An International Meeting of the American Accounting Association American Accounting Association 2006 Annual Meeting August 6–9, 2006 Washington, D.C.

Lan Guo
Washington State University

Bernard Wong - On - Wing
Washington State University

Gladie Lui
Chinese University of Hong Kong

Abstract: This study examines whether in an accounting context, Americans and Chinese differ in their choices between conflicting goals when they have to provide reasons for those choices. The results show that Americans are more likely to choose extreme solutions (vs. compromise solutions) than their Chinese counterparts. To reduce this cultural difference, this study also tests a cognitive procedure to mitigate the impact of the need to provide reasons on participants’ choice. The procedure requires the decision maker to introspect on and indicate the relative importance of conflicting goals. The results show that participants from both cultures choose markedly more compromise solutions when they are asked to perform the proposed procedure than when they are not asked to do so. As a result, the cultural difference in choice pattern remains. Implications are discussed.

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