Contextualizing politicians’ uses of accounting information: reassurance and ammunition

This paper explores the use of accounting information by local government politicians. The authors examined three very typical council decisions in both their policy formulation and decision-making stages, which had different levels of political conflict. During policy formulation, accounting information was used mostly to provide answers—improving understanding. At the decision-making stage, the level of conflict influenced the quantity of information used, as well as the way it was used. Under low political conflict, accounting information primarily provided reassurance, whereas when there were conflicts between majority and opposition politicians, accounting information was used to (de)legitimize political positions and decisions. This paper is one of the first to contextualize politicians’ use of accounting information and has important implications for practice and future research.