Business Commons^™

Ideological Diversity In Standard Setting, Jivas Chakravarthy

Accounting Faculty Articles and Research

I explore whether the level of ideological diversity among Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) members has declined since the emergence of their conceptual framework. I analyze votes made by FASB members on Statements of Financial Accounting Standards and compare them to comment letters submitted by constituent sponsoring organizations. I demonstrate that, relative to the Pre-CF regime (1973–1986), FASB members’ voting positions in the CF regime (1987–2007) are (i) less like their constituent sponsors and (ii) more like one another. The former result is primarily attributable to differences between FASB members with auditor and preparer backgrounds and those groups’ sponsors. Both …

Transaction Complexity And The Movement To Fair Value Accounting, Pinky Rusli, Xinlei Zhao, David A. Ziebart

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

Our global economy has pushed the complexity of business transactions to a new level, as companies now employ sophisticated contracts and financial instruments. However, it is unclear whether accounting standards are able to effectively capture transaction complexity, which has been growing at a rapid pace. In this study, we examine three questions related to transaction complexity: (1) Do accounting standards reflect differences in the complexity of the transactions being recorded? (2) Does the use of mark-to-market (i.e., fair value) accounting reduce the complexity of standards by relying on market valuations to capture transaction complexity? (3) Does the reliance on fair …

Two Essays: Changes In The Implementation Flexibility And Financial Statement Location Of Mandated Accounting Standards; And Does The Financial Statement Location Of Transition Adjustments Matter To Investors?, Ethan Kinory

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Essay 1: In the 20 years since Balsam et al. (1995b) found evidence that mandated accounting standards provide significant implementation flexibility, numerous structural and environmental changes have occurred to the accounting standards setting process. Using a more recent sample of 13 significant mandated accounting promulgations, I reexamine whether implementation flexibility continues to characterize accounting standards. I find that standards continue to avail firms with adoption timing options. However, it appears that the FASB’s previously documented proclivity to direct equity increasing (decreasing) adjustments to the income statement (balance sheet) temporarily abated in the early years of my study, but this behavior …

Implementation Of International Financial Reporting Standards By Listed Companies In Nigeria, Emmanuel Inalegwu Ogbenjuwa

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This study is on implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) by reporting entities in Nigeria. Since Nigeria adopted IFRS in 2010, managers of reporting entities have been confronted with organizational changes both in the structures and processes of financial reporting. Previous studies have not assessed the claims that adopting IFRS improves the quality of financial reports and managerial efficiency. This study evaluated the assertion that IFRS adoption impacts the quality of financial reports, operational costs, and operational efficiencies of management. The theoretical frameworks which undergirded the study were theories of organizational behaviors and attitudinal change. Data were collected via …

The Information Content Of Withdrawn Audit Qualifications: New Evidence On The Value Of "Subject-To" Opinions, L. Paige Fields, Michael S. Wilkins

Michael S Wilkins

Statement on Auditing Standards No. 58 (AICPA 1988) effectively eliminated the "subject-to" audit opinion which auditors used to highlight financial statement uncertainties. Elimination of the "subject-to" report implied the Auditing Standards Board's belief that the opinion conveyed no material information to users. Several market-based studies of the value of "subject-to" opinions have yielded mixed results. A major limitation in most of these studies was a lack of precision in identifying the exact date upon which information, if any, was revealed to the market.

This study extends the previous work by examining the common share price reactions to public announcements of …

Cpas' Perceptions Of The Impact Of Sas 99, Donald C. Marczewski, Michael D. Akers

Michael D. Akers

In November 2002, the Auditing Standards Board (ASB) issued Statement on Auditing Standard 99, Consideration of Fraud in a Financial Statement Audit. Although SAS 99 was developed before the recent accounting scandals, its release came in their wake. The ASB crafted SAS 99 in response to perceived inadequacies in its predecessor, SAS 82. A questionnaire was sent to a random sample of 300 Wisconsin CPAs selected from the membership of the Wisconsin Institute of CPAs, which included 150 partners and 150 managers from Wisconsin public accounting firms. The response rate was 35%, with an almost equal balance of partners and …

Fraud Requirements In Ssars 10, Michael D. Akers, Jodi L. Gissel

Michael D. Akers

With the issuance of Statement on Standards for Accounting and Review Services (SSARS) 10, Performance of Review Engagements, which is effective for review engagements for periods ending on or after Dec 15, 2004, the AICPA Accounting and Review Services Committee requires accountants performing review engagements to make inquiries regarding fraud. Furthermore, the management representation letter must address fraud. The authors reviewed the comment letters that the AICPA received in response to the exposure draft for SSARS 10 and conducted a survey of practitioners after the statement was issued. SSARS 10 amends SSARS 1, Compilation and Review of Financial Statements, primarily …

Accounting For Agricultural Products: Us Versus Ifrs Gaap, Treba Marsh, Mary Fischer

Faculty Publications

Currently there is a mix of accounting guidance for agriculture producers in the US that is both GAAP including Accounting Statement Codification 905 and non-GAAP financial guidelines. Should the US adopt International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), this guidance would be replaced with International Accounting Standard (IAS) 41 – Agriculture.

This study identifies systematic differences between the US and International accounting and reporting for agricultural assets and products. The study also finds that international and US agricultural accounting recognition and reporting guidance result in dissimilar reporting due to guidance interpretation. Valuation variances and definition differences including the requirement to change the …

The Effect Of Ifrs On The Financial Ratios Of Canadian Public Mining Companies., Heath Aaron Mcconnell

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The objective of this study is to add to the body of research concerning International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). To accomplish this objective, it will examine whether Canada’s adoption of IFRS, which replaced Canadian Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), appears to affect the reported financial performance of Canadian public mining companies. Financial information for 2010 from the audited financial statements, as stated under IFRS and Canadian GAAP, were used to compute selected financial ratios. These financial ratios were tested to determine if statistically significant differences in their dispersion and central tendency resulted from adopting IFRS. It was found that no …

Changing And/Or Funding Opeb Promises: A Typology Of Local Government Responses To Gasb 45 And The Realization Of Opeb Liabilities, Juita-Elena Yusuf, Thomas Musumeci

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

GASB Statement No. 45 addresses how governmental units account for employees' other post-employment benefits (OPEB), requiring government employers to replace OPEB reporting on a pay-as-you-go basis with an accounting of the cost of current and future benefits. This requirement and the resulting OPEB liability may prompt government employers to reconsider key questions regarding their OPEB provision. The size of the OPEB liability depends on both the benefit promises made to employees and the assets to fund these promises. We propose a typology that defines four approaches for governments to respond to GASB 45 and their OPEB liabilities. These approaches represent …

Executive Mba Libguide, Mary Wilson

Mary Wilson

Welcome!

This guide is created for Executive MBA students, faculty, and staff and is useful for various learning activities such as finding information on companies, searching for articles on a specific topic, reading comment letters sent to the SEC and accounting standards issued by FASB and IASB, and accessing stock market information. It compiles databases and websites useful for effective research on various business topics. If you have any questions please feel free to contact the Horace W. Sturgis Library. We will be happy to help you with planning your research and identifying the most relevant sources of information.

Accounting Research Guide, Mary Wilson

Mary Wilson

This guide provides access to useful resources for accounting students. It provides information on such topics as finding information on companies, searching for articles on a specific topic, reading comment letters sent to the SEC and accounting standards issued by FASB and IASB, and accessing stock market information. It compiles databases and websites useful for effective research on accounting topics.

U.S. Progress Toward Ifrs, Whitney Hucks

Honors Theses

There has been much discussion about the FASB and the IASB and their joint efforts to create a new set of accounting standards. There is also much debate over which set of accounting standards, U.S. GAAP or IFRS works best for corporations in the U.S. and for financial accounting purposes. The following is a discussion of the pertinent and relevant points made by those who are for IFRS, those who are for GAAP, and those who are for a mixture of the two sets of standards. These arguments all tend to fall under one of the following umbrellas: ignore IFRS, …

How Lehman Brothers Used Repo 105 To Manipulate Their Financial Statements, Agatha Jeffers

Department of Accounting and Finance Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The questionable accounting technique, known as Repo 105, allowed Lehman Brothers to temporarily appear healthier in the eyes of its investors, creditors and other interested parties. These material transactions had the ability to affect the decisions of prudent persons. Nevertheless, Lehman failed to disclose these transactions in the notes to their financial statements and in their filings to the SEC. In this paper, an examination is made of whether Repo 105 transactions were properly recorded and disclosed in Lehman's financial statements and whether Lehman's executives behaved ethically. To answer these questions, an examination is made of Generally Accepted Accounting Standards, …

Gas Reserves And Equity Valuation: Implications For Accounting Standards, Keith Duncan, Simone Kelly, Ray Mcnamara

Simone Kelly

The coal seam gas industry is an important and rapidly developing sector of the Australian mining industry. This sector provides an excellent site to test the relevance of the Hotelling Valuation Principle (HVP) in explaining the market capitalisation of this industry sector. Currently, the majority of listed firms in this sector do not have positive cash flows from the sale of gas. The HVP posits that market values are a function of company reserves. We test five measures of firm reserves as explanations of market capitalisation. After controlling for scale differences, we find that 2P Reserves have the highest explanatory …

Gas Reserves And Equity Valuation: Implications For Accounting Standards, Keith Duncan, Simone Kelly, Ray Mcnamara

Keith Duncan

The coal seam gas industry is an important and rapidly developing sector of the Australian mining industry. This sector provides an excellent site to test the relevance of the Hotelling Valuation Principle (HVP) in explaining the market capitalisation of this industry sector. Currently, the majority of listed firms in this sector do not have positive cash flows from the sale of gas. The HVP posits that market values are a function of company reserves. We test five measures of firm reserves as explanations of market capitalisation. After controlling for scale differences, we find that 2P Reserves have the highest explanatory …

Gas Reserves And Equity Valuation: Implications For Accounting Standards, Keith Duncan, Simone Kelly, Ray Mcnamara

Ray McNamara

The coal seam gas industry is an important and rapidly developing sector of the Australian mining industry. This sector provides an excellent site to test the relevance of the Hotelling Valuation Principle (HVP) in explaining the market capitalisation of this industry sector. Currently, the majority of listed firms in this sector do not have positive cash flows from the sale of gas. The HVP posits that market values are a function of company reserves. We test five measures of firm reserves as explanations of market capitalisation. After controlling for scale differences, we find that 2P Reserves have the highest explanatory …

Our World Flipped Upside Down, Julie Blanchette

Undergraduate Review

During the past decade, there have been increasing discussions between the Financial Accounting Standard Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standard Board (IASB) regarding the harmonization of United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). What used to be talk is now becoming a reality. On October 29, 2002 FASB and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) released the Memorandum of Understanding, which announced the significant steps that are being taken to converge the US and the International Accounting Standards. There are hopes for some parts of the convergence to be finalized by 2011, …

Fair Value Measurement: What’S New? Teaching Note, Danny A. Pannese, Alan Delfavero

WCBT Faculty Publications

As the international economic landscape has become increasingly integrated, the argument for the development of uniform global accounting standards now exists. In an effort to achieve this objective, the Financial Accounting Standards Board, as part of the ongoing Convergence Project with the International Accounting Standards Board, released groundbreaking accounting standards, FAS157 & FAS159, in 2006 and 2007, respectively. Modeled after an international accounting standard, these standards pertain to the use of fair value accounting (FVA), and are the first of their kind as they provide a definition of FVA and an option to expand its use to certain financial instruments. …

Discretionary Behavior With Respect To The Adoption Of Sfas 142 And The Behavior Of Security Prices, Yoonseok Zang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

In June 2001, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued SFAS 142, Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets, which takes a very different approach to how goodwill is accounted for subsequent to the initial recognition. The new statement requires that goodwill no longer be amortized, but instead requires a transitional goodwill impairment (initial impairment loss or IIL) test in the adoption fiscal year and an annual impairment test thereafter. Since SFAS 142 allows firms substantial judgment in the adoption year in determining the amount of impairment loss, this dissertation first examines management discretionary behavior in measuring the IIL. The result shows …

Solving The Problem Of Setting Efficient Accounting Standards And Increasing Complexity Through Regulatory Competition, Shyam Sunder

Shyam Sunder

No abstract provided.

Implications Of The Ifrs Goodwill Accounting Treatment, G Wines, R Dagwell, Carolyn Windsor

Carolyn Windsor

Purpose – This paper aims to critically examine the change in accounting treatment for goodwill pursuant to international financial reporting standards (IFRSs) by reference to the Australian reporting regime.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper discusses and compares the former Australian and the new IFRS treatments for goodwill. This comparison focuses on the advantages and potential complexities of the new method, with the aim of identifying the issues and challenges that preparers, independent auditors and those involved in corporate governance face in complying with the new requirements.

Findings – The paper highlights that the identification and valuation of cash-generating units and goodwill …

The Convergence Of Accounting Standards Or The Next Revolutionary Change In The Accounting Industry, Mariya Smantser

Honors College Theses

In the past five years the accounting industry has undergone major transformations. A wave of corporate scandals that began with Enron shook accounting's foundations, and led to passage of the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2003. As the industry is absorbing and implementing the new requirements of the Sarbanes Oxley Act, it has yet another development on the horizon -- the pressure of convergence of accounting standards between the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). Marie Kling, senior manager in PWC, summarizes the current situation: "The train heading towards global GAAP has left the station, …

Assessing Internal Audit Quality, Audrey A. Gramling, Scott D. Vandervelde

Faculty and Research Publications

Internal audit quality is an issue of great importance to both the internal and external audit professions. PCAOB Auditing Standard No 2 highlights this importance when addressing the reliance that the external auditor can place on the internal audit work product. The study discussed here experimentally tests the influence of the source of the internal audit function on both the internal and external auditors' evaluation of the quality of the internal audit function. To assess the importance of the internal audit function's sourcing arrangement in the internal audit function's quality assessment, the researchers employ a case study approach, modifying a …

Fraud Requirements In Ssars 10, Michael D. Akers, Jodi L. Gissel

Accounting Faculty Research and Publications

With the issuance of Statement on Standards for Accounting and Review Services (SSARS) 10, Performance of Review Engagements, which is effective for review engagements for periods ending on or after Dec 15, 2004, the AICPA Accounting and Review Services Committee requires accountants performing review engagements to make inquiries regarding fraud. Furthermore, the management representation letter must address fraud. The authors reviewed the comment letters that the AICPA received in response to the exposure draft for SSARS 10 and conducted a survey of practitioners after the statement was issued. SSARS 10 amends SSARS 1, Compilation and Review of Financial Statements, primarily …

Cpas' Perceptions Of The Impact Of Sas 99, Donald C. Marczewski, Michael D. Akers

Accounting Faculty Research and Publications

In November 2002, the Auditing Standards Board (ASB) issued Statement on Auditing Standard 99, Consideration of Fraud in a Financial Statement Audit. Although SAS 99 was developed before the recent accounting scandals, its release came in their wake. The ASB crafted SAS 99 in response to perceived inadequacies in its predecessor, SAS 82. A questionnaire was sent to a random sample of 300 Wisconsin CPAs selected from the membership of the Wisconsin Institute of CPAs, which included 150 partners and 150 managers from Wisconsin public accounting firms. The response rate was 35%, with an almost equal balance of partners and …

The High Road, Jane E. Campbell, Heather M. Hermanson, John P. Mcallister

Faculty and Research Publications

Discusses the obstacles to international accounting standards convergence. Effort of the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) to promote to convergence theme; Comparison between the convergence frameworks of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Accounting Standards Board; Sections of the 'Framework for the Preparation and Presentation of Financial Statements' document issued by the IASC.

Regulatory Competition Among Accounting Standards Within And Across International Boundaries, Shyam Sunder

Shyam Sunder

No abstract provided.

Measuring The Degree Of International Harmony In Selected Accounting Measurement Practices, Emmanuel N. Emenyonu, Ajay Adhikari

WCBT Faculty Publications

The I-index developed by Van der Tas and chi square tests suggested by Tay and Parker are used to quantify and assess the degree of harmony in selected accounting measurement practices of large companies from France, Germany, Japan, the UK, and the US. The results indicate significant differences in accounting for inventory, fixed assets, and investments among the countries. The 3 sub-topics that exhibited a high degree of harmony were the treatment of gains or losses on the disposal of fixed assets, short-term investments and long-term investments, a reflection of the preference of regulators and companies in the different countries …

Global Auditing And Accounting Confusion, John P. Mcallister, Larry L. Orsini, John D. Gould

Faculty and Research Publications

The article discusses about the accounting and audit standards in the United States, which is different from one country to another due to business practices, fiscal systems and the law regulating a company. The International Federation of Accountants and the International Accounting Standards Committee aimed to a have a consistency of audit and accounting standards around the world, although these diversities can easily identify a company's national origin and as a basis of the financial statements presentation.