The Small Firm Information Cycle: A Reappraisal

Abstract

DR. SCOTT HOLMES IS PROFESSOR OF Accounting at the University of Arizona, Tucson, United States, and was previously at the University of Queensland, Australia. Cary Kelly is a lecturer in the department adn Ross Cunningham a senior lecturer in the Departmet of Statistic at the Australian National University. Prior research has identified various stages in the lfie of a small enterprise. These states are commonly combined to produce a business life cycle. This paper proposed that small enterprise consists of a serios f interrelated cycles and as such, the presentation of an overall life cycle provides and over-simplified view of the firm. the concept of the information sub-cycle is introduced, which in itself can take many forms. Logistics regression modelling techniques incorporating those variables which appera to be significant in infulecing the level of accounting information prepared or acquired are applied to the development of an information cycle. The result obtained indicate that the acquistion and /or preparation of a relatively detailed level of accounting information is dependent on firm age, size, industry membership and level of owner-manger education. the pattern which emerges from these results supports the revision of traditional life cycle concepts. in particular, the need to segment the firm into severl sun-cycle is recommended.