Presentation Format of Accounting Information – a Systematic Review of Top-Level Accounting Research

The purpose of this paper is to systematically review and synthesise top-level accounting literature on presentation format of accounting information to reveal patterns and causal relationships, which support the understanding of the role of presentation format within accounting information research. As part of human-computer interaction, the importance of the presentation format of accounting information is often neglected. Presentational aspects are increasingly influencing the content of accounting information and it is indispensable to be aware of the resulting consequences. Our review provides several important insights. First, we identify ten research strands within the financial and managerial accounting domains and provide an overview of the identified research gaps. Second, we find various distinguishable presentation format properties and examine their influence on the valuation and stewardship function (financial accounting domain) as well as the decision-making and control function (managerial accounting domain). We find that empirical research in that field is dominated by experimental research methods but more importantly we find that the field is lacking an overarching theory that covers the diversity of presentation format and its multiple effects. With our study we respond to the numerous calls to examine more closely not only the content but also the presentation format of accounting information and provide suggestions for future research