Big Data and Corporate Reporting - Impacts and Paradoxes PDF

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
Big Data and corporate reporting: impacts and paradoxes

Khaldoon Al-Htaybat, Larissa von Alberti-Alhtaybat,
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AAAJ
30,4 Big Data and corporate reporting:
impacts and paradoxes
Khaldoon Al-Htaybat and Larissa von Alberti-Alhtaybat
Accounting Department, Faculty of Economics and Administration,
850 King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the phenomenon of Big Data and corporate reporting,
and to determine the impact of Big Data and the current Big Data state of mind with regard to corporate
reporting, what accountant and non-accountant participants’ perceptions are of the phenomenon, what the
accountants’ role is and will be in this regard, and what opportunities and risks are associated with Big Data
and corporate reporting. Furthermore, this study seeks to identify the inherent technological paradoxes of
Big Data and corporate reporting.
Design/methodology/approach – The current study is qualitative in nature and assumes an interpretive
stance, investigating participants’ perceptions of the phenomenon of Big Data and corporate reporting.
To this end, interview data from 25 participants, video and text material, were analysed to enhance and
triangulate findings. A four-fold sampling strategy was employed to ensure that any collected data would
contribute to the findings. Data were analysed on the basis of open and selective coding stages. Data
collection and analysis took place in two stages, in 2014 and in 2016.
Findings – Three topics, or categories, emerged from the data analysis, which have sufficient explanatory
power to illustrate the phenomenon of Big Data and corporate reporting, namely the Big Data state of mind and
corporate reporting, accountants’ role and future related to Big Data, and perceived opportunities and risks of
Big Data. Features of a new approach to corporate reporting were identified and discussed. Furthermore, four
paradoxes emerged to express inherent opposing positions of Big Data and corporate reporting, namely
empowerment vs enslavement, fulfilling vs creating needs, reliability vs timeliness and simplicity vs complexity.
Originality/value – The original contribution of the study lies in the empirical investigation of the phenomenon
of Big Data and corporate reporting as one of the most recent and praised developments in the accounting context.
The dual communication flows of corporate reporting with Big Data is an important element of the findings,
which can enhance the prospective financial statements significantly. Finally, technological paradoxes of Big Data
and corporate reporting are discussed for the first time, two of which are based on the literature and the remaining
two are inherent in the phenomenon of Big Data and corporate reporting.
Keywords Paradoxes, Big Data, Corporate reporting, Accountants’ role, Big Data state of mind,
Future developments
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The digital revolution in the past few decades had led to the “pervasive phenomenon of
Big Data” (Moffitt and Vasarhelyi, 2013, p. 2), which, in recent years, has caused quite a
hype. “Data is the new oil” is one of the popular catchphrases; “90% of the world’s data has
been created since 2010” is a frequently mentioned fact, and in general the belief is that
Big Data poses a great opportunity for organisations, governments and individuals to
provide solutions to existing and future problems.
Big Data has manifested itself in the corporate context (Moffitt and Vasarhelyi, 2013;
Vasarhelyi et al., 2015) – marketing, operations, planning/budgeting/sales forecasting are
common examples where Big Data is utilised to provide more accurate estimations, determine
potential problems and provide solutions, support value creation, and is considered an
important development in accounting (Bhimani and Willcocks, 2014; Griffin and Wright, 2015;
Accounting, Auditing &
Accountability Journal The authors would like to thank the special issue editors and two anonymous referees for their helpful
Vol. 30 No. 4, 2017
pp. 850-873 feedback and constructive criticism, which have contributed greatly to the development of this paper.
© Emerald Publishing Limited This paper forms part of the Accounting, Accountability, Social Media and Big Data: Revolution or
0951-3574
DOI 10.1108/AAAJ-07-2015-2139 Hype? Special issue.
Vasarhelyi et al., 2015; Warren et al., 2015). Its effect on accounting practice, current or future, Big Data and
is expected and mostly perceived positively (Warren et al., 2015), although there are caveats to corporate
consider and risks to deal with (Bhimani and Willcocks, 2014; Payne, 2014). However, there are reporting
not only positive voices – Quattrone (2016), for one, is concerned with the progressive
digitisation of accounting, as he believes that the dialogue associated with planning will
be lost if we use Big Data analytics instead. In a world of free will, the possibility of analytics
monitoring and predicting one’s actions may indeed be concerning. However, dialogue and 851
Big Data analytics do not have to be mutually exclusive – data scientists seek to “tell a story
from the data”, “create a narrative that sheds insight and provides answers to carefully
formed questions”. Also the understanding of Big Data incorporates more than extremely
large data sets. The so-called “digital natives”, the millennial generation, use the term
“Big Data” also to denote how information is harnessed in new ways ( Jariwala, 2015),
essentially a state of mind, which reflects upon the exponential opportunities that Big Data
provides, in constant flux and development, neither finite nor stationary, and the general
stance towards engaging with Big Data ( Jariwala, 2015).
The organisational data ecosystem is expanding continually, and Big Data and Big Data
analytics will increasingly be more integrated in the organisational context (Moffitt and
Vasarhelyi, 2013; Vasarhelyi et al., 2015). As the notion “data is the new oil” implies, Big Data is
an unrefined and raw resource that, in order to be useful, needs to be refined, i.e. cleaned,
structured and processed in order to generate any useful insight. The characteristics, or
definition, of Big Data, i.e. volume, variety, velocity, veracity, variability and value (Gandomi
and Haidar, 2015), reflect on the opportunities but also pitfalls that are associated with the
concept. For instance, variety offers great opportunities for varying input, yet at the same time
many organisations do not know how to manage such variety reliably, reflecting data’s veracity.
While several studies have been investigating or debating the potential relationship of
Big Data and corporate reporting and accounting and the effects of the continual digitisation
of accounting practice and the accounting profession (Bhimani and Willcocks, 2014; Payne,
2014; Quattrone, 2016), they have primarily been of a conceptual nature with little empirical
findings to support these claims. The current study seeks to contribute to this lacuna by
investigating the perceptions of accountants, data scientists, academics and practitioners, and
evaluate relevant video and text material, with regard to Big Data and corporate reporting, the
opportunities and drawbacks of this development, and the accountants’ potential future in this
context. A qualitative study was undertaken to obtain participants’ perceptions, and in
addition to interview data, publicised video and text material provided by a variety of
organisations, such as online education providers and professional accounting associations,
was used to enhance and triangulate interview findings. Broad questions we were interested in
answering are as follows: on the basis of the collected data, does, or will, Big Data impact
on corporate reporting practices and what will the accountants’ role be in this context? What is
the accountants’ potential role and necessary skill set regarding Big Data and corporate
reporting? Furthermore, prior literature has shown that the Big Data and accounting
relationship is not regarded as unproblematic, so what potential difficulties can arise, what
mutually exclusive concepts, i.e. paradoxes, are experienced or anticipated by participants?
To this end, we have employed Jarvenpaa and Lang’s (2005) technological paradoxes, based on
Arnold’s (2003) concept of the Janus-face of technology, i.e. “ironic, perverse and paradoxical”
(p. 231), as the paradoxical nature of technology has guided the analysis of this study.
Thus, this study contributes to the extant literature by investigating the following
concepts: the current status quo and perception of Big Data in relation to corporate
reporting, the accountants’ role and potential set of needed skills in relation to Big Data and
corporate reporting, and expected opportunities and risks. Thus, we sought to determine the
Big Data state of mind in the context of corporate reporting. The Big Data state of mind
refers to the stance towards Big Data, the general attitude and willingness towards
AAAJ incorporating Big Data in the accounting professionals’ tasks and work context, akin to how
30,4 Big Data permeates the millennial generation’s individual lives in an almost implicit and
automated manner ( Jariwala, 2015). Beyond the actual data, it addresses a tacit way of
thinking or living in an empirically driven, data-rich lifeworld, an approach of continually
seeking new ways to harness Big Data, and how this can be enacted in everyday life.
Furthermore, the paradoxical nature of technological developments was investigated,
852 and two of Jarvenpaa and Lang’s (2005) paradoxes, namely, fulfil needs vs create needs and
empowerment vs enslavement, were identified in the context of the study, and two new
additional paradoxes unique to Big Data and corporate reporting/accounting emerged from
the data, namely, reliability vs timeliness and simplicity vs complexity.
The primary findings are that in line with the conceptual literature and expectation of
Big Data’s impact on corporate reporting, participants confirmed that they considered
Big Data an important development in corporate reporting, which had already began
impacting corporate reporting and accounting practice at the very least through the Big Data
state of mind, i.e. the willingness to incorporate Big Data in the accountants’ work context, that
has begun to permeate conceptual and operational layers but also in terms of focus and
processing of information, and when preparing prospective financial statements.
The corporate reporting stage that is entered due to Big Data, Big Data analytics and
related modern technologies, such as social, mobile and cloud (SoMoClo), is considered dynamic
and prospective, with a dual exchange between stakeholders and corporation and new types of
information included and provided. Yet at the same time, the standards and regulations in
place hinder corporations to publicise such prospective information, thus it is used for special
purposes primarily. Furthermore, the accountants’ role was debated, and in this context
different perceptions of accountants and non-accountants were voiced. Accountants
highlighted the inherent reliable vs timely paradox that is reflected in the characteristics of
accounting information, while data scientists do not perceive such conflict but are primarily
concerned with the predictive element of their analysis. Furthermore, accountants perceive
such prediction as useful for internal decision making but acknowledge that they require
further skills in order to contribute in practice. In general, accountants possess tacit knowledge
of accounting and corporate reporting processes, a particular way to view and analyse data,
whereas data scientists possess inherent knowledge and interpretational qualities that
complement each other and can benefit organisations in a multidisciplinary team.
The study is structured as follows: the current section served to introduce the main focus
and primary research topics of the current paper and the next section will outline the
relevant literature regarding corporate reporting and the internet, new technologies, such as
SoMoClo, and finally Big Data and corporate reporting and accounting. Following the
literature review, the methodology section will address the details of how the study was
undertaken, the qualitative features of the study, the chosen research methodology, data
collection and analysis methods, adopted sampling criteria and details of the study sample,
i.e. interviewees, video and text material. The findings section illustrates the topics of
research that emerged from the analysis, which are Big Data and corporate reporting, the
Big Data state of mind in relation to incorporating Big Data in the accountants’ work
context, the accountants’ role and relevant skills, and the potential opportunities and risks/
drawbacks that result from Big Data. The final section will discuss the empirical findings in
relation to the extant literature and address the paradoxes that emerged as particularly
applicable from the empirical findings.
2. Literature review
The literature review of the current study first focusses on the development of corporate
reporting in the digital age, regarding the internet and modern technologies in general and
Big Data in particular. It also addresses the conflictual nature of technology and
technological innovations, in line with Arnold’s (2003) Janus-face of technology and Big Data and
Jarvenpaa and Lang’s (2005) technological paradoxes, as these have been guiding concepts corporate
during the data analysis. Finally, it concludes by addressing the gap in the literature that reporting
this study seeks to contribute to.
2.1 Development of internet-based corporate reporting – from static to dynamic

The internet has been an increasing phenomenon for the dissemination of corporate 853
information (Fisher et al., 2004), as accounting and corporate reporting have adapted and
traditional print forms of corporate reporting have been shifted to internet-based practices.
With increasing digitisation corporations are publishing their annual reports online in order
to reach investors and other stakeholder faster, provide information that they can process
easier for their own analyses and reach a wider audience than with the printed format
(Fisher and Naylor, 2016).

The first generation of digital corporate reporting started in the mid to late 1990s in
European countries and in the USA, at the time of the dial-up internet connection. Thus,
accountants and accounting were the early adopters of such technology. Then, internet
corporate reporting was simply based on having a corporate website as an alternative tool
for distributing traditional print-based annual reports, in other words publicising the
organisation’s annual report via the internet (Hedlin, 1999; Lymer et al., 1999; Lodhia et al.,
2004). The advent of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) or similar, allowed them to
duplicate their printed financial statements by using static electronic formats, i.e. HTML
and/or portable document format (Hedlin, 1999; Lymer and Debreceny, 2003).
In the early 2000s, corporations started to take advantage of the unique features and
possibilities of the internet as a medium to disclose further information (Lymer and Debreceny,
2003). During this time, a new generation of internet presentation languages, the eXtensible
Markup Language format, has come into use to facilitate presentation on the web because it
has the advantages of both hyperlinking and the ability to manipulate data displayed on the
desktop by importing it directly into local applications of the user (Lymer and Debreceny,
2003). The major advantages of this second-generation internet corporate reporting are related
to the developments of eXtensible Business Reporting Language, which permits easy exchange
of information between the web’s formats and provides rich research opportunities to find
pages and specific financial data on the internet (Beattie and Pratt, 2003). As technology has
developed further, new opportunities for the third-generation internet corporate reporting are
being explored. The ongoing growth in the technological innovations, such as SoMoClo,
represents an immediate step forward to change the way of corporate reporting, especially by
moving corporate reporting and its related applications to cloud platforms. This will allow for
both corporations and their stakeholders to profile posted data, text, audio, and vocal, to build
data warehouses, and apply data analytics software to collect, collate and analyse this mass
information, Big Data, that is created and shared by corporations and stakeholders using social
networking, mobile devices, analytics and cloud technologies.
Thus, the third generation of internet corporate reporting provides stakeholders with
varying levels of accessibility, interactivity, research and data sharing ability, which can
create a revolutionary terminal that will transform the current corporate reporting
landscape practices to interactive corporate reporting. Real-time updates are possible in the
cloud (Krahel and Vasarhelyi, 2014), for instance regarding inventory rendering cost-flow
assumptions unnecessary (Moffitt and Vasarhelyi, 2013), and allowing users to extract data
for their own analyses.
2.2 SoMoClo technology, Big Data and corporate reporting

SoMoClo technologies encompass a broad range of technologies, related to Web 2.0 applications,
new systems and software, which permeate all layers of organisations and society, and may be
AAAJ employed in an accounting context. These technologies matter in this context because they are
30,4 part of the “Big Data creating” technologies, and typically include social media applications, such
as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat, but also the concept of cloud
computing and its use in accounting, and mobile devices, such as phones and tables, that allow
user engagement without being limited by time and location. These “allow the creation and
exchange of User Generated Content” (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010, p. 61), which has significantly
854 altered the digital revolution, to the extent that user-generated content and user-based interaction
have achieved a power levelling among corporations and stakeholders and can alleviate
information asymmetry (von Alberti-Alhtaybat and Al-Htaybat, 2016; Prokofieva, 2015). The use
of social media applications is closely linked with mobile technology. These devices, smart
phones and tablets, offer the computer capability of running advanced applications at a high
speed, phone and digital media ability, with wireless internet connectivity (Foltin, 2012).
Organisations may need to engage with accounting information users at different levels, for
instance snapchatting a monthly trial balance to their investors and other followers as a form of
Web 2.0 corporate reporting. In order to allow for Big Data and SoMoClo technologies to enhance,
corporate reporting provision of greater detail is important (Moffitt and Vasarhelyi, 2013).
What has changed the societal and business landscape is users’ ability to share their thoughts
immediately and extensively, essentially giving them sufficient power for organisations to not be
able to ignore them, and to the extent that governmental institutions consider similar approaches
for public sector organisations ( Jeacle and Carter, 2011). This, in itself, constitutes one of the
major revolutionary aspects of SoMoClo and Big Data.
Importantly, Foltin (2012) argued that mobile technology made running accounting
practices easier, faster and more accurate over the years through providing accountants
with a number of relevant mobile applications and accounting-specific software currently
available to help accountants perform their various job functions from any location, which
has enhanced the efficiency of corporate reporting. These technological developments make
real-time reporting a realistic possibility and great opportunity for corporate reporting
(Trigo et al., 2014). Al-Htaybat and von Alberti-Alhtaybat (2013) argued that mobile
communication developments in corporate reporting provide real anytime/anywhere
stakeholders connectivity, also the combination of mobile and web-based application that
allow for highly interactive platforms via which users and communities share, create and
discuss the content of corporate reporting. Disseminating financial disclosures via social
media, such as Twitter, attracts the investors’ attention and can reduce information
asymmetry (Prokofieva, 2015), but can also allow organisations to gather stakeholders’
responses to the disclosures through this form of interactive corporate reporting.
Cloud computing technology has emerged as a new information technology infrastructure
(Dimitriu and Matei, 2015), in which Big Data is permanently stored on the internet all over
the world and accessed and cached on users’ smart devices. This technology enables
ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable
computing resources (e.g. networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be
rapidly provided and released with minimal management effort or service provider
interaction (Brandas et al., 2015). While the cloud can be problematic due to lack of data
security and privacy developments, its existence is justified by the current focus on
Big Data and Big Data analytics (Moffitt and Vasarhelyi, 2013), even though regulation is
not entirely supportive of adopting cloud accounting (Dix, 2016).
2.3 Big Data and accounting

Modern technologies, such as SoMoClo, have created an overwhelming amount of data (Cisco
White Paper, 2015), which render Big Data analytics and data science an important topic in
both the academic and the business communities (Chen et al., 2012). They have made it
possible for companies and others to collect, collate and analyse massive amounts of
information, which stems from different sources. First of all, the data come from the Big Data and
organisation’s own records, which is generally considered to be clean and trusted, such as a corporate
time-series analysis of past financial data, but can also be from external sources, such as reporting
commercial, social media, operational, public and enterprise dark data, which can be
unstructured, noisy and unrefined as collected from social media, users’ cloud space if
accessible, and other sources on the internet (Moffitt and Vasarhelyi, 2013). However, the data
in its “raw and unrefined” form are not useful to corporations, thus they need to analyse it in 855
order to generate meaningful answers. For instance, Big Data analytics adoption can be seen
in different business communities, such as Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Oracle, IBM and
Microsoft, through the adoption of sophisticated analytical software such as Google Analytics,
MapReduce and Apache Hadoop (Chen et al., 2012). Gandomi and Haidar (2015) discuss the
various definitions that exist of Big Data, and conclude that the most important features are
volume, referring to the magnitude of the data; variety, suggesting the structural
heterogeneity; and velocity, implying the rate of speed at which data is generated and
accordingly should be analysed and acted upon. Furthermore, they mention additional “Vs”,
which are veracity, meaning the unreliability of some data sources; variability, referring to the
data flow rate; and value, suggesting that in its initial form Big Data has low value but that
this value significantly increases as the data are being analysed.
Big Data and data analytics have only recently been addressed in the accounting
literature, with the number of publications addressing Big Data being limited to a select few.
For digital natives, Big Data extends beyond the size of data set to a state of mind based
on culture, experience, utility and expectation, essentially an empirically driven world
( Jariwala, 2015), which they access with automatism and may not even be aware of.
Rather than focussing on one medium, collecting the wealth of information that is already
existent provides for a faster and continuous feedback process, which renders data analytics
very important (Chen et al., 2012; Earley, 2015). Warren et al. (2015) suggest that Big Data
will significantly change accounting in all aspects of practices and the profession. For
financial accounting quality and relevance of accounting information, thus transparency
and stakeholder decision making, will be improved, and for corporate reporting the creation
and refinement of standards will be aided ensuring the profession’s continuous evolution in
unison with the real-time economy (Warren et al., 2015).
Data are large in size, thus cannot be analysed by traditional software and database
systems, and are both structured (around 10 per cent) and unstructured (around 90 per cent).
Such unstructured data are generated from audio, video and image, and textual sources, and
need further processing and analysing before it can be utilised for reporting and decision
making (Warren et al., 2015). The sources, uses and challenges of Big Data in accounting are
various according to the accounting scholars’ perspectives (Griffin and Wright, 2015).
Vasarhelyi et al. (2015) argue that Big Data changes fundamentally what we mean by
information, for instance, organisations have the ability to provide real-time information,
which is contrary to traditional accounting of summary and aggregation of information
provided on periodic basis. Warren et al. (2015) primarily consider Big Data’s utilisation in
the context of internal control processes, creating a link between behaviour and goals which
can lead to new performance measures. Krahel and Titera (2015) contend that accounting
standards are not reflective of Big Data developments, as static, GAAP-based financial
statements are not sufficiently dynamic, and they suggest that these will be replaced by the
raw data that end users can dynamically extract and examine. Financial reporting
standards are needed to maintain the comparability aspect but disclosure needs to focus on
basic data to be provided regarding content and timing, and a finer, less condensed level of
detail will need to be provided (Moffitt and Vasarhelyi, 2013).
Bhimani and Willcocks (2014) consider digitisation of accounting practice potentially
beneficial, however are concerned that the accountants’ task of making data intelligible
AAAJ through tacit knowledge cannot be translated into practice, and that data would give an
30,4 insight if only “tortured enough”. In the digital age, new business models emerge
which require relevant accounting practices, no longer assuming a sequential relationship
between strategy, structure and accounting but a mix of the three that can cope with
structured and unstructured big data relating to customers and market trends. Accounting
practices will need to be adjusted to undertake data capture, and financial reports will need
856 to reflect the unstructured events related to customers that influence economic value
creation (Bhimani and Willcocks, 2014). Given the immense amount of data, data collection
in the future will be transitory rather than static and stored, and due to the use of Internet of
Things, new data sources will be implemented in the system that need to be accommodated
for in an organisation’s accounting information system (Krahel and Vasarhelyi, 2014).
Payne (2014) states that companies are frequently advised to engage in Big Data analytics
and visualisation; however, in reality, it is considerable more difficult to change an existing

accounting and control system, as these systems are often fragmented, rely on manual
entries and are commonly known only to a few experienced members of an organisation that
cannot easily feed their existing knowledge into the accounting system. Nevertheless,
Payne (2014) acknowledges that accountants need to engage in new technologies, e.g. by
adopting new analytical tools, cloud accounting or social media engagement, however states
that engaging in the basics of finance digitisation requires “bloody-minded perseverance”
(p. 493), time and constant attention. Quattrone (2016), on the other hand, considers the
continuous digitisation of accounting as problematic, as he is concerned with the loss of
communication and increased focus on data analytics, “where databases and statistical
models know individuals better than the individuals themselves and are able to predict their
wishes and future actions” (p. 3). From his perspective, accounting leads to communicative
actions that lead to decision making, and the communicative process is more important than
the actual number that results out of it (Quattrone, 2016), which is contrary to data analytics
that focus on providing the most realistic number. He closes his discussion with the question
of how the process of digitisation can be reversed. Whether this process can be reversed
is perhaps a more realistic question to ask, given that digitisation has already permeated
all layers of society and of organisations. However, the view that technology can
be problematic is not uncommon, and many times contradictory and paradoxical
(Arnold, 2003) as will be discussed in the next section.
2.4 The lifeworld and paradoxes of technology

As emerges from the previous sections, there are varying perceptions of Big Data in
accounting in the prior literature. Many acknowledge the positive potential but there are
also critical views regarding incorporation of Big Data in accounting and corporate
reporting. In addition to investigating the empirical perceptions of Big Data and corporate
reporting, the willingness to incorporate Big Data in the accountants’ professional context
as reflected in the Big Data state of mind in relation to corporate reporting, and the related
accountants’ role, the current study also aims at investigating these inherent paradoxical
elements of Big Data and corporate reporting. Arnold (2003) introduced the concept of the
Janus-face of technology, the face of the Roman mythical figure facing both the beginning
and the end, looking in two directions at the same time. This concept implies that technology
has a “ironic, perverse and paradoxical” (Arnold, 2003, p. 231) nature, that does not reflect an
unexpected, unintended or unwanted outcome but suggests that the same technology leads
in two different directions along a continuum of possible developments (Arnold, 2003).
This paradoxical nature is not built into the technological development but rather their
performance reconstitutes needs and outcomes in the sociotechnical landscape that
are paradoxical and need to be considered within the analytic frame (Arnold, 2003).
Arnold (2003) uses Heidegger’s concept of the lifeworld enframed by technology to provide
an explanation as to why rational instruments created according to human will perform Big Data and
paradoxically. Heidegger suggests that technology is more than just an instrument but an corporate
artefact that has the ability to change the way we perceive the world, as our world is reporting
enframed by technology in an ambiguous way (Arnold, 2003; Jarvenpaa and Lang, 2005).
Both Arnold (2003) and Jarvenpaa and Lang (2005) identify a number of paradoxes with
regard to mobile technology in particular. Arnold (2003) determines mobile and
fixed/liberated and leashed, i.e. mobility due to being able to move with the device but 857
also being fixed due to having a fixed phone contact, independent and co-dependent/
vulnerable and reassured, i.e. mobile phones allow for independence but only in relation to
being co-dependent others, close and distant/reached and breached, i.e. being physically
separated but also being available due to the phone, private and public, i.e. a mobile phone
conversation often being public but the phone itself being a private possession, busy and
available/important and not so important, i.e. the phone signals that one is always in
demand and busy but also that one is available, production and consumption, i.e. the mobile
phone allows the user to be very productive due to effective time management but at the
same time consumes financial and time resources, and boyish and girly/matriarchal and
patriarchal, i.e. a symbol of engendering certain characteristics, such as productive use
being male-related while frivolous consumption being female related. Jarvenpaa and
Lang (2005), based on Arnold’s suggestions, suggest empowerment vs enslavement,
i.e. taking charge of one’s time but also having to constantly engage with mobile devices;
independence vs dependence, i.e. the mobile phone manages many tasks but also creates a
constant need to respond and interact; fulfils vs creates needs, i.e. new options and
applications answer a need but at the same time create a new one; competence vs
incompetence, i.e. while mobile phones create new competencies they may render users
incompetent in other areas; planning vs improvisation, i.e. mobile phones are technically the
perfect planning tools but users improvise a lot more due to easy connectivity to others;
engaging vs disengaging, i.e. the ability to be constantly engaged with others but at the
same time the wish to be remote; public vs private, i.e. akin to Arnold (2003); and illusion vs
disillusion, i.e. initially getting the device due to a promise of life being easier, only to find
out that in reality this is not the case. While both sets of paradoxes are extensive, they might
not apply to Big Data in corporate reporting in the discussed form, or at all, thus when
undertaking the analysis, no particular paradox will be investigated but rather a
paradoxical nature of Big Data in corporate reporting will be looked for.
Having reviewed the relevant literature in the field, the following gaps have been identified:
while there are a number of conceptual studies addressing Big Data and accounting, none
specifically focussed on corporate reporting and none undertook an empirical study
investigating the perceptions of professionals and academics that engage with or consider
Big Data in the context of corporate reporting, the Big Data state of mind regarding the
incorporation of Big Data in the accountants’ professional context, and the opportunities and
risks that arise from Big Data and Big Data analytics in the accounting context. This study
seeks to add to this body of studies. Furthermore, prior literature has not elaborated on the
practitioners’ experience and their expectations of the future, nor has it investigated the
concept of technology-related paradoxes of Big Data and corporate reporting.
3. Methodology
The current study is qualitative in nature and assumes an interpretive stance (Moll et al.,
2006), investigating Big Data and corporate reporting and related implications through the
participants’ perceptions (Miles and Huberman, 1994) triangulated through text and video
material publicised by the educational and professional organisations. It provides detailed
descriptions of people’s perceptions and of events and interactions (Patton, 1987) and is used
to analyse the social reality of the Big Data and corporate reporting phenomenon, the
AAAJ Big Data state of mind and participants’ related perceptions (Hopper and Powell, 1985;
30,4 Moll et al., 2006). Thus, it engages with understanding human behaviour in relation to the
organisational and societal setting (Patton, 1987) and seeks an understanding of how
the accounting phenomenon is produced (Moll et al., 2006). This study is a field study in the
sense of researching the perceptions of a number of different participants and organisations,
however not tied to one specific organisation (Moll et al., 2006). To this end, data were
858 collected via interviews and based on texts and videos that were identified by organisational
and institutional members as relevant material with regard to the study’s topic.
The first round of data collection commenced in February 2014 and lasted until
July 2014, which comprised semi-structured interviews with the first 20 of the listed
participants. The second round of data collection commenced in January 2016 and lasted
until May 2016, which comprised semi-structured interviews, video material, written
documents and social media postings. The second round of data collection served to
enhance, expand and confirm the findings that were developed as part of the first round,
and additional interviewees were included in the study. The different types of data
provided different insights but also served to triangulate the emerging patterns in the
data (Denzin, 1978; Lillis, 2006). One of the significant reasons to include both video and
text material was that when asked interviewees and relevant organisations referred to
these materials as official, publicised documents that would express their perceptions of
Big Data in accounting and corporate reporting. Interviews, video material and social
media postings were transcribed to document format, so that the data could be analysed
according to the same coding methods and criteria.
The selected participant sample was chosen according to four broad criteria that will be
discussed in turn: defined sample universe, determined sample size, selected sampling
strategy and sample sourcing (Robinson, 2014), which ensure the study’s coherence,
transparency, impact and trustworthiness (Robinson, 2014). Following the four criteria
enhances the trustworthiness in the data and thus the findings, as sampling criteria ensures
rigour of the data, i.e. a sample that can supply information for a comprehensive analysis
(Smith et al., 2009). Transparency of how the criteria are employed in a study as well as
coherence, i.e. relationship of theoretical and literary context and sample, serve to enhance
trustworthiness of the data and findings (Shenton, 2004).
For defining the sample universe specified inclusion and exclusion criteria are needed,
i.e. parameters that determine which participants will be approached to take part or will not
be considered for the study. For the current study, parameters were broadly defined, as a
heterogeneous sample was chosen in order to include a variety of participants’ perceptions
and experiences (Robinson, 2014). One of the reasons for heterogeneity is that any
commonalities across a heterogeneous sample reflect a more generalisable phenomenon
(Strauss and Corbin, 1998). Thus, the specified parameters were inclusive, rather than
exclusive, namely, financial accounting/corporate reporting and/or data science/IT
background, academic and/or professional, and not bound by any particular industry.
Determining the sample size is impacted on by theoretical and practical
considerations – realistically an initial sample size needs to be decided on at the onset in
order to be able to practically undertake the study but still generate generalisable and realistic
findings (Robinson, 2014). For a study with an idiographic aim a sample size ranging between 3
and 16 participants is recommended, which provides the scope for developing cross-case
generalities without drowning the researchers in massive amounts of data (Smith et al., 2009).
At the first data collection stage 20 (1-20) participants were chosen, in order to have a sufficient
sample size that render insight, yet would be a manageable sample. At the second stage further
five (21-25) participants were included as they had additional insights to share. First contact
was made via e-mail, i.e. participants were contacted regarding their availability to participate
in the study, which was followed by another e-mail two weeks later in case no response had
been received. Video and documents were included due to answers by the professionals that Big Data and
did not agree to participate but recommended the suggested material as a form of empirical corporate
data, and multiple sources of data are considered beneficial for supporting the interview reporting
analysis (Hoque, 2006), as well as reflect current research approaches (Lohmeier, 2014).
The sampling strategy followed was in a purposive manner (Robinson, 2014), which means
that participants were selectively identified, and when choosing an individual to participate it
is important that they are able to extend our knowledge of the researched phenomenon 859
(Moll et al., 2006). The justification for choosing particular participants is first of all that they
satisfy the inclusion criteria, and second, their willingness to participate, which implies that
they are interested in the topic of Big Data and corporate reporting. Finally, sample sourcing
refers to the actual sourcing of participants in the real world (Robinson, 2014). Participants
were contacted in the USA, the UK, Australia and Canada (English-speaking countries):
accounting academics on the basis of their expertise being corporate reporting and/or
financial accounting, IT/data science academics on the basis of their data science/data
analytics context, and then professional bodies, such as IMA, CIMA, ACCA, AICPA, ICAEW,
etc. The purpose of contacting these was to get professional perceptions of the phenomenon
and in most cases they referred to their own publications and web-related information, which
were used in the current study as empirical data. In the case of non-academic participants, in
some cases academics referred to their professional contacts, in other cases, googling Big Data
and accounting/corporate reporting resulted in finding potential professionals in various
organisations that would have the ability to explain the phenomenon under study.
Also, participants were recruited through massive online course providers on the topic of
Big Data, such as bigdatauniversity.com and coursera.org.
Table I provides an overview of the study’s participants, their background and whether
they are academic, and if not what industry they are in.
Interviewee Position Industry type
1 Academic – Accounting –
2 Academic – MIS –
3 Academic – Information technology –
5 Academic – Data scientist –
7 Non-academic Banking
8 Non-academic Accounting – Accounting firm
9 Non-academic Accounting – Accounting firm
10 Non-academic Banking
11 Non-academic Accounting – Manufacturing firm
12 Non-academic Accounting – Service firm
13 Non-academic Entrepreneur
14 Non-academic Entrepreneur
15 Non-academic Accounting – Service firm
16 Non-academic Information technology
17 Non-academic Information technology
18 Non-academic Data analyst – Consultancy
19 Non-academic Data analyst – Service firm
20 Non-academic Data analyst – Manufacturing firm
21 Academic – Data scientist
22 Academic – Corporate reporting
23 Non-academic Data scientist – IT
24 Non-academic Data scientist – IT Table I.
25 Non-academic Auditing – Professional accountancy List of interviewees
AAAJ As the table illustrates, a heterogeneous sample was employed in order to ensure a holistic
30,4 data set, taking different viewpoints and knowledge into account. Participants were
interviewed on the basis of a semi-structure interview schedule, which focussed on their
perspective of Big Data and corporate reporting, and related future developments. The main
focus during the interviews was to gather the participants’ perceptions on the relationship
between accounting/corporate reporting and Big Data. Broad interview questions to be
860 answered were stated during interviews, however had to be kept as neutral as possible to
not lead interviewees ( Jarvenpaa and Lang, 2005):
Question 1: in your opinion, is there any relationship between accounting/corporate
reporting and Big Data, and if so, what kind of relationship do you perceive it to be?
Question 2: how do you see the future of accounting/corporate reporting in relation to
Big Data?
Question 3: how do you see the accountants’ role in the context of Big Data?
Question 4: in your perception what are the opportunities and drawbacks for accounting
and accountants in relation to Big Data?
In order to not lead the interviewees these were phrased as open-ended questions that they
could answer from their perspective. Allowing the interviewees to express their opinions is
an important element of qualitative research, as researchers want to extract interviewees’
perceptions rather than lead them to any preconceived conclusions (Denzin and Lincoln,
1998; Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Moll et al., 2006). Interviews took place via a variety of
methods, such as Skype, phone, e-mail and chat, ace-to-face, were recorded and then fully
transcribed, and lasted between 30 and 90 minutes. The first round of interviews comprised
20 interviews with the participants from 1 to 20, the second round comprised five interviews
with participants from 20 to 25, plus additional seven interviews with participants from the
first group. The two researchers were present for most interviews and kept notes during the
interviews reflecting emphasis and importance given by the interviewee.
Table II illustrates the text and video material utilised in the study which was not only
recommended by the professional bodies, but also by the academic interviewees that
suggested online courses for further details. An example of a video analysis includes
transcribing the relevant parts of the video and then analysing accordingly using the same
broad questions used in the interviews, e.g. the ICAEW webcast included a lengthy
discussion on the opportunities and risks of Big Data, which was fully transcribed and
utilised as empirical data in this study (Lohmeier, 2014; Strauss and Corbin, 1998). All forms
of data were used to develop the topics that are discussed in the findings section, as a form
of triangulation to enhance trustworthiness and to enrich the findings (Lillis, 2006).
Data analysis was undertaken on the basis of coding techniques (Strauss and Corbin,
1998), extracting the main issues relating to Big Data and corporate reporting. The first,
Title Type of source Provided by
Big Data: perils and pitfalls Text document ACCA and IMA
Webcast: Big Data and accounting Video ICAEW
Accounting analytics Massive open online Coursera, provided by Wharton Business
course: video School, University of Pennsylvania
Introduction to data analytics and Massive open online course: Big Data University
data science video
Table II. Introduction to Big Data Massive open online course: Big Data University
List of additional data video
initial, coding stage that takes place is line-by-line coding, which means that the researchers Big Data and
went through each transcript to generate codes on the basis of the empirical data. Each corporate
researcher did that on their own, and then the open codes were compared to arrive at a joint reporting
conclusion. Coding is done on the basis of qualitative meaning (Strauss, 1987), i.e. open
codes reflect a search in the pattern of the data that eventually merges to a joint picture
(Bernard, 2011; Saldana, 2015).
Open coding illustration: 861
“Big data generally holds tremendous potential and I believe that for corporate reporting
we will see changes in the corporate reporting environment”.
*future development, big data state of mind (open code reflecting underlined statement).
While in the beginning open codes may appear disjointed, as the analysis proceeds they
eventually emerge repeatedly and as they look alike, describe the same phenomenon, they
are grouped together (Lincoln and Guba, 1985, p. 347). Once each transcript is analysed line-
by-line the selective coding stage commences, which reviews open codes and seeks to
elaborate on higher level knowledge, guided by the research questions, prior literature and
theoretical frameworks (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). At this point, open codes that reflect the
same aspect of the phenomenon are subsumed into higher order categories (Glaser and
Strauss, 1967; Saldana, 2015).
Selective coding illustration:
List of open codes: 1) future development, 2) opportunity, 3) risk, 4) future challenge, 5)
expectation of the future, 6) adapt standards, 7) new corporate reporting model, 8) dual
exchange.
*subsumed to higher order category: perceived opportunities and risks of big data in
corporate reporting.
Such higher categories are then presented as themes or topics that emerged from the
data in the findings, and the logic of presenting these is based on their highest explanatory
power of the phenomenon under study and the relative importance given to that element
of the phenomenon by the participants (Saldana, 2015). Such importance is reflected by
how many participants and data sources address the same aspect of the phenomenon
(Strauss and Corbin, 1998). During coding, the researcher always has the broad research
questions and topic under study in mind; however, it is important to challenge one’s
preconceived notion by asking what story the data is really telling (Glaser, 1992).
4. Findings
This section illustrates the findings of the current study, as developed by the two
researchers on the basis of the two rounds of data collection utilising the different types of
data. The chosen topics that are outlined are the emergent concepts that result from the
coding analysis, as discussed in the methodology section. Some topics are reflective of the
interview questions, i.e. current perceptions of Big Data, others emerged out of the analysis,
i.e. difference between accountants and non-accountants, and paradoxes of Big Data and
corporate reporting. They are presented in accordance with the conceptual themes, or higher
order categories, that resulted out of the selective coding stage.
4.1 The Big Data state of mind and corporate reporting

This category reflects on how the current status quo of Big Data is perceived by the
participants and presented by additional data and on the willingness of incorporating
Big Data in the accountants’ work context. The majority of participants perceived Big Data
as a resource with great potential, regardless of the industry they were related to, reflective
of the current belief in society, and only two participants stated that they considered
Big Data as overrated with regard to its “holy grail status for society in general but also for
corporate reporting” (Interviewee 2). Utilised text material has illustrated that professional
AAAJ bodies also believe in the benefits of Big Data, as their members expect a widespread
30,4 adoption of Big Data in the accounting profession. Their members consider Big Data a great
opportunity for organisations and accountants alike, “game-changing opportunities”,
but acknowledge that these opportunities come with challenges.
All participants set out to provide a basic definition of Big Data, typically referring to its
large size, lack of structure and multiple sources, such as the organisational databases for
862 operational transactions but also social media and physical objects connected as part of the
Internet of Things. Video and text material corroborated these but outlined more sources,
defining additionally a corporation’s global database data, dark data, i.e. company-stored
information assets that are not utilised, public data (such as weather, economic, etc.) and
commercial industry-related data:
Taking all the data sources and their output you obviously have big data – big in size at least, and I
believe big in opportunity as well. Our prospective financial statements have significantly improved
since we use rudimentary big data analytics, for instance trying to gauge sales through automatic
reordering, customer reviews and feedback. The prospective sales figure helps us then to determine the
rest of the financial statement figures through a time series analysis of the past years (Interviewee 11).
Interviewees furthermore identified that in addition to defining more accurately prospective

information, Big Data would also reduce the timing of corporate reporting, as advanced
analytics can provide real-time updates, as opposed to past information, which
“would enable a new corporate reporting paradigm, as we would be able to reduce the
reporting cycle considerably. I mean if we truly want to “live-stream’corporate information
the reporting and the audit process would have to change significantly. But this is the
one of the purposes that I see this technology really has. It would also mean that we
could provide more detailed information, which the educated user could process through
their own analytical system to derive at their conclusions regarding the corporate
performance” (Interviewee 8).
Furthermore, participants identified that Big Data analytics allowed for a more accurate
level of information, as assumptions and estimations were significantly reduced. “We no
longer need to use cost-flow assumptions, as sensors allow us to trace our inventory very
precisely, so we know exactly what we have in our warehouses and on our shelves”
(Interviewee 11). This was considered beneficial for the organisation itself but also for the
accuracy of the corporate reports, which in turn would benefit all stakeholders. Similarly,
the information flow between the corporations and their stakeholders has changed due to
the digitisation of accounting and corporate reporting (corporation-to-stakeholder and
stakeholder-to-corporation). These dual information flows can significantly enhance
prospective, real-time financial information, for instance if corporations engage in sentiment
analysis to gauge their expected sales figures for the upcoming quarter which they use for
their prospective financial statements. One of the concerns of participants was that
prospective information could not be included in annual reports yet, as standards would
not allow for it. “Although we have this option, our current regulation does not support it
yet – this is of course the accounting dilemma – we have the option to be timely and up-to-date
but speculative figures are not reliable or conservative” (Interviewee 9). It could also adversely
affect the corporation when providing details that could reduce their competitive advantage, a
point that was also raised by the panel experts in the ICAEW webcast. The power of digital
content mining and Big Data analytics allows corporations to use available data in different
forms of text, audio data, in the cloud, and also increase transparency of their financial
records. Big Data and the analytics allow corporations to combine the sourced feedback and
reflect it in their key performance indicators. Importantly, corporations take both financial and
non-financial content into account, collecting non-financial data that can be analysed to reflect
potential or current revenues and expenses.
The provision of such information is, however, also perceived as a need that now needs Big Data and
to be addressed, which reflects a paradoxical element of Big Data in corporate reporting – on corporate
one hand, accountants wanted to fulfil a need and, on the other, they now created a new one, reporting
which is demanding from the point of view:
We began to upload particular non-financial performance measures that we were able to generate
in real-time in relation to our customer service performance – you know, things like measurement of
customers’ sentiments with regard to our service, timeliness of our response, whether customers 863
felt their problems were answered, so we provided statistical analyses of these measures. At the
beginning it seemed like a great idea to show how efficient and effective we were but also to reflect
on customers’ perceptions. However, once we had begun both internal and external stakeholders
were using these and expecting more frequent and detailed updates – to the extent that now we are
getting stressed out over it, and drops in our performance are held against us (Interviewee 12).
However, Big Data was also perceived as problematic by participants and in video and text
material. The webcast on accounting and Big Data that was uploaded by the ICAEW
illustrates a less glorifying picture, as speakers and members alike caution against
considering Big Data as a perfect future of accounting – while they recognise that there are
lots of opportunities; they at length discussed the risks related to big data. One of the
experts illustrated the importance of recognising that Big Data in itself is, in fact, just
data – “no one wants data, everyone wants answers!”. He explained that frequently Big Data
is considered the answer when in fact the answer still needs to be extracted from the actual
data in a form of narrative, referred to as “story-telling” by data scientists. The second
expert, a partner at EY, explained that Big Data analytics already take place in auditing, as
large data sets provided raw by the client are analysed in the cloud using Big Data
analytics, which allow the auditing team to ask probing questions and find answers through
analysing the data. Both experts stressed the great importance of asking the right questions
because without questions, answers cannot be provided. Thus, corporations cannot have a
need fulfilled if they do not define the need – and if they have no questions, they may not
need any answers, in which case a need that did not exist was created and then was not or
could not be answered. If corporations do not have a problem to answer, they may not need
to engage in Big Data analytics in the first place – and if the market values a corporation
highly it may not need to provide deeper insight into its corporate reports.
A final less positive point was raised by a few participants when comparing the benefits
of big data vs the drawbacks, which is that although Big Data is supposed to make “things
easier in terms of decision-making due to giving us more accurate and detailed estimates”
(Interviewee 25), they felt the opposite was the case, which also reflects on the paradoxical
nature of the phenomenon. Although many organisations and individuals are interested in
big data analytics, only few actually engage in the practice at this point, which means that
the technical and practical aspects of Big Data analytics were not experienced by many
participants. “I understand that we can access multiple information sources but I wonder
whether that really enhances our dialogue, and I think it makes the whole process more
complex than simple – yes I know more accurate information means more accurate decision-
making but I am worried that we would rely too much on a statistical analysis and not
enough on what our experience and knowledge tell us” (Interviewee 25).
4.2 Accountants’ role and future related to Big Data

This topic addresses the accountants’ role in the context of Big Data and data science/
analytics, and related the different perspectives of accountants and non-accountants among
the study’s participants in terms of the future of Big Data, the accounting profession and the
perceived future of accounting, accountants, Big Data and modern technologies. One of the
central questions of this category is whether accountants have a role in Big Data now and in
AAAJ the future, and what that role does or would look like. All participants agreed that
30,4 accountants continue to play a role in their respective field, incorporating Big Data and its
analytics. “Yes, a data scientist is one of the key players right now in the market but mostly
due to their set of skills. Unless you had a data scientist with accounting education, I don’t
see that some business understanding replaces several years of training, acquired and tacit
knowledge” (Interviewee 25).
864 In particular, the accountants’ tacit knowledge was addressed as an important element
that could not be replaced by relying entirely on data analytics. While addressing tacit
knowledge, participants identified a “feel for the numbers”, but also accounting values and
principles that accountants were taught and practiced. Also, from non-accountants’
perspectives, accountants were typically referred to as conservative in their decision making
and when dealing with prospective information.
At the same time, similarities between accountants and data scientists were identified
with regard to their analytical skills. The skill set of the data scientist entails one or more
programming languages, deep knowledge of statistical analyses and the ability to tell a
story from the data, what participants and video material identified as “story-telling”.
Data alone are not sufficient for that but a view of the bigger picture, knowledge of theory,
which the data can be linked to, and “wisdom to interpret the data correctly. You want
people that are not scared by data and not scared by technology, the best we find are the
ones with a creative and open mind – technology enables so much but the people that are
able to get and see what to do with the data, great imagination how to use the data and
diversity: how they think rather than the skills they have” (Richard Brown, EY Partner,
ICAEW webcast). Accountants were identified also as organisational members that are
required to tell a story from the data – to have an informed dialogue about the financial data
provided and to apply their existing expertise to given data in order to make sense of it.
I believe that as accounting professionals we are already “data scientists” in a way, that is we
already tell stories from data – the dataset is indeed different in size when you deal with big data
and you need to consider all the potential risks of big data, but essentially we want to tell a story,
we want to generate insight from data to make decisions, plan ahead and solve problems
(Interviewee 4).
While participants agreed that accountants could not be replaced due to their expertise and
knowledge, a significant difference in perception of what their role entailed was identified
between accountants and non-accountants. Data scientists were considerably more content
relying on prospective information from external sources, such as sentiment analysis of
social media-generated content, while accountants were more averse to such sources. This is
not due to the data being noisy, as data scientists would have cleaned and structured it, but
rather due to the risk of volatile customer choices, as accountants “just cannot rely on
statistics predicting that reliably what a person may choose in the future. Perhaps internally
I can see that but making this public currently makes me feel uneasy. A trend analysis of
our own financial performance might be more reliable but will still include an assumption
about certain numbers” (Interviewee 15).
Accountants were intensely concerned with making more financial data than currently
required available, despite the potential benefits they also acknowledged. While data
analysts in particular were primarily interested in what could be done with the provided
data, accountants raised significant concerns and engaged a lot more with the concept of
uploading ledger data to the corporations’ cloud or letting users contribute to performance
assessment of the corporation on the cloud:
I believe we need to consider also that the data we are providing, cloud or otherwise, has to be
audited, so we must not get overexcited by providing information too early. Say, we are discussing
a contract that will generate significant revenue we should not really update any information before
we are certain the contract is ours [….]. Also as accountants we are still bound by our professional Big Data and
beliefs and principles, such as conservatism, reliability of information […] – so I can foresee a corporate
potential conflict between the old values of the accounting profession and the new developments of
technology, and we have to manage the conflict between reliability and timeliness of information reporting
(Interviewee 8).
On the other hand, data analysts and data scientists were very supportive of gathering as
much information as possible from Big Data analysis, even though some financial 865
expectations are more speculative and predictive than reliable. “One of the benefits of data
science and big data analytics is to generate insights – we want to use it to identify potential
problems, to provide solutions and generally provide answers. Part of the purpose of big
data analytics is of course prediction, as well as general insight – we don’t want to just
‘know’, we want to be able to use it for planning and predicting ahead” (Interviewee 23).
Thus, their primary concern was to not lose out on a potential benefit of available data,
which juxtaposes the more conservative perspective of accountants. This conflict reflects
the accounting-inherent paradox of wanting to be timely, yet reliable, and also reflects the
paradoxical nature of accountants’ tacit knowledge on one, and data scientists’ tacit
knowledge on the other hand.
As transpired during the data analysis, one of the significant differences between data
scientists, i.e. the experts in Big Data analytics, and accountants, i.e. the experts in
accounting and corporate reporting, are that while both “tell stories” their parameters
differ – and their data-telling journey and process have different approaches. An online
course provided by the University of Pennsylvania on accounting analytics incorporates a
session on Big Data for financial analysis, which illustrates a ten-year statistical common
size analysis of financial statements, which was used to predict the 11th year ahead.
The common size analysis relied on a sales figure prediction in order to generate a predicted
income statement and balance sheet for the next year ahead – when asked, the instructor
suggested that this figure would depend on many factors and that scenarios should be
considered. Data scientist participants responded instantly that this is where external
Big Data, such as derived from sentiment analysis, should be incorporated, as this
would generate a more meaningful insight than just “guessing a potential scenario or just
adding a few percent on top of a past number. And if we can’t be sure about it, it is our task
to find a way” (Interviewee 24).
Text material provided by the professional accounting bodies suggests that accounting
professionals have the ability to differentiate themselves in the marketplace, by combining
knowledge in technology, information science/data science and accounting/finance, leading to,
for example, new valuation methods of assets, use of Big Data in decision making and use of Big
Data in the management of risk. Interviewees responded with differing expectations regarding
the future of accounting professionals in the context of Big Data. Academics in particular were
not all convinced that the accounting profession really needed to engage in Big Data and data
science. “I am not sure that accountants need to become the new data scientists – we are data
creators; we are also data users but do we need to become data scientists? We already engage in
data analysis on a day-to-day basis, so what is different now?” (Interviewee 15).
On the other hand, others were enthusiastic about the new opportunities and warned against
ignoring such developments, as it may sideline the accounting profession. “Can we ignore all
these new developments? […] it is like saying let us stop using computers, mobile phones,
computerised accounting information systems – I think we need to accept that our profession is
getting more dynamic and faster in terms of data turnover, and that we need to adapt our skill
set because I don’t believe that big data will go away – it may be less hyped but it will be part of
the organisational work reality, […] such development gives us more power but at the same
time will also put more pressure on us, especially real-time updates and dual data flows between
corporations and stakeholders will require faster and different responses” (Interviewee 1).
AAAJ As a final conclusion, the partner at EY explained during the ICAEW webcast that they
30,4 do not have one person dealing with Big Data analytics, as this would be impossible, but
rather have a large team with different expertise, which worked well in their organisation.
Thus, the answer may be combining the different skill sets and tacit knowledge in a
multidisciplinary team.
866 4.3 Perceived opportunities and risks of Big Data

The final topic addresses the potential opportunities but also risks that the future of
Big Data in corporate reporting may provide. Participants raised a number of risks with
regard to Big Data – first, the lack of sufficient knowledge of Big Data and data analytics
and the particular field under study may not generate accurate results. “A little bit of
knowledge is a dangerous thing. A very simple example is SPSS – it is a user-friendly

package for statistical analysis, anyone can enter the data, however due to lack of sufficient
knowledge they may not be able to analyse and interpret the result appropriately – so their
story from the data is incomplete or wrong, similar to the Google prediction of the flu
outbreak that turned out to be wrong. The same could happen in a corporate reporting
context with predictive figures, for instance” (Interviewee 24). In this context, analytical
skills and relevant experience were addressed in the context of data interpretation,
as inexperienced or unknowledgeable analysts may quickly assume a different or
interesting result to be meaningful, when “with big data we first of all have to accept that
whatever we think seems to be different or unique we have to first assume to be a fault with
the data, which is most commonly the case, to not make false assumptions and as a result
provide false answers” (Interviewee 24). Also the ICAEW expert from EY confirmed during
the webcast session that his team had several times identified unusual behaviour when
auditing a corporation via Big Data analytics and immediately went to the client suggesting
irregular behaviour, only to find out there were always good reasons that needed further
explanation, “so we looked quite silly in that process. Now we first check and re-check our
own findings before we involve the client”.
Participants and the experts of the ICAEW Big Data panel also discussed the
opportunities that arise due to Big Data and Big Data analytics. Ultimately, Big Data
represents a larger data set with a population of one million rather than one thousand, for
instance, which can generate findings in relation to a thousand of these one million and that
would have been thought of as an outlier in a smaller data sample. Thus, it can provide data
that may significantly alter decisions:
You see, being able to generate insight from a very large data set allows for the recognition of a
rarer but repetitive occurrence in such set. This is a special opportunity arising from big data
analytics and allows for more accurate detailed analyses of occurrences that take place beyond the
most common items, for example a rare product sale that takes place among a particular group of
customers only but is a steady sale during the fiscal year. Without big data analytics we would
perhaps take the product out of our range but knowing that there is a small market means we can
target those customers in particular and then produce and sell accordingly (Interviewee 23).
Accounting-related interviewees acknowledged the conflict between accounting values and
the future-focussed potential of Big Data but recognised that Big Data was becoming a
reality that would have to be dealt with. They considered the greatest opportunity in the
changes to the corporate reporting environment with regard to dynamic, real-time updates
that allowed for greater accuracy due to Big Data from company records, artefacts, such as
wifi sensors, and external user-generated data. “Whether we like it or not, big data is already
part of many companies and this trend will continue. However, I believe that our regulation
needs to be adjusted first – our standards currently do not allow for speculative financial
information. Sure I can include some non-financial predictions but I could not publish a
progressive financial statement in the annual report. For big data to really benefit users of Big Data and
corporate reporting information we will have to look into this” (Interviewee 25). corporate
An interviewee further addressed the conflict of timely vs reliable, and the future reporting
potential of overcoming this paradox of accounting information via Big Data: “As an
accountant I can acknowledge the potential unreliability of that estimate but as a millennial
I can only say that the power lies in the crowd and that analysing a large dataset will
generate a realistic insight once organisational systems have been adapted to deal with big 867
data, have been connected to devices of the Internet of Things […] of course we are still in
charge of preparing the corporate reports, and we can expand to include big data analytics
but it is also a mindset, thinking of new ways that we can harness big data in the context of
our profession. So we need to expand our tacit knowledge really. And the system needs
more digital natives that can create such new ways of thinking” (Interviewee 1).
The opportunities and risks associated with Big Data in corporate reporting must be
considered in a cost-benefit analysis, although it might be difficult to not adopt Big Data in
corporate reporting eventually. Corporations, individuals as well as standard-setting bodies
need to address the risks in order to reap the benefits of the opportunities – according to the
perceptions of participants, the digitisation of accounting and corporate reporting cannot be
reversed or even stopped, but instead should be incorporated into accountants’ tacit
knowledge, education and work processes, akin to computers, enterprise-resource planning
systems or the internet in general.
5. Discussion and conclusion

The final section of this study summarises and reflects on the empirical findings in the
context of the extant literature and theoretical context of Arnold’s (2003) Janus-faces of
technology and Jarvenpaa and Lang’s (2005) paradoxes. The current study has investigated
corporate reporting and Big Data, the willingness to incorporate Big Data in the
accountants’ work context, as expressed in the Big Data state of mind, the anticipated role of
the accountant in this context, and the paradoxes that result from adopting new
technological concepts. Three broad topics were identified: the Big Data state of mind and
corporate reporting, the accountants’ role and future related to Big Data, and perceived
opportunities and risks.
5.1 The Big Data state of mind

The Big Data state of mind reflects on Arnold’s (2003) use of Heidegger’s lifeworld enframed
by technology, in which Big Data is not just data large in size, complex to handle and
considered as a tremendous opportunity (Vasarhelyi et al., 2015), but also refers to a tacit
way of thinking or living in an empirically driven, data-rich lifeworld, an approach of
continually seeking new ways to harness Big Data. The focus of investigation was on the
willingness of incorporating such state of mind in the accountants’ work context. In the
context of corporate reporting, prior literature has identified the great opportunities that its
analytics can provide (Bhimani and Willcocks, 2014; Payne, 2014; Vasarhelyi et al., 2015;
Warren et al., 2015); however, it has also raised concerns of accountant dialogue being lost in
the analytics and more practice-related caveats, such as lacking guidance and regulation for
corporate reporting (Krahel and Titera, 2015; Quattrone, 2016). As the empirical findings
illustrate, participants have already engaged with Big Data and in their respective
organisations the Big Data state of mind has begun to permeate conceptual and operational
layers, in terms of focus and processing of information, and wherever applicable during
preparing prospective financial statements. The current study suggests that accountants
need to engage in Big Data analytics. While data analysts can provide us with the way of
analysing data, data will only be useful if correctly interpreted and used. Big Data is
perceived as an opportunity to address the timeliness vs reliability conflict of corporate
AAAJ reporting and to introduce new means of corporate reporting due to technological
30,4 developments (Krahel and Vasarhelyi, 2014). However, accountants’ tacit knowledge, their
approach to decision making and their inherent values, such as conservatism, reliability and
risk-adversity, must not be eliminated and replaced by statistical analyses and data
scientists’ analytical approaches, since Big Data needs interpretation and story-telling,
which is based on prior knowledge, experience and theory. Rather, accountants and
868 data scientists are recommended to create multidisciplinary teams that complement and
enhance each others’ expertise, and thus enhance the accuracy and reliability of corporate
reporting. In both cases, “a little bit of knowledge” would on its own lead to potential
misinterpretations, false information and decision making, akin to multidisciplinary teams
in other science, such as medical, that join their respective expertise. Accountants serve as
gatekeepers to not only accounting-relevant values but also accounting-based tacit
knowledge. Prior literature has not recognised the inherent risk of misinterpretation due to
the lack of knowledge, which has been addressed in the current study emerging from the
empirical analysis. Furthermore, the Big Data state of mind, the inherent approach to
Big Data as a self-evident resource that is accessed and utilised in all daily contexts, and
thus allows us to harness Big Data in novel ways, is a new concept that has not been
addressed in prior corporate reporting and accounting literature.
5.2 The corporate reporting approach in the digital and Big Data age
Furthermore, opportunities with regard to the corporate reporting model per se were
identified. Corporate reporting has experienced significant developments since the
mid-1990s since the internet was employed in the corporate reporting context, as the
literature review has shown (Fisher and Naylor, 2016). The corporate reporting stage that is
entered due to Big Data and Big Data analytics is considered dynamic and prospective, with
a dual exchange between stakeholders and corporation and new types of information
included and provided, which can potentially alleviate information asymmetry
(Prokofieva, 2015). Importantly, corporate reporting can move towards real-time reporting
(Krahel and Vasarhelyi, 2014) and significantly reduce the corporate reporting cycle, which
was one of the supportive empirical findings. Thus, Big Data provides corporate reporting
with the opportunity to change its approach to corporate reporting, first regarding timing,
but also with regard to accuracy. For instance, instead of cost-flow assumptions, real
inventory values can be reported, and stakeholders with different needs can gather the
relevant information they need if they are provided access to “raw” data, such as journal and
ledger transactions. Furthermore, the prospective element of corporate reporting, as also
emphasised by the new integrated reporting development, can significantly be enhanced.
While some corporations already undertook analyses, such as sentiment analysis of
customer reviews to gauge prospective sales, internally, current standards and regulation
do not allow the publication of such information. Thus, one of the future projects needs to be
a review of corporate reporting standards, in order to determine how they can reflect future
technological developments but also how they can reduce inherent risks, such as
misinterpretations of potential future developments. At this point, prospective financial
statements are typically only provided in special purpose situations, such as loan decision
making. Also, accounting academics have yet to incorporate analytics of external Big Data,
such as sentiment analysis, in their accounting, auditing and corporate reporting curricula.
Furthermore, assuming a certain behaviour due to statistical trend predictions carries a risk
that must be considered in decision-making although participants believed that the crowd,
i.e. large number of people, can alleviate such risk.
As the empirical findings have illustrated, corporations contribute structured and
unstructured data, stemming from their information systems but also a variety of data sources,
such as points of sale, social media, technological gadgets and mobile technology, several of
which are also technological means that stakeholders engage with and through which they also Big Data and
create significant amounts of unstructured data. In line with Warren et al. (2015), in order for corporate
corporations to utilise and incorporate external and internal unstructured Big Data, it needs to reporting
be processed to generate insight, provide answers and useable insights, and as the findings
have illustrated needs the appropriate systems but also the appropriate creative minds in place
to generate useful answers from the data and to comprehend how the various Big Data came
together. Thus, the new corporate reporting model incorporates static and dynamic 869
information, provides historic and prospective financial and non-financial information for user
decision making through predicting future results, with new direction flow of corporate
reporting simultaneously flowing top down and bottom up. This new corporate reporting
approach in the digital and Big Data age employs corporate connectivity to meet the mass and
dynamic users’ needs. It adds value as it enables corporations to provide timely and new forms
of corporate accounting information (Vasarhelyi et al., 2015), such as more detailed reporting
with transactions, events, footnote, tailored corporate reporting for specific groups and general
corporate reporting for general purposes, and corporate reporting for specific purposes such as
taxes, audited and unaudited reporting, also cash and accrual reporting. This new way of
corporate reporting reflects the power of Big Data analytics applications to not only analyse
large volumes of fast-changing data to identify the targeted stakeholders’ behaviour and needs
by accessing their user-generated data but also adopt a new way of thinking, and new forms of
tacit knowledge that accountants need to incorporate Big Data in corporate reporting.
In addition to building such teams, corporations need to determine whether they want to
outsource their analytics, for instance to Google Analytics, or whether they want to introduce
systems, such as IBM’s infosphere, which is essentially a comprehensive Big Data platform.
While outsourcing their analytics, external providers can create a cloud platform that allows a
corporation to access its data unbound by time or location. The providers, as well as the
organisation itself, should consider time-series analyses of their own data to generate a
reasonable forecast of the next year ahead, instead of undertaking an incremental forecasting
exercise. They should also undertake sentiment analyses of the organisation’s existing or
potential customers by investigating comments on their services or products, which in turn will
enhance forecasts and prospective financial statements.
5.3 The paradoxes of Big Data and corporate reporting

As discussed in the prior literature (Arnold, 2003; Jarvenpaa and Lang, 2005), technology
and its developments have inherent paradoxical features, which implies that technology has
a dual effect in the opposing directions along the same continuum (Arnold, 2003).
The paradoxical features that emerged as relevant in the current study reflect on two of
Jarvenpaa and Lang’s (2005) paradoxes, although not all their outlined paradoxes in relation
to mobile technology are relevant in the current study.
In line with Jarvenpaa and Lang (2005), issues that were particularly paradoxical were
empowerment vs enslavement, and fulfil vs create needs. The empowerment vs
enslavement paradox was also referred to, as Big Data may increase corporate reporting
efficiency and flexibility through ad hoc inquiries and modified reporting to different
stakeholders. However, the same tools that empowered both corporations and stakeholders
in their simultaneous provision and receipt reporting may take away their freedom as it may
lead to increased corporation work pressure in order to satisfy stakeholders’ expectations.
This relates to the next paradox, which is fulfilling needs vs creating needs, as Big Data can
provide tailor made and real-time information to fulfil stakeholders’ needs. However,
participants identified that they created a need that they now have to fulfil by providing
particular non-financial performance-relevant information on their website, which now has
turned into a need of internal users and external stakeholders that they must satisfy and
they perceive as a stressful requirement.
AAAJ The inherent paradoxes that result from this study particular to Big Data and
30,4 corporate reporting are reliability vs timeliness, and simplicity vs complexity. Big Data
and corporate reporting experiences paradoxical aspects, as corporate reporting is required,
amongst others, to be relevant, reliable, neutral, timely and up-to-date. In particular,
reliability and timeliness are paradoxical requirements, as corporate reporting is more likely
reliable when it is reported as past information, whereas timeliness and ad hoc inquiries
870 require immediate reporting that does not allow for verifying its reliability. This in itself also
constitutes an accounting-specific paradox that can be increased or reduced by Big Data
depending on the reliability of the analytics, which in turn poses a paradox because the
purpose of utilising Big Data is to reduce overall uncertainty and improve analytical
feedback. Reliability and timeliness are paradoxical requirements, as corporate reporting is
more likely reliable when it is reported in an audited past information, whereas timeliness
and ad hoc inquiries require immediate reporting that does not allow for verifying its
reliability. This creates needs for both corporations and stakeholder to have different ways
of verifying the reliability of such reporting, among other due to adapted and adjusted
standards. While the accountant sees the need to manage both but current standards are
more supportive or reliable; data scientists are more concerned with timeliness. Veracity of
Big Data does not reject timeliness as it is concerned with the sources of the data.
The final paradox is also inherent to the data and unique to Big Data and corporate
reporting. It refers to the complexity vs simplicity paradox that participants experienced
and identified as an important feature. Simplicity refers to the concept that Big Data is
supposed to simplify decision making due to enhanced information provision, more accurate
data analytics and the variety of data sources. However, participants identified that at the
same time they perceived Big Data analytics as increasing corporate reporting’s complexity
because they did not possess sufficient analytical skills, such as programming and
statistics, and detailed knowledge of analytical systems, such as Hadoop, which increased
the level of uncertainty. Furthermore, the variety of data sources that would be involved can
be complex because so many factors need to be considered. Thus, the duality of the
corporate reporting model can enhance and simplify corporate reporting but can also render
the process more complex due to lack of tacit knowledge.
5.4 Future research recommendations and conclusion

The model also implies wider organisational and perhaps social implications. Accountants
must engage with different parts of the organisation and must be jointly proactive about
Big Data and corporate reporting. As they are to provide significant amounts of data to
stakeholders and likewise are to collect and analyse Big Data, accountants need to engage
with data scientists to jointly have the most meaningful output. Furthermore, greater data
provision and insight into organisations can alleviate information asymmetry, which can
have a positive effect on investors’ trust in accounting practice and corporations in general.
This study also has its limitations. Having chosen a qualitative lens forgoes a broader
data collection method, which may provide different insights. This is certainly a worthwhile
undertaking for future research. Furthermore, the model is primarily practice based and
does not take wider social and societal implications into consideration. However, we suggest
that these should be investigated once corporate reporting and Big Data phenomenon has
evolved further, as currently societal impact would be difficult to determine.
There are a number of future research suggestions to be made, as this is still a novel
research area to engage in. It needs significant further empirical analyses of Big Data
analytics currently or potentially in use in accounting in general and corporate reporting in
particular, either through a detailed case study or through a quantitative survey to gather a
broader range of insights. Future research should focus more on how to use digital content
analytics, such as data analytics, multimedia analytics, text analytics, web analytics,
network analytics and mobile analytics in corporate reporting. Furthermore, the education Big Data and
agenda needs to be addressed in future research, as current accounting programmes do not corporate
engage sufficiently with the technological developments and accounting information reporting
systems courses are still primarily theoretical with little practical insight into how
technology and accounting relate in the real world. Finally, future research should engage
with accounting standards and the theoretical framework to determine if and how
standards need to be changed in order to allow for greater flexibility and prospective 871
information of Big Data analytics.
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Corresponding author
Larissa von Alberti-Alhtaybat can be contacted at: larissa0112@yahoo.de
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2.1 Development of internet-based corporate reporting – from static to dynamic

(Fisher and Naylor, 2016).

2.2 SoMoClo technology, Big Data and corporate reporting

2.3 Big Data and accounting

and visualisation; however, in reality, it is considerable more difficult to change an existing

2.4 The lifeworld and paradoxes of technology

Interviewee Position Industry type

Title Type of source Provided by

4.1 The Big Data state of mind and corporate reporting

Interviewees furthermore identified that in addition to defining more accurately prospective

4.2 Accountants’ role and future related to Big Data

866 4.3 Perceived opportunities and risks of Big Data

knowledge is a dangerous thing. A very simple example is SPSS – it is a user-friendly

5. Discussion and conclusion

5.1 The Big Data state of mind

5.3 The paradoxes of Big Data and corporate reporting

5.4 Future research recommendations and conclusion

Al-Htaybat, K. and von Alberti-Alhtaybat, L. (2013), “Mobility in corporate financial reporting:

Developing Grounded Theory, 2nd ed., Sage Publications, London.

1. LockeJoanne, Joanne Locke, RowbottomNick, Nick Rowbottom, TroshaniIndrit, Indrit Troshani.

[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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