The article focuses on some of the most significant problems that have arisen in adapting laboratory experimentation to accounting research. Through the use of such systematic techniques, accountants are attempting to better understand many important problems in any laboratory experiment the selection of subjects is important. Selection of a group of subjects who are for some reason undesirable will invalidate the final results regardless of how elaborate and well conceived the remainder of the experimental design may be. Experience in studies to date suggests that the assumption about population homogeneity can not be made casually. A recent study in this area has shown that, in fact, students and businessmen do react differently to particular laboratory experiments. While a great deal of attention has been devoted to the selection of the proper subjects, not enough emphasis has been placed upon the selection of the experimental environment. It is in this area that accountants doing behavioral research ought to concentrate greater effort.

This article focuses on a study which investigated the implications of behavioral science for managerial accounting. Accountants have been involved with the behavioral dimension of accounting problems for quite some time. The management information system of any firm is not solely a technical communication system, one designed only to permit data to flow from one point in the system (i.e., the firm) to another. Very little research has been done on the form of the relationships between the organization and the individual and its implication for accounting data. A more decentralized form of organization would, he conjectured, ease many of the accounting problems by refocusing the attention of supervisors to other, less arbitrary sets of data. The study of management control systems has progressed in three areas: the problems in standard setting, the impact of the audit function, and the reporting of relevant data.