Summary
In summary, we conclude there is a differential capacity among the ACUs to act
as a source of organizational memory. This difference is a result of (a) the
resources available to the ACU, (b) the structure of the ACU, (c) mandate
received from the firm, and (d) how the ACU is integrated into the broader firm
structure and organizational culture. Especially of note is the lack of any systematic
formal documentation of consultations at the national office level in
Firms 1 and 2. This state of affairs constitutes a significant barrier to developing
an organizational memory for accounting judgments in those firms because
they rely solely on the memories of the consultants.
Indeed, when responding to the question about how ACUs prevent providing
inconsistent guidance for similar situations, the answers among the two
groupings of firms were different. In Firms 3 and 4, the discovering organizations,
the interviewees emphasized that consistency was judged relative to the
contents of the internal database. Individual consultants needed to resolve any
apparent differences with previous consultations before the current consultation
was finalized. Further, the reason stated for computerizing the internal
database was so that ACU partners would have more current information than
a manual system could provide. In Firms 1 and 2, the conditioned viewing
organizations, we were told that consistency in guidance is achieved through
consistent reasoning by the consultants. The Firm 2 ACU partner stated, "the
reasoning pattern is going to be the same consistently." The partners of Firms
1 and 2 reported that consistency among consultants is achieved through informal
discussions, not formal practices. Research in accounting and auditing,
however, has shown that auditors' memories for information in audit engagement
files is biased (e.g., Moeckel and Plumlee 1989) in ways that lead to
incorrect inferences being drawn. Although this research was carried out at the
audit engagement level, it suggests there may be a greater potential for inconsistent
guidance on similar situations being provided by the conditioned viewing
firms, given their reliance on personal memory and reasoning.