GODFREY HODGSON HOLMES TARCA CHAPTER 13 BEHAVIOURAL RESEARCH IN ACCOUNTING

Behavioural accounting research: definition and scope ‘Positive’ research encompasses Capital markets research asks how do securities markets react to accounting information Agency theory research asks what are the economic incentives that determine the choice of accounting methods Behavioural accounting research asks how do people actually use and process accounting information

Behavioural accounting research: definition and scope Capital markets research looks at the macro level of aggregate securities markets Agency and behavioural research both focus on the micro level of individual managers and firms

Behavioural accounting research: definition and scope Capital markets and agency research are both based on economics and assume everyone is a rational wealth maximiser Behavioural research is based on psychology, sociology and organisational theory and generally makes no assumptions about how people behave

Behavioural accounting research: definition and scope The study of the behaviour of accountants or the behaviour of non-accountants as they are influenced by accounting functions and reports. Hofstedt & Kinard

Behavioural accounting research: definition and scope The major type of BAR is Human judgement theory (HJT) or Human information processing (HIP) Looks at the judgement and decision making of accountants and auditors and the influence their output has on users’ judgements and decision making aim is to explain and predict behaviour and improve decision making

Why is BAR important? It discovers how people use and process accounting information It provides valuable insights into the ways different types of decision makers produce, process and react to particular items of accounting information and communication methods

Why is BAR important? It provides useful information to accounting regulators It leads to efficiencies in the work practices of accountants and other professionals

Development of behavioural accounting research HJT research began in 1954 The term BAR appeared in 1967 Last 30 years has seen an explosion in BAR especially auditing importance of judgement the ‘Brunswik lens model’

An overview of approaches to understanding information processing Three major research approaches Brunswik lens model the dominant approach process tracing build representative decision trees probabilistic judgement probability statements based on Bayes’s theorem

The Brunswik lens model Used as an analytical framework and the basis for most judgement studies involving prediction (e.g. bankruptcy) evaluation (e.g. internal control)

The Brunswik lens model Has provided valuable insights regarding patterns of cue use evident in various tasks weights that decision makers implicitly place on a variety of information cues the relative accuracy of decision makers of different expertise levels in predicting and evaluating a variety of tasks the circumstances under which an expert system and/or ‘model of human behaviour’ outperforms humans

The Brunswik lens model Valuable insights (continued) the stability (consistency) of human judgment over time the degree of insight decision makers possess regarding their pattern of use of data the degree of consensus displayed in a variety of group decision tasks

The Brunswik lens model The model usually has good predictive powers it removes much of the random error due to human things such as tiredness, illness or distraction An important limitation is that it is not a good descriptor of how people actually make decisions so process tracing methods developed

Process tracing methods Provides an explanation about how a decision is made ‘process tracing’ or ‘verbal protocol’ produces a ‘decision tree’ to represent the decision process ‘classification and regression trees’ (CART)

Probabilistic judgement Useful where initial beliefs about a prediction or evaluation need to be revised as new data arrives Posterior odds = Likelihood ratio x Prior odds Found use of rules of thumb to simplify complex judgment tasks

Lens model studies – the evidence accuracy of humans’ predictions of business failure model of human behaviour information overload literature judgement confidence literature

Process tracing studies – the evidence Brunswik lens models and process tracing style studies are different technologies with the same objective of modelling decision processes as completely as possible

Format and presentation of financial statements Libby (1976) – 3 options for improved decision making changing the presentation and amount of information educating decision makers replacing decision makers with a model of themselves or with an ideal cue-weighting model

Format and presentation of financial statements

Format and presentation of financial statements Little research has been undertaken regarding ideal presentation formats e.g. graphs versus tables e.g. colour versus black & white Mixed results No well developed and tested theory

Probabilistic judgement studies – the evidence Three rules of thumb (heuristics) representativeness availability anchoring and adjustment Expert judgement and rules of thumb

Probabilistic judgement studies – the evidence Representativeness When judging the probability that a particular item comes from a particular population of items, people’s judgement will be determined by the extent to which the item is representative of the population

Probabilistic judgement studies – the evidence Availability The assessment of the probability of an event is based on the ease with which instances of that event come to mind

Probabilistic judgement studies – the evidence Anchoring and adjustment An initially given response serves as an anchor, and other information is used to adjust that response

Accounting and behaviour The techniques adopted and the subsequent interpretation of reported information are matters of perspective Accounting is a direct function of human behaviour and activity Two-way influence

Limitations of BAR Frequent contradictions between the findings of similar studies Human information processing is far more complex than the development of current research theories and methods Research settings fail to adequately replicate real-world settings Should policy be influenced by research on individual decision makers

Limitations of BAR The major limitation is the lack of a single underlying theory to unify diverse research questions and findings has borrowed from a multitude of disciplines and contexts and so no common framework A single theory is unlikely in the foreseeable future

Issues for auditors The process of auditing is often treated as a ‘black box’ what are the characteristics of better auditors what are the factors that affect auditors’ judgement research challenges in balancing realism and simplicity in research design

Summary If we are to have a better understanding about how people use accounting information, then we need to study peoples’ actual behaviours and decision processes BAR can be used to explain and predict behaviour and improve decision making Research in this area has relied heavily on the Brunswik lens model, process tracing methods and the probabilistic judgement model There are significant limitations in BAR

Key terms and concepts Behavioural accounting research (BAR) Human judgement theory (HJT) Human information processing (HIP) Brunswik lens model Process tracing methods Classification and regression trees (CART) Probabilistic judgement Rules of thumb (heuristics) Representativeness Availability Anchoring and adjustment