The credibility of finance committees and information usage: trustworthy to whom?

Abstract

Analysing municipal councils in Brazil, this article contributes to the understanding of how politiciansuse accounting information in terms of the dynamics of collective political decisions. Depending ontheir political position, the authors investigated whether councillors seek accounting information tocope with varied objectives rather than a unified decision-making process. A survey of local financecommittee members showed that information source credibility is a sensitive construct with multiplemeanings influenced by the political environment. This article adds to prior literature on the demandand supply sides of information