The accounting profession in the Twilight Zone: navigating digitalisation's sided challenges through ethical pathways for decision-making

Abstract

PurposeThe paper aims to explore the sided challenges facing the accounting profession in an advanced digitalised future where humans and robots will collaborate in working teams.Design/methodology/approachEmploying a qualitative approach, the paper conducts a reflexive thematic analysis to identify challenges and associated socio-ethical risks of digitalisation; it then introduces an ethical decision-making model aimed at addressing these challenges.FindingsKey professional accountants’ (PAs) sided challenges refer to autonomy, privacy, balance of power, security, human dignity, non-maleficence and justice, each of them possessing multifaceted dimensions that are interconnected dynamically to create a complex web of socio-ethical risks.Practical implicationsThe ethical decision-making pathways corresponding to each detected challenges provide a useful reference and guideline for PAs in the digitalised future of the profession.Social implicationsUsing an anthropocentric perspective, the research addresses the sided challenges of accounting profession’s accelerated digitalisation; it contributes to fostering accountability and legitimacy of the accounting profession which serves the public interest.Originality/valueBy innovatively intertwining ethical positions with decision-making pathways, the paper offers a potential solution to address digitalisation’s sided challenges that might interfere with practitioners’ professional judgement and identity.