Providing a Method for Supporting the Decision Making About a Meaningful XBRL Implementation According to the Specific Situation of an OrganizationSmart Organizations and Smart Artifacts

XBRL is in an increasing number of countries defined as the obligate format for the transmission of financial data to authorities by legal requirements. The legal requirement itself refers solely to the transmission of the information in XBRL format. How a formatting of a company’s report becomes realized is not regulated. This decision has to be done by the decision makers of the affected companies. There is no generally recommended realization or global valid implementation process. Each realization (bolt-on, built-in, and embedded) comprises a specific realization effort and offers different potential benefits for the implementing organization. Therefore, it is necessary to decide about the integration depth within an organization. The paper presents a methodology to support the decision process for the adoption of XBRL into the organization. By doing design science research, the constructed artifact enables a structured decision based on facts, individual properties, and needs of the organization.