Management Accounting in the Era of Digitalization

Purpose: For the last few decades, human civilization has observed an enormous change due to digitalization. However, question remains whether and how management accounting has been transformed to meet the demand of the digitalization. This paper provides a literary illustration of such transformation in the context of a digitalized world. Research design, data and methodology: This is a conceptual study based on extant literature. Therefore, the secondary sources of materials were used. Materials include literatures published in this domain, archival documents, and other publicly available data. Results: Drawing from literary evidence, the paper first highlights the evolving character of management accounting. Then it illustrates the changing landscape in the milieu of global and institutional settings with a focus in accounting profession. It further demonstrates the digitalization impact in management accounting. Here it also identifies the changing role of management accountants. Conclusions: The paper is critical for the management accounting professionals in identifying the attributes and nature of management accounting in the contemporary world. It also provides a sketch of the potential skillset that management accounting professionals should embrace to tackle the challenges of the new environment.