-

From the first to the third Economic, Social and Cultural Development Plans, where the government authorities laid stress on the economic growth, a large number of plans and projects were proposed and approved. Many of these projects were abandoned half-finished owing to the insufficient feasibility studies, inaccurate assessments and far-fetched predictions, and in the circumstances where such projects went on stream, they did not yield the expected economic output. The untoward outcomes can attest to the incorrect decision-making at the managerial top echelons of economic organizations.
One of the main factors affecting the managerial decision-making is attributed to the inaccessibility of managers to information at any stage of this process in the capital budgeting projects such as recognition of the status quo, identification of potential projects (problem identification) and project analysis.
The major goal of this research is to identify the required information based on time horizon (historical or future
orientation) for top-level management in capital budgeting decisions. Additionally, the information needs have been prioritized in the order of importance at each stage of decision-making. After an extensive review of the literature, 24 hypotheses at the status quo recognition (12 items for the future and 12 items for the past), and 23 hypotheses at the problem identification (18 items for the future and 5 items for the past) and 30 hypotheses at the project analysis (23 items for the future and 7 items for the past) have, been developed. A comparative study of time horizon (based on historical and future information) at any stage of decision-making indicates that the future information is much more significant than historical information. This paper also includes some suggestions with regard to the outcome.