Questionnaire
The questionnaire is divided into four parts:
1.Job contents of accountants. We summarize 18 operations as the questionnaire items from literature and interview results to find out the changes of operations before and after ERP implementation.
2.Roles of accountants. Changes of operations will directly affect the role of accountants. According to the literature we summarize, the questionnaire classifies roles of accountants into eight types, including transaction data handlers and financial report providers, transaction auditors, evaluators of ERP system, communicators among departments, integrators of cost throughout the production processes, reviewers of front-end data mapping, consultants of data analysis and decision making, and computer auditors. After ERP implementation, we compare the differences of the role of accountants between the literature and our case study.
3.Impact of ERP implementation on accountants. Working environment, routine tasks and roles of accountants may change after ERP implementation. When a company is under the process of reform, it may change operations of accountants, put pressure on them and cause a decrease in work satisfaction and resignations (Robbins, 2001). Therefore, we conclude 11 items for discussing the development of the accounting department and accountants after ERP implementation in the case study company.
4.Improvement of accountants. The questionnaire classifies nine items accountants should improve. This paper discusses functions accountants should have and solutions they may come up with after ERP implementation.
There are 27 responses from 40 issued questionnaires and the response rate is 67.5 percent. The 27 respondents are the relevant stakeholders (typical representatives of each group). Table II lists the basic information of respondents.
In the questionnaire, we classify 18 items that are the most important job contents of accountants to find out the effects of ERP system before and after ERP implementation. The results are as follows.