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Accounting Information Systems and Ethics Research: Review, Synthesis, and
the Future
in Journal of Information Systems · August 2015
DOI: 10.2308/isys-51265
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University of Nevada, Reno
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Texas Christian University
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North Carolina State University
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The Accounting Review • Issues in Accounting Education • Accounting Horizons
Accounting and the Public Interest • Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory
Behavioral Research in Accounting • Current Issues in Auditing
Journal of Emerging Technologies in Accounting • Journal of Information Systems
Journal of International Accounting Research
Journal of Management Accounting Research • The ATA Journal of Legal Tax Research
The Journal of the American Taxation Association
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Accounting Information Systems and Ethics Research: Review, Synthesis, and the Future
Binod Guragai
Nicholas Hunt
Marc P. Neri
University of North Texas
and
Eileen Z. Taylor *
North Carolina State University
eztaylor@ncsu.edu
*Corresponding author
We thank Roger Debreceny, Mary Curtis, anonymous reviewers, and participants at the 201
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Mid-year meeting of the Accounting Information Systems Section of the AAA for their helpful
suggestions and comments.
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Accounting Information Systems and Ethics Research: Review, Synthesis, and the Future
Abstract: The rapid evolution of technology and the increasingly integrated nature of Accounting
information systems (AIS) in business provide opportunities for those who interact with these
systems to act unethically. Accountants, as the managers of accounting information systems and
gatekeepers of assets, records, and reporting, have a responsibility to understand and address
ethical dilemmas related to these responsibilities in their organizations. A summary of AIS and
ethics research calls attention to gaps in the literature and provides directions for future
research.
The ETHOs framework, which categorizes factors as environmental, technological, human, and
organizational, provides a model for researchers to examine ethical issues related to the AIS
functions of recordkeeping, reporting, and control.
Keywords: Accounting information systems; ethics; data management; judgment and decision-
making; outsourcing; privacy; security; information technology.
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Accounting Information Systems and Ethics Research: Review, Synthesis, and the Future
I. INTRODUCTION
This paper examines the intersection of accounting information systems (AIS) and ethics
by reviewing existing literature, proposing a research framework, and suggesting future research
ideas. AIS, a critical component of business operations, comprise many interrelated elements
(i.e. people, procedures, data, software, hardware, and controls) that identify, collect, store,
manage, and communicate accounting data. These recordkeeping functions enable organizations
to report data and information to internal and external parties, and to control activities (e.g.,
safeguard assets, limit individuals’ actions). The foundation of ethics is the understanding of how
our behavior affects the well-being of others (Paul and Elder 2013). Because people are key
elements in AIS, and because managers, regulators, investors, and others use information from
AIS to make decisions that affect others (e.g. contracting, hiring, investing, purchasing, and
selling), virtually every aspect of AIS has ethical implications.
Although many think of AIS primarily as automated, whenever people interact with a
system, from development through use, unethical decisions and behavior are a risk. There are
several links between AIS and unethical behavior. First, accountants may use systems to engage
in (i.e., commit, convert, and conceal) occupational fraud.1 Second, accountants may use systems
to violate individuals’ privacy by collecting, storing, selling, and using this data for
unauthorized, self-serving, or unethical purposes. Third, technology-based systems may enable
individuals to engage in unethical practices over others, such as unauthorized monitoring. Last,
systems themselves, even the mere existence of a system (Hannan, Rankin, and Towry 2006),
1 According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), occupational fraud includes asset
misappropriation (e.g., fraudulent billing, payroll fraud, and expense reimbursement fraud), corruption, and
fraudulent financial reporting (i.e., intentional manipulation of reported information, either its content or its form, or
both).
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can lead to deskilling or may bias an accountant’s moral judgment, by either clouding their
awareness of wrongdoing or altering their evaluation of what is right or wrong. Systems,
especially computer-based systems, may precipitate unethical outcomes by allowing individuals
to distance themselves from their actions, obfuscating ethical aspects and enabling unjust
rationalizations for unethical actions. The more technology evolves, the farther the actor is
removed “from the consequences of organizationally sanctioned” actions (Dillard 2003, 13),
reducing personal responsibility and enabling neutralizations. In other words, systems legitimize
individual wrongdoing by allowing people to focus on their duties within the system, without
consideration of the moral impact of their actions (Adams and Balfour, 1998). A striking
example of this occurred when a German subsidiary of IBM helped Hitler’s Third Reich carry
out the Holocaust by providing technology that allowed the Germans to catalog Jewish and other
citizens through people counting and registration technologies (Black and Wallace 2001, Dillard
2003). By treating people as inventory, the Third Reich dehumanized them, allowing Nazis to
distance themselves from their actions of mass extermination.
More recently, individuals acting for themselves and individuals acting as organizational
agents have used AIS to violate individual privacy, misappropriate business assets, and falsify
accounting data to meet organizational goals and market expectations. In the late 1990’s and
early 2000s, executives at WorldCom pressured accounting staff to use their AIS to perpetrate
financial statement fraud, misclassifying expenses as assets, and hiding hundreds of entries from
the internal and external auditors (Cooper 2009). Satyam Computer Services used its AIS to
create ghost employees and falsify sales orders, in order to conceal massive accounting fraud
perpetrated by its executives (Rai 2014). Last, United States (US) government employees (i.e.,
Veteran’s Administration managers) entered false data within their systems, altering waiting
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times for military veterans’ healthcare appointments to portray more favorable statistics and earn
performance-based bonuses (Bronstein, Griffin, and Black 2014). These examples demonstrate
the harm enabled by modern AIS.
The link between AIS and ethics, in which AIS enable individuals to act unethically, is
heightened by two aspects. They are the increasingly integrated role of AIS in organizations, and
society’s expectations that professional accountants will act in the public interest (Copeland
2005). AIS have grown from simple bookkeeping tools to integrated enterprise resource
planning (ERP) systems. The focus of AIS has gone from making existing processes more
efficient, to designing systems to take strategic advantage of IS/IT capabilities, to addressing
risks associated with managing, retaining, and securing the data that organizations collect and
report (Brancheau and Wetherbe 1987; Brancheau, Janz, and Wetherbe 1996; Beard and Wen
2007; AICPA 2013b). While earlier systems were relatively limited recorders and reporters of
data, due to rapid technological advances, AIS are now powerful systems that integrate myriad
functions within a business (e.g., accounting, human resources, production, and supply chain).
Early ERP systems focused on resource optimization and transaction processing. ERP II expands
these functions to leverage information from business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-
consumer (B2C) electronic commerce (Bond, Genovese, Miklovic, Wood, Zrimsek, and Rayner
2000).2 Because ERP II systems increase the touchpoints where individuals interact with them,
they enable new opportunities for individuals who design, implement, and interact with them to
intentionally and to unintentionally cause harm. In short, the integration and reach of modern
AIS enable
unethical behavior.
2 All major ERP vendors (e.g. SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft) have adopted the concept of ERP II to help customers meet
today’s business challenges (Mølller 2006).
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Understanding the link between AIS and ethics is particularly important for accountants,
as they have a role as protectors of the public interest. Accountants of all types have a long
history of being the designated record-keepers and asset guardians for businesses and
governments alike (Soll 2014). Per the Institute of Internal Auditors Code of Ethics (IIA),
internal auditors have an obligation to maintain integrity, abide by the laws, act in an ethical
manner, and exercise objectivity in reporting. External auditors abide by a Code of Professional
Conduct that places the public interest at the forefront (AICPA 2013a). Audit committees, which
typically comprise accountants, are responsible for enterprise risk management, for reporting to
external parties, for the control environment and control activities, as well as for monitoring
activities (COSO 2013). Further, audit committees now, more than ever, are overseeing controls
related to compliance and operational matters (Deloitte 2014) as well as matters of risk oversight
(Rapoport and Lublin 2015). The designated role of accountants as controllers necessitates our
involvement, as AIS researchers and professionals, in understanding and addressing these issues.
After a brief history punctuated by rapid change, AIS are at an unavoidable crossroads
with ethics. Given AIS’s ubiquity and power, and accountants’ roles as recordkeepers, reporters,
and asset protectors, academics, as creators of knowledge and investigators of social phenomena
in the accounting and information systems’ space, have an obligation to examine and work to
understand these issues. Further, using technology to perform tasks has been found to influence
peoples’ ethical decisions in both positive and negative ways (Hunt and Iyer 2015). We cannot
afford to ignore their potential for harm, both intentional and unintentional. This paper aids in
our understanding of the implications of AIS on ethical issues by cataloging the existing research
on AIS and ethics, identifying gaps in the literature, creating a framework for the study of AIS
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and ethics based on a four-factor categorization, and posing relevant questions for future
research.
II. DEFINING THE BOUNDARIES OF THE PAPER
Ethics
Ethics encompass an individual’s values, integrity, and courage. Values guide a person’s
moral decisions, integrity is the consistency with which they apply their values (i.e., relative to
time, place), and courage is the ability to convert values to actions, notably in the presence of
threats, both physical and intellectual (Gentile 2012, Kidder 2005). We define ethics using a
universal approach. Unethical actions are those judgments and behaviors enacted by humans
(individuals or groups) that “…inherently deny another person or creature some inalienable
right.” (Paul and Elder 2013, 14). Human rights include life, freedom, and security (among
others), to all, without distinction of any kinds (e.g., race, color, sex, religion, status, etc.)
(United Nations 1948).
The purpose of ethics, and of making ethical decisions, is to help, rather than harm
others, making it a social construct (Paul and Elder 2013). As part of their express duties toward
citizens, governments typical regulate acts that are unethical in and of themselves (such as
murder, fraud, and intimidation). However, social norms, which may vary between communities,
also play a part in communicating ethical standards. For example, professional accounting
societies and regulatory bodies enact differing codes of conduct governing the duties of a
professional, such as the duty of accountants to serve the public interest, and the general
expectation (in the US) of accountants to maintain client confidentiality (AICPA 2014). More
recently, governments have been called to respond to technological developments that enable
companies to infringe on the rights of private citizens. For example, the Court of Justice of the
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European Union upheld the complaint of a Spanish citizen’s objection to Google including
sensitive information about this person in its search results. The court affirmed European Union
citizens’ “right to be forgotten” (i.e. the ability to remove their digital footprint from the Internet)
over the objections of Internet companies’ worries of extra costs (Chee 2014).
This paper broadens the concept of ethics in two ways. First, it considers not only
individual decisions and actions, but also includes organizational decisions and actions because
AIS’ development, implementation, and use are often the result of a group effort, and are
dependent on the institution’s existing structure. Thus, individuals at times act unethically for
their own direct personal benefit; at other times, they act on behalf of their organizations, or as
part of a group, indirectly for their own personal benefit (Cohen, Manzon, and Zamora 2015).
Second, it categorizes violations of generally accepted social norms as unethical, recognizing
that professional standards may go beyond basic human rights, but are legitimately valid
considerations within the profession. For example, there is an expectation that a professional
accountant has a higher standard to protect the public interest than does any individual citizen.
Accounting Information Systems
We organize the paper using Romney and Steinbart’s (2015) textbook definition:
accounting information systems (AIS) are systems that identify, collect, store, manage, and
communicate accounting data and information for the purposes of reporting and control.
Recordkeeping encompasses the first four activities, while reporting is the communication of
data and information to internal and external stakeholders. These reports, generated by AIS,
include financial information (e.g., balance sheet and income statement, C-suite compensation,
and cost per unit) and non-financial information (e.g., number of employees, patents awarded,
hours worked). Organizations also use AIS and the processes embedded within them to control
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both people and assets. Accounting, through its recording function, enables management to
identify and hold individuals accountable for their actions. AIS also enable and limit who can
engage in certain transactions (e.g., access controls to physical assets and to electronic data and
approvals). These controls allow organizations to safeguard assets, produce valid information,
and carry out activities efficiently and effectively.
Factor Categories: ETHOs
We classified the existing AIS-Ethics research using a framework, (see Figure 1) that
includes four types of factors: environmental, technological, human, and organizational
(ETHOs).3 Environmental factors include standards, rules, expectations and norms imposed by
governments, professional organizations, industry groups, self-regulatory bodies, and
communities. For example, regulatory factors refer to governments enacting laws influencing the
design, use, and governance of AIS, overseeing the implementation of these laws, enforcing
these laws, and educating the public about these laws (Boritz and No 2011).
Technological
factors refer to AIS inputs, systems and tool design, and outputs (Neely and Cook 2011). These
include hardware, software, and communication tools and their features and capabilities. Human
factors include people’s attitudes, perceptions, culture, group membership, and other individual
characteristics that influence their behavior (Pavlou 2011). Human factors are influential in
ethical decisions regarding privacy, equity, personal responsibility, and identity issues
encountered when interacting with AIS (e.g. Clarke 1999, Glass and Wood 1996, Harrington
1996, Sipior, Ward, and Rongione 2004). Last, organizational factors “include organizational
strategy, structure, and the internal and external business environment,” as well as how
organizations interact with their environment (Mauldin and Ruchala 1999, 324). They also
3 We develop and use the acronym ETHOs (environmental, technological, human, and organizational) throughout
the paper when referring to these factor types.
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include decentralization, ethical climate, culture, and approach to self-regulation. Researchers
may use the ETHOs framework to both understand existing literature, and to identify, develop,
and examine relevant research questions related to AIS and ethics.4
[Insert Figure 1 here]
The ETHOs factors influence judgment, decision-making, and actions (JDMA)
individuals make when carrying out the AIS functions of recordkeeping, reporting, or control.
Recall that these individuals may make these JDMA with the goal of personal, direct benefit (as
in asset misappropriation through false billing), or to gain an indirect benefit through the
organization, (as in fraudulent financial reporting to meet analyst expectations, eventually
resulting in individual benefits including bonuses, stock options, and promotions). We go beyond
judgment and decision-making, which academics typically use as their dependent variable, to
include actions as well.
Ethical outcomes are the measured dependent variables resulting from individuals’
JDMA. Note that this is a subjective measure, depending on one’s own determination of what is
ethical and what is unethical. While there will be general agreement about the ethicality of some
outcomes (asset misappropriation (theft) resulting in loss of cash from an organization is
unethical), there are other areas which may stimulate valid disagreement. Some could consider
income-smoothing ethical, as it reduces market volatility, thus lowering transaction costs, and
improving efficiency. Others may seriously object to all forms of income smoothing, deeming it
unethical and a violation of generally accepted accounting principles. One contribution
academics can make is to evaluate outcomes from multiple perspectives, which should lead to a
better understanding of their ethical implications.
4 Thank you to Andrea Kelton for proposing this graphical representation in her discussion of this paper at the mid-
year meeting of the 2015 Accounting Information Systems Section of the American Accounting Association.
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To show how the ETHOs framework applies to a particular paper, Figure 2 includes an
interpretation of Tuttle, Harrell, and Harrison (1997). This study examines the effects of
incentives and system design on system implementation. System design is a technological factor.
Company-provided extrinsic incentives (in this study, bonuses for on time and within budget
delivery) are an organizational factor, which create a moral hazard for the decision-maker.
Judgment surrounding the implementation of a new system is affected, resulting in an ethical
dilemma: implementation of a sub-optimal system. This study does not examine environmental
and human factors that may mitigate the effect of incentives on system implementation
decisions. Therefore, professional standards, experience, and level in the organization are among
a number of factors that might be included in future research.
[Insert Figure 2 here]
The review proceeds as follows. The next section details our methodology. The
following sections address recordkeeping, reporting, and control. In each subsection, we define
the area, review relevant ethics-related AIS research and its connection to ETHOs factors, and
provide suggestions for future research to fill existing gaps in the literature. Existing research,
with variables categorized by ETHOs factor, is available in the online supplemental material.
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III. METHODOLOGY
All literature reviews are constrained by limits of space and the qualitative preferences
of their authors; this review is intended to be as comprehensive as is possible. We began by
reviewing all Journal of Information Systems (JIS) articles from January 2000 to December 20
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and categorizing these into general areas of AIS research. We then used these areas to develop a
list of keywords to categorize the research streams, and searched each of these terms in
conjunction with the keyword “ethics.”
One limitation of this approach is that not all ethics-related research explicitly uses the
word “ethics.” In fact, throughout our search, ethics is often an implicit, rather than explicit
motivation for AIS research. That is, researchers state that they have identified a process,
decision, policy, or behavior that is unfair, unjust, biased, obfuscates results, and/or manipulates
or takes advantage of individuals, but they do not use the word “ethics.” While not all research is
ethics-related, (some identifies ways to improve efficiency or effectiveness), much research has
some underlying motive to reduce harm to others. One early recommendation of this project is
that researchers explicitly identify and explain how their research relates to ethics. This action
(uncovering and explicating the ethics connection) will make ethics a more salient aspect in AIS
research, and like Dorothy’s red shoes reminded her of home, will remind us of something that
was there the whole time.5
Since AIS research is often interdisciplinary, we expanded the literature search beyond
JIS, and following Webster and Watson (2002), used online search tools (including Google
Scholar and university library search engines) to capture relevant studies. We comprehensively
searched the last 14 years of literature from specific journals expected to include a large amount
5 We acknowledge the above limitation of using the term “ethics” in our search, and include any research identified
that investigates ethics and AIS even if the study does not specifically use “ethics” in the text.
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of AIS-related research (e.g., JIS, MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, and
International Journal of Accounting Information Systems) and ethics-related research (e.g.,
Journal of Business Ethics, Ethics and Information Technology).
We then developed an understanding (see Figure 3) of what AIS are and do, using the
elements of AIS described by Romney and Steinbart (2015), set under the ethics umbrella. Using
this understanding, we established an overall structure for the review, created sub-headings
related to the major concepts or themes identified within each element of AIS. We then grouped
each article based on AIS functional area, identified ETHOs factors, and presented them in the
online supplemental material.6 This listing includes findings and highlights gaps by factor
category. We continued our search process throughout the writing stage, discovering new
streams of research, using reference lists and citation cross-referencing tools to find additional
sources, per Webster and Watson (2002).
[Insert Figure 3 here]
IV RECORDKEEPING
Recordkeeping, as shown in Figure 3, includes identifying, collecting, storing, and
managing data. While recordkeeping has always been at the heart of accounting, computer
technology has fundamentally broadened and deepened its reach. Our review finds sparse
research explicitly investigating the ethical implications of recordkeeping, although Desai and
Embse (2008) identify six key ethical issues regarding electronic information. These issues
include what data to collect, how it is collected, processed, and presented, what purpose it is used
for, and the extent of its impact on individuals and organizations.
6 Articles appear in the online supplemental material only if they test or propose theory directly related to AIS and
Ethics. Not all articles are discussed within the text. Other citations appear throughout the text that are not included
in the online supplemental material because they are not AIS-Ethics papers, or because they refer to current events
or reports.
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Identify and Collect Data
Organizations identify and collect data as part of recording normal accounting
transactions, making decisions about these actions an accounting issue. Firms may also internally
generate or purchase external data. Addressing ethical issues related to data acquisition is
important because once collected, data is no longer in the control of those who provided it. Thus,
it is a gatekeeper decision for all future decisions regarding collected data.
The increased reach and virtually infinite capacity of AIS bring the issue of data
identification and collection to the forefront. Integrated systems provide “organizational-wide
access and analysis capabilities by standardizing data capture and providing seamless interfaces
across functions, responsibility centers, and locations” (Dillard and Yuthas 2006, 203). This
integration led to the rise of big data7 and results in firms acquiring more data from more sources
than ever before. The accompanying ethical issues primarily focus on personal privacy issues, a
human factor. Exposure and misuse of personally identifiable information (PII) is a real threat.
For example, it takes only four credit card transactions to identify 90% of individuals, despite
using data scrubbed of all personal identifying information (de Montjoye, Radaelli, Singh, and
Pentland 2015). Individual identification through big data analytics exposes people to identity
theft, unwanted targeted marketing, location tracking, and other invasions of personal privacy.
While research in this area is sparse in the AIS literature, one approach put forth by
Kauffman, Lee, Prosch, and Steinbart (2011) explores the relationships among stakeholders and
each groups’ involvement, to understand related ethical issues. Their review suggests that
stakeholders’ concerns can differ based on which ethical issues associated with data collection
and identification are the most important. For example, businesses may perceive the sale of
personal data as part of daily operations and try to assuage privacy fears by securing the data and
7 Big data refers to the 2.5 quintillion bytes of data that are created and stored every day (IBM 2014).
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creating protocols to govern the transfer of information. Individuals may view the same sale of
data as a privacy infringement and be more concerned with whether or not they consented to
their information being used for purposes other than their transaction with that business.
Governments may believe that they need to regulate the sale of personal data in order to
safeguard the privacy of their constituents. Understanding these relationships seems especially
important consider the pace at which technology is advancing.
Mason (1986) argues that using IT (technological factors such as facial recognition or
GPS locators) to collect personal attributes, enables the invasion of privacy of one stakeholder by
another. For example, Murphy (2011) discusses how mobile advertising can pinpoint users’
locations at any given moment in time. Ethical issues regarding data collection, such as tracking,
abound when dealing with devices that are “always on”. Stone and Stone-Romero (1998) argue
that information collection poses moral dilemmas for organizations: how do they protect the
interests of consumers and employees while collecting enough information to facilitate decision-
making. Additionally, consumers are often unable to acquire goods or services without providing
personal information the firm considers necessary (Shapiro and Baker 2002). Relevant
organizational factors include industry and products offered. Levin and Nicholson (2005)
contend that privacy laws, an environmental factor, should reflect concerns about private sector
abuse of personal information and enable individuals to set limits upon both public and private
use of their information. Different stakeholders likely have diverse concerns over the
appropriateness of what data is collected and for what purposes.
Generally Accepted Privacy Principles8 (GAPP; AICPA/CICA 2009) lists many negative
outcomes to organizations from misjudging individuals’ (and regulators’) perceptions and
8 This framework was created in 2009 by the AICPA (American Institute of Public Accountants) and CICA
(Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants), in response to privacy concerns associated with PII (personally
identifiable information).
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expectations about data identified and collected. Many of these, such as reputational damage,
legal liability, and loss of customer trust and business, come from the perceived harm resulting
from these misjudgments. A possible mitigating factor is whether the firm transparently
communicated a valid reason for collecting the data.
Based on a review of the literature, there is relatively little research investigating the
identification and collection aspect of AIS. Much of the literature is theoretical in nature and
focuses on privacy issues surrounding data capture. This literature provides directions for future
research investigating how ETHOs factors influence data collection. For example, Kauffman et
al. (2011) discuss privacy rights, policies and procedures. Researchers may investigate how
environmental factors such as regulation and industry standards, and technological factors, such
as automated collection, miniaturization of data collection tools, and connectedness (e.g., the
Internet of everything) enable or limit unethical collection practices. Further, research may
examine whether human factors influence user acceptance, consent, and/or attitudes toward
different types of notices contained within privacy policies.
Data Management: Storage and Security, Quality, and Use
Data management includes storage and security, quality maintenance (including data
accuracy and reliability), and proper use. Integrated applications such as ERP and ERP II allow
organizations to store and use data from various, disparate business units. Furthermore,
organizations, through their AIS, build and maintain extensive centralized databases housing
huge quantities of data, including personally identifiable information (PII). Because PII has been
used to identify, discriminate, persecute, punish, and silence people in the past (Parson 1966;
Lwin, Wirtz, and Williams 2007; Bansal, Zahedi, and Gefen 2010), the right to privacy appears
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to be a basic human right, and thus control over PII is an ethical issue. The determination of PII
ownership is an area ripe for analysis, as it poses serious ethical concerns.
Organizations are morally and legally responsible for managing the data they collect.
GAPP (AICPA/CICA 2009) recommends entities only use data for the purposes identified in the
notice and for which individuals have provided explicit or implicit consent. COBIT asserts that
privacy issues are a growing concern and that organizations need to manage them if people are to
trust IT systems. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)
provides guidance on maintaining the privacy and security of personally identifiable health
information (HHS 2003). HIPAA ensures patients’ rights to examine and obtain a copy of their
health records and to request corrections. Organizations also collect personal information from
employees through the human resources function. Federal and state privacy laws, as well as
organizations’ own policies govern the storage, security, quality, and use of employee
information.
Data Management (Storage and Security)
Because individuals and organizations can use data for unethical purposes (e.g., identity
theft, unfair competitive advantage, unwanted targeted advertising), its security is paramount.
Yet within the AIS domain, there is little published research in this area. In an interview with
103 IT managers, Dhillon and Torkzadeh (2006) identify specific organizational factors (e.g.,
employer trust, and authority structure) and human factors (e.g., individual lifestyle, personal
financial situation) affecting data security effectiveness. Biot-Paquerot and Hasnaoui (2009)
emphasize organizational factors, noting that strong corporate governance with clear codes of
ethics ensures clarification of fundamental values and reinforces self-regulation within
organization.
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Sykes and Matza (1957) argue that people psychologically enable themselves to commit
rule-breaking or any anti-social actions by applying the techniques of neutralization.9 Siponen
and Vance (2010) find that neutralization is a major predictor of employees’ intention to violate
IS security policies. Similarly, Harrington (1996) shows that individuals with denial of
responsibility attitude are less likely to judge computer abuse as wrong and are more strongly
influenced by ethical codes. These findings suggest that the human factor, rationalization, holds
in IT cases as well as in other occupational fraud.
While protecting data from unauthorized access is necessary, certain security measures,
such as authentication,10 pose ethical dilemmas of their own. Sutrop and Laas-Mikko (2012)
compare the ethical issues raised by first and second-generation biometrics, both authentication
systems. Ethical issues related to first generation biometrics are privacy, autonomy, bodily
integrity, dignity, equity, and personal liberty. The difference between first and second-
generation biometrics lies in the individuals’ awareness that a third party is collecting data from
them. Second-generation biometrics therefore, raises new ethical issues because it devalues the
principle of informed consent, which may lead to less respect for individual moral autonomy and
to the loss of public trust.
Data Management (Quality)
Companies collect, store, and analyze information from multiple sources using less
structured and informal data processing systems (O’Leary 2013). However, these approaches
may pose major security and privacy breaches if the data involved is sensitive for reasons of
privacy, enterprise security, or regulatory requirements (Villars, Olofson, and Eastwood 2011).
Additionally, since big data allows for information inputs from multiple sources, there is a higher
9 In accounting, this falls into the same category of rationalization.
10 Authentication is the process of confirming that an individual accessing the system is, in fact, who he says he is.
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likelihood of collecting data with potential errors, incompleteness, or differential precision
(O’Leary 2013). Nunan and Domenico (2013) point to the memory power of big data, passive
data collection, and ownership of the data as major ethical issues associated with big data.
Database quality begins with a high quality implementation. Many organizations
implement information systems (IS) when there are clear signs that quality problems exist and
that the system will not perform up to its expectations (Tuttle, et al. 1997). Using IS
professionals as participants, Tuttle et al. (1997) document that incentives to shirk and privately
held information motivate IS professionals to place their own interests over their organizations’
interests.
Data Management (Use)
Increasing use of electronic databases poses a major threat to data privacy, as the data
within them is searchable, downloadable (possibly undetected), and at risk for illegitimate and
unethical uses. In order to reduce the risks associated with misuse, organizations must address
privacy issues throughout the database design process and teach designers to treat privacy as an
integral database issue (Appel 2006). Culnan and Williams (2009) note that stakeholders are
vulnerable in their dealings with businesses due to their inability to control subsequent use of
their personal information. The authors suggest that organizations create a culture of privacy
through tone at the top. Organizational factors such as ethical climate and strategy and
environmental factors such as industry standards are likely influential here and motivate further
study.
Moris, Kleist, Dull, and Tanner (2014) note that inter-organizational information
sharing may help organizations (e.g., solve complex problems, reduce uncertainty, and improve
decision-making). To address privacy and security concerns in information sharing, Moris et al.
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(2014) propose a Secure Information Market (SIM) model where organizations contribute data to
the electronic market and the market makes the information available to organizations or to pre-
approved information buyers. Industry and availability of certain technologies likely influence
SIM adoption and may be fruitful areas of investigation.
As companies are increasingly networked via outsourcing and other joint venture
agreements, data sharing becomes more common and ethical concerns more prevalent. Major
public and private organizations such as General Electric, Ford, American Express, Citibank,
British Petroleum, and Hewlett-Packard have outsourced parts of their accounting function to
third-party providers (Elharidy, Nicholson, and Scapens, 2013). Although AIS outsourcing is
common, very limited research exists on its related ethical issues. Elharidy et al. (2013) find that
legal and professional bodies enforce the ethical duties of outsourcing suppliers, whereas religion
and traditional customs and values influence the importance of integrity and ethical dealings. In a
related study, Cullinan and Zheng (2015) find that mutual funds consider potential cost savings
as an important factor in their AIS outsourcing decisions. The authors also document that funds
using more complex valuation processes and older fund families are less likely to outsource their
AIS functions.
Based on the review of articles related to data management and ethics, technological and
environmental factors appear infrequently. Prior literature does not examine how technological
factors (e.g. technological complexity, integrated information system, and emergence of big
data) and environmental factors (e.g. industry standards, regulations, and competitive pressure)
affect the ethical generation and use of information. Also missing in this literature are the
interactive effects of ETHOs factors. Further research to investigate how human factors such as
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fear-based persuasive communication and cross-cultural differences interact with technological
factors (Crossler et al. 2013) to enable security breaches is appropriate.
Researchers may also investigate whether models such as SIM, proposed by Moris et al.
(2014), effectively address privacy and ethical concerns. Although organizations continue to
implement information systems with known quality problems, little is known about the ethics-
related factors that affect these choices. Future research may focus on whether organizational
factors, such as ethical climate, time pressure, risk preference or system complexity influence the
implementation of faulty systems.
V. REPORTING
As Figure 3 indicates, reporting involves communicating information to stakeholders.
The chief outputs of AIS are financial and non-financial reports, which assist internal and
external users in evaluating performance and in making decisions. Reporting represents a critical
and everyday intersection of AIS and human judgment as both the form and presence of reports
potentially bias user judgment. This intersection has moral implications and exposes two types of
biases, those that arise by design or those that occur accidentally, ex machina.
Commonly cited characteristics of information related to its usefulness include
accessibility, relevance, and understandability, timeliness, and reliability, completeness and
verifiability (Romney and Steinbart 2015). These characteristics provide a framework for
discussing AIS reporting
and ethics.
Access (Accessibility)
Access concerns the availability, transparency, and disclosure of information from AIS
to users (Turilli and Floridi 2009). Ethical issues include considerations of how and when
organizations make AIS output available to users. Although information asymmetry is often seen
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as a negative, Turilli and Floridi (2009) include a valuable discussion of organizations’ duties to
secure certain confidential information from disclosure.
In addition to shareholders of listed entities, there is a host of potential internal and
external users of accounting information (Young 2006). One method for examining access issues
is to consider the distinct information needs of different stakeholders (Dillard and Yuthas 2002).
ETHOs factors likely influence decisions about when and to whom information from AIS is
available. Both individuals and organizations make access decisions. This is an ethical judgment,
because these disclosures (or lack of them) can unfairly advantage (or harm) certain
stakeholders. Technology can deliver better information to all stakeholders, yet evidence
suggests that technology may also exacerbate information asymmetry. Although the SEC
established Regulation FD11 to level the playing field for all investors by regulating corporate
disclosures, Patterson (2014) finds that high frequency traders purchase market reports ahead of
public release in order to gain a competitive advantage in stock trading. While in this case, a
third party acts as a conduit for information, this situation draws attention to the role that
information intermediaries play as an interface with the organization’s AIS, and how their
involvement has ethical implications.
Human and organizational factors may inhibit sharing of financial information with
external stakeholders, despite the promise of transparency enabled by advances in technology.
Accessibility to information involves an interaction of human judgment and technology, and thus
is subject to human and technological factors. In field research, Gowthorpe (2004) reports that
senior corporate offices intend to use Internet reporting to address extant information
11 Regulation FD provides that when an issuer discloses material nonpublic information to certain individuals or
entities—generally, securities market professionals, such as stock analysts, or holders of the issuer’s securities who
may well trade on the basis of the information—the issuer must make public disclosure of that information
(SEC 2014).
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inequalities, but haphazard implementation can result in a failure to identify stakeholder needs
adequately, leading to unintended negative consequences. In experimental research, Hassink,
Bollen, and Steggink (2007) find many firms are reluctant to respond to investor-initiated
requests for financial information over the Internet, even though there are positive consequences
from greater access (e.g., lower cost of capital, greater liquidity and a larger analyst following
Kirk and Vincent, 2013). Therefore, management may view communication through new
technology as inherently different from traditional forms of communication, which may be due
to concerns over misuse or to how technology removes the actors from the actions taken (Dillard,
2003). Researchers have not yet exhaustively examined the uses of AIS in stakeholder relations.
Future research should focus on how new technologies influence access to reports, and
whether they mitigate or exacerbate information asymmetry and/or information processing. As
evident from the article list in the online supplemental material, there are few studies, if any,
considering the ethical implications tied to technological factors. While an increasing amount of
research investigates human factors in financial reporting, there are significant research gaps
around possible interactions between human factors and new technology, such as XBRL, social
media, and real-time analysis. For instance, do the frequent updates of the XBRL taxonomy
enable managers to obfuscate financial disclosures? How might managers might seek to use
social media to exploit human factors and exacerbate information asymmetry in spite of a
general assumption that the Internet improves access. Snow’s (2015) analysis of retail investors’
perceptions of financial disclosures on Twitter versus the World Wide Web is just one example.
With regard to environmental factors, whether and how accounting and financial
regulation can keep up with innovation in the integration of reporting with new technology, such
as social media, is an area ripe for investigation. Researchers may also explore environmental
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factors (e.g., regulation) across different countries, and investigate whether there are significant
interactions with human factors such as culture.
Judgment bias (Timeliness, Understandability, and Relevance)
AIS provide input for individual judgment and decision making (JDM) (O’Donnell and
David 2000). Technology can greatly enhance the timeliness, understandability, and relevance of
reports; however, it also enables organizations to exploit individual judgment biases, an ethical
concern. Heuristics and biases influence moral judgment just as they influence other forms of
accounting judgments (Jones, Massey and Thorne 2003; Bailey, Scott and Thoma 2010; Neri,
2015). AIS research into general judgment biases suggest two areas that merit further
investigation in relation to moral judgment: the effect that the existence of AIS have on JDM and
the effect that presentation format of reports has on JDM.
Effects of the Presence of AIS
Researchers find that the mere existence of an information system can affect moral
judgments, such as manager intentions to be honest (Hannan et al. 2006). The existence of
computer-mediated reporting technology may increase manager perceptions of scrutiny, which
results in more honest reporting. On an individual level, AIS can help improve JDM; however,
AIS might also create dysfunctional behavior, such as over-reliance on systems, reduced
accountability, and acceptance of authority, even malicious obedience (Dillard and Yuthas
2002). These behaviors reduce users’ perceived need for and exercise of professional judgment.
Some researchers express concern that the advent of risk management and related systems
actually supplants managerial moral judgment (Power 2009); moral questions may become
subject to a question of “risk appetite” rather than to adherence to a universal human value.
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Researchers raise concerns that an auditor’s inadequate understanding of system
limitations when using expert auditing systems, may result in reduced audit quality (Sutton,
Arnold, and Arnold 1995; Sutton and Byington 1993). Longer exposure to decision aids may
actually result in deskilling that could affect an auditor’s professional judgment, resulting in
diminished fraud detection and reduced audit quality.
Effects of Presentation Format
Organizations can present financial information in verbal, numerical, or graphical
formats. Vohs, Meade, and Goode (2008) suggest presenting information in a “money” context
changes behavior. Kelton, Pennington and Tuttle (2010) and O’Donnell and David (2000)
review experimental research which demonstrates that presentation style affects individual JDM.
Dilla and Stone (1997) find that presentation of financial information in numerical rather than
verbal form affects auditors’ inherent risk judgments. In a field study, Dull, Graham and Baldwin
(2003) find that investors’ JDM differs depending on whether organizations present financial
disclosures in interactive, drill-down menus or in conventional, static web pages.
Our review suggests this area of research is already quite mature; however, future
research can combine existing ETHOs factors in new ways to identify important interactions.
There are also many judgment biases that have not yet been considered with regard to ethical
judgment. O’Donnell and David (2000) provide a framework to help researchers identify the
ways in which AIS bias JDM in general. Ethics researchers could then layer the ETHOs
framework to identify ways in which AIS might bias moral judgment specifically.
Environmental factors include the decision-making environment, technological factors include
features of the AIS, and human factors include the individual’s problem-solving skills or their
processing strategy. To date, researchers have studied only three factors in depth: presentation
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format, decision support system use, and the level of information load involved in particular
judgments (O’Donnell and David 2000).
Financial Reporting Quality (Reliability, Completeness, and Verifiability)
Preventing and detecting fraudulent financial reporting and errors
At the organizational level, control over financial reporting is a clear purpose of
legislation (e.g., SOX) and profession-sponsored frameworks (e.g., COSO) Drennan (2004).
However, legislation alone does not prevent major fraudulent practices (Rockness and Rockness
2005). Rather, strong ethical corporate culture, internal controls, laws, rewards, and penalties
must work together to provide ethical and transparent financial reporting. Thus, environmental
factors, in conjunction with technology, organization, and human factors, influence control
effectiveness.
The automation inherent in modern AIS enables management to adopt continuous
monitoring and auditing to reduce fraudulent financial reporting. Organizations can use
continuous monitoring to help make specific components of AIS, such as the purchasing system,
compliant with SOX regulations (Chang, Wu, and Chang 2008). Continuous auditing also has
the potential to yield better testing and online communication, and less expensive and timelier
audits (Kogan, Sudit, and Vasarhelyi 1999). However, the introduction of these tools raises
ethical concerns, including auditor over-reliance and negative effects on auditor knowledge and
skills development (Daigle, Daigle, and Lampe 2008, Dillard and Yuthas 2001).
XBRL, a technology-based standard, promises more reliable, standardized financial
reporting, yet also introduces ethical concerns. While XBRL is a computer-readable format, the
SEC requires auditors to provide assurance on a manual version of the financial reports
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generated from it.12 However, Boritz and No (2009) and Bartley, Chen and Taylor (2011) point
out serious shortcomings in XBRL’s early regulation and implementation. XBRL’s complexity
along with the individuals’ inexperience auditing and interpreting XBRL filings provides
managers an opportunity to misrepresent these disclosures with a lower chance of detection. On
the other hand, investors may be able to use XBRL disclosure analysis tools to locate specific
information more easily, improving detection of accounting irregularities by making it more
difficult to “hide information in plain sight” (Cohen, Schiavina, and Servais 2005). Whether
XBRL enables more or less misstatement is a question for future research.
AIS technology enables management to conduct sensitivity analyses to gauge the effect
of transactions on quarterly and annual earnings quickly and easily, increasing the opportunity
for earnings management. Malenko and Grundfest (2014) provide evidence of firms managing
EPS numbers reported by US listed corporations.13 While there is evidence that accruals-based
earnings management (EM) is on the decline post-SOX, it remains prevalent (Dichev, Graham,
Harvey and Rajgopal 2013) and real activities EM14 may be on the rise (Cohen, Dey, and Lys
2008). Arguably, advances in AIS facilitate EM. Using computer programs and digital data,
managers can run virtually unlimited simulations to identify the accounting strategy with the best
(or most desired) financial statement outcome making EM faster and easier than ever before.
Much of the existing research into new reporting technologies considers their impact on
capital markets. Future research should examine how technological factors, such as advances in
12 The SEC and PCAOB developed XBRL guidelines (Plumlee and Plumlee 2008) to address adoption and
assurance issues.
13 Quadrophobia, “a fear of four,” is the phenomenon that the number four occurs statistically less frequently than
other numerals in the first post-decimal digit of EPS data. The claim is that this occurs because firms manage
reported EPS so that it is rounded up more often than it is rounded down. For instance, Dell is cited as rounding up
EPS for 48 straight quarters, which is statistically improbable.
14 Real activities earnings management involves manipulating the operations of the business, such as inventory
levels or sales through “channel stuffing” (Roychowdhury 2006).
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audit software, continuous monitoring, and XBRL interact with human factors, such as age,
experience and functional area, or with organizational factors such as ethical climate (Martin and
Cullen 2006) or industry to enable or discourage fraud or deception. Environmental factors, such
as new regulation, seem particularly relevant since present research has primarily considered
regulation of conventional, paper-based media.
VI. CONTROL
AIS encompass controls over the activities of both people and systems to enhance
organizational efficiency and effectiveness and safeguard assets (see Figure 3). Ethical issues
arise when people, like other business assets, are monitored and controlled (Romney and
Steinbart 2015).
Control implies managers, including accountants, have moral obligations when
allocating resources and prioritizing stakeholder claims.15 Yet, controls designed to manage
organizational efficiency and effectiveness can have a detrimental effect on moral judgment at
the human level (Abernathy and Brownell 1997). Research outside AIS finds that formal control
systems16 may be positively associated with employee moral awareness and behavior (Rottig,
Koufteros, and Umphress 2011), but that over-reliance on rules-based systems may also be
detrimental (Stansbury and Barry 2007), as when individuals blindly follow rules despite
15 Otley (1999, 355-356) suggests that management control includes identifying organizational goals leading to an
organization’s overall future success; adopting strategies, processes, and activities that enable an organization to
achieve its goals; defining levels of performance in each strategy area that allow an organization to set performance
targets to assess the achievement of its goals; defining the rewards (penalties) that managers will receive for
achieving (failing to achieve) organizational performance targets; and creating information flows (feedback and
feed-forward loops) that allow the organization to learn from its experience and adapt its current behavior to reflect
what it has learned.
16 Consistent with Weaver, Trevino, and Cochran’s (1999) conception of formal ethics programs, Rottig (2011, 163)
defines a multifaceted formal ethical infrastructure as one “consisting of formal communication, recurrent
communication, formal surveillance, and formal sanctions.”
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changes in context. These discoveries are highly relevant to AIS research related to internal
control, management accounting, and audit.
A major aspect of organizational control is the control over employees through electronic
monitoring. Electronic monitoring of employees in the workplace has deep ethical implications
with respect to workplace outcomes such as employee perceptions of privacy and fairness,
quality of work life, and stress-related illness (Tabak and Smith 2005). Using the concepts of
formalism and utilitarianism, Alder, Schminke, Noel, and Kuenzi (2008) argue that an
employee’s prior beliefs and ethical orientation, both human factors, affect his or her reaction
towards electronic monitoring. Similarly, continuous monitoring introduces the ethical question
of whether greater surveillance of workers and their work is at all times and in all places
acceptable and desirable. Monitoring may have unintended consequences through its effects on
individual judgment and behavior.
In addition to control over people and their activities, AIS include controls over assets.
While information technology may positively affect organizational development and growth, its
widespread use also increases opportunities for occupational fraud (Kesar 2006), which costs
about 5% of an organization’s total revenue (ACFE 2014). Although employee dishonesty and
fraud are clearly not new issues, use of integrated information technology creates fruitful ground
for new forms of employee dishonesty (Todd 2004). Further, considering Ariely’s (2008) finding
that cheating is easier when the actor is a step removed from the cash, technology may have the
unintended consequence of increasing unethical behavior by creating illusory distance between
individuals and the cash they misappropriate.
Lynch and Gomaa (2003) suggest that information technology enables fraud. Based on
Ajzen’s (1991) theory of planned behavior, they posit a framework for considering the likelihood
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of fraud in an environment that includes integrated information systems, a technological factor.
In a survey of IT managers, Behling, Floyd, Smith, Koohang, and Behling (2009) find that even
when employee fraud detection controls are in place, they are not fully effective due to
organizational factors such as limited staff, shrinking budgets, and time constraints. Wells
(2007) posits that technology controls are not always enough to prevent employee fraud because
they are designed to provide reasonable, but not absolute assurance. Furthermore, employees
with sufficient motivation can override most controls since employees are usually more aware
than are outsiders of flaws in the system (Wells 2007; Kesar 2006). Human factors such as the
ability to rationalize and financial pressures are relevant here.
Based on our review of articles related to the control function of AIS, technological and
environmental factors are under-researched. Prior literature does not examine how environmental
factors (e.g. local laws and industry standards) affect the acceptance of employee monitoring and
employee satisfaction. Although limited research indicates that AIS technology facilitates fraud,
more research is needed to validate this argument. Understanding whether and how technological
complexity and certain AIS features facilitate (or mitigate) occupational fraud is a fruitful path to
explore. Also important is to investigate whether and how organizational and technological
factors (e.g. decision aids, AIS features, tracking tools, remote access, formal ethical
infrastructure, and continuous monitoring practices) negatively influence critical thinking, induce
employees towards checklist mentality in ethical decisions, and contribute to increased
occupational fraud.
VIII. CONCLUSION
This review outlines major areas of interest related to AIS and ethics, based on the
primary AIS functions of recordkeeping, reporting, and control. We define ethics as issues that
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infringe upon universal human rights, and expand the definition to include issues related to the
public’s expectations of accounting and other business professionals. AIS affect peoples’ lives;
these effects are magnified by systems’ ubiquitous integration into all areas of organizations and
by their expanding technological capabilities (i.e., ability to collect, store, disseminate, and
process data faster and further, with minimal cost). It is imperative that individuals and groups
acknowledge the harm and risk of harm that inevitably come with AIS. This review suggests that
overreliance on AIS potentially provides individuals a convenient source of rationalization for
unethical behavior.
We discuss the current state of research in each of the AIS functional areas, summarizing
findings, and linking them to ETHOs factor categories and suggest future research within each
category. Within recordkeeping are privacy issues associated with data collected, stored, and
used by organizations. The discussion expands beyond consideration of customer data to include
other stakeholders’ data such as that belonging to employees, vendors, and other third parties. A
central concern is the determination of who owns data, and how organizations may use this data
to harm others.
The next area is reporting, a key function of AIS. As AIS are the primary source of
financial disclosures, it is important to understand their technological capabilities, and how these
may lead to unethical acts. One example is the ease with which managers can use scenario
analysis to manage earnings faster and more precisely than ever before. Another example is the
ability to alter presentation format to influence moral judgments (e.g., minimizing effects of
employees’ layoffs by scaling graphs to overstate benefits or to obscure costs to individuals).
Control issues, namely, how managers use AIS as a tool to control people and assets, is
the final area explored. Employee monitoring, decision automation, and dehumanization of
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processes all affect human rights. Monitoring, both with and without consent, evokes fears of
“Big Brother” and may impede productivity and innovation. Systems enable individuals to
distance themselves both physically and psychologically from their actions, facilitating
occupational fraud by enabling rationalizations. Control issues are inextricably linked with AIS
and ethics.
In the process of preparing this review, we were encouraged by the attention a small
contingent of AIS researchers has paid to ethics. However, there are significant gaps in the
literature. While much AIS research has ethical implications, researchers rarely explicitly tie
their research questions and motivations underlying ethical goals. Preventing harm to others is a
noble endeavor, and we recommend researchers acknowledge this as a purpose of their research
when appropriate.
Accounting is a moral discipline; people designed, developed, and control it, for the
benefit of themselves and others. There are no scientific laws of accounting, thus we are
ultimately responsible for its development and for its effects on society. Universal ethics demand
that professionals and academics alike, take on the responsibility of understanding how AIS not
only help, but also potentially harm others. It is a challenge we are fully capable of meeting.
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Recordkeeping
Identify
Collect
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Manage
Reporting
Communicate
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Information
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Human
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Figure 3
Relationship of AIS Functions, Ethics, and ETHOs Factors
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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281326114
- Title Page
Article
Read the article below, which can be found in the UMGC Library, and answer a few of the following questions or explore some of your own thoughts and ideas in a substantive, original post.
Reference:
Guragai, B., Hunt, N. C., Neri, M. P., & Taylor, E. Z. (2017). Accounting information systems and ethics research: review, synthesis, and the future. Journal Of Information Systems, 31(2), 65-81. doi:10.2308/isys-51265
Do you agree with the authors’ premise that people have increasingly been able to separate (or distance) themselves from certain actions as technology has improved, Share a few examples that concur and or disagree with this premise?
Suggest at least one reasonable argument against an accepted norm like the income smoothing? Do you agree with the income smoothing argument? Why or why not?
Do you agree with the statement “AIS might create dysfunctional behavior”? Why or why not?
Read the article below, which can be found in the UMGC Library, and answer a few of the following
quest
ions or explore some of your own thoughts and ideas in a substantive, original post.
Reference:
Guragai, B., Hunt, N. C., Neri, M. P., & Taylor, E. Z. (2017). Accounting information systems and ethics
research: review, synthesis, and the future. Journal
Of Information Systems, 31(2), 65
–
81.
doi:10.2308/isys
–
51265
Do you agree with the authors’ premise that people have increasingly been able to separate (or
distance) themselves from certain actions as technology has
improved,
Share a few examples that
co
ncur and or disagree with this
premise?
Suggest at least one reasonable argument against an accepted norm like the income smoothing? Do you
agree with the income smoothing argument? Why or why not?
Do you agree with the statement “AIS might create dysfun
ctional behavior”? Why or why not?
Read the article below, which can be found in the UMGC Library, and answer a few of the following
questions or explore some of your own thoughts and ideas in a substantive, original post.
Reference:
Guragai, B., Hunt, N. C., Neri, M. P., & Taylor, E. Z. (2017). Accounting information systems and ethics
research: review, synthesis, and the future. Journal Of Information Systems, 31(2), 65-81.
doi:10.2308/isys-51265
Do you agree with the authors’ premise that people have increasingly been able to separate (or
distance) themselves from certain actions as technology has improved, Share a few examples that
concur and or disagree with this premise?
Suggest at least one reasonable argument against an accepted norm like the income smoothing? Do you
agree with the income smoothing argument? Why or why not?
Do you agree with the statement “AIS might create dysfunctional behavior”? Why or why not?