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Decision Support and Information Search in a Complex Environment: Evidence from Archival Data in Auditing

This research studied the situation assessment process in a complex decision support environment. I studied auditors at the central research unit of a large public accounting firm as they performed information search tasks as part of the situation assessment process. In particular, the research examined whether expertise-based information search findings in laboratory studies generalized to analyzing ill-structured problems and the related searching of complex databases that contained prior cases. I employed archival data to study the auditors at two points: when they were relative novices at situation assessment and five months later, when they were relative experts. Prior laboratory studies of information search provided the basis for advancing four hypotheses about how information search would change as auditors gained experience in the natural decision support environment. Employing a within-subjects design, I tested the four hypotheses. The results supported the generalization of the laboratory findings to the field setting. I discuss the implications of these findings for naturalistic decision support applications and the management of databases containing prior cases as aids to situation assessment.