The effect of accountability on management accountants’ selection of information

The purpose of this study is to refine accountability theory by taking findings from prior research into the impact on decision making of accountability—an individual’s expectation of being called upon to justify his/her behavior to an audience—and applying these findings to the processes management accountants run through when pre-processing information for management reports. We conduct a laboratory experiment with 191 graduate and undergraduate students in which we manipulate process accountability and ask subjects to select a relevant set of information for managerial decision-making purposes. As expected, under accountability conditions, subjects report more information to management, and expend significantly greater effort and more time on pre-processing the information. Beyond this, accountability also draws subjects’ attention to different types of information, puts them under higher pressure, and reduces both satisfaction and self-confidence. The findings of our study might encourage re-thinking how best to formulate job instructions, and how to handle such mechanisms in organizations as formal reporting relationships, employment contracts, and performance monitoring, particularly for employees in service functions such as management accounting.