Accounting research has established that when presented with common and unique performance measures about different divisions or managers, decision makers underweight unique information and overweight common information. This "common measures bias" leads to performance strategies that can be inconsistent with the strategy of the firm. I examine how firm strategy (as exhibited through organizational design) influences the common measures bias. While training can influence common measures bias, which aspects of training and how training influences this bias has not been explored. I experimentally investigate how organizational design and training influence common measures bias. I find that while organizational design appears to have minimal effect on its own, there is an interactive effect of organizational design and training. Additionally, training that emphasizes the inclusion of all metrics increases the weights placed on non-financial metrics. While the training increases the weights on non-financial metrics, participants continue to rely on financial metrics when making their performance evaluation ratings.
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