A Proposed Framework For Behavioral Accounting Research: Journal
A Proposed Framework For Behavioral Accounting Research: Journal
A Proposed Framework For Behavioral Accounting Research: Journal
for Behavioral
Accounting Research
By :
Anggita Tri Wulandari (20160420018)
Anggie Putri Rianti (20160420020)
Rizzah Rahmaniah (20160420023)
Fadhilah Raudhotus S (20160420028)
JOURNAL
INTRODUCTION
– Framework
I define focus as the unit used to analyze the research question’s. The units
range from the study of individuals to the study of the environment that acts
upon accounting or that accounting helps to shape. The four categories used in
this review were selected because they define distinct sets of research
questions. The categories include:
a. individuals,
b. small groups
c. organizations, and
d. environmental conditions.
CATEGORIES
– Individuals
These studies focus on the characteristics of a single actor and/or that actor’s
response to a particular accounting data set, accounting-related stimulus, or
accounting-related setting. It is by far the most active of the BAR categories discussed
in this paper and can be viewed as consisting of its own sub-categories. One line of
individual research can be characterized by a concern with how individuals solve
problems. The second line of research explicitly considers the role of strategic
behavior in the actor’s decision.
– Groups
Research classified as covering groups includes those studies where the relevant unit
of analysis consists of a small number of individuals. Typically, the members will be
viewed by the organization as affiliated (i.e., as acting in concert in some significant
way). The actors are assumed to be in the same unit at the time of the study.
CATEGORIES
– Organizations.
The focus of this research is on the characteristics of the unit. The entity studied may be
described by the legal boundaries of a firm or a division within a larger entity. The
research question often is the role played by structural characteristics such as task
complexity or the organization’s accounting system design. These studies move us
farther away from the characteristics of the individual discussed in the two previous
categories.
Environmental conditions
These studies examine the role of accounting in society. Studies included in this category
reflect the interaction between accounting and society: that is, the broader world of
which accounting is a part. The interaction can take the form of the external forces that
shape accounting, as well as studies of the role accounting has played in shaping the
world in which we live. The former may be closely related to BAR studies in
organizations.
INDIVIDUALS
– studies of the individual are of two types: individual choice studies and strategic
studies. While the two share a common core of issues such as the selection of
participants and the research methods utilized, they are significantly different in
many other ways. Thus, this section of the paper is organized in a slightly
different manner than those discussing the other elements of the framework.
Common Issues
Research Methods
The individual choice studies consist predominately of experiments, though some utilize surveys
Shields 2007. Experiments are particularly appropriate when the relevant dimensions of the
decision environment in which the decision maker interacts with the stimulus and makes the
decision are well known. Experiments have been used in BAR to examine a wide variety of
questions, including internal policies, external policies, tax reporting policies, incentive systems,
various types of resource allocation decisions, ethical issues, and various types of reports.
– Participants
A significant shift has taken place in the nature of the participants used in experimental studies.
Participants in the early studies most often were students undergraduate business majors and/or
M.B.A. students. BAR studies of the individual over the past two decades, however, haverequired
and utilized professionals as participants to a far greater degree.
Noneconomic Dimensions
Affecting the Individual
In what could be labeled “post-modern” BAR, a line of research focuses on
the appropriateness of two assumptions in the traditional economic model. One is
that self-interest is the sole motivator of choice; the other is the use of monetary
outcomes as the sole basis for measuring the utility of an outcome.
Culture and Its Impact on
Decision Makers
The potential role of national cultures is becoming more important as BAR
internationalizes and research findings reported by researchers from many
different countries appear in journals and SSRN.
In contrast to results reported in some BAR, Henrich and the Cross
Cultural Ultimatum Game Research Group conducted an extensive study across 15
smallscale economies. Their study is important because they examine behavior
among economies where the variation in economic development is far greater
than those typically studied by BAR. Using the dictator game and a social dilemma
game, as well as the ultimatum game, they report that the “textbook economic
model” failed to predict the observed behavior.
Question
– Working with neuroscientists, they have gone one step deeper inside the “black
box” that is the decision maker. Using various devices, they observe the patterns of
brain activation as individuals make choices (e.g., McCabe et al. 2001; Camerer et al.
2005; Knudsen et al. 2007). Given the neuroscientists’ knowledge of the function of
the brain centers, conclusions can be drawn about what underlies the observed
behavior. By moving one step closer to the decision maker’s cognitive activity, the
role of the stimulus and the response changes in an interesting way.
– None of these papers provide the type of systematic review of the possible link
between neuroscience and BAR that can be found for finance in Sapra and Zak
(2008), who offer neuroscience explanations for observed behaviors in financial
decision making where data from neuroscience and neuroeconomics are available.
There are at least three reasons why research of
this type will progress more slowly than other types
of BAR: