Discuss about the Security and Privacy in Cyber-Physical Systems.
Technology positively and negatively affects accounting industry and accountancy as a profession. The developed research is seeking to find out if the use of technology can be used to replace the accounting profession as a whole. The research, therefore, goes down to find the different ways in which technological advancement can be used in the different perspective as a way of transforming the industry. The accounting proposal is made up of three major parts that guide us into understanding the purpose of the research.
The research begins with an introduction. The introduction helps as to understand the problems that the companies are having to demand a research proposal. It starts by giving background information about the difficulties the accountancy profession has faced with the development of technology. Problems that arise from technological soft wares and smart products that can make the business be rendered useless by the company.
The introduction further has a research question. The question is supposed to help the research remain in the context of the problem. The research question is divided into primary and secondary. The central question is quite general to the problem. The secondary questions are many simple questions that will be important in finding the answers to the main issue. They are quite specific and based on particular essential sideline elements of accounting. The introduction further identifies the aim and the objectives of the research. The goals are focused on general entities of the accountancy profession. The targets will be achieved by answering the primary question. When the study explains the fundamental problem, then the research proposal shall have fulfilled its purpose. The objectives different from the aims of the study are quite goal specific. The secondary research questions will answer the objectives.
The second major part of the research proposal is the literature review. The review further focuses on the implication technological advancement has on accounting managers, the companies and the accounting industry in general. The last building of the review focuses on the different ways in which the papers fail to address the issue of technological properties replacing accountancy. Therefore paving the way for further research. The literature review forms the theoretical background of the research.
The final most crucial part of the research proposal is the methodology that the research is going to be conducted. The research proposal will treat this problem as qualitative. Therefore the method used is based on the qualitative approach. The approach involves using the design that will help analyze the data collected into solving the research problem. The research has further used both secondary and primary data in finding ways of addressing the research problem. The methodology is, therefore, is mixed, but most conclusions are drawn from the qualitative method of research. The research further justifies the reason for choosing a particular company and a few others as the significant samples for the analysis. The research ends in a conclusion that advises on the necessary reason to conduct a further investigation from the proposal.
The accountancy profession is perceived to be one of the most complicated. These are because it deals with a lot of numbers and workouts. It also deals with several very critical and vital decisions to make. Therefore accounting forms the core of business for different companies and organizations. The development of technology, however, has made the profession lose its value according to a few organizations. The coming of smart products and soft wares that can disseminate accounting information and operations with very minimal error makes personal accounting a traditional value. These advantages have led to many companies and organizations thinking that human technology accountancy is backward and doesn’t help anymore. Most company management is therefore left undecided on whether to partially or fully endorse technological accounting or personal accountancy. The research, therefore, is developed to find how technology has disrupted accountancy as a profession. This stalemate is, therefore, tearing companies apart. The research findings will, thus, aid the companies in making an informed decision about the same deadlock.
If technology has affected decisions made by accountants, the diversity, and training of accountants that depend on technology and the various professional demands that technology has impacted on accountancy as a profession. Apart from having complicated the job, the advancement of technology has also changed on the accounting industry as a whole entity. The research is focusing on the industry as a complete look to determine if the profession is relevant anymore to the demands of companies and organizations.
This forms the basis of the research. Especially after the is raised concern of organization wanting to lay off the accounting staff and instead hire managers, who have managerial skills to double up as accountants since smart technological products and will do the bulk of the work
Can technology be a replacement of the traditional accountancy profession?
These are questions that help develop the objectives of the research proposal. They will also help to establish the main problem. They include;
Existing literature offers scant evidence that praises the existence of technological advancement and accounting systems. Most companies and their top management depend on extensive range technology systems according to Gerdine and Greve 2004.
Financial accounting managers need financial and accounting data. The data is supposed to be used for plans of the company. According to Allan Miller and Micheal Boelhje, the best ways to get such data is by use of smart products. The intelligent products can be used to collect data from individuals who might not be there at that time. The smart product will receive information and feedback from the interviewee without the physical appearance of that interviewee needed. These, therefore, stresses how technology has made accounting feedback very flexible.
Chenhall and Morris 2014 recognizes that accounting there is full transparency that has developed the outstanding use of technology. Inbuilt validation by individual accountant can be very difficult. The focus of accountants must now focus more on accuracy than overall performance. The center of accountants must now change from the professionalism to meeting the technological demands of the new software systems.
According to Sadia Majeed, 2011 acknowledges that although technological adoption is right, it comes with a lot of risk to the accountants that are ignored. Therefore while exploiting opportunities of there should be understanding and knowledge of the required soft wares.
Literature review on the risk posed by technology on accountancy as a profession
Noellette Conway 2009 acknowledge that business data is the first advantage that technology has on personal accountancy. Large volumes of unstructured data are very difficult for human accountants to handle. There is so much time taken by professional accountants to analyze these levels of data. With the evolving of finances and accountancy soft wares take very little time to examine large scales of data. This method is called cognitive computing. Most firms prefer cognitive computing than the use of professional social accounting.
Hongjjang Xu, 2010 acknowledges that partners embrace financial statement done by technological forms than traditional human accountants. The audit firms that provide insight into accounting books for example Deloitte, Lucas and other vital firms that vary the value of accountancy prefer technological accounting for the following reasons. The reason that technology allows such firms to anticipate client needs and value considerations. Furthermore, they use technology to predict the future trends of the accounting industry. The risk and value of the accounting industry are also found from soft wares that human analysis. With all this offers business offers that software provides to organizational owners at a reduced cost they are likely to prefer technological accounting to traditional rational accounting.
Osmond Vitez 2010 stresses more on technology taking over the accounting industry. Use of robotic process automation. This automation takes most of the process of the finance staff. Finance staff should, therefore, venture into the new field. The action of team high-grade finance skills. The use of this robotics as recorded by many firms is prevalent. The finance staff is mostly accountant who might be laid off or asked to join management units of technology.
The accounting staff is also encouraged to be lifelong learners in the development of technology. The advancement of technology happens very first. Soft wares develop every time. The accountant to keep trend and pace should keep abreast with this forms of technology. The innovation and dynamics around accountants should make them always want to learn more. The companies are therefore reluctant to support accounting staff for them to learn the diverting technology. The companies would prefer using technology directly instead. These prove the risk of accounting staff losing their careers to the already existing technological advancement. This assumption is according to Pierre J. Richard, Timothy M. Devinney and George S. Yip 2008.
The Boulianne 2007 argument summarizes it in two ways. There should be awake up call for accountants. The professional accountants today will be different from future professional accountants due to different advancement in technology. The embracement of technology is accelerating the industry in very first way and pace. The profession is becoming quite complex than the traditional one. He secondly adds that changing roles of management in companies will soon be unavoidable. This is because the skills and competence of professionals will not be tested by organizations like it was previously done. Organizations might prefer software skilled individuals with managerial skills rather traditionally trained accountants. This is to ensure future relevance of members of the accounting profession (Marshall and Rossman 2014). This literature, therefore, agrees with the question statement of the research that technology can replace accountancy as a profession.
All the literature in this review agrees strongly that technology is taking over the accountancy profession. They first agree that technology has advantages over the human form of technology. Technology has affected the industry. Most companies have technology saving them of the cost they would use on social accounting. The companies prefer to use managerial persons who can use their technological skills and blend it with accounting skills for the benefit of the company. The pieces of literature acknowledge that the advancement is too fast for companies and accountants to keep up with. The pace, therefore, leads to the uneasiness of operations and jobs. The organizations, therefore, prefer using actual technologies than human.
The articles have pretty well supported the direction of endorsing technology in the accounting profession. They make accounting profession look like it is not complicated and that technology can easily replace it. Accounting professions are impossible to replace with technology based on particular complexities. Technology can never achieve accounting creativity. Accounting creativity is a decision by accounting managers in implementing specific accounting standards and policy (Thuraisingham et al. 2016). These decisions have to be managed by a human professional accountant.
Apart from accounting creativity, there are several decisions that soft wares cannot make for an organization. These, therefore, fail to recognize the roles played by accountants that cannot be replaced by technological robotics (Ahinful et al. 2017).
The future pieces of literature should, therefore, address the need for identifying particular professional accounting skills that cannot be compromised by the use of technology.
Design & Methodology |
Plan and justification |
Research type (exploratory, descriptive or causal) |
The research is proposing to use exploratory research. The exploratory research is used since the accounting technology has not been used so much by previous research. The use of exploratory research will always pave way for in depth discussions with experts. The targeted experts include accountant employees, managers and IT experts. The use of exploratory research allows for the in depth interviews of focus groups. The research will deal with accountants as focus group therefore using exploratory research is important for the study. The general phenomenon that technology is taking over the accountancy profession is biased. The exploratory format therefore provides a platform for insight check of the same. Since the research is professional specific and doesn’t work with a large population. Exploratory research helps keep focus on the accounting as a professional group. The nature of the problem is rather applied. The applied therefore gives an advantage by providing flexibility in approaching the problem (Anderson et al. 2015). There is therefore need to make a decision within a short time. The time limit therefore makes exploratory research the best method to use (Aryee et al. 2015). |
Research approach (qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods) |
Qualitative approach is the best to use for the research. The approach is the best since is the data being dealt with is quite non numerical (Bertino 2016,). The kind of data being dealt with by research is qualitative. The research questions require answers that are meanings, concepts and comparisons. The answers would be best represented qualitatively. Therefore qualitative approach is the best use for the research. Qualitative research is the best since it gives room for argument. The kind of data allows needs a lot of argument. With objectives that needs to evaluate various outcomes its best that the research applies the qualitative approach (Goddard 2017). Since this research seems like a means and orientation format, the qualitative approach is the best to use. The qualitative approach should also give the best insight to scholarly reviews (Eisenschmidt and Schmidt 2016). |
Design & Methodology |
Plan and justification |
Type of data (primary or secondary data) |
SECONDARY. The data used will be secondary from government entities and administrative organizations. The data will also be obtained from journals published by different accounting entities for example; the AASB and IRFS (Loeb 2015). The companies can give proper comparisons from CEOs and managers from companies. The information about companies can be difficult to access first hand from their employees. It is for such a reason that it becomes easy for use of secondary data as source for the research (Kelly 2017). The use of secondary data also gives us a background to argue from. Therefore there is already existing reliability and validity (Marshall and Rossman 2014). Therefore for our research is creates a baseline for primary research. The data also can be proven if its current therefore increasing reliability of the data. A lot of time shall have been saved by using secondary data (Masutha and Rogerson 2015). The research needs a frequent feedback within a short time therefore use of secondary data provides a platform for reducing time that will spent on the research study (Millo, Barman and Hall 2016). The use of secondary data is also cost effective. |
(survey, experiment, observation, interview or focus group) |
The data collection plan depends on the type of research and the type of approach preferred. Since the research requires qualitative data and professional view, it is preferable to use interviews and questionnaires. The interview should be structured so that the professionals don’t drift away from the research information (Modell, Vinnari and Lukka 2017). The questions that will be used for the interview will be generated from the interviewees. The interview will be conducted in different ways. The interview can be conducted face to face especially for accounting managers who are directly affected by the research problem. For organizational managers the best way to conduct the interviews is through phone. The interviews will also be organised through smart phones for customers who receive accounting services (Pasko 2017). The accountants and IT experts will not have a structured interview but one that rather opens up to them so that a lot of the information from them is used, since it will be very relevant (Nurunnabi 2015). The questionnaire will be used for other employees who are financial experts in other fields but not accounting. The questionnaires will be open ended so that they express their views freely (Reddy 2015). Since the research is based on qualitative data, an exclusive interview would really be helpful for the research (Sadeghi, Wachsmann and Waidner 2015). |
Sampling Plan : – Sampling frame – Sampling methods (probability or non-probability) – Sampling technique – Sampling characteristics – Sampling size |
Sampling frame, the interview will involve; manager brown capped company IT Expert from the flamingos company. Accounting tutor professional from various accounting colleges. The research will not focus on any gender or age for the study. The research focus on profession rather than any external characteristics (Scott 2015). Since the research requires professional views, the study will use snowball sampling method. As much as it may be difficult to identify the ones exactly to be used but snowball method allows for general additional information (Sajid, Abbas and Saleem 2016). The companies for the research will be chosen at random. Random sampling will help in improving biasness and prior code information (Stimmel 2016). The sample size would be a minimum number of fifty people per person. Each accounting spotted company and college will produce 50 members for interview. |
Data Analysis plan (theme-based or statistical analysis) |
Since the approach was qualitative, the analysis of the data will be theme based. The analysis will be pinpointing patterns of the research findings and what is in the journals and literatures used. The analysis will also examine the research findings with the already created baseline assumption. The divergent approach is the most appropriate. The coding of six phases that will create meaningful patterns and established processes (Song, Fink and Jeschke 2017). The analysis will end by reviewing the previous themes and determining the most relatable theme. The relatable themes will then form the last report of the research. |
Ethical consideration regarding data collection plan |
The research interviews will be conducted to voluntary accountants. The accountants who will feel offended will not be interviewed (Sudaryanti et al. 2015). This code will be done to all the professional that will be interviewed. The interviews will be public if the interviewee wants it privatised (West 2018). The interview will be performed within all the ethical codes. Irrelevant questions will not be asked. Respondents will be informed of their consent. There will be no implications for participants pegged on the information they will provide (Vera 2018). |
Conclusion
According to the proposal, the research should, therefore, be conducted. The project has shown beyond reasonable doubt the need to solve the research problem. The plan further proposes its aims and objectives proving also the need to conduct the research. The proposal also opens up to the fact these objectives can only be achieved through particular methodologies. It further shows how research methodology can be conducted to meet the specific goals and aims. The method contains a part that informs about the various samples and ethical considerations which will act as the proper guidance to achieving the objectives of the research.
The proposal opens up to previous literature and how they influence the current researchers and decisions. It identifies the loopholes that the documentation did not address. The gaps identified is part of what makes the research relevant. The proposal, therefore, therefore, makes the research on disruption of accountancy as a profession by technological advancement very relevant.
References
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