Intelligent Decision Aids

AMCIS 2012: “Continued use of intelligent decision aids and auditor knowledge: qualitative evidence”

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So, I submitted a paper to AMCIS 2012, an academic conference to be held in Seattle this year (http://amcis2012.aisnet.org/).  The paper was accepted (“I also think that this should generate some interesting discussion and hopefully receive further guidance to help the authors publish their work in a journal”) and so I am off to Seattle in August.

This paper was written solely by myself, without revision by supervisors, so I am quite happy about that.  It is also based on my phd, which is very helpful, and of course reviewer comments are very good to help with this process.

Anyway as I haven’t blogged in a while – here is the abstract of my paper “Continued use of intelligent decision aids and auditor knowledge:  qualitative evidence”:

The Theory of Technology Dominance proposes that continued use of intelligent decision aids (IDAs) relates to a decrease in auditors’ decision making skills, or deskilling. Prior research has considered deskilling in terms of auditor declarative knowledge. This research considers deskilling in relation to auditor declarative and procedural knowledge through an extended research model. A novel, rigorous and repeatable qualitative research method using automated text analysis (Leximancer) is developed for the analysis of significant bodies of text. Nineteen senior auditors in three audit offices were interviewed, and the transcripts analyzed. The findings indicate strong support for the hypothesized negative relationships between three constructs (the extent an IDA performs routine and time-intensive tasks, the dependence of an auditor on the IDA, and the auditor’s time with an IDA), and an auditor’s declarative and procedural knowledge. The results indicate avenues for future research, and provide guidance to practitioners in the use of IDAs. 

Once it is published I will put a link to the paper on this blog entry. 

Intelligent Decision Aids and the Accounting Professional

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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.

The session in my humble view went quite well.  It’s really good to see that John and CPA Australia have a discussion group that is going quite well on an infamously ‘non-core’ topic.  Feedback from audience members that I saw was also reasonably upbeat.  At any rate, the Powerpoint I presented is given below:
Hopefully you find this interesting – it is after all my thesis so be a little kind :).
Thanks:  Micheal Axelsen