Exploring the determinants and performance effects of digital dashboard use by management accountants

Digital dashboards are becoming increasingly central to management accounting; however, the theory explaining their adoption and effects on performance in this professional context remains underdeveloped. This paper proposes a framework centered on management accounting by extending the technology acceptance model, UTAUT, with two domain-specific aspects: information quality (IQ) and decision quality (DQ). The framework specifies mediated and moderated mechanisms based on expectation confirmation, accountability/protection motivation, and task-technology fit arguments. We hypothesize that IQ reduces perceived effort by lowering reconciliation and search costs. In contrast, DQ increases perceived usefulness by linking dashboards to defensible analyses. We also hypothesize that IQ and DQ complement each other to improve ease of use, and that actual use relates to performance through enabling-control logics. We evaluated the framework with data from German management accountants to demonstrate its explanatory value. Conceptually, the model re-centers management accounting in technology adoption theory by treating DQ as an antecedent. This clarifies when organizational support matters most and explains why ease-of-use beliefs form immediately, while usefulness beliefs consolidate through decision experience. The framework motivates longitudinal and boundary-condition research and offers practical guidance: invest in data quality, design decision-support features, and integrate dashboards into core control routines to enable genuine managerial control through digital tools.