Accounting Information Systems may facilitate or impede organizational learning. Critical
attributes of accounting systems that have the potential to affect organizational learning include: (1)
characteristics of the information environment, whether uniform, dispersed or clustered importance weights;
(2) information distribution, whether overlapping or segregated information; and (3) information coordination
mechanisms, whether expert teams, majority voting teams or hierarchies. Organizational learning and
performance was simulated in the following manner: (i) the organization was faced with a continuous sequence
of repetitive but not identical problems; (ii) the organizational task was subdivided between analysts; and (iii)
analysts learned by basing their decisions on the relationship found between information available to them and
organizational outcomes. Simulation results indicated that learning in flatter (team) organizations is generally
more accurate than in hierarchical organizations. Learning is also faster with majority teams than hierarchies,
but slower with expert teams. Overlapping accounting information transmission between agents was found to
offer only limited benefits. These findings have implications for the design of accounting information systems
in organizations