PhD thesis · 2021
Designs for Accounting Information Systems Using Distributed Ledger Technology
Summary
Companies spend heavily on trust: auditors, lawyers and other third parties exist largely because each organisation keeps its own books and cannot see the other side's. Distributed ledgers offer a different starting point — a tamper-resistant record shared by the parties to a transaction.
The thesis was an industrial PhD with Deloitte, the Danish Business Authority and the Department of Accounting at CBS. It uses design science research to produce designs that both academics and practitioners can use and extend.
Its four papers work as a set. The first shows how to structure design science projects. The second builds a blockchain platform for VAT settlement. The third tests whether such a platform can scale to Denmark and the EU. The fourth turns the work into a design theory: accounting contracts in a shared collaboration space, based on the resource-event-agent (REA) accounting ontology.
Explainer
Key findings
- A method contribution: a framework for structuring design science projects.
- A situated contribution: a working VAT settlement prototype with general design principles.
- A feasibility contribution: in-the-wild performance tests at national and EU scale.
- A theory contribution: accounting contracts in collaboration space, combining REA with distributed ledgers, with prototype code published openly.
How to cite
Søgaard, J. S. (2021). Designs for Accounting Information Systems Using Distributed Ledger Technology. PhD thesis, Copenhagen Business School, PhD Series 33.2021.