题目 |
Incorporating big data in audits: Identifying inhibitors and a research agenda to address those inhibitors |
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作者 |
Michael Alles, Glen L. Gray |
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刊名 |
International Journal of Accounting Information Systems,Volume 22, September 2016 |
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来源数据库 |
e l s e v i e r |
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原始语种摘要 |
With corporate investment in Big Data of $34 billion in 2013 growing to $232 billion through 2016 (Gartner 2012), the Big 4 accounting firms are aiming to be at the forefront of Big Data implementations. Notably, they see Big Data as an increasingly essential part of their assurance practice. We argue that while there is a place for Big Data in auditing, its application to auditing is less clear than it is in the other fields, such as marketing and medical research. The objectives of this paper are to: (1) provide a discussion of both the inhibitors of incorporating Big Data into financial statement audits; and (3) present a research agenda to identify approaches to ameliorate those inhibitors. |
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关键词 |
Big Data Auditing Accounting information systems |
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原始语种正文 节选 |
2. An overview of Big Data 2.1. Defining Big Data The first issue faced in exploring Big Data is that “Big Data” lacks a consistent definition. One website lists 32 definitions and another website had seven more. Wikipedia defines Big Data as: “Big Data is the term for a collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using on-hand database management tools or traditional data processing applications. The challenges include capture, curation, storage, search, sharing, transfer, analysis, and visualization. The trend to larger data sets is due to the additional information derivable from analysis of a single large set of related data, as compared to separate smaller sets with the same total amount of data, allowing correlations to be found to spot business trends, determine quality of research, prevent diseases, link legal citations, combat crime, and determine real-time roadway traffic conditions.” Although not mutually exclusive, some Big Data definitions focus on the dimensions or characteristics of Big Data and other definitions focus more on examples of the contents of Big Data. On the characteristics side, frequently, Big Data is defined in terms of volume, velocity, variety, and veracity (commonly referred as the “4 Vs”).14 Volume refers the overall amount of data included in a Big Data dataset. Velocity is how frequently the data are changing. Many Big Data installations are collecting real-time sensor data that are being continuously updated. Variety is the broad scope of data that organizations are collecting. Veracity relates to the integrity of the data. Veracity may be particularly problematic to auditors—i.e., how does the auditor develop an appropriate level of confidence in a clients Big Data with massive amounts of non-financial data? In terms of defining Big Data in term of diverse content examples, the data in Big Data could include some mix of traditional structured financial and non-financial data (NFD), logistics data, sensor data, emails, telephone calls, social media data, blogs, as well as other internal and external data. Auditors traditional focus on transactional accounting data, hence, a particularly relevant content definition of Big Data in the auditing context is that by Connolly (2012), which takes transactions as its starting point: He goes on to explain and illustrate this equation: “ERP, SCM, CRM, and transactional Web applications are classic examples of systems processing Transactions. Highly structured data in these systems is typically stored in SQL databases. Interactions are about how people and things interact with each other or with your business. Web Logs, User Click Streams, Social Interactions amp; Feeds, and User-Generated Content are classic places to find Interaction data.Observational data tends to come from the lsquo;nternet of Thingsrsquo;. Sensors for heat, motion, pressure and RFID and GPS chips within such things as mobile devices, ATM machines, and even aircraft engines provide just some examples of lsquo;thingsrsquo; that output Observation data.” Connollys (2012) framework (see Fig. 3) is useful because it puts the data currently used by auditors (in a small box in the lower-left corner) into perspective and shows how much additional data that Big Data offers to expand that input into the auditing process. Moving to Cells C and D (moving into Big Data) in Fig. 1 means the auditor will be expanding outside of that small box in the corner into a vast population of NFD. Connolly (2012) goes on to identify what he sees as seven drivers of Big Data in business: Business Opportunity to enable innovative new business models Potential for new insights that drive competitive advantage Technical Data collected and stored continues to grow exponentially Data is increasingly everywhere and in many formats Traditional solutions are failing under new requirements Financial Cost of data systems, as a percentage of IT spend, continues to grow Cost advantages of commodity hardware amp; open source software These drivers are general and are not specific to auditing; however, if Big Data is to impact auditing more directly, then it will be through the first two drivers (new models and new insights). How precisely will Big Data do all this? Lucas (2012) has an insightful characterization of Big Data in which he argues that it: “divides the world by intent and timing rather th 剩余内容已隐藏,支付完成后下载完整资料
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