Plath Company’s board of directors finally receives the income statement for the past year from management. Board members are initially pleased to see that after three years of losses, the company will be reporting a profit for the current year. Further investigation reveals that depreciation expense is significantly lower than it was last year. Company management, concerned by the losses, decided to change its method of reporting depreciation from an accelerated to a straight-line method. If the depreciation method had not been changed, a loss would have resulted for the fourth consecutive year. When questioned by the board about the accounting change, management replied that the majority of companies in the industry use the straight-line depreciation method, and thus, the change makes Plath’s income statement more comparable to other companies’ statements. Because comparability is an important qualitative characteristic of accounting information, should the board accept the explanation of management? How should the information about the change in the depreciation method be displayed in the financial statements?