Accounting information systems and organization learning: A simulation

Abstract

Accounting Information Systems may facilitate or impede organizational learning. Critical attributes of accounting systems that have the potential to affect organizational learning include: (1) characteristics of the information environment, whether uniform, dispersed or clustered importance weights; (2) information distribution, whether overlapping or segregated information; and (3) information coordination mechanisms, whether expert teams, majority voting teams or hierarchies. Organizational learning and performance was simulated in the following manner: (i) the organization was faced with a continuous sequence of repetitive but not identical problems; (ii) the organizational task was subdivided between analysts; and (iii) analysts learned by basing their decisions on the relationship found between information available to them and organizational outcomes. Simulation results indicated that learning in flatter (team) organizations is generally more accurate than in hierarchical organizations. Learning is also faster with majority teams than hierarchies, but slower with expert teams. Overlapping accounting information transmission between agents was found to offer only limited benefits. These findings have implications for the design of accounting information systems in organizations.