Accounting Information and Managerial Work: How is accounting information being used by store managers in practice?

Sammanfattning: This paper intends to increase the knowledge and understanding of how store managers' use account information in practice by testing and developing a framework originally formed by Hall (2010). The study was conducted as a case study of a Swedish retail company operating in over 40 stores and our discussion is based on the contrasting and comparing of our findings to Hall's propositions. The results showed that managers use accounting information for three major purposes, as anticipated by previous research; for controlling and understanding their work environment, for evaluation purposes and to empower their subordinates. Further, we found that accounting information is only one source of managers' information repertoire and that one of its strongest features was its ability to translate operational activities to one single, financial dimension. Lastly, the managers showed a strong preference for face-to-face communication for discussing accounting information. These findings were to a large extent in line with what was argued by Hall, apart from that managers' favored informal written communication to a greater extent than what was proposed.