Information evaluation, Information systems, Group decision making, Group performance

Information evaluation problem, Knowledge, Decision making

Information systems, Decision making, Lab experiment

In 1974, the AAA Committee on the Relationship of Behavioral Science and Accounting called for the development of teaching methods that enabled students to experience behavioral aspects of accounting. This article suggests behavioral accounting research as an important source for the development of such teaching methods. As an example, a behavioral decision simulation adapted from prior research is described, The simulation enables the student to experience the information evaluation method and enables him to contrast his subjective evaluation process with the evaluation process prescribed by a normative model. The article illustrates how this contrast can serve as a basis for classroom discussion of human information processing issues in accounting.

Reviews the book "Human Information Processing in Accounting," by Robert H. Ashton.

This study reports the results of an experiment in which audit seniors made judgments in analytical review and compliance testing settings. In both settings, results consistent with the hypothesized use of the anchoring and adjustment heuristic were observed. With respect to analytical review, the study alerts auditors to the potential importance of forming expectations concerning a client's audited values without considering the recorded (book) values. With respect to compliance testing, a judgment procedure that mitigates the potentially dangerous consequences of anchoring when judgmental Inferences from sample information must be made is presented. Results of the compliance study were used by the Sampling Standards Task Force of the AICPA in developing Statement on Auditing Standards No. 39, entitled, "Audit Sampling."

[The purpose of this study is to test the feasibility of using a model derived from the judgments of a group of tax experts in controlled experimental conditions to predict actual compliance behavior. A judgment model, using amount of income, source of income, penalty for cheating, and rate structure as independent variables, was derived from CPA tax professionals. The model then was used successfully to predict actual taxpayer compliance using IRS Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program data. The model also was used to infer the relative importance of the determinants of taxpayer compliance used in the study. Source of income was found to be about three times more important than the next most heavily weighted variable. These results demonstrate the potential for employing a derived judgment model as an efficient means of predicting the effect of proposed changes in tax policy on taxpayer compliance.]

The purpose of this study is to test the feasibility of using a model derived from the judgments of a group of tax experts in controlled experimental conditions to predict actual compliance behavior. A judgment model, using amount of income, source of income, penalty for cheating, and rate structure as independent variables, was derived from CPA tax professionals. The model then was used successfully to predict actual taxpayer compliance using IRS Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program data. The model also was used to infer the relative importance of the determinants of taxpayer compliance used in the study. Source of income was found to be about three times more important than the next most heavily weighted variable. These results demonstrate the potential for employing a derived judgment model as an efficient means of predicting the effect of proposed changes in tax policy on taxpayer compliance.