The cloud and management accounting and control

A major driving factor of change to management accounting and management control has been the exponential developments in information technology in the past two decades or so (Sánchez-Rodríguez and Spraakman, 2012). Since the late 1990s, enterprise resources planning systems (ERP) have, for example, freed managers and accountants of much routine work. However, only more recently have we started to see the actual impact of ERP on the work of management accountants (e.g. Wagner et al., 2011; O’Mahony and Doran, 2008; Dechow and Mouritsen, 2005; Caglio, 2003), moving their focus towards consulting and/or advising line managers (e.g. Goretzki et al., 2013; Scapens and Jazayeri, 2003).
Concurrently, the advent of cloud computing technology has changed business and society in general and might have a similar or even greater impact on accounting than ERP systems. While a novel research field for scholars of management accounting and control, cloud technology cannot but impact management accounting and management control systems.