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Big data and decision quality: The role of management accountants’ data
analytics skills

Article  in  International Journal of Accounting and Information Management · February 2023

DOI: 10.1108/IJAIM-12-2021-0246

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 Forthcoming in the International Journal of Accounting and Information Management

(doi: 10.1108/IJAIM-12-2021-0246)

Big data and decision quality: The role of

management accountants’ data analytics skills
Franziska Franke
University of Siegen, Chair of Management Accounting and Control, Germany

Martin R.W. Hiebl

University of Siegen, Chair of Management Accounting and Control, Germany, and
Johannes Kepler University Linz, Institute of Management Control and Consulting, Austria

Structured Abstract:

Purpose: Existing research on the relationship between big data and organizational decision

quality is still few and far between, and what does exist often assumes direct effects of big

data on decision quality. More recent research indicates that such direct effects may be too

simplistic, and in particular, an organization’s overall human skills are often not considered

sufficiently. Inspired by the knowledge-based view, we therefore propose that interactions be-

tween three aspects of big data usage and management accountants’ data analytics skills may

be key to reaching high-quality decisions.

1
Design/methodology/approach: We draw on survey data from 140 US firms. This survey

has been conducted via MTurk in 2020.

Findings: Our results show that the quality of big data sources is associated with higher per-

ceived levels of decision quality. However, according to our results, the breadth of big data

sources and a data-driven culture only improve decision quality if management accountants’

data analytics skills are highly developed. These results point to the important, but so far un-

examined role of an organization’s management accountants and their skills for translating

big data into high-quality decisions.

Practical implications: Our study highlights the importance of an organization’s human

skills in creating value out of big data. In particular, our findings imply that management ac-

countants may need to increasingly draw on data analytics skills to make the most out of big

data for their employers.

Originality/value: Our study is among the first to provide empirical proof of the relevance of

an organization’s management accountants and their data analytics skills for reaching desira-

ble firm-level outcomes. In addition, our study thus adds to the further advancement of the

knowledge-based view by providing evidence that in contemporary big-data environments,

interactions between tacit and explicit knowledge seem crucial for driving desirable firm-level

outcomes.

Keywords: Big data; decision quality; knowledge-based view; management accounting; man-

agement accountants

Paper type: Research paper

2
1. Introduction

Big data represents a global phenomenon that is currently very present in practice and research

(Gupta and George, 2016; Manyika et al., 2011; Wiener et al., 2020). Meanwhile, applications

of big data can be found in most sectors and most business functions of the global economy.

Without data, most modern economic activities, innovation, or growth seem no longer possible.

Moreover, the opportunities associated with big data continue to develop rapidly (Manyika et

al., 2011). Big data thus represents a key basis and knowledge resource for firms to stay com-

petitive (Hazen et al., 2014).

In particular, big data promises to be beneficial for decision-making (Green et al., 2018; Janssen

et al., 2017; Kościelniaka and Puto, 2015; Lin et al., 2020; McAfee and Brynjolfsson, 2012;

Mikalef et al., 2018b; Popovic et al., 2016; Provost and Fawcett, 2013; Shamim et al., 2019).

That is, the analysis of large amounts of data offers the possibility of decision-making that is

both faster and more adequate, and which can thus result in cost reduction, faster product de-

velopment, or the early identification of market trends (Kościelniaka and Puto, 2015). In addi-

tion, big data is expected to lead to more fact-based, real-time, and thus better decision-making

(Popovic et al., 2016).

Although such expectations around big data are frequently voiced in the literature and empirical

research on big data has largely increased in recent years (e.g., Rezaee and Wang, 2018; Saggi

and Jain, 2018; Siano and Wysocki, 2021), to date there is little empirical research on the in-

fluence of big data on decision quality (Gupta et al., 2021; Janssen et al., 2017). Some previous

research has focused on identifying the organizational factors that influence the quality of de-

cisions that were based on big data (Janssen et al., 2017; Shamim et al., 2019). At the same

time, there is evidence that not all companies that have invested in big data are able to generate

value from it (Akter et al., 2016). For this reason, further research on how various aspects of

3
big data can influence decision quality and which factors at the organizational level are relevant

to generate value from big data seems highly relevant.

In addition to a sound data strategy, investments in modern technologies as well as security and

privacy aspects, it seems particularly important to build deep human analytical capabilities to

take advantage of big data opportunities and to become more data savvy (Jiang and Akdere,

2022; Korherr and Kanbach, 2021; Manyika et al., 2011; Margherita, 2022; Qamar and Samad,

2022; Surbakti et al., 2020; Wirges and Neyer, 2022). As evidenced, for instance, in the litera-

ture on human resource analytics, employee skills seem to be a very important resource in the

big data context, as without the appropriate knowledge and skills of humans, it seems impossi-

ble at present to generate value from big data (Gupta and George, 2016; Margherita, 2022;

Qamar and Samad, 2022). Various studies have already highlighted the importance of appro-

priate big data capabilities (e.g., Akter et al., 2016; Gupta and George, 2016; Janssen et al.,

2017; Popovic et al., 2016). For example, two recent meta-analyses by Oesterreich et al. (2022a,

2022b) found that employees' analytics skills are among the most important factors in creating

business value from big data and driving organizational performance. However, many studies

have only generally mentioned the importance of having proper employee skills available in a

given organization for reaping the benefits of big data, but have neither presented details on

which group of employees are specifically prone to benefit from big data skills nor identified

which exact skills may be needed. For instance, based on a review of the literature on the capa-

bilities of big data analytics, Mikalef et al. (2018b, p. 548) concluded that “[m]ost studies to

date have primarily focused on infrastructure, intelligence, and analytics tools, while other re-

lated resources, such as human skills and knowledge, have been largely disregarded”.

In this paper, we address this void and focus on the role of management accountants’ skills in

creating high-quality decisions with the help of big data. We do so since providing information

for decision-making is a central task of management accountants (Ahrens, 1997; Burns et al.,

4
2013; Erhart et al., 2017; Spraakman et al., 2021; ten Rouwelaar et al., 2018). Indeed, recent

research has suggested that the increased usage of big data can change the role and thus the

range of tasks and the requirements for the skillsets of management accountants (e.g. Andreas-

sen, 2020; Kokina et al., 2021; Lawson, 2019; Oesterreich and Teuteberg, 2019; Schnegg and

Möller, 2022; Szukits, 2022; Wadan et al., 2019; Wolf et al., 2020; Youssef and Mahama,

2021). Based on such research, we could expect that among the management accountants em-

ployed in a given organization, the necessary skills to make use of big data would need to be

available. However, we do not know whether management accountants’ acquisition of such

new skills actually translates into higher decision quality on the basis of big data. For this rea-

son, we draw on the knowledge-based view of the firm to examine the relationship between

three aspects of big data usage and decision quality, and whether this relationship is moderated

by the presence of the necessary data analytics skills among an organizations’ management

accountants. To summarize, our paper tackles the following research question:

To what extent is the relationship between three aspects of big data usage (breadth of big

data sources, quality of big data sources, data-driven culture) and decision quality mod-

erated by management accountants’ data analytics skills?

To address this research question, we draw on survey data from 140 US firms. Based on our

survey findings, our paper contributes to the literature in three primary ways. First, we add to

the knowledge-based view of the firm (e.g., Grant, 1996; Herden, 2020; Spender, 1994) by

theorizing on and providing empirical evidence for interactions between tacit and explicit

knowledge driving desirable firm-level outcomes in big-data environments. Second, to the

swiftly growing literature on human skills and decision-making in a big data environment (e.g.,

Gupta et al., 2021; Janssen et al., 2017; Mikalef et al., 2018b; Shamim et al., 2019), we add

that direct effects of big data usage on decision quality may be too simplistic and that interac-

tions between big data and an organizations’ overall human skills may contribute to a closer

5
understanding of how big data can translate into superior decision quality. Third, we add to the

literature on management accountants’ skills (e.g., Kokina et al., 2021; Oesterreich and Teute-

berg, 2019; Wadan et al., 2019; Wolf et al., 2020). To the best of our knowledge, our study is

the first to empirically examine and confirm the positive impact of big-data related skills of

management accountants for firm-level outcomes such as decision quality.

The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In the next section, we explain the theoretical

backdrop of this study, discuss prior related literature, and develop a total of four hypotheses.

Section 3 then discloses the methods to test these hypotheses and Section 4 reports on our find-

ings. Finally, we provide a discussion of these results in Section 5 and identify the most im-

portant implications arising from our research.

2. Theory, related literature, and hypotheses

2.1. The knowledge-based view and big data

The relationships between big data, management accountants’ data analytics skills, and decision

quality proposed in the following are rooted in the knowledge-based view. The knowledge-

based view of the firm represents a further development of the resource-based view (Grant,

1996; Lin et al., 2020; Spender, 1994), which originally explained a firm’s sustainable compet-

itive advantages through the resources of the firm (Barney, 1991; Grant, 1996). Here, land,

labor, and capital were regarded as classical organizational resources (Spender, 1994). Later, it

was suggested that in our modern knowledge-based societies, not these tangible resources but

rather intangible ones such as knowledge would be a firm’s most important strategic resource

(Grant, 1996; Spender, 1994). According to this knowledge-based view of the firm, differences

in corporate success can be attributed to the expertise of employees and its coordination and

application within a firm (Grant, 1996; Spender, 1994).

6
In this connection, two types of knowledge are usually distinguished: tacit and explicit

knowledge (Grant, 1996; Herden, 2020). Explicit knowledge is knowledge that can be easily

communicated and shared. In particular, this is knowledge about facts and theories (Grant,

1996). In contrast, tacit knowledge can be viewed as “knowing how” (Grant, 1996). This type

of knowledge is usually based on experience (Merendino et al., 2018; Öhman et al., 2021),

exists only within the mind of a person (Jones and Leonard, 2009), and is revealed only by a

person’s actions (Grant, 1996; Jones and Leonard, 2009). For example, a person may know

how to ride a bicycle without being able to explain how to do it or how to maintain balance

while cycling (Polányi, 1966b). Tacit knowledge is thus based on Polányi’s (1966a, p. 4) idea

that “we can know more than we can tell.” Consequently, tacit knowledge cannot easily be

codified, making it difficult to transfer this type of knowledge between people (Jones and Leon-

ard, 2009). However, viewed through the knowledge-based view, for this reason an organiza-

tion’s tacit knowledge may also be most valuable since competitors cannot easily copy or

acquire it (Jones and Leonard, 2009; Herden, 2020).

Importantly for our study, data stored in IT systems (Alawi and Leidner, 2001) and thus big

data can be viewed as a type of explicit knowledge (Lin et al., 2020; Sumbal et al., 2017).

Although big data is currently very present in both research and corporate practice, there is no

uniformly agreed-upon definition of the term to date. At the same time, there is some agreement

that the three Vs – volume, velocity, and variety – can be regarded as the main characteristics

of big data (Oesterreich and Teuteberg, 2019). Volume refers to the vast amount of data avail-

able through big data that cannot be stored and processed by traditional databases (Hashem et

al., 2015; Lakshen et al., 2016; McAfee and Brynjolfsson, 2012). Velocity refers to the high

speed at which data can be generated, processed, and analyzed (Gandomi and Haider, 2015;

Ishwarappa and Anuradha, 2015). Variety describes the diversity of internal and external data

sources from which data can be generated and the heterogeneity with regard to data structure

7
and data format (Gandomi and Haider, 2015). In addition to these three Vs, two further Vs,

namely veracity and value, have more recently been established as further hallmarks of big data.

While veracity refers to the quality and accuracy of data, value points to the added value and

the usefulness of big data (Ishwarappa and Anuradha, 2015). In summary, the term big data

can thus be described as “the generation, storage, processing, verification and analysis of large,

highly versatile and quickly growing volumes of data with the objective of creating valuable

information” (Gärtner and Hiebl, 2018, p. 164). Given this focus on creating valuable infor-

mation and the notion that big data is codified and can thus be easily communicated and shared,

big data can be viewed as explicit knowledge according to the knowledge-based view.

Some earlier organization-level studies already viewed big data through knowledge-based

frameworks (Gupta et al., 2021; Herden, 2020; Öhman et al., 2021; Sumbal et al., 2017). Alt-

hough these studies relied on qualitative research methods and thus relatively small samples,

they offer interesting clues for our quantitative study. For instance, all these studies found that

big data may be an important knowledge resource for corporate boards to make sound decisions

on strategic choices in the oil and gas sector (Sumbal et al., 2017), marketing strategy (Gupta

et al., 2021) or purchasing, logistics and supply chain management (Herden, 2020; Öhman et

al., 2021). Building on such research, we develop hypotheses on the relationships between three

aspects of big data and decision quality in Section 2.2. At the same time, all these earlier studies

concluded that big data needs to be coupled with other resources to make proper use of such

data. For instance, Sumbal et al. (2017) noted that besides the explicit knowledge stored in big

data sources, an organization needs the tacit knowledge of experienced employees to make

sense of big data (see also Öhman et al., 2021). Likewise, Gupta et al. (2021) found that top

management teams often lack the cognitive and technical capabilities to fully use big data and

that they need support from experts within the same organization to effectively tease out the

relevant managerial information from big data – a role that may be performed by management

8
accountants, as theorized in Section 2.3.

To summarize, earlier organization-level studies examining the use of big data through the lens

of the knowledge-based view found that big data may equip organizations with explicit

knowledge to reach high-quality managerial decisions, but that the tacit knowledge inherent to

an organization and its human actors is still necessary to make proper use of such explicit

knowledge (Gupta et al., 2021; Herden, 2020; Öhman et al., 2021; Sumbal et al., 2017). In the

next sections, we build on these insights to develop formal hypotheses to be tested based on

survey data. We thus aim to extend existing organization-level research on big data and the

knowledge-based view by looking into three specific aspects of big data, their relationship with

decision quality and the moderating role of the tacit knowledge stored in human actors such as

management accountants. It is this interaction on which we focus in this paper and where we

see room to contribute to the development of the knowledge-based view.

2.2. Big data and decision quality

As indicated above, recent organization-level research has pointed to the relevance of big data

for rendering high-quality decisions (e.g., Gupta et al., 2021; Janssen et al., 2017; Shamim et

al., 2019). Decisions are generally defined as the choice between alternative courses of action

with respect to a superordinate goal (Eilon, 1969; Churchman, 1968). Since the question

whether a decision is good or bad can be determined by a variety of different criteria (Kaltoft

et al., 2014; Yates et al., 2003), decision quality is a subjective measure and may be perceived

differently by individual actors (Yates et al., 2003). Potentially reflecting this multiplicity of

decision quality, there is no agreed-upon definition of decision quality in the literature; often,

there is no definition at all (Yates et al., 2003). However, in recent research on big data (Shamim

et al., 2019), decision quality has been regarded as the effectiveness of a decision made, which

is why we will follow this route in the present paper. So decision quality can be understood as

9
the extent to which the desired result was achieved by the decision made (Kaltoft et al., 2014).

While the influence of big data on decision quality has thus far been little studied by quantitative

research, as indicated above, we do have some insights from qualitative research (e.g., Gupta

et al., 2021; Janssen et al., 2017; Sumbal et al., 2017). Besides the qualitative studies based on

the knowledge-based view, which we reviewed in Section 2.1, Janssen et al. (2017) noted that

it is often assumed that big data generally leads to better decisions, but this assumption may be

too simple. Instead, recent research has come up with various interrelated organization-level

factors around big data that can influence decision quality. For example, in their case study,

Janssen et al. (2017) identified eleven factors that influence the quality of decisions based on

big data: contractual governance, relative governance, big data analytics capabilities,

knowledge exchange, collaboration, process integration and standardization, routinizing and

standardization, flexible infrastructure, staff, data quality of the big data sources, and decision-

maker quality.

Building on such research, but using quantitative methods, Shamim et al. (2019) more closely

analyzed the following organization-level factors: knowledge exchange, collaboration, process

integration, routinizing, flexible infrastructure, data quality of big data source, and decision-

maker quality. In contrast to Janssen et al. (2017), Shamim et al. (2019) not only examined the

influence of these big data capabilities on decision quality, but also examined whether four big

data management challenges (leadership, talent management, technology, and organizational

culture) influence big data decision-making capabilities. For this purpose, Shamim et al. (2019)

conducted two surveys among owners and CEOs/senior managers of Chinese technology firms

and found that the management challenges mentioned above represent the key challenges in big

data decision-making, and that big data decision-making capabilities are vital for decision qual-

ity (for similar findings, see Gupta et al., 2021).

10
Besides these studies on the relationship between big data and decision quality (Janssen et al.,

2017; Shamim et al., 2019), there are several further organization-level studies that have inves-

tigated the influence of so-called big data analytics capabilities on organizational performance

(e.g. Akter et al., 2016; Gupta and George, 2016; Popovic et al., 2016). Mostly, these studies

show that big data analytics capabilities increase organizational performance (e.g. Akter et al.,

2016; Gupta and George, 2016; Popovic et al., 2016). At the same time, such prior research

indicates that many companies have actually not been able to reap significant value from big

data (Akter et al., 2016). This observation suggests that further and possibly more detailed re-

search is needed to determine which organization-level aspects are important for companies to

actually benefit from big data. For this reason, we distinguish between three aspects of big data

in the following: breadth of big data sources, quality of big data sources, and data-driven cul-

ture. Individual hypotheses on these three big data aspects’ influence on decision quality are

developed in the following three sub-sections.

2.2.1. Breadth of big data sources

As detailed above, two of the five Vs of big data are volume and variety. In this study, we

summarize these two characteristics as the breadth of big data sources. For instance, such

breadth of big data materializes through unstructured data such as text, images, videos, or audio

files, which are now more easily accessible in addition to structured data from relational data-

bases and spreadsheets that have been in use for decades (Gandomi and Haider, 2015; Hashem

et al., 2015).

In line with the knowledge-based view of the firm (Alawi and Leidner, 2001), a higher breadth

of big data can lead to more, and more versatile knowledge being available to a firm, which

should provide the firm with competitive advantages (Gupta et al., 2021; Herden, 2020). In

particular, we assume that such competitive advantages arise through better decisions being

11
enabled by the breadth of big data. This assumption receives some support from earlier quali-

tative research, which indicated that explicit knowledge available thanks to large volumes and

the variety of big data provided a better basis for decision making in the analyzed firms than in

the time before the availability of big data (Sumbal et al., 2017). As an example of this rela-

tionship, facial recognition technologies can be used by brick-and-mortar retailers to obtain

information about store traffic, the composition of their customers in terms of age and gender,

and their movement patterns in the store. This information can then be used for making more

informed decisions about product promotion, placement, and staffing (Gandomi and Haider,

2015). Consequently, we suggest:

H1: The breadth of big data sources has a positive impact on decision quality.

2.2.2. Quality of big data sources

Besides the breadth of big data, the other three Vs – velocity, veracity, and value – will be

referred to as the quality of big data in the following. This quality materializes in data being

available much more quickly thanks to technological advances. Such timeliness of big data

(Hazen et al., 2014) not only refers to the quick availability of data, but also enables firms to

make real-time, personalized offers to their customers. For example, it is possible to obtain

“sound information about customers, such as geographical location, demographics, and past

buying patterns, which can be analyzed in real time to create real customer value” (Gandomi

and Haider, 2015, p. 138). This flood of information generated by mobile devices and mobile

applications can be used, for example, to generate personalized offers in real time for everyday

customers (Gandomi and Haider, 2015). The technological advances thus not only enable

quicker decision-making, but also value-enhancing features that were not available in earlier

days. At the same time, for big data to result in high decision quality, high-quality data are

necessary (Cai and Zhu, 2015) because insufficient data quality of big data sources can even

12
lead to wrong decisions with detrimental effects on profitability and competitiveness (Janssen

et al., 2017). So the overall quality of big data needs to be upheld to prevent people from making

“wrong decisions much more quickly than before” (Quattrone, 2016, p. 120).

This notion is also very much in line with the knowledge-based view, where a positive influence

of explicit knowledge such as big data on competitive advantage has been argued to be more

likely if the explicit knowledge is of high quality (Alavi and Leidner, 2001). Similarly, earlier

research has indicated that the quality of decisions is influenced by the quality of data (Keller

and Staelin, 1987; O’Reilly, 1982). We thus propose:

H2: The quality of big data sources has a positive impact on decision quality.

2.2.3. Data-driven culture

Organizational culture is seen as one of the biggest challenges to successfully implementing

big data in the enterprise (La Valle et al., 2011; McAfee and Brynjolfsson, 2012; Tursunbayeva

et al., 2022). The main reason for the importance of culture is that without a culture that supports

the use of data in decision-making, the collection of massive amounts of data and associated

investments in new technology do not seem meaningful (Elia et al., 2022; Gupta and George,

2016). Consequently, besides the more technical aspects summarized above in the breadth and

the quality of big data, a data-driven culture seems to be important for reaching high decision

quality based on big data.

Also from earlier works on the knowledge-based view, it can be assumed that a data-driven

culture is important for the use of data in corporate decision-making and for generating higher

levels of performance and competitive advantages (Alavi and Leidner, 2001; Lin et al., 2020;

Ross et al., 2013). However, others argue that important decisions in companies are often made

on the basis of the HiPPO (highest-paid person’s opinion) approach (McAfee and Brynjolfsson,

13
2012). That is, decisions made in this way are only substantiated afterwards by data supporting

the pre-determined decision – so firms may only pretend to be data-driven (McAfee and

Brynjolfsson, 2012). From these opposing views, we can infer that there might be considerable

variance in the extent a data-driven culture can be found in practice. What seems not so much

contested is that a data-driven culture can cause firms to make decisions based on data and thus

to make better decisions (Elia et al., 2022; McAfee and Brynjolfsson, 2012; Ross et al., 2013;

Tursunbayeva et al., 2022). It can thus be expected that as another aspect of big data, data-

driven culture influences decision quality:

H3: Data-driven culture has a positive impact on decision quality.

2.3. The moderating role of management accountants’ data analytics skills

Prior research indicates that the relationship between aspects of big data and decision quality

may be influenced by further organization-level factors (e.g., Ghasemaghaei, 2019; Janssen et

al., 2017). One of these factors is the influence of an organization’s overall human skills (Coyne

et al., 2018; Gupta and George, 2016; Oesterreich et al., 2022a, 2022b), which have already

been identified as potentially directly contributing to the quality of decisions based on big data

(Akter et al., 2016). However, here too, prior research has assumed a direct effect of such skills

on big data capabilities, but has not investigated how such skills may interact with more tech-

nical aspects of big data such as the breadth and the quality of big data.

Such interaction can also be theorized based on the knowledge-based view. Early proponents

of this view have mostly focused on how tacit knowledge can be transferred into explicit

knowledge and vice versa (e.g., Alavi and Leidner, 2001; Nonaka, 1991). In their widely cited

book, Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) refer to such transformation processes as an interaction

between tacit and explicit knowledge, but not in the statistical sense of the word “interaction.”

With interactions, they rather describe four modes of knowledge creation, where new

14
knowledge, and thus a positive outcome, results from the transformation from explicit to tacit

knowledge or vice versa, or the combination of various forms of tacit or explicit knowledge. In

line with this notion, but not distinguishing between explicit and tacit knowledge, earlier appli-

cations of the knowledge-based view in management accounting research have focused on the

combination of different forms of intellectual capital and argued that such “highly firm-specific

knowledge-based resources and their combination are the determinants for competitiveness and

performance” (Leitner and Warden, 2004, p. 39). In this paper, we move beyond this argument

and propose that a specific type of explicit knowledge (i.e., big data) may translate into positive

firm-level outcomes (i.e., high decision quality), but more so if an organization’s relevant tacit

knowledge (i.e., management accountants’ data analytics skills) can be mobilized to make the

best use of available explicit knowledge. Indications of such a relationship between explicit and

tacit knowledge have recently been revealed by Sumbal et al. (2017). In their qualitative field

study, they found that that combining the relevant tacit knowledge of an organization's employ-

ees with explicit knowledge generated by big data technologies can improve decision-making

quality.

We focus on management accountants’ skills since they are generally known to play an im-

portant role as information providers to top managers in the decision-making process (Ahrens,

1997; Burns et al., 2013; Erhart et al., 2017; Hiller et al., 2014; Ndemewah et al., 2019; Spraak-

man et al., 2021; ten Rouwelaar et al., 2018; Wolf et al., 2020; Youssef and Mahama, 2021).

This role is in line with common definitions of management accounting, which see this function

as “partnering in management decision making, devising planning and performance manage-

ment systems, and providing expertise in financial reporting and control to assist management

in the formulation and implementation of an organization’s strategy” (Institute of Management

Accountants, 2008, p. 1). Accordingly, management accountants are the main organizational

carriers of these management accounting tasks (Wolf et al., 2020). Note that within any given

15
organization, there are usually several management accountants (e.g., Andreassen, 2020; Win-

deck et al., 2015). So in the following, we do not refer to individual management accountants’

skills, but similar to earlier research on management accountants’ skills (e.g., ten Rouwelaar et

al., 2021), we refer to the skills that are present in an organization’s entire group of management

accountants. That is, we treat the overall skills commanded by a given organization’s manage-

ment accountants as an organizational-level phenomenon.

Core tasks performed by management accountants such as data analysis and reporting (Burns

et al., 2013) can be expected to be of particular importance in modern organizational environ-

ments shaped by the increasing availability of big data, as there is evidence that senior execu-

tives such as board members may be cognitively overwhelmed by the breadth of big data and

how big data may be interpreted (Gupta et al., 2021; Merendino et al., 2016). So such senior

executives may need to rely on management accountants’ skills to make sense of big data.

Generally, management accountants’ skills are usually gathered through education at schools,

universities and professional associations such as the Chartered Institute of Management Ac-

countants (CIMA) in the UK and the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) in the US

(Ahrens and Chapman, 2000; Heinzelmann, 2016; Wolf et al., 2020). All these educational

programs have in common that it is primarily explicit knowledge that is taught (Koskinen et

al., 2003). However, such knowledge is then internalized through practice and experience in

the respective organization, so that the initially explicit knowledge is finally transformed into

tacit knowledge relevant for a given organization’s group of management accountants (Herden,

2020; Nonaka, 1991). For instance, by drawing on the historical example of railway costing in

the first half of the 20th century in the UK, Edwards (1998) shows that tacit management ac-

counting knowledge in a given organization may largely deviate from textbook-like manage-

ment accounting. In his case, tacit knowledge on useful railway costing was developed based

on an intimate knowledge of the operations of railway companies, and not based on textbook

16
accounting knowledge. In line with this notion, prior work on the knowledge-based view has

widely acknowledged that it is specifically such tacit knowledge, which is adapted to and ap-

plied in a given organization, that forms the basis of that organization’s competitive advantage

(Grant, 1996; Herden, 2020; Spender, 1994). Thus, just like other types of know-how and skills

that reside in specialist roles (Herden, 2020; Nonaka, 1991), the overall skills of management

accountants in a given organization can be considered as tacit knowledge.

Recent studies on the effects of big data on management accountants have suggested that tech-

nological developments around big data may have a decisive influence on the role of manage-

ment accountants, suggesting that such individuals will have to acquire new data-related skills

to maintain their standing as the primary information providers to management (Andreassen,

2020; Bhatta and Hiebl, 2022; Kokina et al., 2021; Lawson, 2019; Oesterreich and Teuteberg,

2019; Spraakman et al., 2021; Schnegg and Möller, 2022; Szukits, 2022; Wadan et al., 2019;

Wolf et al., 2020; Youssef and Mahama, 2021). In particular, big data and the associated new

technologies are expected to lead to an elimination of repetitive tasks, which allows manage-

ment accountants to spend less time on data collection and more time on data evaluation, data

analysis, and data interpretation (Andreassen, 2020; Lawson, 2019). However, in order to excel

in data analysis, data analytics skills such as IT skills and statistical knowledge are17equireed

(Andreassen, 2020; Bhatta and Hiebl, 2022; Kokina et al., 2021; Oesterreich and Teuteberg,

2019; Spraakman et al., 2021; Wadan et al., 2019). Pinpointing this development, Wadan et al.

(2019, p. 5817) emphasize that “there will be a shift from traditional analysis towards statistical

analysis methods.” At the same time, Spraakman et al. (2021) recently reported findings indi-

cating that as of yet, this shift has not taken place (see also Coyne et al., 2018). However, they

note that data analytics is likely to increase in importance for management accountants in the

near future with an emphasis on not only having the technical data analytics skills, but being

also able to effectively communicate the results from data analytics.

17
Despite this potential shift in relevant knowledge for management accountants, the literature

on management accountants’ roles and skills has so far not investigated whether new skills such

as data analytics skills have an impact on organizational-level outcomes such as decision qual-

ity. As far as we know, the only recent work dealing with business analytics, corporate decision

making, and the role of management accountants is the study by Szukits (2022). Szukits (2022)

surveyed the top managers of Hungarian small and medium-sized enterprises and found that

the use of advanced analytics has led executives to place more value on the involvement of

management accountants in the organizational decision-making process. In addition, she found

that the executives surveyed felt that advanced analytics and the value added by management

accountants led them to believe that such analytics can support decision making. However,

Szukits (2022) also found that the level of actual data-driven decision making was not increased

by all these factors. While we can conclude from this study that management accountants can

play an important role in the use of data analytics for business decision making, the role of

management accountants' skills was not analyzed by Szukits (2022). The management account-

ing literature has, however, indicated that management accountants’ IT and statistical skills may

be very relevant (for a review, see Wolf et al., 2020). For instance, ten Rouwelaar et al. (2021)

recently found that management accountants’ technical skills positively contribute to the effec-

tiveness of management accountants. Similarly, several further studies, mostly relying on lon-

gitudinal case studies or cross-sectional field studies, have presented evidence on the growing

relevance of IT and statistical skills for management accountants (e.g., Andreassen, 2020;

Byrne and Pierce, 2007; Granlund and Malmi, 2002; Järvenpää, 2007; Joshi and Bremser, 2004;

Lepistö and Ihantola, 2018).

To summarize, we see various indications in the literature that data analytics and other IT skills

have increased in importance for management accountants. In addition, we know that in a given

18
organization, management accountants usually exerts influence on managerial decisions. How-

ever, we do not yet know whether and how IT-related skills of management accountants are

relevant in translating big data into firm-level outcomes such as higher decision-making quality,

which we address in this study. We thus propose:

H4: The relationships between the breadth of big data sources (H4a), the quality of big

data sources (H4b), data-driven culture (H4c) and decision quality are more pronounced

if the data analytics skills of management accountants are high.

Figure 1 provides a summary visualization of our research model.

<<< Include Figure 1 about here >>>

3. Methods

3.1. Data collection

To test our hypotheses, we conducted an online survey of US firms. The questionnaire devel-

oped for the survey is based on existing constructs from the literature, which were adapted as

needed. The questionnaire is attached in the appendix. In line with our theory development, we

measured all the constructs at the organizational level and thus apply single-level modeling

below (cf. Field, 2018).

The survey was implemented in Google Forms and conducted on the crowdsourcing platform

Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) in June, 2020. As recently proposed by Aguinis et al.

(2021), when working with MTurk data, some potential limitations need to be addressed. While

the recommendations by Aguinis et al. (2021) were published after our MTurk survey had been

conducted, we nevertheless adhered to most of their recommendations. That is, we took various

19
measures to avoid self-misrepresentation, social desirability bias, inattention, and perceived re-

searcher unfairness. For example, the survey instruction provided not only precise information

on the estimated processing time of the study, tasks, and type of tasks, but also kept the aim of

the survey very general in order to avoid a threat to data validity through self-misrepresentation

or social desirability bias (Aguinis et al., 2021). The risk of inattention was to be minimized by

specifying not only the end points of the scales, but all scale values and by screening the results

with respect to the processing time of the respondents after data collection (Aguinis et al.,

2021). The threat of perceived researcher unfairness was reduced by providing for appropriate

compensation (respondents who successfully participated in the survey were paid USD 8 upon

completion) and by justifying a rejection of the Human Intelligence Task to the respondent

(Aguinis et al., 2021).

A total of 179 survey responses were collected. During an initial screening of the survey data,

however, four completed questionnaires were identified as insufficient for further analysis. Two

of the questionnaires were excluded from further analysis due to overly short processing time,

as it can be assumed that the questionnaires were not filled out conscientiously. In the other two

cases, two questionnaires with different answers were submitted by one participant, so that both

questionnaires had to be excluded as well. Thus, the total sample included 175 responses. This

sample was examined with regard to the respondents’ professional qualifications to ensure that

the questions could be answered competently. Employees in management positions such as

general managers, CEOs, or CFOs as well as management accountants and data scientists were

considered to be professionally qualified to answer our questions around their organization’s

use of big data, decision quality, and management accountants’ skills. A total of 20 additional

survey data had to be excluded due to insufficient professional qualifications, resulting in a

sample of 155 respondents. Of these respondents, 140 stated that the company they worked for

was headquartered in the US. To avoid biases due to culture, survey data from the 15 non-US

20
firms were also excluded from further analysis. This measure also ensures that there is no in-

consistency in the English language fluency of the respondents, which, according to Aguinis et

al. (2021), can also be a challenge for research drawing on MTurk.

Due to using MTurk, we cannot disclose typical survey quality measures such as response rates

or tests for non-response bias (Hiebl and Richter, 2018; Van der Stede et al., 2005). However,

since we are more interested in testing theoretical relationships anyway and not in creating

findings that generalize to an underlying population, this non-availability of response rates

seems negligible (Hiebl and Richter, 2018; Speklé and Widener, 2018). Another limitation of

our sample may be that the usable sample size of 140 is not large. This is why we applied the

20 + 5 k formula proposed by Khamis and Kepler (2010) to ascertain whether our regression

analyses feature sufficient statistical power. Our full regression analysis features 13 independ-

ent variables when counting the interaction terms (see Table 4, Model C). As suggested by

Khamis and Kepler (2010), such a regression model should rely on a minimum of 95 observa-

tions (20 + 5 * 13). Since our regression analyses are based on 140 observations, we clearly

surpass this threshold. Our below regression analyses can thus be expected to hold sufficient

statistical power. In addition, our sample of 140 usable responses is similar to the average sam-

ple sizes used in published survey studies of management accounting research (Hiebl and Rich-

ter, 2018).

Since we draw on one respondent per firm, common-method bias may also negatively affect

our data. We thus took two ex-ante measures to avoid this bias from materializing (cf. Podsakoff

et al., 2003). First, the anonymity of our respondents was secured due to using MTurk, which

should help to keep social desirability bias low. Second, we separated the dependent and inde-

pendent questions in our questionnaire. In addition, we ran a Harman’s single factor test on our

full data set to further address common method variance concerns (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986).

No single factor emerged that would explain most of the covariance between the variables. So

21
we see no indications that our data would suffer from common method variance.

Sixty-four of the 140 respondents were female and 76 were male. The majority of participants

were CEOs or general managers (66.4%), a further 22.1% were CFOs or management account-

ants, and the remainder were data scientists or data analysts. Most participants (66.4%) were

younger than 41 years of age. By far, most (79.3%) of the participants had up to 20 years of

professional experience, while 20.7% of the participants had more than 20 years of professional

experience. The respondents’ employing firms were primarily affiliated with the service

(35.7%), technology (29.3%), and manufacturing (16.4%) sectors, while 18.6% of respondents

named other sector affiliations. Most of the respondents’ employing firms (80.7%) had up to

500 employees. A summary of these sample characteristics can be obtained from Table 1.

<<< Include Table 1 about here >>>

3.2. Variable Measurement

3.2.1. Dependent, moderator, and independent variables

The measurement of Decision Quality, our dependent variable, is based on the work of Shamim

et al. (2019). The construct comprises four items, which revolve around statements on the good-

ness of decisions, the achieved results, satisfaction with the results, and a possible improvement

of the organizational performance. Just like for all other multi-item constructs, we relied on a

seven-point Likert scale to measure Decision Quality (see the appendix for details).

The measurement of the first independent variable, Breadth of big data sources, is based on the

study of Gupta and George (2016) and contains three items. The second independent variable,

Quality of big data sources, is based on the three-item measurement by Shamim et al. (2019).

This original construct measurement was complemented by insights by Hazen et al. (2014), so

that our Quality of big data sources measure is based on five items reflecting the accuracy,

22
timeliness, consistency, and completeness of big data sources, as well as the overall satisfaction

with the quality of these sources. Finally, our third independent variable, Data-driven culture,

is based on the four-item measurement by Mikalef et al. (2018a).

The measurement of our moderator variable, Data analytics skills of management accountants,

is based on Mikalef et al. (2018a). The construct involves a total of 14 items, seven each on the

following two dimensions: (1) the extent to which data analytics skills are considered important

for the respective firms’ management accountants in dealing with big data, and (2) the extent

to which these skills are already part of the competence profile of the management accountants

of the surveyed firms. To synthesize these 14 items into one variable, we followed the approach

suggested by Govindarajan (1984). That is, we calculated the sum of the weighted average of

all seven analyzed skills characteristics, whereby the skills at present day were weighted with

their corresponding importance.

We then conducted a factor analysis and an examination of reliability and convergent validity

for all multi-item constructs (Bedford and Speklé, 2018). Table 2 shows the results of this ex-

ercise. The reliability at the construct level was measured using composite reliability (denoted

as CR in Table 2) and Cronbach’s alpha (denoted as α in Table 2). The threshold of 0.7, which

predicts a sufficient reliability for both ratios (Fornell and Larcker, 1981; Hair et al., 2014), was

achieved by all constructs. The examination of reliability was additionally conducted at the item

level based on their factor loadings. These factor loadings should be above the threshold of 0.5

(Hair et al., 2014), which was reached by all items. The convergent validity was measured using

the average variance extracted (denoted as AVE in Table 2). The threshold of 0.5 (Fornell and

Larcker, 1981; Hair et al., 2014) was exceeded by all constructs, so that a sufficient validity of

the constructs can be assumed. Overall, these results indicate a good quality of the measured

constructs. The individual items were then summarized to the constructs discussed above by

calculating a simple average of the items (Govindarajan, 1984).

23
 <<< Include Table 2 about here >>>

3.2.2. Control variables

In addition, we include a total of six control variables in our analyses below, which may affect

our independent variables or our dependent variable, or indeed both (Bernerth and Aguinis,

2016): Firm size, Industry, CFO/Accountant, CEO/Manager, Data scientist, and Organiza-

tional performance.

Firm size. Earlier research shows that decision quality and other management-accounting-re-

lated phenomena may be decisively influenced by firm size (Lavia López and Hiebl, 2015). For

instance, Lavia López and Hiebl (2015, p.100) state that “the smaller the business, the less they

use management accounting systems,” which may in turn affect decision quality. According to

the US Small Business Administration (2019), companies with up to 500 employees can be

considered small businesses and companies with more than 500 employees can be considered

large businesses. We follow this measurement approach, and so the control variable Firm size

was coded as 1 for firms with more than 500 employees and as 0 if otherwise.

Industry. There are differences between industries both with regard to management accounting

(Chenhall, 2003; Otley, 2016; Shields, 1998) and with regard to the “sophistication and ma-

turity in the use of big data” (Manyika et al., 2011, p. 37). Consequently, a firm’s Industry

affiliation may also have an impact on the quality of decisions made on the basis of big data.

The control variable Industry was coded as 1 for manufacturing firms and as 0 for all other

industries.

CFO/Accountant and CEO/Manager. Both Malmendier and Tate (2005) and Graham et al.

(2013) indicate that in comparison with other organizational actors, top managers are more

optimistic or even overconfident regarding their own decisions. Therefore, it can be assumed

24
that top managers may evaluate their organization’s Decision quality more positively than oth-

ers. Since CEOs and managers as well as management accountants, data scientists, and data

analysts took part in our survey, we include two dummy control variables in our analyses below.

For responding CFOs and accountants, the variable CFO/Accountant was coded 1 and 0 for

other roles. For responding CEOs and general managers, the variable CEO/Manager was coded

as 1 and 0 for all other respondent roles. Consequently, responses from data scientists or data

analysts are included in the reference class of these two variables.

Data scientist. In this paper, we examine the data analytics skills of management accountants.

However, another way for firms to acquire such skills necessary for handling big data is to

establish new roles and job profiles, combining both economic and IT competencies (Wadan et

al., 2019). In the literature, the role of the data scientist is often mentioned in this context (Dav-

enport and Patil, 2012; Mikalef et al., 2018a; Provost and Fawcett, 2013; Wirges and Neyer,

2022). For example, Oesterreich and Teuteberg (2019) observed that large companies mainly

employ data scientists to incorporate the necessary big data skills in the firm. Consequently, it

can be assumed that not only Decision quality may be influenced by the existence of data sci-

entists, but also the impact of management accountants’ data analytics skills may depend on

whether data scientists are employed in the firm. For this reason, we include the dummy varia-

ble Data scientist as a further control variable in our multivariate analyses. This variable was

coded as 1 if the respective respondent indicated that his or her firm employs at least one data

scientist and 0 if not.

Organizational performance. Among others, Papadakis (1998) found that there is a positive

relationship between firm performance and rational decision-making processes. So Decision

quality could be expected to relate to higher Organizational performance, which is why we

include Organizational Performance as another control variable in our research model. The

construct used for this purpose is based on Eddleston et al. (2008) and comprises seven items.

25
A seven-point Likert scale was used to measure the respondent’s subjective organizational per-

formance in comparison with those of their main peers. Our checks for the reliability and va-

lidity of this construct show satisfactory results (see Table 2). The individual items were

summarized to the construct Organizational performance by calculating their average value

(Govindarajan, 1984).

4. Results

4.1. Descriptive statistics

Besides details on the conducted factor analyses, Table 2 also includes descriptive information

on our variables. The correlations between these variables are displayed in Table 3. There are

no correlations between predictor variables above the threshold of 0.9 that indicate very high

correlations and, potentially, multicollinearity issues (Hair et al., 2014). To assess potential

multicollinearity issues further, we included variance inflation factors (VIFs) in our multiple

regression analysis. In the literature, it is assumed that VIFs above 5 are a cause for concern,

while VIFs above 10 usually indicate serious multicollinearity problems (Hair et al., 2014;

Marcoulides and Raykov, 2019). As can be seen in Table 4, all VIFs are well below 5, so there

is no strong indication of multicollinearity in our data.

4.2. Hypotheses tests

We tested our hypotheses with ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis. The results of

this exercise are reported in Table 4. In our hierarchical regression setup, Model A tests the

relationships between the six control variables Firm size, Industry, Organizational perfor-

mance, CFO/Accountant, CEO/Manager, and Data scientist and the dependent variable Deci-

sion quality. Model B additionally includes the independent variables Breadth of big data

26
sources, Quality of big data sources, Data-driven culture, and the moderator variable Data

analytics skills of management accountants. Finally, Model C additionally includes the inter-

action terms between Breadth of big data sources, Quality of big data sources, Data-driven

culture, and Data analytics skills of management accountants. To construct the interaction

terms in Model C, the involved variables were first mean-centered and then multiplied, as rec-

ommended by Field (2018).

The F statistic for all three models suggests that they are significant at p < 0.01. The increasing

adjusted R2 between the models confirms our hierarchical regression setup. In the final Model

C, the control variables Organizational performance (p = 0.061) and CEO/Manager (p = 0.011)

are significantly related to Decision quality. Interestingly, in all three models, Data scientist

does not appear to be significantly related to Decision quality, indicating that the presence of

data scientists does not have a material direct impact on reaching high-quality decisions. The

significant relationships between the independent variable Quality of big data sources (p =

0.000) and Decision quality confirms Hypothesis 2. In contrast, the direct effects between the

Breadth of big data sources and Data-driven culture and Decision quality are not significant,

which is why Hypotheses 1 and 3 are rejected. However, both the interaction effects between

Breadth of big data sources and Data analytics skills of management accountants (p = 0.036)

and between Data-driven culture and Data analytics skills of management accountants (p =

0.000) emerge as significantly related to Decision Quality, while the interaction effect between

Quality of big data sources and Data analytics skills of management accountants (p = 0.717)

does not show a significant association with Decision quality. Thus, Hypotheses 4a and 4c are

confirmed, while Hypothesis 4b is rejected.

<<< Include Figure 2 about here >>>

<<< Include Figure 3 about here >>>

Plots on the two significant interaction effects can be found in Figures 2 and 3. Figure 2 suggests

27
that when management accountants’ data analytics skills are high, the impact of the breadth of

big data sources on decision quality is even more pronounced, which is signified by the dashed

slope in Figure 2 being steeper than the solid slope. This observation is perfectly in line with

Hypothesis 4a. Similarly, and confirming Hypothesis 4c, Figure 3 suggests that if management

accountants feature high data analytics skills, the positive effect of a pronounced data-driven

culture on decision quality is enhanced. However, the figure also suggests that if there is no

pronounced data-driven culture, then even high data analytics skills of management accountants

cannot make much of a difference in terms of decision quality.

4.3. Robustness check on the moderating role of data analytics skills of management ac-

countants

To validate the positive impact of management accountants’ skills on the relationship between

big data and decision quality, we performed an additional analysis. For this purpose, we in-

cluded an additional construct named Improvement of the decision-making process through big

data in our survey. This seven-item construct is based on the work of Merendino et al. (2018)

and focusses on the respondents’ perception of whether, in their opinion, the quality of decision-

making is improved by using big data. The seven items of the construct were again evaluated

using a seven-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 - Strongly disagree to 7 - Strongly agree; see

the appendix for details). Similar to the other constructs used in this study, Improvement of the

decision-making process through big data was also examined with regard to its validity and

reliability (see Table 5 for details). Based on a factor analysis, three items were dropped because

they did not reach the threshold of 0.5 with respect to factor loadings (cf. Hair et al., 2014). The

construct is thus based on the four remaining items and features a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.767

and a composite reliability of 0.854, which indicates sufficient reliability (Hair et al., 2014).

28
The average variance extracted (0.593) also exceeded the threshold of 0.5, which indicates suf-

ficient validity (Hair et al., 2014). Finally, the four items were summarized to the construct

Improvement of the decision-making process through big data by calculating a simple average.

<<< Include Table 5 about here >>>

We then ran an additional multiple regression analysis with the Improvement of the decision-

making process through big data as our dependent variable and the Data analytics skills of

management accountants as our independent variable of interest. We expected that the latter

variable would need to be a significant predictor of the former if our basic assumption expressed

in Hypothesis 4 was to hold that management accountants’ data analytics skills significantly

contribute to turning big data sources into better decision quality.

The results of the respective multiple regression analyses are presented in Table 6. Model A

includes the same six control variables as above, while Model B additionally includes the inde-

pendent variable Data analytics skills of management accountants. Both models are significant

at p < 0.01 and the adjusted R2 increases from Model A to Model B due to the inclusion of Data

analytics skills of management accountants, which already indicates the additional explanatory

power of this variable for the Improvement of the decision-making process through big data.

The VIF values in both models are below 2.4, indicating that multicollinearity is not a major

concern (Hair et al., 2014). The results of the final Model B show that the control variables

CEO/Manager (p = 0.005) and Organizational performance (p = 0.032) are significantly related

to the Improvement of the decision-making process through big data. Furthermore, model B

shows that the association between Data analytics skills of management accountants and Im-

provement of the decision-making process through big data is significant at p < 0.01. These

results confirm the idea that the improvement of the decision-making process through big data

is positively influenced by the data analytics skills of management accountants.

29
5. Discussion and conclusions

Equipped with knowledge-based view thinking, in this paper we have aimed to analyze more

closely the relationship between big data and decision quality by decomposing the measurement

of big data usage into three specific aspects: the breadth of big data sources, the quality of big

data sources, and a data-driven culture. Additionally, and most important for the accounting

literature, we analyzed whether the relationship between these three aspects of big data and

decision quality would be moderated by an organization’s management accountants featuring

data analytics skills. Our findings suggest that the quality of big data sources is positively re-

lated to decision quality irrespective of management accountants’ skills. However, for the other

two aspects of big data – the breadth of big data sources and a data-driven culture – we find

that if an organization’s management accountants features high data analytics skills, then these

aspects of big data show a more pronounced impact on decision quality.

These observations nurture the conclusion that irrespective of management accountants’ skills,

it seems very important to secure a sufficient quality of big data, so that decisions are not just

based on larger volumes of data, but on information that features the necessary velocity, verac-

ity, and value (e.g., Gandomi and Haider, 2015; McAfee and Brynjolfsson, 2012). In turn, the

non-significant direct relations between the Breadth of big data sources, Data-driven culture,

and Decision quality indicate that having more data or having a data-driven culture does not

translate into superior decision quality. Here, the data analytics skills of management account-

ants seem to be highly relevant to identify the right information from the seemingly endless

amount of available data, so that decisions can be based on such relevant information and high

decision quality can be reached. Hence, when an organization has already built up a considera-

ble volume and variety of big data – what we view as the Breadth of big data sources – but has

not yet managed to establish a high quality of big data, its management accountants seem to

need a relatively high level of data analytics skills. These volumes and the variety of data can

30
be used for teasing out the relevant information and making high-quality decisions. Likewise,

a data-driven culture seems to be in need of skilled management accountants to channel a gen-

erally data-friendly culture into high-quality decisions out of available big data.

These findings and conclusions contribute to the literature in three primary ways. First, our

study theoretically contributes to the knowledge-based view. Most previous research develop-

ing this theory focused on the relevance of tacit knowledge and how such knowledge may be

transferred into explicit knowledge (e.g., Grant, 1996; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). In contrast,

our study adds the notion that in modern data-driven environments, it may be the interplay

between explicit knowledge stored in large and versatile databases and tacit knowledge pro-

vided by an organization’s skillful employees that builds the basis for high-quality decisions

and thus competitive advantage. We thus corroborate and extend earlier qualitative findings

that have indicated that in big-data settings, combinations of explicit and tacit knowledge may

be particularly valuable (Sumbal et al., 2017). Hence, our study also adds to the literature on

the necessity for data integration in big data environments, which has thus far focused on cross-

functional integrations of data, but not quantitatively tested the interaction between explicit and

tacit knowledge in such environments (Gupta et al., 2021; Herden, 2020; Öhman et al., 2021).

Second, to the growing organization-level research on the relevance and effects of big data, we

add that the effect of big data on decision quality – and potentially, other firm-level outcomes

such as performance – may not be as straightforward as suggested by some earlier research

(e.g., Akter et al., 2016; Gupta and George, 2016; Shamim et al., 2019). In particular, our find-

ings suggest that for some aspects of big data (e.g., the breadth of big data sources and a data-

driven culture) and more in line with Coyne et al. (2018), relevant human skills are still needed

to make effective use of big data in terms of reaching high-quality decisions. This seems all the

more relevant in situations in which organizations have already amassed big data (and thus

command a high Breadth of big data sources), but not yet managed to tease out high-quality

31
information from such data and thus need to revert to skilled humans to make sense of large

volumes of big data. Our findings thus add to the more recent empirical literature examining

under which conditions and on which paths big data usage may end up in increased organiza-

tional decision quality (e.g., Ghasemaghaei and Calic, 2019; Oesterreich et al., 2022a, 2022b).

In particular, we add to this literature a previously understudied group of employees: manage-

ment accountants. By highlighting the relevance of management accountants’ data analytics

skills, we show how big data may be made digestible for senior executives. Such executives

have been portrayed as having problems with using and making sense of big data (Gupta et al.,

2021; Merendino et al., 2016). Our findings suggest that if an organization’s management ac-

countants feature high data analytics skills, they may be the ones to translate the opportunities

of big data into information that is meaningful for board members.

Third, our findings add to the literature on relevant skills for management accountants and their

effects. To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to underpin the relevance of data

analytics skills of management accountants for desirable organization-level outcomes such as

decision quality. Our study thus confirms notions expressed in the literature suggesting that

data analytics skills and other IT-related skills for management accountants are about to in-

crease in importance (Andreassen, 2020; Bhatta and Hiebl, 2022; Coyne et al., 2018; Oester-

reich and Teuteberg, 2019; Schnegg and Möller, 2022; ten Rouwelaar et al., 2021; Wadan et

al., 2019; Wolf et al., 2020). At the same time, our results complement those of Szukits (2022).

In contrast to her study, we included the skills of management accountants in our study and

found a positive moderating role of these skills in the relationship between big data and decision

quality. Thus, our results may suggest that it takes sophisticated data analytics skills of man-

agement accountants to transform big data into higher decision quality and increase the level of

data-driven decision making in the first place. Likewise, our research results do not confirm

concerns expressed in the literature that in increasingly data-driven environments, management

32
accountants may become obsolete and may be replaced by data scientists in their role as main

information providers to management (Oesterreich and Teuteberg, 2019). In fact, our data sug-

gest that the presence of data scientists does not have any significant effect on decision quality.

Further, our study does not confirm recent qualitative findings that data analytics skills would

still be low for most management accountants (Spraakman et al., 2021). We certainly found

some variance in management accountants’ data analytics skills across the surveyed firms, but

at the same time, in firms with more highly skilled management accountants in terms of data

analytics, these firms’ management accountants also emerged from our study as playing an

important role in translating big data into higher decision quality. So as an implication for prac-

tice, our study suggests that if a given organization’s management accountants manage to de-

velop high data analytics skills, which enable them to translate insights from big data into

information that is relevant and understandable for senior management, they stand good

chances of keeping up their frequently found role as main information providers for managers.

Finally, we need to acknowledge our study’s limitations and the resulting needs for further

research. First, the choice of using MTurk for data collection may be seen as a limitation. Stud-

ies drawing on MTurk face various potential biases such as self-selection bias, social desirabil-

ity bias, or participants’ self-misinterpretation (Aguinis et al., 2021). However, such biases may

not only materialize in survey studies drawing on MTurk, but also in other management ac-

counting survey studies (Speklé and Widener, 2018). So similar to other management account-

ing survey research and as indicated above, we took several measures to prevent these potential

drawbacks from materializing. This is why we are confident that our data does not suffer from

severe threats to validity, which in turn may indicate that MTurk may not only be used for

further experimental research in management accounting (e.g., Kreilkamp et al., 2021), but for

survey research as well. Nevertheless, to further corroborate our results, we call for replications

in other contexts as well as for future studies to draw on more conventional survey techniques

33
such as directly sending out questionnaires to management accountants and general managers

instead of using services such as MTurk and Prolific Academic. Second, our study is based on

cross-sectional data. So the hypothesized causality cannot be fully assessed with our data, which

thus represents an opportunity for future research drawing on longitudinal data or time-lagged

surveys. In addition, to gain a deeper understanding of how management accountants’ skills

may benefit the analysis of big data, additional qualitative inquiries into the topic seem desira-

ble. Finally, we rely on survey data from the US, where firms’ technological sophistication and

usage of big data can, on average, be considered higher than in many other countries of the

world (Joubert et al., 2021; Wiener et al., 2020). Thus, as of yet, our findings may only apply

to countries with a similarly high reliance on big data and replications of our results in emerg-

ing-country contexts seem interesting to ascertain the extent to which such firms can also ben-

efit from big data and the role played by management accountants in analyzing such data. This

seems especially relevant, as management accounting in emerging countries is often seen as not

particularly critical and is sometimes only applied ostensibly to satisfy donors from Western

countries (e.g., Hopper et al., 2009; Ndemewah and Hiebl, 2022; van Helden and Uddin, 2016).

Despite such potential regional differences in the usage of big data, it can be estimated that the

worldwide usage of big data is about to increase considerably in the years to come (Wiener et

al., 2020). It is hoped that our findings may therefore provide some insights on potential future

developments in countries and organizations where, currently, big data is or cannot be used as

much as in many US organizations.

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Appendix

Table A.1
Questionnaire items

Variables Questions and answer categories References

Gender of re- What is your gender? -
spondent o Female
o Male
Age of respond- What is your age? -
ent o ≤ 40 years
o > 40 years
Respondent role What position do you hold in your company?
o Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
o Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
o Management Accountant
o Manager
o Data Scientist
o Other:
Work experience What work experience do you have in years? -
of respondent o ≤ 20 years
o > 20 years
Industry/Business In which business sector is your company operating pri-
sector marily?
o Bank and Financials
o Manufacturing
o Retail
o Service
o Transport and Logistics
o Technology
o Other
Firm size How many employees does your company have? -
o ≤ 500 years
o > 500 years
Data scientist Are there data scientists in your company? -
o Yes
o No
Decision quality Please indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree Shamim et
with the following statements about your firm. (1 = al., 2019
Strongly disagree ... 4 = Neutral ... 7 = Strongly agree)
1. I believe that we make good decisions.
2. The decisions we make result in the desired out-
comes.
3. I am satisfied with the outcomes of our decisions.
4. Our decisions improve organizational perfor-
mance.

42
Organizational How would you rate your firm's past performance in the Eddleston
performance last 3 years as compared to your competitors regarding the et al., 2008
following performance indicators? (1 = Much worse ... 4
= About the same ... 7 = Much higher)
1. Growth in sales
2. Growth in market share
3. Growth in the number of employees
4. Growth in profitability
5. Return on equity
6. Return on total assets
7. Profit margin on sales
8. Ability to found growth from profits
Breadth of big Please indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree Gupta and
data sources with the following statements about your firm. (1 = George,
Strongly disagree ... 4 = Neutral ... 7 = Strongly agree) 2016
1. We have access to very large, unstructured or fast-
moving data for analysis.
2. We integrate data from multiple internal sources
into a data warehouse or mart for easy access.
3. We integrate external data with internal to facili-
tate high-value analysis of our business environ-
ment.
Quality of big Please indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree Shamim et
data sources with the following statements about your firm. (1 = al., 2019;
Strongly disagree ... 4 = Neutral ... 7 = Strongly agree) Hazen et
1. Our big data sources provide accurate data. al., 2014
2. Our big data sources provide timely data.
3. Our big data sources provide consistent data.
4. Our big data sources provide complete data.
5. We are satisfied with the quality of the data pro-
vided by our big data sources.
Data-driven cul- Please indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree Mikalef et
ture with the following statements about your firm. (1 = al., 2018a
Strongly disagree ... 4 = Neutral ... 7 = Strongly agree)
1. Data-driven decisions are a core aspect of how our
firm operates.
2. Most decisions are made based on data analytics
and not so much on managerial insight.
3. We thoroughly analyze various types of data in or-
der to improve and develop products and/or ser-
vices.
4. Operations are constantly monitored and improved
upon by modeling streams of data.
Data analytics How would you rate the importance of the following Mikalef et
skills of manage- skills for management accountants in your company for al., 2018a
ment accountants using big data in decision-making? (1 = Not important at
all ... 4 = Neutral ... 7 = Highly important)
1. They have expertise in big data analytics

43
 2. They have expertise in data and knowledge visual-
ization
3. They have expertise in statistical techniques.
4. They have expertise in transforming raw data into
business intelligence.
5. They have expertise in structuring and analyzing
content (web-based, sensor-based) in a meaningful
way.
6. They have expertise in working with high volume
unstructured data.
7. They have expertise in machine learning.
How high would you consider the following skills of man-
agement accountants in your company at present day? (1
= Very low ... 4 = Neutral ... 7 = Very high)
1. They have expertise in big data analytics.
2. They have expertise in data and knowledge visual-
ization.
3. They have expertise in statistical techniques.
4. They have expertise in transforming raw data into
business intelligence.
5. They have expertise in structuring and analyzing
content (web-based, sensor-based) in a meaningful
way.
6. They have expertise in working with high volume
unstructured data.
7. They have expertise in machine learning.
Improvement of Please indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree Merendino
the decision-mak- with the following statements about your firm. (1 = et al., 2018
ing process Strongly disagree ... 4 = Neutral ... 7 = Strongly agree)
through big data 1. Big data speeds up the time it takes to make a de-
cision.*
2. Big data means that there occurs more re-cycles
and re-visiting of problems.*
3. Big data makes the decision process more fluid
and continuous.
4. Big data reduces uncertainty.
5. Big data reduces the likelihood that decisions may
go wrong.
6. Big data increases the number of alternatives con-
sidered.*
7. Big data increases confidence in information
sources.
* Items were excluded from the analysis due to too low factor loadings.

44
Tables

Table 1
Sample characteristics
Respondents Respondents‘ organizations
N % N %
Gender Business sector
Female 64 45.7 Service 50 35.7
Male 76 54.3 Technology 41 29.3
Age Manufacturing 23 16.4
≤ 40 years 93 66.4 Other 26 18.6
> 40 years 47 33.6 Number of employees
Position ≤ 500 113 80.7
CFO/Accountant 31 22.1 > 500 27 19.3
CEO/Manager 93 66.4

Data scientist/Analyst 16 11.4

Work experience
≤ 20 years 111 79.3
> 20 years 29 20.7

45
 Table 2
Factor analysis and descriptive statistics

Factor
Latent constructs and survey items loading Min Max Mean Median S.D.
Decision quality 2.25 7.00 5.768 6.000 0.859
(AVE = 0.632, CR = 0.873, α = 0.805)
I believe that we make good decisions. 0.821 1.00 7.00 5.730 6.000 1.024
The decisions we make result in the de-
sired outcomes. 0.773 2.00 7.00 5.800 6.000 1.026
I am satisfied with the outcomes of our
decisions. 0.779 2.00 7.00 5.700 6.000 1.155
Our decisions improve organizational
performances. 0.807 1.00 7.00 5.840 6.000 1.114
Breadth of big data sources 1.00 7.00 5.279 5.667 1.260
(AVE = 0.738, CR = 0.894, α = 0.822)
We have access to very large, unstruc-
tured or fast-moving data for prod-
uct/service/market analysis. 0.880 1.00 7.00 5.150 5.000 1.469
We integrate data from multiple internal
sources into a data warehouse or mart
for easy access. 0.837 1.00 7.00 5.430 6.000 1.494
We integrate external data with internal
to facilitate high-value analysis of our
business environment. 0.860 1.00 7.00 5.260 6.000 1.436
Quality of big data sources 1.00 7.00 5.533 5.800 1.060
(AVE = 0.674, CR = 0.912, α = 0.878)
Our big data sources provide accurate
data. 0.835 1.00 7.00 5.690 6.000 1.206
Our big data sources provide timely
data. 0.783 1.00 7.00 5.590 6.000 1.264
Our big data sources provide consistent
data. 0.812 1.00 7.00 5.650 6.000 1.205
Our big data sources provide complete
data. 0.813 1.00 7.00 5.290 6.000 1.417
We are satisfied with the quality of the
data provided by our big data sources. 0.860 1.00 7.00 5.450 6.000 1.359
Data-driven culture 2.50 7.00 5.523 5.750 0.938
(AVE = 0.555, CR = 0.833, α = 0.719)
Data-driven decisions are a core aspect
of how our firm operates. 0.755 1.00 7.00 5.660 6.000 1.084
Product/service/market decisions are
made based on data analytics and not so
much on managerial insight. 0.711 1.00 7.00 5.090 5.000 1.584

46
 Table 2 (continued)

Factor
Latent constructs and survey items loading Min Max Mean Median S.D.
We thoroughly analyze various types of
data in order to improve and develop
product and/or services. 0.763 1.00 7.00 5.690 6.000 1.224
Operations are constantly monitored and
improved upon by modeling streams of
data. 0.750 2.00 7.00 5.660 6.000 1.143
Data analytics skills of management
accountants 3.44 7.00 5.504 5.573 0.809
(AVE = 0.580, CR = 0.906, α = 0.876)
They have expertise in big data analyt-
ics. 0.756 2.00 7.00 5.547 6.000 1.234
They have expertise in data and
knowledge visualization. 0.840 2.00 7.00 5.633 6.000 1.158
They have expertise in statistical tech-
niques. 0.760 2.00 7.00 5.743 6.000 1.211
They have expertise in transforming raw
data into business intelligence. 0.705 2.00 7.00 5.687 6.000 1.272
They have expertise in structuring and
analyzing content (web-based, sensor-
based) in a meaningful way. 0.774 2.00 7.00 5.552 6.000 1.156
They have expertise in working with
high volume unstructured data. 0.769 2.00 7.00 5.551 6.000 1.120
They have expertise in machine learn-
ing. 0.719 1.00 7.00 5.375 5.000 1.813
Firm size - 0.00 1.00 0.190 0.000 0.396
Industry - 0.00 1.00 0.160 0.000 0.372
Respondent role
CFO/Accountant - 0.00 1.00 0.220 0.000 0.417
CEO/Manager - 0.00 1.00 0.660 1.000 0.474
Data scientist - 0.00 1.00 0.700 1.000 0.460
Organizational performance 2.25 7.00 5.129 5.125 0.889
(AVE = 0.587, CR = 0.919, α = 0.897)
Growth in sales. 0.767 1.00 7.00 5.280 5.000 1.106
Growth in market share. 0.865 2.00 7.00 5.030 5.000 1.131
Growth in the number of employees. 0.691 1.00 7.00 4.860 5.000 1.348
Growth in profitability. 0.720 2.00 7.00 5.160 5.000 1.129
Return on equity. 0.749 1.00 7.00 5.150 5.000 1.175
Return on total assets. 0.730 2.00 7.00 5.110 5.000 1.113
Profit margin on sales. 0.756 3.00 7.00 5.280 5.000 1.067
Ability to found growth from profits. 0.836 1.00 7.00 5.150 5.000 1.240

47
 Table 3
Correlation matrix
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11)
(1) Decision quality 1
(2) Breadth of big data sources 0.485 1
(3) Quality of big data sources 0.613 0.745 1
(4) Data-driven culture 0.525 0.747 0.644 1
(5) Data analytics skills of
management accountants 0.514 0.411 0.511 0.531 1
(6) Firm size -0.015 0.103 0.069 0.080 0.054 1
(7) Industry 0.019 -0.047 -0.030 -0.011 0.130 -0.070 1
(8) CFO/Accountant -0.112 0.032 0.057 -0.013 -0.059 -0.043 -0.004 1
(9) CEO/Manager 0.161 -0.019 -0.071 -0.059 0.083 0.002 0.111 -0.750 1
(10) Data scientist 0.196 0.377 0.348 0.362 0.423 0.122 -0.046 0.011 -0.069 1
(11) Organizational performance 0.436 0.447 0.483 0.545 0.466 -0.094 0.072 0.122 -0.112 0.344 1
Correlations significant at p ≤ 0.05 are indicated in bold; Point-biserial correlation coefficients are used for correlations between
metric and dichotomous variables; Phi values are used for associations between dichotomous variables; Pearson correlation coeffi-
cients are used for correlations between metric variables.

48
 Table 4
OLS regression results
Dependent variable Decision quality
Model A (Control variables only) Model B (Control and independent variables) Model C (including interaction effects)
Standardized Standardized
Independent variables beta t value p value VIF Standardized beta t value p value VIF beta t value p value VIF
Constant 7.475 0.000 2.809 0.006 3.156 0.002
Firm size 0.017 0.216 0.829 1.042 -0.042 -0.653 0.515 1.062 -0.043 -0.695 0.488 1.062
Industry -0.033 -0.430 0.668 1.040 -0.035 -0.537 0.592 1.071 -0.062 -0.987 0.326 1.104
CFO/Accountant -0.005 -0.045 0.964 2.344 0.021 0.218 0.828 2.438 0.036 0.389 0.698 2.473
CEO/Manager 0.214 1.841 0.068* 2.369 0.210 2.119 0.036** 2.506 0.246 2.596 0.011** 2.550
Data scientist 0.054 0.658 0.512 1.178 -0.105 -1.441 0.152 1.360 -0.072 -1.014 0.312 1.424
Organizational performance 0.446 5.413 0.000*** 1.185 0.120 1.477 0.142 1.679 0.148 1.892 0.061* 1.743
Breadth of big data sources -0.056 -0.492 0.624 3.331 -0.025 -0.216 0.830 3.916
Quality of big data sources 0.440 4.333 0.000*** 2.638 0.421 4.243 0.000*** 2.785
Data-driven culture 0.163 1.521 0.131 2.946 0.137 1.336 0.184 2.959
Data analytics skills of management account-
ants 0.205 2.431 0.016** 1.816 0.177 2.148 0.034** 1.914
Breadth of big data sources X Data analytics
skills of management accountants 0.265 2.124 0.036** 4.421
Quality of big data sources X Data analytics
skills of management accountants 0.035 0.363 0.717 2.642
Data-driven culture X Data analytics skills of
management accountants -0.400 -4.026 0.000*** 2.792
R2 0.239 0.496 0.555
Adjusted R2 0.205 0.457 0.509
F 6.958*** 12.706*** 12.078***
N 140 140 140
* p < 0.1; ** p < 0.05; *** p < 0.01

49
 Table 5
Robustness check: Factor analysis and descriptive statistics

Factor
load-
Latent construct and survey items ing Min Max Mean Median S.D.
Improvement of the decision-making
process through big data 2.50 7.00 5.639 5.750 0.872
(AVE = 0.593, CR = 0.854, α = 0.767)
Big data makes the decision process more
fluid and continuous. 0.761 2.00 7.00 5.660 6.000 1.142
Big data reduces uncertainty. 0.789 1.00 7.00 5.560 6.000 1.183
Big data reduces the likelihood that deci-
sions may go wrong. 0.771 2.00 7.00 5.430 6.000 1.253
Big data increases confidence in infor-
mation sources. 0.759 3.00 7.00 5.900 6.000 0.947

50
 Table 6
Robustness check: Multiple regression analysis
Dependent variable Improvement of the decision-making process through big data
Model B (Control and independent varia-
Model A (Control variables only) bles)
Standardized Standardized
Independent variables beta t value p value VIF beta t value p value VIF
Constant 7.712 0.000 4.129 0.000
Firm size -0.073 -0.950 0.344 1.042 -0.096 -1.320 0.189 1.047
Industry 0.060 0.785 0.434 1.040 0.020 0.278 0.782 1.057
CFO/Accountant 0.054 0.464 0.643 2.344 0.057 0.527 0.599 2.344
CEO/Manager 0.362 3.120 0.002*** 2.369 0.314 2.869 0.005*** 2.393
Data scientist 0.124 1.516 0.132 1.178 0.011 0.133 0.894 1.312
Organizational performance 0.324 3.941 0.000*** 1.185 0.182 2.171 0.032** 1.396
Data analytics skills of management accountants 0.378 4.367 0.000*** 1.493
R2 0.243 0.339
Adjusted R2 0.209 0.304
F 7.132*** 9.668***
N 140 140
* p < 0,1; ** p < 0,05; *** p < 0,01

51
Figures

Figure 1

Research Model

52
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