Last Wednesday evening (25th May 2011) I was invited to present to the CPA Australia discussion group for Information Technology. The topic was to do with my research, and is all about intelligent decision aids and the accounting professional. Thanks to John Halliday of BDO in Brisbane as the discussion group convenor for his suggestion that I present. I am recording this output as TTD
This is the session outline I provided to CPA Australia (note: I was a bit concerned when I showed up at 4:30pm to see signs everywhere saying I was presenting on Sharepoint – no way am I going to do that, although we could always workshop it 🙂 ):
Ever since the pocket calculator replaced the adding machine and the slide rule, accountants have been debating whether today’s accountant is less skilled than those that went before. The increasing reliance upon legislative compliance and ‘best practice frameworks’ has ensured that the modern professional must rely on the computer to carry out their tasks.
This session presents preliminary results from Micheal’s research into whether the sophisticated use of computers (‘intelligent decision aids’) to assist with accounting and audit reduces the professional’s judgment capability – their ‘know-how’. Micheal’s research draws upon interviews with 59 public sector auditors to identify whether this ‘deskilling’ is occurring.
The session identifies the driving forces behind this ‘deskilling effect’ (‘technology dominance), outlines recent research into the phenomenon (and in fact whether it exists or not), and identifies risk factors that may be at play in deskilling yourself and your staff if you rely on computers too much. Potential strategies to reduce this deskilling effect are also outlined and discussed.
This session should be of interest to any professional that relies upon a computer to help them with their professional tasks.