Orchestrating the flow of information for decision making: new dynamics between management accountants and operational managers leveraging business intelligence & analytics systems

This paper investigates whether and how the use of business intelligence & analytics (BI&A) systems influences the way management accountants (MAs) support the decision-making processes of operational managers within organisations. Drawing on a cross-sectional field study of five Italian companies and using the concepts of technological properties, affordances and constraints, findings show that MAs’ degree of involvement in decision-making processes depends on how MAs and operational managers leverage BI&A properties to perform tasks during the production, transmission and reception of information. Although BI&A systems have reduced MAs’ traditional tasks and responsibilities during the informational flow, by leveraging specific BI&A properties, MAs can recognise themselves as orchestrators of information flows because they establish the entire information framework available to managers for decision making. In intra-functional decision making, MAs’ orchestration is largely invisible within the BI&A infrastructure because operational managers gain greater autonomy in managing information. However, this autonomy is enabled by the tailored information perimeter previously configured by MAs, making their diminished presence more apparent than real. Conversely, in inter-functional decision making, MAs’ orchestration becomes overt as operational managers actively seek their involvement. Moreover, MAs leverage their enterprise-wide access to BI&A information and business knowledge to safeguard local decisions that reflect their broader organisational implications.