The accounting profession in the Twilight Zone: navigating digitalisation's sided challenges through ethical pathways for decision-making
本文探讨了在人类与机器人协作的数字化未来中，会计职业面临的自主性、隐私、权力平衡等七大挑战，并提出了相应的伦理决策模型，为会计从业者提供实用指南。
Purpose The 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/approach Employing 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. Findings Key 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 implications The 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 implications Using 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/value By 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.