Accounting Commons^™

The Market For High-Tech Skills And The Business Student, Milen E. Marinov, Dr. J. Owen Cherrington

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Being granted the ORCA scholarship I started researching information technology (IT) skills that will make a business student more marketable. I began my research at the end of November 1999. Gradually, along with demanded IT skills my research activity included the gathering and systematizing of information pertaining to the nature, existence, operation, and goals of centers for electronic business. The gatherings and conclusions I have made will be reflected in the mission and day-to-day activities of the Kevin and Debra Rollins Center for eBusiness @BYU. The eBusiness Center was established April 12, 2000. It is a product of extensive research …

The Market For High-Tech Skills And The Business Student, Milen E. Marinov, Dr. J. Owen Cherrington

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Being granted the ORCA scholarship I started researching information technology (IT) skills that will make a business student more marketable. I began my research at the end of November 1999. Gradually, along with demanded IT skills my research activity included the gathering and systematizing of information pertaining to the nature, existence, operation, and goals of centers for electronic business. The gatherings and conclusions I have made will be reflected in the mission and day-to-day activities of the Kevin and Debra Rollins Center for eBusiness @BYU. The eBusiness Center was established April 12, 2000. It is a product of extensive research …

Establishing A Foundation For The Testing And Evaluation Of Effective Scenario Elicitation Tools, Benjamin Dunford, Dr. Douglas Dean

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In system development, no other phase is as fraught with difficulties as determining what exactly the system “should do” for a proposed project. These difficulties arise through a divergence in how the end user envisions the system should operate and how the analyst or developer perceives the user would like the system to operate. The search for a common language that both analyst and end user could use to effectively communicate what a system “should do”, or the system requirements, gave rise to the use of scenarios. Scenarios are textual narratives of how the system should operate in a given …

Software Development In Monterrey, Mexico, J. Edgar Gómez, Dr. Robert Jackson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

As Mexican companies enter the global market they discover how important it is to integrate advances in technology into their everyday business transactions. Software development is one of the areas of technological advances where great effort has been made. According to the Wall Street Journal (1), changes in technological development in Mexico are due in large part to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Canada, that has attracted large amounts of foreign direct investment (FDI).

Establishing A Foundation For The Testing And Evaluation Of Effective Scenario Elicitation Tools, Benjamin Dunford, Dr. Douglas Dean

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In system development, no other phase is as fraught with difficulties as determining what exactly the system “should do” for a proposed project. These difficulties arise through a divergence in how the end user envisions the system should operate and how the analyst or developer perceives the user would like the system to operate. The search for a common language that both analyst and end user could use to effectively communicate what a system “should do”, or the system requirements, gave rise to the use of scenarios. Scenarios are textual narratives of how the system should operate in a given …

Stock Price Reactions To Announcements Of U.S. Gaap/Ifrs Convergence, Lorien Stice, Dr. Ted Christensen

Journal of Undergraduate Research

This research investigates investors’ perceptions of the expected impact of adopting international accounting standards on U.S. companies. Since these rules differ from current U.S. standards, some speculate that the costs to convert companies’ reporting systems to conform to international standards will have significantly negative effects on their profitability. My project explores stock price reactions to SEC announcements which indicate an increased or decreased probability that U.S. firms will soon be required to switch to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). I hypothesize that expected conversion costs will be higher for companies that are not already operating in foreign countries because more …

The Effect Of Internal Control And Framing On Employee Process Improvement Suggestions, Scott Emett, Dr. David Wood

Journal of Undergraduate Research

After a few months of developing my original ORCA proposal topic entitled “The Effect of Internal Control and Framing on Employee Process Improvement Suggestions”, I learned an invaluable lesson about academic research: many promising research ideas do not turn out to be as promising from a research perspective as originally thought. After running into several problems with the experimental operationalization of this research idea as well as problems with the theoretical contributions that the project would make, my mentor and I decided to abandon this research idea and pursue other research ideas that seemed more promising. Over the past year, …

Audit Quality And Subsidiary Audits, Jeremiah Bentley, Dr. Steven Glover

Journal of Undergraduate Research

International and national accounting standard setters have spent significant amounts of time discussing and making rules about the consolidation of company’s financial statements (ASB 2009; PCAOB 2008, 2010; IAASB 2007; FASB 2010). One of the focuses of these discussions is how auditors should respond to the consolidation process when performing group audits (Glover et al. 2008). A group audit is an audit performed on an entity with multiple locations or components, with separately audited financial information included in consolidated or group financial statements (Glover et al. 2008). While previous research has examined how the consolidation process affects the financial statement …

Effect Of Fraud Risk Assessments On Auditors’ Evidence Evaluation, Jace Garrett, Dr. Doug Prawitt

Journal of Undergraduate Research

My original project idea was to research how supervisors’ views affect subordinates’ judgments in an audit setting. While this was a good idea, my mentor and I came up with another research idea that seemed even more interesting. Since fraud has been a hot topic in accounting research, we thought our idea was particularly timely. The idea we had was to research the effect of preliminary fraud risk assessments on auditors’ evaluation of evidence. We believe that making the preliminary fraud risk assessments creates a bias when auditors later evaluate evidence. Specifically, we believe that when auditors assess the likelihood …

Social Norms And Internal Controls: When Tone From The Bottom Matters, Jeffrey Pickerd, Dr. Scott Summers

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The control environment–the actions, policies, and beliefs of an organization–is an important part of the COSO Framework and helps to encourage individuals to follow internal controls. Current accounting literature has extensively examined the influence of the CEOs and other top executives and their ability to influence the control environment to create a culture of compliance with internal controls. However, no research has been to done to see whether or not peers and colleagues influence the control environment.

Accounting Hall Of Fame: Sir David Philip Tweedie, Remarks, Citation And Response, Anaheim, California, August 5, 2013, American Accounting Association, Ohio State University

Accounting Hall of Fame Brochures

No abstract provided.

Improving Critical Thinking Through Effective Pedagogy For Online Coursework - Benefits, Limitations And Best Practices Of Online Coursework, Mary Kay Copeland

Business Faculty/Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Do Changes In The Sg&A Ratio Provide Information About Changes In Future Earnings, Analyst Forecast Revisions, And Stock Returns?, Eugene Scott Johnson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In fundamental analysis, increases in the ratio of selling, general and administrative (SG&A) costs to sales (SG&A ratio) are viewed as negative signals about future firm performance. However, this interpretation focuses on the overall change in the SG&A ratio and ignores the underlying changes in the components of the ratio. For example, prior literature finds that the interpretation offered by fundamental analysis does not hold during periods of decreasing sales. I contend that a further partitioning of the full sample into subsamples representing all possible combinations of changes in the components of the SG&A ratio, and the ratio itself, will …

Does A Lack Of Choice Lead To Lower Quality?: Evidence From Auditor Competition And Client Restatements, Nathan J. Newton, Dechun Wang, Michael S. Wilkins

School of Business Faculty Research

We examine the relationship between auditor competition and the likelihood of financial restatements that occur as a result of failures in the application of GAAP. Policy makers and audit market participants have expressed concern that the current level of auditor competition is low, resulting in a negative impact on audit quality. However, we find that restatements are more likely to occur in metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) that have higher auditor competition. The association between audit market competition and restatements is statistically and economically significant. Our finding that audit quality is higher when auditor competition is lower suggests that at least …

Investor Reactions To Company Disclosure Of Ceo To Median Employee Compensation Ratio: An Experimental Investigation, Jean Lin Seow, K Kelly

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Section 953(b) of the Dodd-Frank Act, which is yet to be implemented by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), requires that public companies disclose the CEO to median employee compensation ratio (hereafter, pay ratio). We conduct an experiment with Singapore MBA students to examine how such pay ratio disclosures influence the judgments of nonprofessional investors. Participants evaluate a hypothetical company given either no pay ratio information (i.e., only CEO compensation as per current SEC regulations) or pay ratio information (i.e., CEO compensation, median employee compensation, and pay ratio, as per Section 953(b)). The company’s pay ratio, when provided, is …

Does Analyst Experience Affect Their Understanding Of Non-Financial Information? An Analysis Of The Relation Between Patent Information And Analyst Forecast Errors, Taiwhun Taylor Joo

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines whether analyst experience affects the relation between patent information and analyst forecast errors. U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles require that firms expense all in-house research and development (R&D) costs. This means that even when R&D activities produce intangible assets with future economic benefits, firms cannot capitalize R&D costs as assets. Consequently, financial statements are largely deficient in the information they provide regarding the output of R&D activities. However, patent information is one type of non-financial information about R&D output that is publicly available.

Using updated patent data, I confirm the results of prior studies that find a …

Non-Audit Fees, Institutional Monitoring, And Audit Quality, Chee Yeow Lim, David K. Ding, Charlie Charoenwong

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We posit that the effect of non-audit fees on audit quality is conditional on the extent of institutional monitoring. We suggest that institutional investors have incentives and the ability to monitor financial reporting quality. Because of the reputation concerns and potential litigation exposure, auditors are likely to provide high audit quality, when they also provide non-audit services to clients, particularly when clients are subject to high institutional monitoring. We find evidence that, as non-audit fees increase, audit quality (measured by performance-adjusted discretionary current accruals and earnings-response coefficients) reduces only for clients with low institutional ownership but not for clients with …

The Effect Of Corporate Tax Avoidance On The Cost Of Equity, Beng Wee Goh, Jimmy Lee, Chee Yeow Lim, Terry Shevlin

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

While prior studies have examined how investors perceive extreme forms of tax avoidance behavior such as tax sheltering and uncertain tax position (e.g., Hanlon and Slemrod 2009; Wilson 2009; Koester 2011; Hutchens and Rego 2012), there is little evidence on how investors perceive less extreme forms of tax avoidance. This study fills this void by examining the relation between firm’s cost of equity and corporate tax avoidance using three measures that capture less extreme forms of corporate tax avoidance: book-tax differences, permanent book-tax differences, and long-run cash effective tax rates. We find that less aggressive forms of corporate tax avoidance …

Work Out Optimum Tax Rates, Benefits For A New Business, Teng Aun Khoo, Clement Tan Kai Guan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

No abstract provided.

Ethics Readiness: An Analysis Of Community College Students' Moral Sensitivity Scores, Julie Wallace

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

In this retrospective causal-comparative study, the readiness of Virginia community college students to receive an accounting ethics curriculum was analyzed by measuring and comparing their moral sensitivity scores to the moral sensitivity scores of a group of four year university students. A sample of college students attending community college principles of accounting courses and a sample of college students attending four year university principles of accounting courses were administered a nationally recognized moral sensitivity survey instrument, the Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT2). The survey results were analyzed using a t-test for differences between means. It was found that there was …