Digital accounting capabilities and project management performance: The mediating role of real-time financial information and the moderating role of digital transformation readiness

Abstract

The study aims to investigate the impact of the use of digital accounting capabilities on project management performance mediated by real-time financial information and moderated by digital transformation readiness. Based on the increasing importance of digitalized accounting systems in the project based context, the research claims that digitalized accounting capability increases the quality of accounting information in terms of timeliness, accessibility, accuracy, and usefulness for managerial decisions, which in turn positively influences project performance. The design used was a quantitative one and the participants were employees from construction, engineering, information technology, telecommunications, manufacturing, logistics and consulting companies operating in project-based organizations in Jordan. The respondents were primarily the Project Managers, Accountants, Financial Managers, Cost Controller, the Procurement Officer, and the Operations Manager. Partial least squares structural equation modeling via SmartPLS software was used to analyze the data. The results demonstrate that digital accounting capabilities will positively impact project management performance and real-time financial information. Real-time financial data also has a beneficial impact on project management performance and potentially acts as a partial mediator in the linkage between digital accounting capabilities and project management performance. Moreover, the positive moderating effect between digital accounting capabilities and real-time financial information was established by digital transformation readiness, suggesting that those organizations with a higher degree of digital transformation readiness can better transform digital accounting capabilities into real-time financial information. The study offers insights on the how and when of improving performance through digital accounting capabilities from the perspectives of digital accounting, accounting information systems, and project management literature. In practice, the results point to organizations' readiness to adopt a digital transformation approach to digital investments in accounting that correspond with real-time reporting processes.