China Case

Tight global competition forces companies to search for cost cuttings in all functions, including support functions. The call for better decision and control support (directly value adding) together with cost effective processes has led to outsourcing and the establishment of shared service centers; to more efficient, especially cost efficient, accounting processes in general. It is a fact that IT can help in realizing such objectives. Another question though is, does this also mean reduced decision times and more effective decision-making?

Data warehouse technology and the rapidly increased supply of analytical package software (Data Warehousing, OnLine Analytical Processing, OLAP; Data Mining; Business Intelligence Portals; see Berson and Smith, 1997; Thomsen, 2002) have empowered many enhancements in multidimensional analytical power and the efficiency of accounting processes, but obviously only to a limited extent.

While it seems to be widely acknowledged that IT plays an important role (and increasingly so) in the field of accounting, the relationships between IT and accounting, especially as regards management accounting and control, has been studied relatively little, although the number of studies in thefield seems to be increasing. The bold claims in professional publications (see Efendi et al., 2006) that IT development has had the single most dramatic impact among various drivers as accounting has been transformed into a knowledge services profession (see the recent literature on the changing role of management accountants, e.g. Byrne and Pierce, 2007) have in general been poorly reflected in recent accounting research.

Tight global competition forces companies to search for cost cuttings in all functions, including support functions. The call for better decision and control support (directly value adding) together with cost effective processes has led to outsourcing and the establishment of shared service centers; to more efficient, especially cost efficient, accounting processes in general. It is a fact that IT can help in realizing such objectives. Another question though is, does this also mean reduced decision times and more effective decision-making?

Data warehouse technology and the rapidly increased supply of analytical package software (Data Warehousing, OnLine Analytical Processing, OLAP; Data Mining; Business Intelligence Portals; see Berson and Smith, 1997; Thomsen, 2002) have empowered many enhancements in multidimensional analytical power and the efficiency of accounting processes, but obviously only to a limited extent.

While it seems to be widely acknowledged that IT plays an important role (and increasingly so) in the field of accounting, the relationships between IT and accounting, especially as regards management accounting and control, has been studied relatively little, although the number of studies in thefield seems to be increasing. The bold claims in professional