Adopting Standard Business Reporting (SBR) in Australia: Are CFOs Persuaded by Technology Attributes?

The Australian Federal Treasury has taken steps to standardize the format and computations for business reporting to government agencies, known as the standard business reporting (SBR) initiative, with taxonomies based on XBRL protocol for electronic data exchange. This technological initiative went 'live' on 1 July 2010, but despite the heavy promotion of technological benefits to businesses, only 25 business organizations registered to voluntarily adopt the SBR system in the first 3 months. Why have businesses been hesitant to adoption this technological innovation? This study provides the result of a survey undertaken shortly before the date of SBR becoming effective. The survey amongst CFOs of the top 500 listed companies on the Australian Stock Exchange addressed the current intention of their company to adopt SBR and the likelihood of adoption of SBR within 18 months. Drawing on Tornatzky and Fleischer's (1990) technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework, this study focuses on factors driving SBR adoption from a technological perspective. Results reveal that perceived higher compatibility of SBR to existing company accounting systems and lower perceived complexity for company reporting are significantly related to the likelihood of adoption of SBR within 18 months, but perceived relative advantage of the technology is not. Alternatively, perceived relative advantage is the only technology factor affecting the strength of the intention to adopt SBR sometime in the future. Implications for the successful government roll out of this important financial and compliance reporting innovation are discussed.