Abstract
FOREWARD:|In the decade just ended, management accounting systems have become more scientific. The phenomenal growth of the computer industry has resulted in new quantitative techniques and more refined accounting procedures intended to provide management with more complete and timely information.|At the same time, a less phenomenal but significant growth has taken place in the application of behavioral science research and theory to business organizations. Leading researchers in the fields of psychology, social psychology, and sociology have begun to direct their attention to the challenging issues of relating what has been learned about individual and small group behavior to the problems of large organizations. This new application of behavioral science research to organizations has resulted in a new area of study called Organization Theory.|A small, but significant part of the research concerned with organization theory has dealt with the impact of present management accounting tools and techniques in the management process. Research in this particular segment of organization theory has been stimulated by the increased recognition within the field of accounting that the information supplied by accounting systems must be useful to and be used by managers if it is going to be worth the effort to prepare it. Researchers in the study of what has come to be called behavioral accounting recognize that the prime function of management accounting is to supply information which motivates managers at all levels to make decisions which contribute to the achievement of organization goals. The question is whether or not accountants themselves explicitly recognize the behavioral implications of accounting and, if so, whether or not they are correct in their assumptions about human behavior and motivation.|With this question in mind, the purpose of this paper will be twofold: (l) to substantiate the conclusion that a basic function of management accounting is behavioral and that the nature and scope of accounting systems are necessarily influenced by the various views of human behavior as assumed by the accountants who design and operate accounting systems; and (2) to establish that human behavior within an organization is a variable which must be recognized and understood by management accountants.