Omnichannel Retailing

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the factors affecting the postadoption of RFID technology as part of omnichannel strategies in the retail industry. In addition, it evaluates how this innovation contributed to the improvement of the quality of corporate financial information. We employed an exploratory multiple-case study design based on qualitative research, by using semi-structured interviews, and public financial and sustainability reports as sources of evidence. The data collection and analysis were performed in 2022 for the pilot case of a manufacturer and the formal cases of three retailers. The results reveal that RFID postadoption is influenced by technological factors (relative advantage, observability, trialability, and perceived costs), organizational factors (top management support and firm size), and environmental factors (competitive pressure and external support). Surprisingly, loss recognition and loss provision are the most affected accounting practices, differently from what has been suggested by the accounting literature. We also found that item-level RFID enables increased frequencies of full inventory counts, providing inventory accuracy of records and real-time inventory visibility. This results in the improvement of accounting information quality in terms of relevance, faithful representation, timeliness, comparability, understandability, verifiability, and value-added. Our findings may contribute to both research and practice, as well as IS and accounting fields. We identified and investigated the phenomenon of the recent movement of RFID adoption by large retail companies listed in B3 during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. Finally, we provide a theoretical model based on the TOE framework integrated to a construct of accounting information quality specifically developed for the RFID postadoption context.