Avoiding accounting fixation: Determinants of cognitive adaptation to differences in accounting method

• 成果类型: Article; Proceedings Paper
• 署名作者: Dearman, DT; Shields, MD
• 署名单位: University of Arkansas System; University of Arkansas Fort Smith; University of Arkansas Fayetteville; Michigan State University
• 刊物名称: CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0823-9150
• 发表日期: 2005
• 页码: 351-384
• 关键词: functional fixation; Intrinsic motivation; judgment performance; incentive contracts; ACHIEVEMENT GOALS; KNOWLEDGE; ACCOUNTABILITY; experience; ability; DESIGN

摘要

Much research over the last 30 years has provided evidence that individuals display accounting fixation; that is, their cognitive process does not appropriately adapt to cross-sectional or temporal differences in an accounting method. This paper presents the results of a quasi-experimental test of the hypothesis that cognitive adaptation to a change in accounting method is an ordinal interactive function of three person characteristics: relevant accounting knowledge, general problem-solving ability, and intrinsic motivation to appropriately engage in the decision task. Based on a product-pricing decision task in which participants are provided with product costs reported by two generally employed product-costing methods (activity-based costing [ABC] and volume-based costing), the results show that the majority of participants did not change their cognitive behavior when there was a change in the costing method. Further, those participants who did adapt to the change in accounting method, and thus avoided accounting fixation, did so by debiasing costs reported by volume-based costing but not by ABC. Finally, these adapters generally exhibited high values for all three of the person characteristics compared with those who did not adapt.