Management Accounting Section Midyear Meeting

The Interplay between Self-Service Reporting and Managers’ Cognitive Thinking Styles: An Experimental Study

• In Event: Budgeting and Target Setting II

Abstract

Self-service reporting is a recent trend in digitalization, where managers have access to various tools to build their own reports on a needs basis. In this study, we investigate the combined effect of self-service reporting and managers’ cognitive thinking styles (intuitive/affect-based vs. rational/reflective) on the cognitive processing preceding a decision and the final decision-making behavior. We compare the effects of the provision of self-service reporting against a traditional reporting background by using balanced scorecard data. Using an experiment, we find that self-service reporting affects reflective managers’ cognitive processing more negatively than intuitive managers’ processing compared to a traditional reporting setting. These findings are in line with our predictions, since reflective individuals are more subject to motivated reasoning, especially when they are involved in a selection task. Besides, we find that individuals’ cognitive processing significantly affects their final decision-making behavior. Our study provides important implications that, despite the digital revolution, management accountants are still necessary as a rationality-assuring authority.

Authors

• Huda Al Hussari, Ruhr-University Bochum

• Christian Brück, Ruhr University Bochum

• Thorsten Knauer