Abstract
Due to an increasingly sophisticated economic environment, accounting tasks and supporting information technology are becoming more complex. Under these circumstances, achieving congruence between task requirements and computer-supported information systems (i.e., task/technology fit) increases in importance. However, the layering of task and technology complexities may impose inordinately high mental workloads on individual decision-makers, thereby detracting from performance. Thus, judiciously designing computer-supported IS to simultaneously optimize task/technology fit, and minimize mental workload, is critical. While a significant amount of research in accounting has examined the individual determinants of judgment and decision making (Libby and Luft, 1993), only recently has this line of inquiry been extended to incorporate the impacts of task and technology on performance (Arnold and Sutton, 1998). The theoretical model proposed in this article complements and extends this research thrust by incorporating the concepts of task/technology fit (Goodhue and Thompson, 1995) and mental workload (Jex, 1988; Vidulich, 1988) into an expanded set of determinants of judgment and decision making. The proposed research model has theoretical and practical implications in a variety of accounting-related decision domains.