The relationships among management accounting information, organizational learning and production performance

This study adopted the organizational learning perspective to examine relevant types of management accounting information required by advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) for attaining improved production performance. First, we investigated the relationship between the level of AMT usage and the amount of information provided by management accounting information systems (MAISs). The results of this study showed a positive correlation between the AMT level and the amount of management accounting information (i.e. planning and control information, and nonfinancial performance information). A significant positive relationship between provision of information and improvement in production performance was also observed. This study also empirically examined the learning promoting effects of organizational facilitators, which is complemented and assisted by information technology. The empirical results demonstrated that facilitators of organizational learning have a moderating impact on the relationship between provision of information and performance improvement. Therefore, it is concluded that when learning facilitators are well arranged and highly utilized, a provision of information is more likely to be linked to effective learning and, consequently, improved performance. q 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.