INTRODUCTION

This volume of Advances in Management Accounting begins with an article by C. J. McNair, Lidija Polutnik, Holly H. Johnston, Jason Augustyn and Charles R. Thomas on shifting perspectives involving accounting, visibility, and management action. The article attempts to determine whether or not the accounting abstraction appears to dominate the manager’s perceptions of the physical reality of the firm’s utilization of its physical assets. The article then looks at whether changes in the accounting abstraction (e.g. the addition of capacity cost management reports and measurements) lead to changes in how managers perceive and use their physical assets. Using a cognitive decision-making structure developed by Wagenaar et al. (1995), this study explores the interplay between the structure and nature of capacity reporting (the surface structure of the decision) and the subsequent analysis and choice of managers within the firm (the deep structure of the decision).