Additional Information in Accounting Reports: Effects on Management Decisions and Subjective Performance Evaluations Under Causal Ambiguity
实验发现，在主观绩效评估和因果模糊性条件下，仅依赖利润信息而非利润加额外信息，能减少管理决策的协调失败，并降低下属对绩效评估的负面惊讶。
Abstract Organizations have often been criticized for reliance on a single item of accounting information (e.g., profit) in evaluating performance, because of its incompleteness. We provide theory‐based experimental evidence that under frequently occurring performance‐evaluation conditions (subjective performance evaluation, causal ambiguity, and individual differences in cognitive ability, knowledge, and/or motivation that lead to different interpretations of information), reliance on a single item of accounting information (profit), rather than profit plus additional (e.g., nonfinancial or external) information, can provide two potential benefits which offset the costs of information incompleteness. First, subordinates are more likely to make the management decisions that superiors will evaluate and reward highly—that is, there are fewer coordination failures in management decisions. Second, even after controlling for the presence or absence of coordination failures, subordinates experience less negative surprise about their performance evaluations.