Performance evaluation models are usually constructed and implemented without giving formal consideration to desirable adaptation of a decision during its actual implementation. Moreover, it is generally acknowledged that such adaptation may be desirable and is usually accomplished in some heuristic fashion. Since the performance evaluation model, through both information flow and behavioral effects, may affect this process, the possibility of altering the evaluation model in an advantageous manner becomes an issue. Control of the decision implementation interface is a poorly structured, little understood, problem in management science that is of direct concern to the accountant. Using a firm simulation experiment, we have examined the differing implementation effects of three alternative performance measurement models. We define an implemented decision as a specific act that an organizational decision unit attempts to achieve, such as an output of x units during some specified time period. The final result of this implemented decision is not necessarily equal to the priori-desired result; and the relationship between the implemented and ultimately achieved act we term the decision implementation interface. More important, however, the results are sufficiently intriguing to warrant replication of the experiment.

The article focuses on the concepts relating to proposals to account for the effects of price changes on capital maintenance. Many people, with both proprietary and entity viewpoints, still adhere to a money capital maintenance concept, and this could be because most external financial statements are still prepared in this way. Before leaving this general purchasing power capital maintenance concept, it should be mentioned that some people advocate the use of a general index to restate all accounting balances in accordance with movements in the general value of money itself. The entity viewpoint people, who would use one of these investment purchasing power indexes for capital maintenance purposes when accounting for the effects of price changes, would not calculate holding gains on long-term liability or preferred stock balances. Operating capacity based on the latest equipment, etc., needed to produce the same value of identical goods and services. It is believed that this paper has established that accounting for the effects of price changes is more directly concerned with capital maintenance than with periodic asset valuations and short-term profit determinations, and that, when accounting for price changes, the lifetime profit of each asset is affected by the particular capital maintenance concept employed, but not by the different asset valuation, depreciation, and revenue recognition methods that might be used.

The article discusses the nature of decision models and information evaluation models. The first section presents a general framework, or model, for information evaluation. The second examines the nature of the operational model that would be constructed in order to apply the general framework in a specific setting. The information evaluation process is viewed in cost-benefit terms; and the cost-benefit, or value, calculation is developed from the point of view of an individual who decides what information to supply. Different signals may result in different decisions, and, therefore, the information evaluator must develop a conditional probability distribution over the future events for each possible signal. Decision models seldom represent as controllable variables all actions that must be taken. Most mathematical models do not attempt to include detailed predictions of individual events. One simplified and well-known method for selecting information systems is to base the selection on personal opinion. Some insights that can be developed by such an exploration were then related to information choice issues and information research methods.

Reviews the book "The Analysis of Business Systems," edited by George fisk.

Reviews the book "Management Guides to Mergers and Acquisitions," by John L. Harvey and Albert Newgarden.

Reviews the book "Administrative Financial Management," 2nd ed., by Joseph F. Bradley.

Reviews the book "Cash Management: Methods and Models," by Yair E. Orgler.

Reviews the book "Tax Impacts on Compensation: Symposium," from the Tax Institute of America.