ABSTRACT
The impact of digital disruption and digital business transformation on accountants manifests itself as required changes in the roles / activities that accountants perform, as required changes in the tools used to perform accounting work, and as changes in the competencies required by accountants to perform these changed roles / activities and to use the new or enhanced work tools. In this chapter, we review the extant accounting research to identify and explain the different new or enhanced roles accountants are required to perform, as well as the new or enhanced competencies accountants are required to have in order to perform the new roles / activities. We discuss each new or enhanced accounting role and competency in detail. We then provide an organizing framework to help accountants, accounting educators, and accreditation / advocacy bodies to make sense of the nature of the different new or enhanced roles and competencies required, to understand their interrelationships with each other, and to understand their interrelationships with existing accounting competency requirements. Understanding the new or enhanced roles and competencies required of accountants is critical to effectively cultivating the necessary competencies and, in turn, being able to effectively perform the new or enhanced accounting roles required. Effectively delivering on the new or enhanced roles required of accountants is critical to keeping up with accounting stakeholder expectations; which is, in turn, critical to maintaining and enhancing relevance of the accounting profession and the value of accountants.
