This study investigates how accountability type (process or outcome) and causal chain framing influence information search processes and decision-making quality. Drawing on the accountability literature and causal reasoning theory, we predict that process accountability stimulates information search effort and enhances decision quality. Additionally, we posit that causal chain usage enhances focus on relevant cues, and increases search effort and decision quality under outcome accountability. In contrast, we argue that employing a causal chain under process accountability decreases search efforts and does not spur a similar increase in decision quality. We conduct an eye-tracking experiment in which participants decide on the amount of funding for a value-creating project after observing prior balanced scorecard performance data. Our results are consistent with our expectations and reveal that accountability type and causal chain framing interact. Under outcome accountability, providing a causal chain is paramount to achieve high decision quality. When process accountability is employed, however, providing a causal chain reduces information search effort and does not improve decision-making. We discuss important implications of our findings for management accounting research and practice.

This study investigates the joint effects of investor status and locus of attribution on investors' judgments of management credibility. We study these effects in the context of an adverse event disclosure. Building on social identity and ultimate attribution error theory, we predict and find that under external attribution, current investors perceive management as more credible than prospective investors do. In contrast, we predict and find that investor status does not affect perceived management credibility under internal attribution. We provide evidence supporting our theory that company identification explains these findings. In addition, we document that the differences in credibility are mainly driven by perceptions of management's trustworthiness, rather than competence. Moreover, our results indicate that these differences in credibility judgments affect earnings expectations, thus inducing disagreement among investors. Our findings have important practical implications, including that company identification can be an asset to companies and that communicating adverse events with an external attribution reduces perceived management credibility for prospective investors.

We investigate managers’ propensity to engage in strategic promotion behavior. Strategic promotion behavior occurs when managers pursue personal economic interests when contributing to employee promotion decisions, such that the probability that relatively lower performing employees are selected for a promotion is increased. We develop theory about how two important organizational characteristics—transparency about individual performance levels and the presence of group incentives—jointly affect managers’ tendency to strategically influence promotion decisions. Using a stylized lab experiment, we find that transparency about individual performance levels decreases strategic promotion behavior when group incentives are absent but not when group incentives are present. We discuss how our findings contribute to our understanding of management accounting and control systems.