A research on examining the perspectives of accounting professionals on industry 4.0: The case of Ankara province

Industry 4.0 is a development that affects every aspect of our lives today. Industry 4.0 is the last point in industrial history with its own components. It is the result of a technological development that has reached from steam machines to the present day. Today, there is more mechanization than traditional manpower, and this mechanization has reached a different dimension by being supported by some components that are part of Industry 4.0. As a result, it has had an impact on businesses, factories, accountants and other professionals in many areas. Factories have switched to smart production systems, minimizing manpower and switching to a robot production system with artificial intelligence supported software. For accountants, digitalization and digital transformation are at the forefront of these effects. With digitalization, the traditional understanding of accounting has changed and transformed, leaving its place to computerized systems. The aim of the study is to examine the perspectives of the members of the profession operating in Ankara province on Industry 4.0, and a two part questionnaire form consisting of 30 questions was applied. The results obtained were transferred to the SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) program and Mann Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis tests were applied since it was concluded that the data did not show normal distribution as a result of the normality test. Participants stated that accounting standards should be adapted to Industry 4.0, that accounting practices will evolve with this e transformation, and that the majority of professionals will find Industry 4.0 beneficial in the field of accounting. In addition, the accounting professionals who participated in the survey stated that they are interested in Industry 4.0 in terms of their demographic characteristics. In the study where perspectives were evaluated, it was concluded that while there was no significant difference in terms of gender, there was a significant difference between age, marital status, professional experience and educational status.