Contextual Effects in Tax Research: An Experimental Investigation of Adaptivity and Expert Performance in an Information Search Task

Based on a detailed analysis of the two tax decision-making contexts, planning and compliance, I predict that tax practitioners who know that the contexts differ in particular ways will conduct broader information search in planning than in compliance. I also predict that the nature of the decision is different in each context, resulting in the use of forward reasoning in the compliance context and backward reasoning in the planning context. Finally, I predict that the ability to adapt information search to the context is a component of expert performance in the tax-research task. I tested my hypotheses in an experiment in which decision-making context was manipulated between-participant and participant knowledge and decision-quality was measured. Six measures of information-search breadth were employed as dependent measures. As predicted, participants who knew that the contexts differed in the specified ways conducted broader search in planning than in compliance while participants without such knowledge did not, participants demonstrated greater use of backward reasoning in planning than in compliance, and those participants who were perceived as higher-quality decision makers conducted broader search in planning than in compliance while the lower-quality decision makers did not.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Accountancy

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Magro, Anne Marie

Contributors dc:contributor

• Eugene Willis

• Psychology, Experimental

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI9834708

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/87171