Author: Esko Penttinen

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Recent articles on accounting outsourcing and electronic invoicing

During 2018 and 2019, researchers at the RTE competence center have been successful in  publishing their research results on accounting outsourcing and electronic invoicing in leading IS and AIS journals. Here below a couple of examples. You can find the complete set of recent RTE articles under “Material” and “Journal Articles”. Where possible, we have created links to the journal’s webpage for you to be able download the full paper. Asatiani, A., Penttinen, E. & Kumar, A. (2019) Uncovering the Nature of the Relationship Between Outsourcing Motivations and the Degree of Outsourcing – An Empirical Study on Finnish SMEs. Journal of Information Technology, 34(1), 39-58. Prior literature has identified several outsourcing motivations, such as cost reduction and access to expertise, and deciphered the influence of these variables on outsourcing decisions. In another stream of outsourcing studies, researchers have gauged the degree of outsourcing, unearthing how companies may choose to outsource a set or processes instead of the whole business function. In this article, we draw on both of these streams of outsourcing research to study the relationship between outsourcing motivations and the degree of outsourcing within a particular business function. We probe the effect of nine motivation items on outsourcing decision through an empirical study using survey data gathered from 337 small and medium-sized enterprises. We find that cost reduction, a focus on core competence and business/process improvements are all associated with a higher degree of outsourcing, but interestingly, access to expertise is negatively associated with the degree of outsourcing. This finding suggests that companies that outsource mainly to acquire external expertise outsource only a limited number of processes within a specific business function. Our main theoretical contribution lies in uncovering the dynamic nature of outsourcing motivations, meaning that as companies outsource a larger degree of their business processes, some...

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Real-Time Economy recognized as a government focus area (VM101:00/2017)

On February 6th 2018, Anu Vehviläinen, the Minister of Local Government and Public Reforms, assigned a surveillance group to ensure the smooth progression of the various development projects within Real-Time Economy. The group is chaired by Mr. Olli-Pekka Rissanen (Ministry of Finance) and its members come from several identified relevant public organization units such as the Finnish Tax Office, Patent and Registrar’s Office, and Bank of Finland. The term of the group is 1.2.2018-31.3.2019. You can follow the progression of the surveillance group from the link below (in Finnish): https://vm.fi/hanke?tunnus=VM101:00/2017

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European Single Electronic Format for Financial Statements

In 2013 the Transparency Directive, which sets rules on harmonisation of transparency requirements of issuers, was amended to include among others a requirement for issuers to prepare their annual financial reports in a single electronic reporting format. ESMA was assigned the responsibility to develop regulatory technical standards (RTS) to specify this electronic reporting format. The objectives of the provision are to make reporting easier for issuers and to facilitate accessibility, analysis and comparability of annual financial reports. The European Single Electronic Format is the electronic reporting format in which issuers on EU regulated markets shall prepare their annual financial reports from 1 January 2020. XBRL Finland has setup a working group to assist Finnish issuers in the transition to this electronic filing. The working group had its first meeting in February 2018 with an objective to organize a conference late 2018. ESMA has conducted field tests with a number of filers, below is a link to a video reporting on the outcome of those field tests.     Links: XBRL Finland: https://www.tieke.fi/display/XBRL/XBRL+Suomi ESMA: https://www.esma.europa.eu/policy-activities/corporate-disclosure/european-single-electronic-format XBRL website: https://www.xbrl.org/tag/esma/