Going outside for MIS implementation

Determinants of information system quality and data quality in management accounting

Data quality is critical to adequately perform management accounting (MA) tasks, and information systems (IS) provide the data for the MA domain. However, IS can vary vastly across firms, which may influence the basis for rational decision making (i.e., data quality). This study therefore aims to investigate the impact of IS quality on data quality in MA and to analyze the determinants that can influence IS quality in MA. We conduct a cross-sectional survey among 143 medium-sized and large firms. Based on a structural equation model, we predict and find that IS quality significantly affects management accounting data quality (MADQ). Company’s IT investments, internal and external IT knowledge, innovative technologies, and data source variety are significantly associated with IS quality in MA and in turn indirectly affect MADQ. This study highlights the importance of IS quality for management accountants’ practice and simultaneously provides new insights regarding the efficacy of selected determinants of IS quality.

Firms’ size and use of information and communication technologies

There are strong arguments about the positive effect of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on companies’ performance. This effect is also extensive for micro and small enterprises (MSEs), which tend to adopt ICTs in lower levels in comparison with large companies. In this context, this paper has two goals: to analyze the effect of firms’ size on (a) the relationship between strategic planning and ICTs use; (b) the relationship between ICTs use and interaction with customers. The sample of the study comprises 171 Brazilian MSEs, and we used confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to test our hypotheses. The main results indicated that even in small companies, size is an important variable to explain the antecedents and consequents of ICTs use. The positive effect of ICTs use was stronger among small companies, reinforcing the relevance of technology for them.