Accounting, decisions and promises

Abstract

One aim of this paper is to present a new version of the relationship between accounting and decision making going beyond the important but now classical answer, ammunition, learning and rationalisation machines. Another aim is to add to literature about the relationship between accounting and managerial work. This involves a temporal perspective. Decisions are endings which stop a process of decision making, but they are also promises which crate new beginnings. The paper discusses the decision as a promise; while the decision produces a prediction, a promise produces a hope. The decision has contemplated all information, and the promise knows that the future is uncertain. Therefore, the promissory economy is not primarily concerned with solidifying a decision; it is more concerned with the extra investments and adjustments that continually have to be developed. The contribution of the paper is to show that to promise is to change commitments when the situation requires this. Therefore promises require forgetfulness and forgiveness: forgetfulness because learning is possible and forgiveness because others are impacted. The role of accounting under this condition is to enable promising. The study of decision making and promises moves from causality to effectuation and from solutions to generation of alternatives.