The Value of Budget Information.

Abstract This article presents information on an experimental study concerning the impact of budget feedback information and the budgetary process on decision and performance. Two types of learning which can be helped by accounting feedback are, learning of the system or model that affects payoffs and learning which decision strategies or policies are effective in coping with ill-structured and changing decision environments. Information useful in these two senses has previously been labeled model and action effectiveness values of information. In order to generate some empirical data on the value of such information, a set of business-game experiments was conducted. These experiments are described in the following section of this paper, but first consideration of sequential decision processes is necessary. The explicit hypotheses as to how each information structure and each motivational treatment are expected to affect performance and learning depend upon which theory of decision one bases his hypotheses on and which of several problem or environmental classifications the particular decision problem fits most closely.