Cronin et al. , 2000 ; Kasiri et al. , 2017 ). In addition, articles were also based on KIBS-related definitions, demonstrating that previous literature discusses the development of the quality of accounting services relating them to the characteristics of high knowledge needs ( Santos and Spring, 2015 ).

We also analyzed the methodological approaches and research design from each paper. The classification was designed by analyzing the approaches and strategies used in the studies' data collection. The methodological analysis allows us to identify a predominance in empirical studies that apply the theoretical concepts in the practical context in order to understand the reality. This type of method has congruence with studies focused on the quality of services, considering that it is an area explored in marketing that often conducts empirical studies that seek to understand the reality of organizations and consumers. In addition, the approach in most of the research was quantitative by applying surveys with consumers of accounting services. This demonstrates the predominance of studies that investigate and test the relationship between variables through the perspective of customers. Regarding quantitative studies, only one ( Lee, 2013 ) used secondary data in their analysis.

About the papers that used questionnaires, our findings show that fifty-six percent applied the measurement scale “SERVQUAL”, developed by Parasuraman et al. (1988) . Other scales, like “SERVPREF” ( Cronin and Taylor, 1992 ) and the service quality model proposed by Gronroos (1984) are less frequent. A potential explanation for the use of “SERVQUAL” is its widespread use in the services quality arena, with more than 30 thousand references. The scale relies on more generalist dimensions that could be applied to different contexts ( Roy et al. , 2015 ). On the other hand, some authors had criticized the application of general scales such as “SERVQUAL”. They argue that these instruments do not capture the details of specific services as accounting ( Fleischman et al. , 2017 ; Ladhari, 2008 ).

Regarding our sample, we find different results for the papers that used the “SERVQUAL” as the measurement scale. For example, results from Freeman and Dart (1993) study validated only three factors of the scale: tangibility, assurance and empathy. In addition to these dimensions, the authors advocated for the inclusion of other variables. Results from Keng and Liu (1998) study, that also applied a modified version of the Parasuraman et al. (1988) scale, suggest that long-term relationship management and the availability to respond to any request quickly are important characteristics to maintaining a customer base. In addition, employees of accounting firms must be well-trained, and trust must be established between them and their clients.

Aga and Safakli (2007) and Lee et al. (2016) also measured the quality of accounting service using the SERVQUAL scale of Parasuraman et al. (1988) . Results indicate that five dimensions are significant for the context of accounting services and indicate a positive effect between the quality of services provided and customer satisfaction. Therefore, based on this, the quality of this type of service depends on how accountants are managing the service provided, seeking the satisfaction of their customers.

Although the majority of the studies use the “SERVQUAL” scale ( Parasuraman et al. , 1988 ), this measurement instrument considers only the functional dimensions of service quality. The scale does not consider specific contexts, and thus does not consider industry-specific characteristics ( Fleischman et al. , 2017 ). It is important to highlight that none of the papers focused on developing measurement scales designed specifically for accounting services. Since accounting services are within the KIBS classification ( Santos and Spring, 2015 ), many services are unique and there is an opportunity for future research to develop a more specific measurement scale, based on a more extensive and in-depth analysis of the factors that may contribute to the perception of quality of its unique features.

5. Cluster analysis

Our cluster analysis considered the occurrence of keywords and the ties between them using VOSviewer. We present our results in Figure 2 . The circles closest to each other demonstrate the groupings of themes in analyzed studies. Thus, this cluster analysis is important to identify themes and concepts that are more discussed in accounting service quality studies.

Results from the cluster analysis, presented by Figure 1 , indicate the existence of three clusters. The first one is more aligned with market competitiveness and how accounting firms can retain its customers and capture new ones. The second cluster is aligned with consumption behavior and perceptions about the company image. The third cluster is related with the professional features of accounting services and the required services providers' knowledge.

5.1 Competitiveness

The first cluster is related to how firms manage their competitive advantages. It is formed by the following keywords: competitiveness, accounting firms, SERVQUAL, quality of consumer services, customer satisfaction and behavior intentions. This cluster has a more focused discussion in understanding how customer satisfaction and perception of service quality may be managed as intangible assets in order to create competitive advantages ( Armstrong and Smith, 1996 ). Bean et al. (1996) , for example, found results indicating that one-to-one communication, pricing and customer satisfaction directly impact customers' choices, thus being a way to retain current customers and to attract new ones.

Given the great competition in accounting context, other variables were studied to understand how to reach competitive advantages in this sector. From customers' point of view, the accounting firms' market share can indicate the quality of service delivered. This statement can explain why the performance of international accounting firms is better than non-international ( Lee, 2013 ).

In order to identify factors that impacts customers' choices, studies measure quality perception based on SERVQUAL variables. For Armstrong and Smith (1996) , there are intangibles (e.g. reputation and professional quality) and external factors (e.g. word-of-mouth and employees' behaviors). For Keng and Liu (1998) , to choose an accounting audit firm, it is relevant the reputation, the audit fees charged and the other services provided. In line with this last one, Lee (2013) argue that given the last years changes in customers' demands, accounting firms needs to provide more analytical and consultant services. This can be a way to increase the competitive advantages.

5.2 Image and perceived value

The second cluster considers issues related to customers' perceptions and expectations about the firms. The main keywords are consumption behavior, perception, corporate strategy and corporate image. Papers in this cluster usually focus on understanding service quality via the analysis of customers' opinions (e.g. Aga and Safakli, 2007 ; Cameran et al. , 2010 ; Lee et al. , 2016 ). Overall, our review indicates that long-term relationships between accounting firms and its customers may be relevant for service quality, indicating a relation between satisfaction and customer loyalty. Moreover, the perceived quality affects corporate image of the accounting services provider, what could be relevant to explain the willingness of the customer to recommend the firm for other potential customers ( Cameran et al. , 2010 ; Fleischman et al. , 2017 ).

Since service quality literature was developed ( Gronroos, 1984 ; Parasuraman et al. , 1988 ), consumer expectations and perceptions are a key point to capture higher level of quality delivered. In accounting context, this is not different. For Bean et al. (1996) , accounting consumers' expectations are linked with satisfaction and quality of the last service provided. If those expectations are met, the image of the firm is positively impacted. According Keller (1993) , “image” refers to the perceptions of a company reflecting the associations presented in the consumer's memory. Corporate image may impact customer satisfaction about the service ( Aga and Safakli, 2007 ; Cameran et al. , 2010 ).

In literature, the relationship between service quality and firm's image can be seen as a cycle. The more quality the service has, the better the company's image will be perceived ( Bean et al. , 1996 ). On the other hand, the better image the company has, the perception of quality will be higher. To explain this second phenomenon, it is important to treat the service provider image as a mediator of the relationship between the perception of functional/technical quality and overall service quality ( Fleischman et al. , 2017 ).

5.3 Knowledge and professionalism

Finally, the third cluster considers accounting services characterized as KIBS. The relevant keywords are professional services, audit firms, small firms and interpersonal communications. Studies like Freeman and Dart (1993) and Olorunniwo and Hsu (2008) argue that the exchange of information and knowledge among the firms that provide accounting services indicate the need for better interpersonal communication between them and their customers. In addition, service coproduction and the constant need for innovation are features of the accounting services.

In professional services as accounting, the communication between services providers and customers might generate better technical and processual quality. Consumers highlight different points about communication that are linked to the accountant's knowledge and professionalism. For example, as the willingness in responding client's questions about the service, to inform about laws and regulations and the capacity to understand the customer's point of view ( Sarapaivanich and Patterson, 2015 ). Therefore, these aspects highlight the accountants' necessity to have a good technical knowledge aligned with communication ability.

Another point about professionalism and knowledge is the level of specialization of the service provider. Companies from different industries have different regulations and specificities. Thus, there is a demand for highly specific knowledge about the client's industry. Keng and Liu (1998) argue that one of the most important reasons for choosing an audit firm is its level of industry specialization.

6. Discussion

Taken together, our results indicate that there are several research opportunities for studies that are focused on accounting services quality. Most of the papers were published in areas like services management, and the literature still lacks theoretical development about the relation between specific factors that may be relevant for the perception of quality for accounting services providers.

Although many accounting services providers exist around the globe, only 22 papers attempt to consider this type of specialized service, despite its importance ( Aga and Safakli, 2007 ; Bean et al. , 1996 ; Lee et al. , 2016 ; Groff et al. , 2015 ). Papers are usually discussed more on the “services” field, and not in accounting Journals. It may be relevant for accounting researchers to develop studies in order to better understand how accounting services are perceived and how this perception is affected by multiple factors.

Our results also indicate the presence of three main streams in accounting service quality: (1) competitiveness, (2) image and perceived value and (3) knowledge and professionalism. These three themes highlight different lens and levels to understand the perception of quality in accounting services.

First, relationships and comparisons between accounting firms can improve quality perceptions of delivered services. Market share, services' price and communication one-to-one are important to choose the service provider ( Armstrong and Smith, 1996 ; Lee, 2013 ). Thus, delivering quality to market is not only important for retail sector, in accounting services this is also considered. The management of an accounting firm (or office) and competition can generate opportunities to improve our knowledge in this area. We noted that none of the 22 papers investigated considers a comparison between different accounting sub-areas. It is important to understand the different ways to manage quality in accounting, audit, non-audit or tax services. In addition, there is a lack of case studies about accounting firms' successes and failures and how digital tools implementation can impact the quality of the services. It would be useful the development of conceptual models for managers in accounting firms (or offices).

The second issue is related to the customers' perceptions and corporate image. There is a main discussion about the perception of quality and how it can improve customers' satisfaction and loyalty. Accounting firms' image is also important to generate a better perception about service quality ( Aga and Safakli, 2007 ; Cameran et al. , 2010 ). While client focus is widely explored in marketing- and services-related literature, there is a lack of discussion among the accounting scientific community. This can be demonstrated by the fact that accounting service quality papers are mostly published in non-accounting journals. There is an opportunity to generate a theory that explores services quality, from the initial contact with the client until after the provision of services. In addition, previous studies captured perceived service quality using general models as SERVQUAL ( Parasuraman et al. , 1988 ). With a better understanding about how clients behave, there is a possibility to create new service quality measurement models based specific accounting clients' perceptions.

Finally, the third issue is accounting firms as KIBS. We can investigate the quality of accounting services looking for professional features of these firms. There is a need for innovation and constant investments in training employees. Technical knowledge is an important characteristic of the accounting services industry ( Bakre, 2006 ). Thus, our findings indicate the need for a greater focus on accountants' education. For example, accounting and auditing Standards change constantly. Even though it is a relevant subject for accounting firms as KIBS, accountants' education was not the central point of any of the 22 articles investigated. A better understanding about accounting education providers and their organization might contribute to a better perception about the development of professional skills in order to achieve their learning outcomes.

In addition, there is an ongoing discussion about changes in services features and how a portion of accounting services may be digitalized and automated ( Lee et al. , 2016 ). If competition increases, it may be relevant to study how clients perceive quality ( Fleischman et al. , 2017 ). There is still a lack of a theoretical base developed specifically for accounting services. Most of the literature is based on broader theories related to services quality (e.g. Aga and Safakli, 2007 ; Lee et al. , 2016 ). It would be desirable that accounting services could be studied more specifically, benefiting from other areas that study KIBS.

The central issue to be explored is a better understanding about the role of the clients in relation to the provision of accounting services. According to our systematic literature review, clients have been treated secondarily, despite their relevance. It appears that there is still a myopic view of the literature about accounting services, considering only the service itself, disregarding certain external elements, like the client. Thus, the development of theories and methods for measuring accounting services quality, considering the client centricity in the process, is an important contribution to the accounting area. Accounting professionals can be best trained and prepared to delivery results expected by clients, benefiting everyone: accountants, clients, market and society. This has been the quality role of services in many areas, including accounting.

7. Conclusions

In view of a dispersed literature with different results, our study aimed to review and organize the accounting service quality theme, creating a path for the development of a main theory. We found 22 papers in scientific journals from Scopus and Web of Science databases. Our study leads to the conclusion that accounting service quality is more explored in other scientific areas such as service management and marketing. Even though there are three clear streams divided into competitiveness, image and perceived value and knowledge and professionalism, the accounting service quality theory needs to be further explored and well developed by accounting researchers.

7.1 Research agenda

Given this need for further exploration in the field, we identify several research opportunities in order to contribute with the area improvement:

Success and failures of accounting services providers: there is a need to develop more studies in order to understand the business phenomenon behind the provision of accounting services. Although some studies have focused on factors that impact client perception, we have not identified any work that explored management strategies. Research can be developed focusing on the determinants of successes and failures by accounting services providers, using primary or secondary data. For example, considering the ability for professional accountants to manage their own businesses. In this stream of research, entrepreneurship theories, such as innovation theory, may be applied.

Client centricity in accounting services: in services quality theory, clients' perceptions about the firms are important ( Cronin and Taylor, 1992 ). One of our clusters identify “corporate image and perceived value' as a key theme for accounting service quality. Studying the relationship between clients and providers might reveal new knowledge about accounting as a business and could contribute for more discussions about client-centricity in accounting services. Qualitative research, as case studies, can help to achieve new theories about the accounting services with this marketing approach. Further, quantitative studies with primary and secondary data can validate the proposed theories or hypotheses.

Digital accounting services: it is important to understand which type of service is being digitalized/automated and how digitalization will require new skills and bring an impact on the future of the profession. There is an open question if digital accounting services will increase competition and its effects on pricing. Understanding the client of digital services is a key to study factors that are relevant for quality perception. Qualitative research may contribute to identify potentially relevant factors for clients' perceptions, leading to quantitative designs in order to confirm the new proposed theoretical understanding about accounting digital services quality. Management theories may be relevant as a starting point for this research stream.

Services quality and accounting education: as discussed before, accounting services are characterized as KIBS. Thus, the service depends on employees' technical knowledge and training. As such, we could benefit about a better understanding on how accounting education considers (or not) services quality. The perceptions from professors and students may reveal how services quality is treated in accounting education programs in order to prepare current and future professionals. Future research may be focused on identifying challenges to be discussed in accounting as a discipline or within an educational framework.

Investigation of service quality in different types of accounting services: there are a range of sub-areas in accounting such as auditing, managerial and tax services. We have identified previous studies in some of these sub-areas, but none has compared the perception of quality considering their specificities. Thus, differences among sub-areas of accounting services could be explored in order to improve services quality theory that considers the range of accounting services.

Development of an accounting services quality theory with a measurement model: overall, there is a need for a theory designed for accounting services quality. The literature, so far, indicates an initial relevant path. However, prior papers are based on general theories and exploratory studies. The first step would be to identify quality attributes for accounting services. Qualitative research, based on interviews and focus groups, may be useful for identifying the attributes for subsequent empirical testing. The attributes may lead to the development of a specific measurement scale, resulting in an applied theory to accounting services quality.

Taken together, this research agenda shows how accounting services quality is relevant and is an emerging topic that demands future research about accounting professionals' skills, their activities and how their clients perceive quality in an environment of constant change.

7.2 Implications and limitations

Our research provides several contributions and implications. In theoretical terms, our results present an overview of a theme still little explored in accounting field. The cluster framework demonstrates current approaches in order to organize the accounting service quality streams. Further, the research agenda aims to contribute with the evolution of this research field, providing some gaps still not explored by accounting researchers. Given that, it is possible to stimulate new studies in order to create a more robust discussion about service quality in accounting literature.

In practical terms, we highlighted the importance in considering the service quality management in accounting firms. Given the current changes on services because of the digitalization and the increased market competition, it is important to generate strategies in order to meet customer expectations. In addition, by generating a more organized discussion and presenting the mean themes of the accounting service quality (knowledge, professionalism, competitiveness and image), it creates a perception of what need to be taken into account by audit and accounting firms to improve their quality management.

Although the results of our research may have several contributions, we also highlight some limitations. First, despite covering many scientific journals, our choice for using Scopus and Web of Science databases may provide some level of bias. New literature reviews could be preceded using different databases in order to find papers published in journals not covered in this current review. On the other hand, it is important to highlight that Scopus and Web of Science are the currently most important databases in the field. Second, given the objective of this study, we did not make a deep comparison of accounting service quality with other types of services. Further studies could make a literature review about service quality covering different types of KIBS to compare the results presented in literature about these services. This will be useful to provide discussions about the differences and similarities of these services in quality management perspective.

In sum, the path suggested by our study is the first step toward the construction of the accounting services quality theory. New gaps may arise with the topic increasement, as well as publications in accounting journals.

Methodological procedures

Cluster analysis

Most cited papers

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Nouri , H. and Parker , R.J. ( 2020 ), “ Turnover in public accounting firms: a literature review ”, Managerial Auditing Journal , Vol. 35 No. 2 , pp. 294 - 321 , doi: 10.1108/MAJ-03-2018-1823 .

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Zeithaml , V.A. ( 1988 ), “ Consumer perceptions of price, qualitye ”, Journal of Marketing , Vol. 52 No. 3 , pp. 2 - 22 , doi: 10.2307/1251446 .

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Zyznarska-Dworczak , B. ( 2018 ), “ The development perspectives of sustainable management accounting in Central and Eastern European countries ”, Sustainability , Vol. 10 No. 5 , pp. 1445 - 1458 .

Further reading

Doloreux , D. and Laperrière , A. ( 2014 ), “ Internationalisation and innovation in the knowledge-intensive business services ”, Service Business , Vol. 8 No. 4 , pp. 635 - 657 , doi: 10.1007/s11628-013-0211-0 .

Feeney , O. and Pierce , B. ( 2016 ), “ Strong structuration theory and accounting information: an empirical study ”, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal , Vol. 29 No. 7 , pp. 1152 - 1176 , doi: 10.1108/AAAJ-07-2015-2130 .

Kuula , S. , Haapasalo , H. and Tolonen , A. ( 2018 ), “ Cost-efficient co-creation of knowledge intensive business services ”, Service Business , Vol. 12 No. 4 , pp. 779 - 808 , doi: 10.1007/s11628-018-0380-y .

Pina , K. and Tether , B.S. ( 2016 ), “ Towards understanding variety in knowledge intensive business services by distinguishing their knowledge bases ”, Research Policy , Vol. 45 No. 2 , pp. 401 - 413 , doi: 10.1016/j.respol.2015.10.005 .

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq/Brazil), project 304209/2018-0, by Foundation for Research Support of Espírito Santo (FAPES/Brazil), projects 84513772 (599/2018) and 85395650 (228/2019), by Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT/Portugal) through NECE (Núcleo de Estudos em Ciências Empresariais), project UID/GES/04630/2020 and by IFTS (Instituto Fucape de Tecnologias Sociais), project 2018-2021.

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Accounting research and trust: a literature review

2011, Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management

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Gudrun Baldvinsdottir

Mizanur Rahman

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to provide a structured overview of literature in the nexus of trust and accounting. This can serve as a basis for future research, and thus provide a framework for asking more precise and focused research questions. Design/methodology/approach: All papers published in prominent accounting journals during a 10-year period were scanned. Papers pertaining to the field of trust and accounting were categorized and analyzed in more detail, and qualitatively classified in accordance with selected dimensions. The review was focused on papers explicitly exploring the link between accounting and trust. Findings: The greater part of the papers is in the field of management accounting. The majority of published papers in the field are based on sociological theory, but there are some economics-based papers. Sociologically-based analysis seems to provide more structure, but is also less paradigmatic in nature than economic theory. Only a minority of papers has an explicit definition of the concept of trust. Our conclusion is that the state of research is clearly non-paradigmatic in nature. Origininality/value: This is the only literature review that provides a comprehensive overview of research on trust and accounting. Thus, it is an aid in future research in the area.

Gabriella Wennblom

Management Accounting Research

Cristiano Busco

This paper combines insights from the sociology of knowledge and the emerging practice-based literature on learning and knowing to extend the institutional framework of accounting change developed by Burns and Scapens [Burns, J., Scapens, R.W., 2000. Conceptualising management accounting change: an institutional framework. Manage. Acc. Res., 11, 3–25]. In particular, it explores how management accounting systems (MAS) can be implicated in processes of learning and culture change, and used to identify ‘trustworthy’ solutions in the face of organisational crises. A case study of an Italian company, which was subject to massive change following its acquisition by General Electric, is used to discuss how, when crises arise and organisation members find themselves under intense pressure for change, their rationales and routinised behaviour, which are driven by the existing knowledge and cultural assumptions, are challenged. The case illustrates how MAS can act as sources of trust for the processes of change – i.e., accounting for trust; while at the same time being socially constructed objects of trust – i.e., trust for accounting. Drawing on the concept of personal trust and the notion of roles as access points to organisational (expert) systems, the paper discusses how, in this case, finance experts facilitated the acceptance and progressive sharing of new rationales and routines. Clearly, this does not guarantee that change will occur or occur in some ‘desired’ direction in other cases, but it increases the possibility of replacing trust in the predictability of routines with feelings of trust for change.

A considerable amount of research has examined trust since our 1995 publication. We revisit some of the critical issues that we addressed and provide clarifications and extensions of the topics of levels of analysis, time, control systems, reciprocity, and measurement. We also recognize recent research in new areas of trust, such as affect, emotion, violation and repair, distrust, international and cross-cultural issues, and context-specific models, and we identify promising avenues for future research. As we wrote our 1995 paper on trust (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995), we were struck by the relative scarcity of research in the mainstream management literature focusing directly on trust. This led us to several bodies of literature , including management, psychology, philosophy , and economics. We found that scholars from diverse disciplines were presenting many insightful views and perspectives on trust but that many of them seemed to talk past one another. Our goal was to integrate these perspectives into a single model. This work came to fruition at about the same time as several other works on trust. Papers on trust by Hosmer (1995) and McAllister (1995) were also published in Academy of Management journals that year, followed the next year by a book edited by Kramer and Tyler (1996). The con-fluence of these works, fueled by practical concerns raised by now infamous government and corporate scandals over the next decade, produced a groundswell of interest in understanding this basic and ubiquitous construct. Since we were drawing perspectives from multiple disciplines as inputs to the model, we wanted to provide a model that was generally applicable and would be used across multiple disciplines. We were gratified to find in a recent search that our paper has been cited over 1,100 times (according to Google Scholar). In addition to management and general business, it has been cited in such diverse areas as marketing, sociology, health care, and agribusiness. We would like to use this opportunity to revisit some of the issues raised by our 1995 paper and review how the field has dealt with them. We will also discuss the new concerns and opportunities for future research on trust.

Journal Plus Education

Ildikó Rudnák

This paper summarizes the main findings of the literature on 'trust in organizations', relying mainly on the latest publications. The definitions, forms and development possibilities of trust used exclusively at the organizational level are discussed in more detail, so the names of classical authors appear in this section as well.In addition to building, expanding, and rebuilding trust, we also talk about the consequences of lack of confidence.Based on the findings of the more than 30 scientific publications used, we have tried to present the essential existence of trust, either in the workplace or in the private world.

Organization Science

Vincenzo Perrone , Bill McEvily

Salman Alfarisi

In pursuit of a great many corporate crises and financial scandals undermining the public’s trust in organizations, which are referred as black swan events in literature, trust in an organization has become staggeringly pivotal to entrench legitimacy and corporate reputation within the environment that organization subsists since legitimacy and corporate reputation are correlated with a variety of covetable business outcomes. Hence, within the scope of this research, in which an extensive theoretical review was conducted largely in management and marketing literature, trust as a relational and social construct is discussed systematically in a way that clarifies the way trust is conceptually embraced. Moreover, the role of trust in building corporate reputation and trust in the context of internet were also discussed.

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• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S.

More Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2021 than in any other year on record, according to the latest available statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That included record numbers of both gun murders and gun suicides. Despite the increase in such fatalities, the rate of gun deaths – a statistic that accounts for the nation’s growing population – remained below the levels of earlier decades.

Here’s a closer look at gun deaths in the United States, based on a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the CDC, the FBI and other sources. You can also read key public opinion findings about U.S. gun violence and gun policy .

This Pew Research Center analysis examines the changing number and rate of gun deaths in the United States. It is based primarily on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The CDC’s statistics are based on information contained in official death certificates, while the FBI’s figures are based on information voluntarily submitted by thousands of police departments around the country.

For the number and rate of gun deaths over time, we relied on mortality statistics in the CDC’s WONDER database covering four distinct time periods:  1968 to 1978 ,  1979 to 1998 ,  1999 to 2020 , and 2021 . While these statistics are mostly comparable for the full 1968-2021 period, gun murders and suicides between 1968 and 1978 are classified by the CDC as involving firearms  and  explosives; those between 1979 and 2021 are classified as involving firearms only. Similarly, gun deaths involving law enforcement between 1968 and 1978 exclude those caused by “operations of war”; those between 1979 and 2021 include that category, which refers to gun deaths among military personnel or civilians  due to war or civil insurrection in the U.S . All CDC gun death estimates in this analysis are adjusted to account for age differences over time and across states.

The FBI’s statistics about the types of firearms used in gun murders in 2020 come from the bureau’s  Crime Data Explorer website . Specifically, they are drawn from the expanded homicide tables of the agency’s  2020 Crime in the United States report . The FBI’s statistics include murders and non-negligent manslaughters involving firearms.

How many people die from gun-related injuries in the U.S. each year?

In 2021, the most recent year for which complete data is available, 48,830 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S., according to the CDC. That figure includes gun murders and gun suicides, along with three less common types of gun-related deaths tracked by the CDC: those that were accidental, those that involved law enforcement and those whose circumstances could not be determined. The total excludes deaths in which gunshot injuries played a contributing, but not principal, role. (CDC fatality statistics are based on information contained in official death certificates, which identify a single cause of death.)

What share of U.S. gun deaths are murders and what share are suicides?

Though they tend to get less public attention than gun-related murders, suicides have long accounted for the majority of U.S. gun deaths . In 2021, 54% of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. were suicides (26,328), while 43% were murders (20,958), according to the CDC. The remaining gun deaths that year were accidental (549), involved law enforcement (537) or had undetermined circumstances (458).

What share of all murders and suicides in the U.S. involve a gun?

About eight-in-ten U.S. murders in 2021 – 20,958 out of 26,031, or 81% – involved a firearm. That marked the highest percentage since at least 1968, the earliest year for which the CDC has online records. More than half of all suicides in 2021 – 26,328 out of 48,183, or 55% – also involved a gun, the highest percentage since 2001.

How has the number of U.S. gun deaths changed over time?

The record 48,830 total gun deaths in 2021 reflect a 23% increase since 2019, before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic .

Gun murders, in particular, have climbed sharply during the pandemic, increasing 45% between 2019 and 2021, while the number of gun suicides rose 10% during that span.

The overall increase in U.S. gun deaths since the beginning of the pandemic includes an especially stark rise in such fatalities among children and teens under the age of 18. Gun deaths among children and teens rose 50% in just two years , from 1,732 in 2019 to 2,590 in 2021.

How has the rate of U.S. gun deaths changed over time?

While 2021 saw the highest total number of gun deaths in the U.S., this statistic does not take into account the nation’s growing population. On a per capita basis, there were 14.6 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 2021 – the highest rate since the early 1990s, but still well below the peak of 16.3 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 1974.

The gun murder rate in the U.S. remains below its peak level despite rising sharply during the pandemic. There were 6.7 gun murders per 100,000 people in 2021, below the 7.2 recorded in 1974.

The gun suicide rate, on the other hand, is now on par with its historical peak. There were 7.5 gun suicides per 100,000 people in 2021, statistically similar to the 7.7 measured in 1977. (One caveat when considering the 1970s figures: In the CDC’s database, gun murders and gun suicides between 1968 and 1978 are classified as those caused by firearms and explosives. In subsequent years, they are classified as deaths involving firearms only.)

Which states have the highest and lowest gun death rates in the U.S.?

The rate of gun fatalities varies widely from state to state. In 2021, the states with the highest total rates of gun-related deaths – counting murders, suicides and all other categories tracked by the CDC – included Mississippi (33.9 per 100,000 people), Louisiana (29.1), New Mexico (27.8), Alabama (26.4) and Wyoming (26.1). The states with the lowest total rates included Massachusetts (3.4), Hawaii (4.8), New Jersey (5.2), New York (5.4) and Rhode Island (5.6).

The results are somewhat different when looking at gun murder and gun suicide rates separately. The places with the highest gun murder rates in 2021 included the District of Columbia (22.3 per 100,000 people), Mississippi (21.2), Louisiana (18.4), Alabama (13.9) and New Mexico (11.7). Those with the lowest gun murder rates included Massachusetts (1.5), Idaho (1.5), Hawaii (1.6), Utah (2.1) and Iowa (2.2). Rate estimates are not available for Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont or Wyoming.

The states with the highest gun suicide rates in 2021 included Wyoming (22.8 per 100,000 people), Montana (21.1), Alaska (19.9), New Mexico (13.9) and Oklahoma (13.7). The states with the lowest gun suicide rates were Massachusetts (1.7), New Jersey (1.9), New York (2.0), Hawaii (2.8) and Connecticut (2.9). Rate estimates are not available for the District of Columbia.

How does the gun death rate in the U.S. compare with other countries?

The gun death rate in the U.S. is much higher than in most other nations, particularly developed nations. But it is still far below the rates in several Latin American countries, according to a 2018 study of 195 countries and territories by researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

The U.S. gun death rate was 10.6 per 100,000 people in 2016, the most recent year in the study, which used a somewhat different methodology from the CDC. That was far higher than in countries such as Canada (2.1 per 100,000) and Australia (1.0), as well as European nations such as France (2.7), Germany (0.9) and Spain (0.6). But the rate in the U.S. was much lower than in El Salvador (39.2 per 100,000 people), Venezuela (38.7), Guatemala (32.3), Colombia (25.9) and Honduras (22.5), the study found. Overall, the U.S. ranked 20th in its gun fatality rate that year .

How many people are killed in mass shootings in the U.S. every year?

This is a difficult question to answer because there is no single, agreed-upon definition of the term “mass shooting.” Definitions can vary depending on factors including the number of victims and the circumstances of the shooting.

The FBI collects data on “active shooter incidents,” which it defines as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” Using the FBI’s definition, 103 people – excluding the shooters – died in such incidents in 2021 .

The Gun Violence Archive, an online database of gun violence incidents in the U.S., defines mass shootings as incidents in which four or more people are shot, even if no one was killed (again excluding the shooters). Using this definition, 706 people died in these incidents in 2021 .

Regardless of the definition being used, fatalities in mass shooting incidents in the U.S. account for a small fraction of all gun murders that occur nationwide each year.

How has the number of mass shootings in the U.S. changed over time?

The same definitional issue that makes it challenging to calculate mass shooting fatalities comes into play when trying to determine the frequency of U.S. mass shootings over time. The unpredictability of these incidents also complicates matters: As Rand Corp. noted in a research brief , “Chance variability in the annual number of mass shooting incidents makes it challenging to discern a clear trend, and trend estimates will be sensitive to outliers and to the time frame chosen for analysis.”

The FBI found an increase in active shooter incidents between 2000 and 2021. There were three such incidents in 2000. By 2021, that figure had increased to 61.

Which types of firearms are most commonly used in gun murders in the U.S.?

In 2020, the most recent year for which the FBI has published data, handguns were involved in 59% of the 13,620 U.S. gun murders and non-negligent manslaughters for which data is available. Rifles – the category that includes guns sometimes referred to as “assault weapons” – were involved in 3% of firearm murders. Shotguns were involved in 1%. The remainder of gun homicides and non-negligent manslaughters (36%) involved other kinds of firearms or those classified as “type not stated.”

It’s important to note that the FBI’s statistics do not capture the details on all gun murders in the U.S. each year. The FBI’s data is based on information voluntarily submitted by police departments around the country, and not all agencies participate or provide complete information each year.

Note: This is an update of a post originally published on Aug. 16, 2019.

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A Bibliometric Analysis of the Scientific Research on Erectile Dysfunction

• Original Paper
• Published: 29 May 2024

Cite this article

• Abdulaziz Ali Y. Alzharani 1 , 2 ,
• Ali M. Alshami 1 ,
• Muhammad Ajmal Khan 3 ,
• Nadeem Siddique 4 &
• Turki Abualait   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8534-6171 1  

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Erectile dysfunction (ED) is a prevalent condition affecting over 150 million men worldwide. While there is a wealth of publications and research in the field of ED, there is a noticeable scarcity of bibliometric analyses of the literature on this topic. This study aims to analyze the scientific activity and research trends related to ED. We conducted a comprehensive search of the Scopus database to identify potentially relevant studies on ED published from 1841 to November 12, 2022. We used the primary keywords “erectile dysfunction” or “impotence” for the search. Several software tools were employed for data calculation and visualization. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and linear correlation statistical test were used. The main outcomes of interest included the number of publications, year of publication, document type, country of origin, affiliated organizations, and journals of publication. Our search revealed a total of 30,634 publications with a cumulative 657,894 citations in the field of ED literature over the past 18 decades. “Original Article” emerged as the most common document type, accounting for 22,292 records. The United States stood out as the most prolific country, contributing 8809 publications (25% of the total). The University of California in the United States led in research output with 581 publications. Notably, the ‘Journal of Sexual Medicine’ was the leading publication source, with 1715 publications associated with it. Clinicians and experts in sexual medicine should take authorship trends into account when they review ED articles to improve patient care. A primary strength of our study is that it presents a comprehensive bibliometric review of ED reports spanning 18 decades. Results are limited to ED literature published in the sexual medicine journals and the urology analyzed. The publication volume on ED literature witnessed a substantial increase from 1975 to 2022. The findings from this bibliometric analysis provide valuable insights into research hotspots and emerging trends in the field of ED, which can aid researchers in gaining a better understanding of this topic.

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Alzharani, A.A.Y., Alshami, A.M., Khan, M.A. et al. A Bibliometric Analysis of the Scientific Research on Erectile Dysfunction. Sex Disabil (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11195-024-09849-8

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