Opportunities and Challenges for Management Accountants in a Digital and Global Economy

This article discusses the opportunities and challenges faced by management accountants in the digital and global economy. It explores the role of management accountants, the features of the digital and global economy, and provides solutions for management accountants. The article emphasizes the importance of adapting to the digital age and integrating digital thinking into management accounting practices.

Opportunities and Challenges for Management Accountants 1
OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTANTS
IN A DIGITAL AND GLOBAL ECONOMY
Author
Institution
Professor
Date

Opportunities and Challenges for Management Accountants 2
Opportunities and Challenges for Management Accountants in a Digital and Global
Economy
Introduction
The digital as well as global economy and ideas behind them are driving significant
changes in the production relations and mode1. This also promotes significant reforms
as well as vast development of accounting professions and offers rate chance for
management accountant applications. Emergence of digital economy offers new
technique for information processing and acquisition of the management accountant,
which highly enriches efficiency and functioning of management accountant. Digital
applications like Big Data and cloud computing have practically built digital channels
in between firms and brings extensive upgrading and optimization of the management
accounting that encompasses service model, data sorting, technical innovation as well
as information integration2.
Digital era enhances collection of market trend, operation information, consumers’
preference and enterprise production and enhances firms with relevant information
guarantee for their supply amount and production positioning determined by the
demand3. Besides, in the digital and global economy era, information collection is not
an issue and management’s attention is not just restricted to the structured
information, but also to the unstructured information. For instance, in the management
accounting, learning standards of the balanced scorecard in the performance
assessment and the unstructured information processing at client level are considered
1 Alnoor Bhimani and Bromwich Michael. "Management accounting in a digital and global economy: the interface
of strategy, technology, and cost information." Accounting, organizations & institution. (2009): 86.
2 Alnoor Bhimani,. "Cost management in the digital age." The Routledge Companion to Cost Management.
(Oxford: Routledge, 2013), 382.
3 Michael L. Werner and H. Jones Kumen. "Introduction to Management Accounting: a user perspective." 2004.
11.

Opportunities and Challenges for Management Accountants 3
easily accessible, which is significant for execution of balanced scorecard4. Similarly,
practical statistical application is considered counter-productive in balanced scorecard
that in turns benefits development of the management accounting assessment. As
such, arrival of digital and global economy has not just changed concept of the
organization’s management but it has also promoted development and innovation of
the management accounting. In this sense, whether it is the activity-based costing,
ABB, ABM or balanced scorecard, all significantly break through information system
which initial management accounting depends on, and attach more significance to
landscape of management accounting and in mining of the organization information
management concept, to improve quality of the accounting information management5.
As such, the paper aims to discuss major opportunities as well as challenges of the
management accountants within the current digital as well as global economy. This
will start with discussion of some of the chances for the management accountant in
this digital era followed by discussion of challenges linked with management
accountants. It is then concluded by an overall concept or view on challenges and
prospects for the management accountants within the current digital age and global
economy6.
Features of Digital as well as Global Economy
The current digital as well as global economy entails computer-based information
change and a wide array of the other variations in functioning and nature of world
economy and associated social processes and structures7. This is due to notion that
4 Jane Gleeson-White. Six capitals, or can accountants save the planet?: Rethinking capitalism for the twenty-first
century. (WW Norton & Company, 2015), 1.
5 Mohammad Ahid and Augustine Ayuba. "The roles and responsibilities of management accountants in the era of
globalization." Global Journal of Management and Business Research 12, no. 15 (2012). 12.
6, Kim Langfield-Smith Smith David, Andon Paul, Hilton Ronald and Thorne Helen. Management accounting:
Information for creating and managing value (McGraw-Hill Education Australia, 2017).
7 Jeffrey Unerman,, Bebbington Jan, and O’Dwyer Brendan. "Introduction to sustainability accounting and
accountability." In Sustainability accounting and accountability, (Routledge, 2010), 22.

Opportunities and Challenges for Management Accountants 4
phenomena which appearing in past few decades like globalization, deregulation and
technological advancement that has stormed old economic function. Globalisation is
the chief variation in business setting and together with advancement in technologies
and communication revolution is considered one of the most significant forces
affecting the firms’ operations8. Organizations enjoy benefits of digital economy
permitting high-speed computerised trading, communications and organizations
moves their main operation in and out of organization at substantial speed. In essence,
deregulations entail loosening of the governmental control over the economic
undertakings. This is basically contributed by belief that private industries are more
effective than government agencies in creating some value from the economic
resources and have capacity in competing better than public firms which are
bureaucratic and excessively rule-governed. Additionally, technology has
continuously changed over the past years that every sector has been transformed by
fresh software, hardware or communication progressions9. These helps in finding out
what market desires and quickens design decision on services and products to be
produced based on the current technology. As such management accountants require
taking on management tasks of the discontinuities by integrating and absorbing the
fresh streams of the knowledge and coordinating across the professional cultures.
Role of Management Accountant
The chief role of management accountant is performing several tasks in ensuring their
firm’s financial security, handling particularly all financial issues and therefore
8 Magdy G., Abdel-Kader, ed. Review of management accounting research (Springer, 2011).
9 Christina Wiwik Sunarni. "Management accounting practices and the role of management accountant: Evidence
from manufacturing companies throughout Yogyakarta, Indonesia." Review of Integrative Business and Economics
Research 2, no. 2 (2013): 616.

Opportunities and Challenges for Management Accountants 5
assisting to drive organization overall strategy and management10. Besides,
management accountants are significant elements in determining success and status of
an entity. Some select becoming Certified Management Accountant, but with higher
focus on the management issues, financial planning as well as cost accounting11. Their
role ranges from budgeting, assisting in the strategic planning, managing assets to
assisting determine benefits and compensation packages as well as handling taxes.
Additionally, management accountants are responsible for gathering, recording as
well as reporting data from numerous divisions of an entity, observing and assessing
their budgets and giving suggestions for their allocation and funding12. This comprises
of projection of the raw material costs, manufacturing costs, labor costs, advertising
and sales costs, lobbying costs, internal operations costs and social media networking
costs. They need to collaborate with concerned individuals in making overall
assessment of an entity’s functioning capital and accessibility of finance. Therefore,
management accounting roles are very vital for organization’s well-being. Their roles
are enormous that even a sole underestimation of miscalculation of any plan by the
management accountants could place an entity into danger13.
Opportunities for Management Accountants
Some of the main opportunities associated with the current digital and global
economy in management accounting include; first, practical application of the cloud
computing technique14. Practical application of the cloud computing technique is chief
10 M. Krishna Moorthy, Oi Voon Ong, Azni Suhaily Binti Samsuri Cik, Gopalan M., and Yew King-Tak.
"Application of information technology in management accounting decision making." International Journal of
Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences 2, no. 3 (2012): 1.
11 Davood Askarany. "Innovation of management accounting practices and techniques." In Encyclopedia of
Information Science and Technology, Third Edition, 2015. 10.
12 Davood Askarany. "An exploratory study into the implementation of management accounting changes in
Australia." Journal of Modern Accounting and Auditing 8, no. 5 (2012): 630.
13 Mat, Tuan Tuan. "Management accounting and organizational change: impact of alignment of management
accounting system, structure and strategy on performance." 2010.
14 Magdy G., Abdel-Kader, ed. Review of management accounting research (Springer, 2011).

Opportunities and Challenges for Management Accountants 6
in Big Data applications. Basically, in the present information acquisition, raw
information without being processed are accessed and applying the data directly to
sales and production sections could be relatively risks since their rationality and
accuracy are not quite guaranteed. As per the studies, cloud computing technique are
considered as process of sorting and assessing financial data, which in turn lessens
time costs as well as strengthens efficient data processing at same time, rectifying
shortcomings of inaccurate financial information assessment technique15. Particularly,
transformation of financial information in cloud computing transfers raw financial
information to efficient information meeting needs of the management accountants
via practical application guidelines that solves shortage of the storage space and in
turn strengthens accuracy and timeliness of information processing outcomes16.
Second opportunity for the management accountants within this current digital as well
as global economy is improving quality of their accounting skills and cultivating
compound management accountants17. Under the digital and global economy age,
roles and responsibilities of management accounting has changes from the mare
accounting roles to management roles. Conversely, organizations ought to
dynamically introduce high-end management accountant. They should also attach
more significance to cultivation and transformation of the internal management
accountants18. Organizations also ought to make full utilization of digital technique as
well as other modern media models, adopting these means of digital technique to
15 M. Krishna Moorthy, Oi Voon Ong, Samsuri Cik Binti, Gopalan M., and Yew King-Tak. "Application of
information technology in management accounting decision making." International Journal of Academic Research
in Business and Social Sciences 2, no. 3 (2012): 3.
16 Christina Wiwik Sunarni. "Management accounting practices and the role of management accountant: Evidence
from manufacturing companies throughout Yogyakarta, Indonesia." Review of Integrative Business and Economics
Research 2, no. 2 (2013): 618.
17 Jeffrey Unerman,, Bebbington Jan, and O’Dwyer Brendan. "Introduction to sustainability accounting and
accountability." In Sustainability accounting and accountability, (Routledge, 2010), 24.
18 Davood Askarany. "An exploratory study into the implementation of management accounting changes in
Australia." Journal of Modern Accounting and Auditing 8, no. 5 (2012): 632.

Opportunities and Challenges for Management Accountants 7
continue educating management accountant to improve their management capacity as
well as cultivating multifaceted management accountants. Management accounting
seminars ought to be conducted at often intervals to continuously summarize
experience of the management accountants and improving their capacity19. In
addition, accounting computerization training ought to be strengthened in adapting to
new accounting information needs under this current digital age. For the meantime,
management accountants ought to be encouraged to study about the fresh disciplines
including internal auditing knowledge, corporate finance as well as other concepts to
widen their horizon20. For the management accountants, upgrading the thinking and
knowledge conforms to broader direction of digital age and is the sole means to
increasing their value.
Further, the current digital era present an opportunity for management accountants to
establish information security system21. Information security systems have specific
effect on development of organizations such that financial information security is
enhanced. This calls for organizations to have corresponding management tactics like
excellent application of the network management and technique. Once conducts such
as leaks and forgery takes place, several firms are somehow unable to establish
significant information processing platform as a result of aspects like self-
development. In such instances, organizations should carefully asses other firms’
business level, service level and other aspects, conducting on some strict quality
controls in minimizing the risks22.
19 Jane Gleeson-White. Six capitals, or can accountants save the planet?: Rethinking capitalism for the twenty-first
century. (WW Norton & Company, 2015), 3.
20 Davood Askarany. "Innovation of management accounting practices and techniques." In Encyclopedia of
Information Science and Technology, Third Edition, 2015. 11.
21 Mohammad Ahid and Augustine Ayuba. "The roles and responsibilities of management accountants in the era of
globalization." Global Journal of Management and Business Research 12, no. 15 (2012). 14.
22 Mat, Tuan Tuan. "Management accounting and organizational change: impact of alignment of management
accounting system, structure and strategy on performance." 2010.

Opportunities and Challenges for Management Accountants 8
Challenges for Management Accountants
Despite the various opportunities presented to management accountants within this
current digital as well as global economy, there are some challenges that come with
the digital and global economy23. First, most of the management accountant lack
computer-skills in this digital era. Similarly, against the opportunities that come with
development of digital and global economy, rapid development of the information
technology as well as increasingly complicated economic data on market result in
some challenges of organization’s financial data processing and analysis24. For
instance, some firms in China often utilize most inefficient and primitive means to
manually verify the books of account and input the financial signs in process of a
financial data processing that would not just impact efficiency of an entity financial
analysis, but also result in financial data variation and lessens organization benefits.
Conversely, while accounting the talents, the country have achieved saturation point,
accountants with high-end computerized skills are very rate to get25. Besides, with
arrival of the digital and global economy, disconnection between accounting
disciplines and computer science has resulted in emergence of shortage in high-end
computerized skills amongst management accountants. To adapt to current accounting
information under digital age, it is crucial for any firm to strengthen its computerized
accounting teaching for the management accountants and forge and cultivate
management accountants that understands both business and finance26.
23 Kim Langfield-Smith Smith David, Andon Paul, Hilton Ronald and Thorne Helen. Management accounting:
Information for creating and managing value (McGraw-Hill Education Australia, 2017), 112.
24 Michael L. Werner and H. Jones Kumen. "Introduction to Management Accounting: a user perspective." 2004.
13.
25 Alnoor Bhimani and Bromwich Michael. "Management accounting in a digital and global economy: the interface
of strategy, technology, and cost information." Accounting, organizations & institution. (2009): 89.
26 Alnoor Bhimani. "Cost management in the digital age." The Routledge Companion to Cost Management.
(Oxford: Routledge, 2013), 384

Opportunities and Challenges for Management Accountants 9
Secondly, there is the challenge of relatively incomplete financial information
security system27. As organizations, clear financial information in the real-time is
chief for further development and progress. Financial information with efficient
assessment and sorting is particularly important. More detailed assessment process is
significant for practical application in organizations. Chief financial information
comprises of organization client information, future development as well as market
research that are significant for organization’s decision-making process28. Security
management of financial information is of high essence since once the information is
leaked to the peers; there would be substantially huge internal loss of entity
information. Basically, efficient application of digital system make organization’s
information security management very unfavourable and use of employees and the
other issues make the issue worse29. Thus, organizations should strengthen some of
their internal management processes and promote safe and secure information security
system that could at least be attributed to or contributed by practical application of
management accounting with conscientious work attitude and excellent professional
employees in enhancing deep mining of organization information and accomplish
security management30.
Third, lack of significant emphasis on management accountant is another important
challenge. Organizations lack significant emphasis on the management accountant
role31. For instance, China has unestablished management accounting association with
27Kim Langfield-Smith Smith David, Andon Paul, Hilton Ronald and Thorne Helen. Management accounting:
Information for creating and managing value (McGraw-Hill Education Australia, 2017), 120.
28 Davood Askarany. "An exploratory study into the implementation of management accounting changes in
Australia." Journal of Modern Accounting and Auditing 8, no. 5 (2012): 634.
29Kim Langfield-Smith Smith David, Andon Paul, Hilton Ronald and Thorne Helen. Management accounting:
Information for creating and managing value (McGraw-Hill Education Australia, 2017), 123.
30 Alnoor Bhimani. "Cost management in the digital age." The Routledge Companion to Cost Management.
(Oxford: Routledge, 2013): 385.
31 Christina Wiwik Sunarni. "Management accounting practices and the role of management accountant: Evidence
from manufacturing companies throughout Yogyakarta, Indonesia." Review of Integrative Business and Economics
Research 2, no. 2 (2013): 620.

Opportunities and Challenges for Management Accountants 10
roles of management accountant being undertaken by financial accountant. Besides,
organization management lack sufficient attention to as well as application of the
management accountant. It is evident that financial accountant main role is provision
of information on financial status, cash flow and operation outcomes to the external
shareholders while the management accountant dedicates to provision of information
on management planning, projection decisions and operation management for internal
managers32. The significant decision makers are attached to the management
accountant directly influencing application of the management accounting within
organizations. Lack of understand of the management accountant roles in decision
making would directly impact on management accounting application in the finance
department. Besides, most firms lack management accounting division and thus the
management accountants do not play their high role in organization management.
Moreover, management accountants lack greater attention in management accounting
that is simply viewed as making accounts33.
With advent of digital age, the Big Data is known by numerous firms and gradually
implemented34. Nonetheless, practically, how the Big Data could be integrated with
the management accounting in making real application as well as further develop
firms still remains a weak link of various firms. This is due to notion that
organizations have neither accurate comprehension of particular application of the Big
Data, not they fails to develop approaches or models for Big Data and for
management accounting, which results in on-sided understanding and therefore
32 Christina Wiwik Sunarni. "Management accounting practices and the role of management accountant: Evidence
from manufacturing companies throughout Yogyakarta, Indonesia." Review of Integrative Business and Economics
Research 2, no. 2 (2013): 621.
33 Jane Gleeson-White. Six capitals, or can accountants save the planet?: Rethinking capitalism for the twenty-first
century. (WW Norton & Company, 2015), 4.
34 Michael L. Werner and H. Jones Kumen. "Introduction to Management Accounting: a user perspective." 2004.
14.

Opportunities and Challenges for Management Accountants 11
impacts entire development of the firm operation35. Especially for SMEs whose
capital is limited, in case they could not judge market situation appropriately though
blindly expand the production as well as investing in machines and equipment, it is
detrimental to professional production. Thus, practical management accounting
application under Big Data is crucial for entire operations of firms. Organizations
should firstly make it clear of their development objective and direction and then
combine the opportunities that lie behind the Big Data and the management
accounting in guiding overall operations of organizations, to enhance better
judgements and decisions for the organizations36.
Solutions for Management Accountants
It is influence of digital age that makes management accountants experience several
opportunities as well as challenges37. In such circumstance, corresponding
management actions should be undertaken in ensuring that management accountants
practically plays their roles and promote long-run development of organizations. To
start with, more emphasis should be placed on the management accounting by internal
information system. Basically, entities should establish management accounting
association as well as strengthen global cooperation and exchanges in the
management accounting practice to absorb cultural accomplishment of the advanced
management accountants overseas38. Additionally, organizations management should
attached relatively more significance to the management accountant, making precise
separation of work between financial and management accountant. Organizations
35 Davood Askarany. "An exploratory study into the implementation of management accounting changes in
Australia." Journal of Modern Accounting and Auditing 8, no. 5 (2012): 636
36Kim Langfield-Smith Smith David, Andon Paul, Hilton Ronald and Thorne Helen. Management accounting:
Information for creating and managing value (McGraw-Hill Education Australia, 2017), 126.
37 Jane Gleeson-White. Six capitals, or can accountants save the planet?: Rethinking capitalism for the twenty-first
century. (WW Norton & Company, 2015), 6.
38 Alnoor Bhimani. "Cost management in the digital age." The Routledge Companion to Cost Management.
(Oxford: Routledge, 2013): 386.

Opportunities and Challenges for Management Accountants 12
should have full-time management accountants division and provide their independent
roles. More emphasis must be placed on the practical case study and relations between
practice and theory39. Moreover, while actively accessing experience from
experienced firms, organizations must offer full-play in management accounting
within organization management.
Further, compensation incentive systems should be continuously improved in creating
favourable setting for internal management accounting development40. Meanwhile,
organizations must be equipped with the Big Data experience, strengthening their
application and promote modern management models like financial sharing center,
cloud sharing, cloud procurement as well as cost management cloud system41. Finally,
management accountants should integrate with digital thinking and in turn adapt to
general development or growth direction of the sector in digital age42.
Conclusion
In conclusion, is this digital age, management accountants have development
opportunities and similar encounter significant challenges. The digital age has offered
substantial foundation for development of the management accountants and change
their way of thinking. Experiencing various complicated data, management
accounting individuals could gather, process, assess and use significant data with
assistance of the cloud computing, which offers stronger support for assessment,
prediction, analysis and decision-making. The Big Data also promote development of
39 Davood Askarany. "Innovation of management accounting practices and techniques." In Encyclopedia of
Information Science and Technology, Third Edition, 2015. 13.
40 Davood Askarany. "An exploratory study into the implementation of management accounting changes in
Australia." Journal of Modern Accounting and Auditing 8, no. 5 (2012): 638.
41 Alnoor Bhimani. "Cost management in the digital age." The Routledge Companion to Cost Management.
(Oxford: Routledge, 2013): 387.
42 Jane Gleeson-White. Six capitals, or can accountants save the planet?: Rethinking capitalism for the twenty-first
century. (WW Norton & Company, 2015), 7.

Opportunities and Challenges for Management Accountants 13
the management accountant, but firms should point out some of the major
opportunities as well as challenges experienced by management accountants, activity
learning of the Big Data and constantly adapting to digital age so that to realize
efficient use of global and digital era within management accounting. In essence, any
of the above challenges could be somehow managed but survival in global economy
as well as digital age calls for all the forces being managed concurrently. This is
considered a chief challenge that the management accountant experience in this
digital era. Therefore, management accountants ought to be part of their firms value-
added team, taking part in devising of the strategies, translating the strategic intention
and capacities in managerial and operational measures and moving far from being the
scorekeepers to being designers of entity’s crucial future.

Opportunities and Challenges for Management Accountants 14
Bibliography
Abdel-Kader, Magdy G., ed. Review of management accounting research. Springer,
2011.
Ahid, Mohammad, and Ayuba Augustine. "The roles and responsibilities of
management accountants in the era of globalization." Global Journal of Management
and Business Research 12, no. 15 (2012).
Askarany, Davood. "An exploratory study into the implementation of management
accounting changes in Australia." Journal of Modern Accounting and Auditing 8, no. 5
(2012): 628-640.
Askarany, Davood. "Innovation of management accounting practices and techniques."
In Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Third Edition, pp. 10-19. igi
global, 2015.
Bhimani, Alnoor, and Michael Bromwich. "Management accounting in a digital and
global economy: the interface of strategy, technology, and cost information."
Accounting, organizations & institutions (2009): 85-111.
Bhimani, Alnoor. "Cost management in the digital age." The Routledge Companion to
Cost Management. Oxford: Routledge (2013): 381-388.
Gleeson-White, Jane. Six capitals, or can accountants save the planet?: Rethinking
capitalism for the twenty-first century. WW Norton & Company, 2015.

Opportunities and Challenges for Management Accountants 15
Langfield-Smith, Kim, David Smith, Paul Andon, Ronald Hilton, and Helen Thorne.
Management accounting: Information for creating and managing value. McGraw-Hill
Education Australia, 2017.
Moorthy, M. Krishna, Ong Oi Voon, Cik Azni Suhaily Binti Samsuri, M. Gopalan,
and King-Tak Yew. "Application of information technology in management
accounting decision making." International Journal of Academic Research in Business
and Social Sciences 2, no. 3 (2012): 1.
Sunarni, Christina Wiwik. "Management accounting practices and the role of
management accountant: Evidence from manufacturing companies throughout
Yogyakarta, Indonesia." Review of Integrative Business and Economics Research 2,
no. 2 (2013): 616.
Tuan Mat, Tuan. "Management accounting and organizational change: impact of
alignment of management accounting system, structure and strategy on performance."
(2010)..
Unerman, Jeffrey, Jan Bebbington, and Brendan O’Dwyer. "Introduction to
sustainability accounting and accountability." In Sustainability accounting and
accountability, pp. 20-35. Routledge, 2010.
Werner, Michael L., and Kumen H. Jones. "Introduction to Management Accounting:
a user perspective." (2004).