IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ijoais/v34y2019ic1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Impact of accounting process characteristics on accounting outsourcing - Comparison of users and non-users of cloud-based accounting information systems

Author

Listed:
  • Asatiani, Aleksandre
  • Apte, Uday
  • Penttinen, Esko
  • Rönkkö, Mikko
  • Saarinen, Timo

Abstract

Prior literature informs us that a company's decision to outsource a business process depends on process characteristics such as how frequently the process is performed or how specific the assets required by the process are. In this article, we compare the effects of accounting process characteristics on outsourcing decisions across users of traditional and cloud-based accounting information systems (AIS). By focusing on outsourcing of accounting processes among small and medium sized enterprises, we investigate the effect of five business process characteristics (frequency, human asset specificity, uncertainty, information intensity, and need for customer contact) on the outsourcing decision. Our results reveal that process frequency has a weaker negative effect on the outsourcing decision among users of cloud-based AIS. This appears to contribute to users of cloud-based AIS outsourcing a larger variety of accounting processes. Compared to traditional AIS, the inherent properties of cloud-based AIS such as ubiquitous access, scalability, and integration seem to encourage users of cloud-based AIS to also outsource processes that are frequently performed.

Suggested Citation

  • Asatiani, Aleksandre & Apte, Uday & Penttinen, Esko & Rönkkö, Mikko & Saarinen, Timo, 2019. "Impact of accounting process characteristics on accounting outsourcing - Comparison of users and non-users of cloud-based accounting information systems," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 1-1.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ijoais:v:34:y:2019:i:c:1
    DOI: 10.1016/j.accinf.2019.06.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1467089518300629
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.accinf.2019.06.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Williamson, Oliver E, 1979. "Transaction-Cost Economics: The Governance of Contractural Relations," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(2), pages 233-261, October.
    2. Uday M. Apte & Richard O. Mason, 1995. "Global Disaggregation of Information-Intensive Services," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(7), pages 1250-1262, July.
    3. Kedia, Ben L. & Mukherjee, Debmalya, 2009. "Understanding offshoring: A research framework based on disintegration, location and externalization advantages," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 250-261, July.
    4. Macher Jeffrey T & Richman Barak D, 2008. "Transaction Cost Economics: An Assessment of Empirical Research in the Social Sciences," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-65, May.
    5. Richard B. Chase, 1981. "The Customer Contact Approach to Services: Theoretical Bases and Practical Extensions," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 29(4), pages 698-706, August.
    6. De Vita, Glauco & Tekaya, Arafet & Wang, Catherine L., 2010. "Asset specificity's impact on outsourcing relationship performance: A disaggregated analysis by buyer-supplier asset specificity dimensions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(7), pages 657-666, July.
    7. Benlian, Alexander & Hess, Thomas, 2011. "Opportunities and risks of Software-as-a-Service: Findings from a survey of IT executives," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 58025, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    8. Alexander Benlian & Thomas Hess & Peter Buxmann, 2009. "Drivers of SaaS-Adoption – An Empirical Study of Different Application Types," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 1(5), pages 357-369, October.
    9. Benlian, Alexander & Hess, Thomas & Buxmann, Peter, 2009. "Drivers of SaaS-Adoption – An Empirical Study of different Application Types," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 36690, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    10. Subhankar Dhar, 2012. "From outsourcing to Cloud computing: evolution of IT services," Management Research Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 35(8), pages 664-675, July.
    11. Benlian, Alexander & Hess, T., 2010. "The risks of sourcing software as a service — An empirical analysis of adopters and non-adopters," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 57926, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    12. Armstrong, J. Scott & Overton, Terry S., 1977. "Estimating Nonresponse Bias in Mail Surveys," MPRA Paper 81694, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Macher, Jeffrey T. & Richman, Barak D., 2008. "Transaction Cost Economics: An Assessment of Empirical Research in the Social Sciences," Business and Politics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(1), pages 1-63, April.
    14. Sunil Mithas & Jonathan Whitaker, 2007. "Is the World Flat or Spiky? Information Intensity, Skills, and Global Service Disaggregation," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 18(3), pages 237-259, September.
    15. Benoit Aubert & Michel Patry & Suzanne Rivard, 1998. "Assessing the Risk of IT Outsourcing," CIRANO Working Papers 98s-16, CIRANO.
    16. Rowe, Gene & Wright, George, 1999. "The Delphi technique as a forecasting tool: issues and analysis," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 353-375, October.
    17. von der Gracht, Heiko A., 2012. "Consensus measurement in Delphi studies," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 79(8), pages 1525-1536.
    18. Patricia Everaert & Gerrit Sarens & Jan Rommel, 2010. "Using Transaction Cost Economics to explain outsourcing of accounting," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 93-112, July.
    19. Prasad, Acklesh & Green, Peter & Heales, Jon, 2014. "On governance structures for the cloud computing services and assessing their effectiveness," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 335-356.
    20. Prasad, Acklesh & Green, Peter, 2015. "Governing cloud computing services: Reconsideration of IT governance structures," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 45-58.
    21. Mingfeng Lin & Henry C. Lucas & Galit Shmueli, 2013. "Research Commentary ---Too Big to Fail: Large Samples and the p -Value Problem," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(4), pages 906-917, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kumar, Satish & Marrone, Mauricio & Liu, Qi & Pandey, Nitesh, 2020. "Twenty years of the International Journal of Accounting Information Systems: A bibliometric analysis," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    2. Kubota, Takaya & Okuda, Shin'ya, 2023. "Relationship between top managers’ interest in accounting information and accounting practices in startups," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    3. Ma, Darren & Fisher, Richard & Nesbit, Trevor, 2021. "Cloud-based client accounting and small and medium accounting practices: Adoption and impact," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    4. Abbas Saad Hamada Alkhuzaie & Muzaffar Asad & Ala'a Zuhair Ahmad Mansour & Mohammed Ali Bait Ali Sulaiman & Umar Nawaz Kayani & Muhammad Uzair Asif, 2024. "Compliance with Accounting Standards by Jordanian SMEs," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 1, pages 89-107.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bhattacharya, Ananya & Singh, Prakash J. & Nand, Alka Ashwini, 2015. "Antecedents of buyer opportunistic behavior in outsourcing relationships," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 258-268.
    2. Cruz, Antonio Miguel & Haugan, Gregory L. & Rincon, Adriana Maria Rios, 2014. "The effects of asset specificity on maintenance financial performance: An empirical application of Transaction Cost Theory to the medical device maintenance field," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 237(3), pages 1037-1053.
    3. Sharon Novak & Scott Stern, 2009. "Complementarity Among Vertical Integration Decisions: Evidence from Automobile Product Development," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(2), pages 311-332, February.
    4. Schneider, Christian O. & Bremen, Philipp & Schönsleben, Paul & Alard, Robert, 2013. "Transaction cost economics in global sourcing: Assessing regional differences and implications for performance," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(1), pages 243-254.
    5. Hermano, Víctor & Martín-Cruz, Natalia, 2013. "How to Deliver Foreign Aid? The Case of Projects Governed by the Spanish International Agency," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 298-314.
    6. Geoffrey M. Hodgson, 2010. "Limits of Transaction Cost Analysis," Chapters, in: Peter G. Klein & Michael E. Sykuta (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Transaction Cost Economics, chapter 28, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Alex Eapen & Rekha Krishnan, 2019. "Transferring Tacit Know-How: Do Opportunism Safeguards Matter for Firm Boundary Decisions?," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(4), pages 715-734, July.
    8. Euripidis Loukis & Spyros Arvanitis & Niki Kyriakou, 2017. "An empirical investigation of the effects of firm characteristics on the propensity to adopt cloud computing," Information Systems and e-Business Management, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 963-988, November.
    9. Phan, Thu-Ha Dang & Brouwer, Roy & Davidson, Marc David, 2017. "A Global Survey and Review of the Determinants of Transaction Costs of Forestry Carbon Projects," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 1-10.
    10. Raluca I. Iorgulescu & John M. Polimeni, 2017. "Could Socioeconomic Metabolism Be Molded Bytransaction Costs?," Annals - Economy Series, Constantin Brancusi University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 3, pages 68-74, June.
    11. Mikko Ketokivi & Joseph T. Mahoney, 2020. "Transaction Cost Economics As a Theory of Supply Chain Efficiency," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(4), pages 1011-1031, April.
    12. Francisco Brahm & Jorge Tarzijan, 2016. "Relational Contracts and Collaboration in the Supply Chain: Impact of Expected Future Business Volume on the Make-or-Buy Decision," Journal of Supply Chain Management, Institute for Supply Management, vol. 52(3), pages 48-67, July.
    13. Daniel Veit & Eric Clemons & Alexander Benlian & Peter Buxmann & Thomas Hess & Dennis Kundisch & Jan Leimeister & Peter Loos & Martin Spann, 2014. "Business Models," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 6(1), pages 45-53, February.
    14. Lewin, Arie Y. & Volberda, Henk W., 2011. "Co-evolution of global sourcing: The need to understand the underlying mechanisms of firm-decisions to offshore," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 241-251, June.
    15. Peter G. Klein & Michael E. Sykuta (ed.), 2010. "The Elgar Companion to Transaction Cost Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 4136.
    16. Aric Rindfleisch, 2020. "Transaction cost theory: past, present and future," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 10(1), pages 85-97, June.
    17. Förster, Bernadette, 2015. "Technology foresight for sustainable production in the German automotive supplier industry," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 237-248.
    18. Stephan Manning & Silvia Massini & Carine Peeters & Arie Y. Lewin, 2018. "The changing rationale for governance choices: Early vs. late adopters of global services sourcing," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(8), pages 2303-2334, August.
    19. Niesten, Eva & Jolink, Albert, 2012. "Incentives, opportunism and behavioral uncertainty in electricity industries," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 65(7), pages 1031-1039.
    20. Chin-Lung Hsu & Judy Chuan-Chuan Lin, 2016. "Factors affecting the adoption of cloud services in enterprises," Information Systems and e-Business Management, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 791-822, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ijoais:v:34:y:2019:i:c:1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/international-journal-of-accounting-information-systems/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.