Information needs and the decision process — Perceptions of managers and accountants

In the managerial decision-making process managers, typically, have to choose a course of action from a number of alternatives. The information they consider may be purely financial or it may involve a mix of quantitative and qualitative factors. The criteria upon which they base their decision will usually entail trade-offs between a number of different criteria relating to expected compensation and risk, but they also depends on behavioral factors. This paper reports the results of a study on the use of accounting information by decision makers. Perceptions of accountants and managers in the same organizations regarding information supplied by the accounting department were compared and differences highlighted. Seventeen managers in sales, marketing, production, and accounting department are interviewed about the information they use to make a decision. The results indicate that the use of accounting information is influenced by the decision phases. And, the findings showed evidence of préparer/user perception gaps. Accounting information is not used in the same way in all the decision process phases. The user perception is that accounting information is mostly used to identify a problem, to list the options and compare them. The préparer perception is that accounting information is as a rule used to list and analyzes the options. Merely the préparer perspective is consistent with prior literature in accounting and information system.