Pierre Teller

Towards a theoretical framework for the diffusion of accounting and control system

This study attempts to introduce some elements of a theoretical framework for the diffusion of a subset of management information systems, namely management accounting and control systems (MACS). The paper starts with a description of Krackhardts diffusion of controversial innovations model [8]. An action research was conducted at the Research and Development site of a multinational company to trace the implementation process of a controversial innovation in order to extend Krackhardt computer simulation model. The study uncovers several structural principles for the successful diffusion of MACS such as the location of the innovators, the nature of network ties, the organizations structural arrangements, the amount of connectedness, and the viscosity parameter.

A model for accounting standards and its applications

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the model we built to represent financial information in an efficient way. This kind of information shows an unquestionable delay on the field of knowledge management, and this issue is more and more crucial as the requirements on financial reporting increase. We will describe the particular nature of laws as a knowledge source, and amongst other, the nature of accounting standards. We will explain the consequences of these particularities on the technical choices we made when we started to build our model, and what is the structure of our model. Then, we will sum up the issues we faced during the modelling process. This paper ends with a description of the applications we build to illustrate the possibilities of such a model for various financial information users, especially financial auditors.