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Reconfiguring Digital Accountability: AI-Powered Innovations and Transnational Governance in a Postnational Accounting Context

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  • Claire Li
  • David Freeborn

Abstract

This study explores how AI-powered digital innovations are reshaping organisational accountability in a transnational governance context. As AI systems increasingly mediate decision-making in domains such as auditing and financial reporting, traditional mechanisms of accountability, based on control, transparency, and auditability, are being destabilised. We integrate the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Actor-Network Theory (ANT), and institutional theory to examine how organisations adopt AI technologies in response to regulatory, ethical, and cultural pressures that transcend national boundaries. We argue that accountability is co-constructed within global socio-technical networks, shaped not only by user perceptions but also by governance logics and normative expectations. Extending TAM, we incorporate compliance and legitimacy as key factors in perceived usefulness and usability. Drawing on ANT, we reconceptualise accountability as a relational and emergent property of networked assemblages. We propose two organisational strategies including internal governance reconfiguration and external actor-network engagement to foster responsible, legitimate, and globally accepted AI adoption in the accounting domain.

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  • Claire Li & David Freeborn, 2025. "Reconfiguring Digital Accountability: AI-Powered Innovations and Transnational Governance in a Postnational Accounting Context," Papers 2507.00288, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2507.00288
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