Electronic commerce and management accountants in Egypt: New opportunities and threats

This research reports on a longitudinal case study in an Egyptian organization (TexCo¹) that implemented Business-to-Business (B-to-B) electronic commerce. The objective is to explore the process of change in the role of management accountants associated with the implementation of B-to-B e-commerce. TexCo was subject to a change in leadership; subsequently, their traditional means of operation was put into question. This process resulted in realizing issues related to planning and internal control within the company. The B-to-B system was chosen to introduce new control-based rules. Resistance to change was detected in the case. It is posited that various power strategies were used to ameliorate covert and overt resistance. Over time, the role of management accountants in TexCo changed towards greater decision support and control. B-to-B electronic commerce poses management accountants with new challenges in TexCo. As such, it represents both an opportunity and a threat.