Abstract

MARTINS, Agatha; BARREIRO RODRIGUES, Maria Albertina  and  ALBUQUERQUE, Fábio. Explanatory factors for the effectiveness of non-financial information analysis at different task complexity levels. Innovar [online]. 2024, vol.34, n.91, e100110.  Epub Jan 01, 2024. ISSN 0121-5051.  https://doi.org/10.15446/innovar.v34n91.100110.

With the increasing awareness that information in traditional financial reports does not meet stakeholders' needs, there has been a trend towards the widespread use of incident reports on non-financial information. In this study, we aim to analyze the determinants of the effectiveness of non-financial information analysis at different task complexity levels. Demographic characteristics, information interpretation time (efficiency), and different presentation formats were considered as factors potentially influencing the effectiveness of such analysis. The experiment began by selecting excerpts of non-financial information extracted from an integrated report with varying levels of information and question complexity, which, when combined, lead to different levels of task complexity. Two presentation formats were proposed: one with a greater emphasis on graphs and another focused on tables. From these two sets of information, two questionnaires containing identical questions were developed and administered to master's students in business sciences in Portugal. The collected data were analyzed using linear regression models, complemented by descriptive analysis techniques and bivariate non-parametric tests. The results, obtained from 170 responses from target students, demonstrated that using tables led to a faster response to the questionnaire. The presentation format did not represent a clear benefit in terms of effectiveness, with time being the most significant and consistent variable for explaining the effectiveness of the analysis at different levels of task complexity. This study aims to contribute to the literature by providing empirical evidence of the factors that potentially influence users' decision-making based on non-financial information, considering the effects of presentation format and task complexity in this context.

Keywords : Task complexity; presentation format; non-financial information; analysis time; decision-making.

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