Emerging Technologies | University of Waterloo Centre for Information Integrity and Information Systems Assurance

Emerging Technologies - Research

Thought Leadership, Funding Specific Research Projects

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Does Industry Classification Matter: Evidence from IT Budgets

Research team: Duane Kennedy, Byron Song, and Theo Stratopoulos
The objective is to discover if the industry classification and/or the level of aggregation within a selected classification matter. Empirical studies tend to control for industry structure using proxies from one of the common industry classifications (e.g., SIC, Fama-French, NAICS) and select a level of aggregation within this classification (e.g., SIC2 or SIC3). Given these choices are not justified, one could assume that they do not seem to matter.

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Does the effect of management style on auditors’ propensity to underreport time differ depending on the nature of the manager (human vs. algorithm)?
Research team is Tim Bauer, Samantha Seto, Simon Fraser University, and Jenny Ulla, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The objective is to examine how auditors respond to varying management styles (e.g., more passive, more micromanaging) and whether this depends on whether the manager is a human or an algorithm. In particular, we investigate whether higher levels of micromanagement motivate auditors to underreport the time they spend on their audit tasks, and whether such behavior is lessened when the manager in charge of time/budget is al algorithm.
The research team has been conducting pilot test experiments in Winter and Spring 2023. The main experiment is being conducted with UW MAcc students in July 2023. Researcher Samantha Seto presented the research idea at the Canadian Academic Accounting Association’s annual Craft of Accounting Workshop (for junior scholars) in June 2023.
Status: In process

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Does Gamification of Crowdfunding Lead to Higher Success?
Research team of Theo Stratopoulos and Jonathan Hua Ye investigates the effect of addition of leaderboard of top donors (i.e., gamification) increases the success rate (amount raised/goal).
Paper was presented at the Rutgers AIS Research Seminar (May 2023) and the 17th ICESALM (June 2023). Currently under journal review.
Status: In process

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Designing Contests for Data Science Competitions: Number of Stages and the Prize Structures
Research team: Keehyung Kim, and Jialu Liu (Shanghai Jiao Tong University)
Firms have been proactively holding data science competitions via online contest platforms to look for innovative solutions from the crowd. When firms are designing such competitions, a key question is "What should be a better contest design to motivate contestants to exert more effort?" We experimentally investigate two commonly observed contest structures (one-stage and two-stage) and two widely adopted prize structures (high-spread and low-spread). This paper was published in the Production and Operations Management, 32(11), 2023.
Report: Designing Contests for Data Science Competitions: Number of Stages and the Prize Structures
Status: Completed

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Does Use of AI Tools Affect a Decision-making Behavior: An Experimental Study
Research team: Keehyung Kim, and Yige Chen (CUHK - Ph.D. student)
Over the past years, there has been a rapid increase in the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to acquire information while others may still rely on getting information in a traditional way (e.g., from human experts). The objective is to experimentally investigate how the source of information may affect a decision-making behavior in various scenarios. We have completed an early pilot study and we are currently in designing further experiments.
Status: In process

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): From VisiCalc to ChatGPT: Unraveling the Perfect Storm of Emerging Technologies and its Implications for the Accounting Profession
Research Team: Theo Stratopoulos, Ivee Che and Yifei Kuang (SAF - Ph.D. students)
The rapid evolution of technology in the past 30 years has transformed various industries, including accounting. The aim of the paper is to explore the interconnectedness and evolution of emerging technologies and their profound implications for the accounting profession.
Status: In process

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): The impact of anthropomorphism on users’ adoption of conversational agents’ recommendations
Research Team: Sepideh Ebrahimi, Christian Matt (University of Bern), Izak Benbasat (University of British Columbia)
This research intends to investigate whether the anthropomorphism of CAs impact users' perception of the quality of their recommendation and whether participants are likely to be more forgiving of low quality recommendations when they are given by anthropomorphized agents.
Status: In process

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): A meta-analysis of the factors influencing users' acceptance of conversational agents' advice
Research Team: Sepideh Ebrahimi, Samira Farivar (Carleton University), Kamran Eshghi (Laurentian University)
Status: In process

Disseminating Best Practices, Sharing Material (Workshops / Conferences)
Developing Courses, Workshops, Cases and Other Teaching Material

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): A workshop was held on Dec 7, 2022 in conjunction with JIS on the impact of artificial intelligence on the accounting profession.
Reseach team: Efrim Boritz and Theo Stratopoulos
Commentary is forthcoming in JIS (Fall 2023)

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Think Twenty invited Efrim Boritz to prepare an article on AI Technologies with Implications for Assurance Services based on the survey of CPAs conducted in February.
Report: ThinkTWENTY20 Spring 2023 issue

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Special Issue on Artificial Intelligence, with a focus on Large Language Models, in Accounting
Theo Stratopoulos and Victor Wang will be the guest editors for the special issue in the International Journal of Accounting Information Systems.
This special issue aims to explore the transformative impact of AI and LLMs on accounting practice and research.

Engaging with Profession, Students, Public

The aim of this initiative is to organize a team of industry experts & meet periodically to discuss/identify emerging technologies and how they will affect our curriculum.
Team leaders: Theo Stratopoulos & Will Xiang