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Enticing Employees to Lie: Using Role Play to Understand and Mitigate Unintended Consequences of Budgeting *
Author(s) -
Sheehan Norman T.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
accounting perspectives
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.238
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1911-3838
pISSN - 1911-382X
DOI - 10.1506/ap.7.2.7
Subject(s) - commit , production (economics) , unintended consequences , public relations , phenomenon , control (management) , plan (archaeology) , experiential learning , business , psychology , political science , economics , management , computer science , pedagogy , law , microeconomics , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics , database , history
This role play is a short, in‐class interactive exercise that places students in the role of a factory worker who is asked to commit to a future production amount. The role play demonstrates why employees may be tempted to lie when asked to reveal their future productive capacities. The experiential exercise illustrates the tension between using budget information for both planning and control purposes, and then asks students to propose how senior managers may effectively manage this tension. The role play provides an opportunity to enhance students' moral sensitivities as it concludes with a review of the fundamental ethical principles of International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), noting that although budgetary slack is a widespread phenomenon, it clearly violates IFAC's principles.