The strategic governance of the digital accounting environment: insights from virtual museums
ISSN: 2049-372X
Article publication date: 28 October 2021
Issue publication date: 21 March 2023
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the strategic governance of the digital transformation of the accounting environment in cultural organizations, with a specific focus on practices of social responsibility and stakeholder engagement in virtual museums.
Design/Methodology/Approach
By adopting a multiple case study approach, this study investigated five Italian virtual museums and their digitalization processes. Data were collected and triangulated from multiple sources, including documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews with 16 key informants.
Findings
Considering the digitalization of the accounting environment as a paradigmatic change, the authors identify three key transitions for its strategic governance: from the static, technical and physical to the relational, emotional and digital; from bureaucratic managerialism to value cocreation; and from traditional CSR to integrated external engagement. Moreover, the authors found that social responsibility and stakeholder engagement practices are used in a limited way, and that the use of social media appears to be increasingly important and to be carried out through an emergent rather than a deliberate strategy.
Research Limitations/Implications
The paper draws from a limited sample of case studies in one country and is based on exploratory research. This paper calls for more comparative studies using a longitudinal approach to investigate the impacts of digitalization on the accounting environment of cultural organizations.
Originality/Value
This study is one of the few studies concentrating on the effects of digitalization on the accounting environment of cultural organizations.
Keywords
Citation
Esposito, P., Braga, A., Sancino, A. and Ricci, P. (2023), "The strategic governance of the digital accounting environment: insights from virtual museums", Meditari Accountancy Research, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 366-380. https://doi.org/10.1108/MEDAR-03-2020-0837
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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