Do Cognitive Style and Fairness Affect Accounting Students Performance?

Yusnaini Yusnaini, Imam Ghozal

Abstract

This study examines the effect of cognitive style and fairness on individual performance in nonparticipative budgeting based on referent cognitions theory. This study shows the importance for organizations to understand and manage the level of justice and cognitive style of individuals in order to allocate organizational resources and improve individual performance. The 2x2-experimental design between subjects was used to test the hypotheses. Budget targets were manipulated by two levels of fair budget target and unfair target budget; while the cognitive style was manipulated by two levels as a field independent and field dependent. The participants were 88 undergraduates accounting students from the executive class of the Accounting Program. ANOVA's two-way analysis was used to test the hypotheses. The results show that performance is lower when unfair budget targets are compared with a fair budget target set. If the budget target is set fair, there is no significant difference between individual performance with cognitive style both field independent and field dependent. When unfair budget targets are set, individual performance with field independent is higher than the field dependent.