Operating Decisions and the Disclosure of Management Accounting Information
分析企业使用管理会计信息做出经营决策时，如何通过决策结果间接向外界透露信息，并探讨这种间接披露如何影响最优决策，对研究管理会计与决策关系的学者有参考价值。
In this paper, we analyze how the use of management accounting information to make operating decisions can reveal or communicate that information imprecisely when direct (precise) disclosure is a costly alternative. Specifically, we consider how data employed in making a decision to retain or replace a factor of production (e.g., a piece of equipment, a production process, or a manager) are inexactly inferred by outsiders who observe the outcome of the decision process. Such data, used in making production decisions, normally would be generated by the internal accounting system of the firm and considered proprietary. The primary result of the analysis is that we identify conditions under which optimal management decision making is altered by the existence of this potential indirect communication alternative to direct disclosure. In addition, the results suggest that care be taken in empirical tests relating production decisions to management accounting data. Because of the way in which the optimal retention-replacement decision may diverge from the efficient decision (the decision that would be made in the absence of the imprecise inferences made by outsiders), there may not be an unambiguous interpretation of the correct relation between the retention-replacement decision and the cost of direct disclosure. Our work provides an analytically tractable model of the use of man-