iBusiness, 2010, 2, 106-115 doi:10.4236/ib.2010.22013 Published Online June 2010 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ib) Copyright © 2010 SciRes. iB Theory and Practice of the Design of Monthly Reports Bernhard Hirsch, Anne Paefgen, Sven Schaier Universität der Bundeswehr München, Neubiberg and WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management, Vallendar, Germany. Email: bernhard.hirsch@unibw.de, {anne.paefgen, sven.schaier}@whu.edu Received January 20 th , 2010; revised March 10 th , 2010; accepted April 17 th , 2010. ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the design of management reports. Based on theoretical considerations concerning the personal information demand, hypotheses were developed and tested in a field study in German major enterprises. The findings from the field study show a high diversity of monthly reports to the top management. Furthermore it is shown how de- sign improvements for these reports can be derived from the personal information demand of the recipients. The paper will also discuss deficits of the reporting system during the study. Keywords: Recipients of Reports, Design of Reports, Field Study, Provision of Information, Monthly Report 1. Introduction Providing management with information is one of the key tasks of management accounting (controlling). Nu- merous approaches to define management accounting do focus on the supply of information as the core task of management accounting [1-5], and empirical studies do confirm that substantial resources of management ac- counting are required for this key focus [6,7]. Within the framework of the information supply, the internal corporate reporting system plays an outstanding role [8-11]. Information collected and processed by cor- porate information systems are usually passed on to man- agement in the form of reports, with the corporate info- rmation system comprising the preparation and transmis- sion of information in the form of reports to employees, primarily to the leaders of an enterprise [12]. The corpo- rate information system essentially supports the busi- ness-related decision-making processes [8]. As a consequence, shortcomings in terms of the conce- ption of the information supply frequently only become apparent at the reporting stage, and moreover, successful results achieved within an otherwise well designed infor- mation supply are still susceptible to threat at this point. Reporting, to be understood as the entirety of reports dir- ected to internal addressees of a corporation, may thus be viewed as the point of crystallization of information supply. The science of business economics puts numerous de- mands on the design of reports. As a rule, the core idea behind these demands is to provide the recipients of re- ports the information they need to facilitate decision ma- king [13]. So far only few studies have investigated the extent to which these demands are actually implemented in corporate practice. Göpfert [8] thus sees the need for research on the reporting sector. Moreover, up to now only few studies exist which investigate the structure of reporting [14]. Therefore, on one hand, this paper aims at illustrating the current status of the (monthly) reporting system in selected large German corporations, with the focus of the field study being the monthly report sent to the members of the board by corporate management accounting. All heads of corporate management accounting of the com- panies investigated agreed to rate the monthly report as one of the five most essential “products” of their respec- tive departments. On the other hand, proceeding from this stocktaking, theory-based evaluations of the practice of the design of monthly reports are to be carried out from which suggestions for improvement will be derived. The paper is structured as follows: The following sec- tion starts by developing the conceptional basis of the examination. First, the need for information is identified as the theoretical starting point for the design of the info- rmation supply and the reporting system. Based on con- ceptional considerations, hypotheses are derived which were empirically plausibilized within the framework of the field study. Afterwards the principal options for the design of the reporting system are shown. In the third section, the results of the empirical study are illustrated by first describing the further details of the methodology used for the study, followed by the presentation of the