Drivers of Public Opinion on the Acceptability of Distorting Performance Measures

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bentley, Jeremiah W.; Bloomfield, Matthew J.; Bloomfield, Robert J.; Lambert, Tamara A.
• 署名单位: University of Massachusetts System; University of Massachusetts Amherst; University of Pennsylvania; Cornell University; Lehigh University
• 刊物名称: ACCOUNTING REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0001-4826
• DOI: 10.2308/TAR-2021-0133
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 87-111
• 关键词: earnings management; CONSEQUENCES; rules; FIRMS

摘要

Agents often inflate measured performance by distorting operating decisions (e.g., real earnings management) and/or reporting decisions (e.g., accruals management). Across four studies, we find that public judgments of distortion's acceptability largely reflect assessments of how harmful and norm-violating the distortion is. Judgments of operating distortion primarily reflect assessments of harm, whereas judgments of reporting distortion primarily reflect assessments of norm violation. These results are consistent with the Theory of Dyadic Morality (Gray, Waytz, and Young 2012; Schein and Gray 2018). We also find that those who perceive an accounting system as more unfairly withholding an agent's bonus assess distortion (especially reporting distortion) to be less norm-violating. Those who perceive the performance measure as less appropriate for capturing the value of performance to stakeholders assess distortion (especially operating distortion) to be more harmful. Assessments of distortions' harm and norm violation explain a substantial portion of the variation in acceptability judgments.