Accounting evaluative styles and the contagion effect in middle-managers: An empirical study.

Abstract This paper reports an investigation of the effects of managers' perceptions of the style used by superiors to evaluate their performance on their own personal evaluative styles when accounting information is included in the evaluation process. A situation rating questionnaire, rather than simpler self- reports, was used to determine the evaluative style of managers. A sample of 77 middle-managers representing 25 companies at 46 separate plants or locations was used in this study. Reinforcement or alteration of managerial styles and the styles which exert the stronger contagion effects were also considered. The findings indicate that the contagion effect for use of accounting information is very strong whenever middle-managers are certain of their evaluative environments. Evidence of a gradient of reliance by managers on their perceptions of evaluative environments is also presented and discussed. It was noted that traditional methods developed by Hopwood to classify evaluative environment appeared to result in misclassification of managers functioning in budget conscious or profit conscious environments, perhaps due to effects of uncertainty on their perceptions of evaluative environments. This is congruent with prior findings that environmental uncertainty affects the use of accounting measures in performance evaluations. Further, induced changes in evaluative style were noted, irrespective of the prior environment of managers. No particular evaluative style was found to be more or less easily affected.