THE RELEVANCE OF ACCOUNTING INFORMATION TO FRONT LINE MANAGERS
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
shareholders wealth which is called the end point of planning (koontz. 1980:189). In the pursuit of these objectives, certain persons occupy positions of authority, and are charged with the responsibility or functions of planning, organizing, directing and controlling human and material resources and channeling such towards the actualization of the objectives. Business firms are established to achieve specific objectives. This may be to maximize profit or its These persons are the managers. In its simplest definition, a manager is any person who gets things done through the efforts of others. (ulayi, 2007:21).
In a typical organizational structure, there are three categories of managers. These are the top, medium and front line managers. The first group makes strategic decisions by monitoring the external and internal environment of the firm, forecast operation, at the same time make long range plan. The medium level managers make tactical and intermediate plans on how to achieve plans made by the top management while the front line managers are controllers of operations and implementations. They interact with the workers and understand their problems better. They also understand better the job problems and are also referred to as foremen and supervisors who perform the day-to-day supervisory functions and make adhoc plans to reach objectives at minimal cost (Okorie, 1993:62).
Today’s complexity of business operations claims a leading authority in accounting, has placed users of information about firms in a much less knowledgeable position. Consequently, the necessity of keeping up with business date and other recorded information has not only posses a problem to accountants, but has also exerted great pressure on accounting as an information system (Davidson et al, 1979:11).
Indeed accounting is an information system designed to convey relevant financial information to users. Managers also see non-financial information as relevant in solving their job problems, but they rely more on financial information which is maintained for the purpose of helping management in making decision about the use of economic resources, for effective control of the routing function (Davidson et al, 1979:16).
