ADOPTION OF ACCOUNTING INFORMATION AS THE MAJOR TOOL FOR DECISION MAKING: A CASE STUDY OF SMALL SCALE INDUSTRIES IN ENUGU STATE
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Almost all the organization aimed towards the attainment of its desired, planned and overall objectives. In every operation of organization more especially small scale industry aimed towards efficiency and proper effectiveness for this to be achieved to a large extent depends on the quality of available accounting information and how the information will be utilized by the organization. However, information is the life wire of every business, defined by Don T. Coster et al (1978) so for any business to succeed in today’s rapidly changing environment, the management must update itself with every current and relevant information that will be beneficial towards achieving their predetermined objectives because without it there is likely to be stagnation. The manager who is making a decision normally wants to be sure that this knowledge is complete. This is possible only through the effective presentation and its use in appropriate circumstances.
When looking into the importance and usefulness of accounting information to management and especially small scale industry, it will be relevant to state clearly that there are other information that management uses in decision making. Like information by Engineers, Lawyers, Doctors, Architects and other company’s officials, but however, that information by accountant goes a long way to determine the assets base of a company and its liabilities to determine its cost price of production in pricing its products and also in determining when profits or loss is made.
Accounting information measures the progress of a commercial enterprise and is used in decision making for the selection of a single course of action for several dissimilar and unrelated alternatives. It has been observed that decision making is the final process in managerial process, but however, the relevance of an decision by management depends on the accuracy and relevance of accounting information supplied by the accountant.
When the decision involves business and economy questions, accounting information is essential to the decision system because it provides quantitative information for three functions: planning, control and evaluation.