The effect of emergent technologies on accountant`s ethical blindness

Abstract

The accounting field has come under scrutiny after a number of high-profile ethical scandals dealing with organizational fraud has been tied to the profession. While several accounting standards have been established to ensure the integrity, objectivity, and professional competency of accountants; the power of the situation and individual motivations are challenges that may ethically blind accountants and result in fraud. In this paper, we explore the combinative effect of three emergent technologies: Blockchain-based, IoT-enabled and AI-empowered distributed ledger on reducing the risk of accounting ethical blindness. We examine how technical features of emergent technologies present both gains and challenges to ethical decision-making for the accounting profession. While some of these challenges can be overcome by adopting all three emerging technologies, others require social and legal interference to avoid the challenges of these technologies. Keywords: Emergent technology, accounting ethical blindness, blockchain, artificial intelligence, internet of things.

Assessing Digital Transformation of Cost Accounting Tools in Healthcare

“…The real-time feature of CAT operations makes rapidity the antecedent with the highest outer loading and outer weights. Other research results confirm the importance of real-time accounting operations [ 55 , 59 , 60 ]. Although data security is a crucial issue, especially in financial accounting and auditing, the users indicated information security as a critical feature of digital technologies, including cost accounting in the healthcare industry.…”

“…IoT makes it possible to obtain data based on sensors embedded in various assets or positioned in the workplace, including in the patients’ rooms, transforming the physical world into an information system [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 55 ]. Built-in sensors transmit real-time cost data, which accountants can retrieve directly or transmit in a cloud.…”

“…The data collected using several sensors, considered objective sources, can offer accountants in the healthcare industry a more accurate and integrated view of costs and constitute the basis of the right decisions. IoT will increase the reliability of costing activities through the four characteristics of the technology: access to real-time data, interoperability, digitization of information, and decentralization [ 55 , 59 , 60 ].…”

Bibliometric analysis of the transformative synergies between blockchain and accounting in the uprooting of economic criminality

“…However, this can only be achieved by accounting and auditing professionals developing a set of skills and technical knowledge in managing advanced digital technologies, which according to Atayah & Alshater (2021) would be one of the new requisites in the job description of accountants and auditors, and this would almost completely change the traditional concept of accounting as it is currently known and practiced, an aspect also analysed by Fullana & Ruiz (2021) in their paper. Sherif & Mohsin (2021) highlight in their recent study the significant impact of the trio of blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) -all emerging technologies -on the quality of reasoning and decisionmaking of accounting and auditing professionals, mitigating the potential for intentional and forced fraud, with intentional fraud occurring under the influence of three circumstances: pressure, opportunity and reason, referred to by the authors as the "Fraud Triangle". According to them, each of the technologies indicated above entails certain benefits but also certain risks for the accounting system, yet when used together, most of the gaps generated by them can be closed, thus making it possible to achieve more efficient outcomes.…”

Assessing the Impact of AI Solutions’ Ethical Issues on Performance in Managerial Accounting

“…Currently, the main advantage of AI is its ability to collect unstructured data and process and provide information to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of decisions [39]. However, until a new technological leap, decisions that involve taking into account variables that cannot be digitized, critical thinking, and anticipatory and intuitive thinking remain tasks for human resources in accounting [39][40][41][42].…”