Key issues of accounting information quality management: Australian case studies
| Published date | 01 October 2003 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02635570310489160 |
| Date | 01 October 2003 |
| Pages | 461-470 |
| Author | Hongjiang Xu,Jeretta Horn Nord,G. Daryl Nord,Binshan Lin |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
Key issues of accounting information quality
management: Australian case studies
Hongjiang Xu
Business Information Systems Department, College of Business Administration,
Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, Michigan, USA
Jeretta Horn Nord
College of Business Administration, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater,
Oklahoma, USA
G. Daryl Nord
College of Business Administration, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater,
Oklahoma, USA
Binshan Lin
College of Business Administration, Louisiana State University in Shreveport,
Shreveport, Louisiana, USA
1. Introduction
Information tech nology has been util ized by
organisations to enhance productivities and
achieve efficiencies. When more
information is generated by the accounting
software, comput erized systems and
centralized techn iques to store inf ormation
have become more popular, such as
databases and data warehouses. However,
this has resulted in organisations becoming
increasingly more dependent upon their
databases to support business processes and
decision making (Lin and Edwards, 1996).
Therefore, the numb er of errors in stored
information and the organisational impact
of these errors are lik ely to increase (Kle in,
1998). Inaccurate and incomplete
information may adversely affect the
competitive suc cess of an organisa tion
(Redman, 1992). From a business
perspective, for ex ample, a financi al
company absorbed a net loss totaling m ore
than $250 million when interest rates
changed dramatically, and the company was
caught unawares (Huang et al., 1999).
In particular, there are consequences of
poor information quality in accounting
information systems. For example, errors in
an inventory database may cause managers
to make decisions that generate over-stock or
under-stock conditions (Bowen, 1993). One
minor information entry error, such as the
unit of product/service price, could go
through an organisation's AIS without
appropriate information quality checks and
cause losses to an organisation and/or harm
its reputation. Therefore, there is a need for
an understanding of what the key issues are
that impact accounting information quality.
This paper proposes a model for the key
issues influencing accounting information
quality. Australian cases were then used to
illustrate the components in the model. The
case study findings and results of the
analysis are included io providing an insight
into the issues.
2. Background
Traditionally, information quality has often
been described from the perspective of
accuracy. Current research and practice
indicate that information quality should be
defined beyond accuracy and is identified as
encompassing multiple dimensions (Huang
et al., 1999). However, no single definition for
information quality has been adopted in the
field (Klein, 1998).
The general definition of information
quality is ``information that is fit for use by
information consumers'' (Huang et al., 1999).
Many information quality dimensions have
been identified. Commonly identified
information quality dimensions are:
.accuracy, which occurs when the
recorded value is in conformity with the
actual value;
.timeliness, which occurs when the
recorded value is not out of date;
.completeness, which occurs when all
values for a certain variable are recorded;
and
.consistency, which occurs when the
representation of the information values
is the same in all cases (Ballou and Pazer,
1982, 1985; Ballou et al., 1987, 1993).
The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm
[ 461 ]
Industrial Management &
Data Systems
103/7 [2003] 461-470
#MCB UP Limited
[ISSN 0263-5577]
[DOI 10.1108/02635570310489160]
Keywords
Accounting information,
Quality management,
Information management,
Australia
Abstract
This paper discusses the results of
Australian case studies
illustrating the key issues that
need to be addressed for
accounting information quality
management. In previous studies
from the existing literature, the
factors that may impact on
information quality have been
summarized. In this paper, a model
for key issues that impact on
accounting quality was proposed
based on the literature. The case
study results were then used to
discuss the key components of the
research model.
To continue reading
Request your trial