Using a Paper Quilt-Making Task to Replicate a Real-World Manufacturi...

Lindquist’s (1995) seminal research in management accounting finds a low level of process control (voice), has a stronger positive impact on satisfaction with stretch budgets and task satisfaction than does a high level of control (vote). To measure these effects, he uses a manual-based experimental task (i.e, building toy castles from Loc-Blocs©). Subsequent experimental research, extending his findings, however, has employed a mental-based experimental job (i.e., Chow’s (1983) decoding task).

This methods paper proposes a new, affordable and effective, manual-based task to use in experimental research in management accounting; namely, paper quilt-making. By replicating Lindquist (1995), if we achieve his same basic findings, then we have support that this new task is an effective alternative to his castle-building task (which requires extensive resources).

We find, as did Lindquist (1995), that subjects allowed a voice only are significantly more satisfied with stretch targets received and the experimental task itself. Additionally, we also find that subjects with a voice outperform those with a vote. While Lindquist (1995) was unable to find significant performance effects, our results suggest that the paper quilt-making task is an effective task to use when seeking to replicate a real-world manufacturing environment.