How can Mobile Accounting Reporting Benefit from the ‘Imagined Communities'?: A Conceptual Communication Framework

Are there theoretical foundations that may substantiate communication in an online environment in regard to accounting reporting and implementation of information via mobile accounting technologies that brings together communication, numbers and computing? This conceptual paper explores the creation of an imagined community that has all the characteristics to connect accountants together with the implementation of mobile devices based on Anderson's theory of imagined communities. It describes a wide range of trends in relation to current and emerging technologies used and maps processes of financial reporting into this milieu via the notion of imagined communities. It argues that a sense of coherence exists between its members who feel a sense of belonging to the same group, even if they have never met. The paper examines for the first time in this conceptual multidisciplinary study whether the characteristics of the imagined communities that construct identity are related to accounting community formation and this is the theoretical contribution of the paper.