An Investigation of the Relative Importance Attached to the Qualitative Characteristics in the SFAC 2 Hierarchy

Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts No. 2 presents hierarchy of accounting qualities and asserts that the relative importance of the qualities differs between groups of decision makers. This study examined the relative importance attached to the qualities by a sample that included preparers, auditors and users of financial reports. The survey questionnaire was based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (Satty 1990) and captured the respondents' judgments through a series of trade-offs between pairs of qualities. The survey questionnaire employed the Analytic Hierarchy Process to collect the respondents' judgments. Profile analysis was used to examine the responses for group differences. The results revealed differences within each group profile at each level of the hierarchy. The results indicated between-group differences attributable to relevance, predictive value, timeliness and neutrality and differences between the group profiles attributable to relevance, predictive value, timeliness and neutrality