The Impact of Behavioral Factors on the Decisive Usefulness of Accounting Information

Abstract

The chapter demonstrates how the neuroeconomic and behavioral aspects of accounting influence on decision making. The shape of accounting—as an information system created and operated by people—is affected by human behavior and so is the information delivered by this system. This is the subject of research of behavioral accounting. Decisions based on information provided by accounting are also affected by human behavior. The final choice of the decision maker is affected by factors, such as: the characteristics of his/her personality, his/her emotions, preferences, previous experience, and motivation. The aim of the chapter is to present—with the use of the research potential of behavioral accounting—the influence of non-substantive factors on the scope and quality of information provided by financial and management accounting, which may limit decision usefulness of this information. Furthermore, the importance of behavioral factors, which may affect decision makers using information from accounting, is indicated in this chapter. The chapter is based on a study of literature on accounting, management, psychology, sociology, neuronal processes in the human brain. In addition, source analysis, synthesis, induction and inference were used as main research methods.