The controlling profession in the digital age: Understanding the impact of digitisation on the controller's job roles, skills and competences

•The controller of the future combines skills of a business partner and data scientist.•“Data science” and IT skills are expected to be the controller's major skills areas.•In practice, traditional tasks still constitute a major part of the controller's daily work.•In practice, no evidence can be found that underlines the necessity of data science skills.•An explanatory model is proposed to enhance the understanding toward these findings.

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