Period-tracking apps: how femtech creates value for users and platforms

Many cultures see menstruation as a taboo, but technology is thought by many to provide a solution, writes Alnoor Bhiman

Digital data and management accounting: why we need to rethink research methods

Digitalisation is having profound effects on how enterprises function. Its impact on accounting research is growing as the rise of the internet, mobile technologies and digital economy tools generate depth, breadth and variety of data that far exceed what researchers have had access to in the past. But whilst social scientists interested in organisational issues are starting to question conventional methodological approaches to the study of contexts where digital data forms are drawn upon, little such concern has been voiced in the management accounting literature. This paper seeks to explore the continued applicability of conventional methodological thinking when carrying out investigations within digital data environments to inform management accounting studies. It considers why digitalisation impacts methodological precepts, identifies how descriptive and explanatory modes of questioning which management accountants have conventionally opted for need rethinking, discusses ways in which digital data characteristics alter what can be drawn from empirical studies, and points to the potential offered within digitalised settings for methodological advance. It concludes by highlighting the necessity, where digitalisation exists, to question modes of posing questions and to reconsider the applicability of methodological precepts deployed by management accounting researchers to date

As businesses go digital, accounting takes on a new meaning

Traditionally, accounting systems have focused on the rear-view mirror, capturing information about economic transactions that have occurred. Now, however, digital data can point to future economic exchanges. Al Bhimani writes that, if accountants are to retain their usefulness, rather than recording retrospective insights, they must report on predictive insights based on data analysis that is much wider than what accounting information systems have been set up to do

Is accounting keeping pace with digitalization?

Digital transformations are taking place across enterprises in every industry. Becoming digital is both essential to compete and virtually unstoppable. All previous major technological disruptions have led to financial intelligence being altered to ensure more effective decision making in the face of change. This article considers issues that organizations going digital need to address in relation to accounting information provision. It discusses several points: accounting’s need to move toward the delivery of predictive information rather than relying on extrapolations of historical data; the recognition that machines make more decisions that alter accounting information needs, structures, and contents; the importance of recognizing the “data-learning-action” loop that is emerging; the emergence of “strat-perational” information contexts; and the relevance of prioritizing qualitative insights in decision making

Tech start-ups need a different approach to financial management

We find ourselves today at the start of an industrial revolution. There have been others of course. The first revolution happened 250 years ago. Its engine was mechanisation. Another, about a hundred years ago, was all about electrification and mass production. Then 50 years ago, electronics and automation started a third revolution

Exploring big data’s strategic consequences

Big data multiplies the potential of organizational data engagement and the shaping of enterprise strategy processes. The paper argues that big data qualitatively alters strategic processes by extending managerial possibilities for acting on both structured and unstructured information because the conceptually presumed linear links between corporate strategy, firm structure and information systems design no longer hold. Big data draws organizational information systems into a shifting dynamic of altered forms of information access and use as part of a wider complex loop of interventions and analyses. Big data analyses are for many firms becoming indispensable strategic ploys which themselves alter strategies that further mobilize big data consequences. The paper also argues that the use of big data for directing enterprise activities effects behavioural and political organizational consequences. The paper conclude

Do national development factors affect cryptocurrency adoption?

The adoption of cryptocurrencies is uneven across businesses, industries, and countries. Different forces drive cryptocurrency adoption (CA) dependent on the national level of development. We empirically assess the relationship between certain macro-national developmental indicators and cryptocurrency deployment across 137 countries. Linear regressions determine specific associations with cryptocurrency adoption. We report that CA correlates positively and in decreasing order with Education, the Human Development Index, the Network Readiness Index, the Gini index, Democracy, Regulatory Quality, and Gross Domestic Product, and negatively and in decreasing order with Control of Corruption, the Corruption Perception Index, and the Economic Freedom Index. We draw on our findings to point to policy implications tied to the usage of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies more widely and identify further research possibilities

Firms adopt corporate social responsibility for complex reasons

Some don't even report it and most fail to achieve their primary goal for doing CSR, argue Alnoor Bhimani, Hanna Silvola and Prabhu Sivabala