XBRL: Impacts, issues and future research directions

Abstract

Only 13 years ago in April 1998 Charles Hoffman, a CPA investigated how XML could be used for the reporting of business and financial information. By now many researchers are dealing with this topic. The high (practical) relevance of XBRL is emphasized by several laws and a large number of regulatory requirements stipulating the use of XBRL for business and financial reporting. Giving an overview of conducted research is complicated due to the rich diversity of XBRL. On top, traditional literature reviews are focusing on the performed research, not including any indication of the relevance of the investigated topic. We will go one step further and include discussed impacts and issues weighted by their occurrence in literature. Based on this approach the paper concludes that frequently mentioned impacts and issues of XBRL are not yet researched but in turn minor research questions are well investigated. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.