Accounting Commons^™

Cultural Influences On Accounting And Its Practices, Meredith Young

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis discusses various cultural aspects that have influenced accounting. Hofestede (1984) and Gray (1988) conducted studies and observations of the cultural dimensions and values that have contributed to culture and accounting research. National culture is broad in its influences, but affects the smallest aspects of society-even accounting. Accounting is also influenced by organizational culture, the overall environment in which a company functions. Next is ethics, an integral aspect of accounting, persuaded by the culture in which it is derived. Religion is more than a belief; it constitutes a way of life, involving unique practices and perspectives in accounting. Last, …

Practical Gaap Financial Statements For Investors: An Analysis Of The Relationship Between A Gaap Company's Current Ratio And Its Corresponding Stock Market Price, Alonna Cherry

Senior Honors Theses

GAAP financial statements are an excellent way of providing comparable information to both investors and creditors. A gradually changing world causes their applicability to everyday financial decisions to be questioned. The AICPA implies a necessity for more pertinent reported information, and others advocate a study into this topic. This paper intends to launch into this research and provides a case study with the current ratio, one of the most basic ratios derived from information given in GAAP financial statements, and its relationship to yearly stock price changes in the New York Stock Exchange. The study concludes that there is no …

Organizational Culture, Job Satisfaction And Turnover Intentions: The Mediating Role Of Perceived Organizational Support, David Emerson

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates how the culture of an organization is related to the job satisfaction and turnover intentions of government accountants. I show that perceived organizational support serves as a mediator between organizational culture and both turnover intentions and job satisfaction. I evaluate how cultural effects have changed over time, and assess how the relations between the hypothesized associations differ between supervisory and staff accountants. I also look for differences in how accountants and primary care nurses may perceive organizational culture. I develop the constructs of interest, describe the proposed relationships, develop hypotheses, describe the sample frame, provide a detailed …

Enterprise Risk Management In The Oil And Gas Industry: An Analysis Of Selected Fortune 500 Oil And Gas Companies Reaction In 2009 And 2010, Violet C. Rogers, Jack R. Ethridge

Faculty Publications

In 2009, four of the top ten Fortune 500 companies were classified within the oil and gas industry. Organizations of this size typically have an advanced Enterprise Risk Management system in place to mitigate risk and to achieve their corporations' objectives. The companies and the article utilize the Enterprise Risk Management Integrated Framework developed by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO) as a guide to organize their risk management and reporting. The authors used the framework to analyze reporting years 2009 and 2010 for Fortune 500 oil and gas companies. After gathering and examining information from 2009 and 2010 annual …

An Investigation Into Recent Developments In The Regulatory Regime For Financial Accounting In Ireland, Mark James

Theses

In the last decade the Irish accounting regulatory regime has been radically reformed from one consisting largely of private sector regulation to one where public sector regulation has increased importance. This change has taken place within a larger international context of the rise of the regulatory state, and a period of greater convergence between regulatory activities internationally. While an extensive body of research on this topic has accumulated in other countries, particularly America, Irish research has generally been focussed on the role of the accounting profession in this development. This study aims to build on the existing literature by focusing …

Cloud Computing: A Paradigm Shift, Poh Sun Seow

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Research has shown that investment in IT is a key driver of productivity improvement in the accountancy sector. IT enables accounting firms to increase their productivity by automating tasks and enhancing collaboration within the firm and with their clients. Cloud computing has generated much interest from the business and IT communities these days as an emerging technology to increase productivity.

Change Management: The People Dimension, Gary Pan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Many accounting professionals believe it is important to raise productivity in the accounting sector. A recent survey conducted by the Institute of Management Accountants (2011), however, highlighted that raising productivity, while a very important topic, can be a daunting challenge. Therefore, the urgent issue facing the accounting sector is to address the critical concern of how accounting professionals can be more productive?

Productivity, Return-On-Capital And Stock Price Performance, Andrew Lee, Tracey Zhang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Productivity improvements in businesses are invariably championed as value-enhancing propositions. Whether the improvements are labour-related or asset-related, the value of a business is arguably enhanced when its employees are more productive, its assets are utilised more productively, and its operations are conducted more efficiently.

Accounting And Productivity: Answering The Big Questions, Gary Pan, Themin Suwardy

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

No abstract provided.

Helping Hands, Gary Pan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

With economic uncertainty prevailing in recent years, Singapore is being confronted with the challenges of managing growing aging population, acute land and labour constraints and rising business operating costs. If left unchecked, these challenges may threaten Singapore’s economic well-being and consequently its status as a global and financial hub. To address these challenges, many believe productivity-driven growth can deliver sustainable and inclusive economic development and improve Singapore’s standard of living over time. The National Productivity and Continuing Education Council (NPCEC), set up to spur Singapore to step up its efforts to boost skills and enterprise productivity, has identified the accountancy …

Productivity Measurements For Accounting Functions, Themin Suwardy

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The finance department is under pressure to enhance its own value contribution to the business, deliver high quality information and maintain effective controls. It is subject to the same continuing internal demands to reduce the cost of its own operations. To be more effi cient, be more productive. But many finance departments are in a quandary. They are unsure how to demonstrate whether they are delivering real value to the business and to what extent they meet best practice standards for world-class finance departments.

Propensity And Comprehensiveness Of Corporate Internet Reporting In Egypt :Do Board Composition And Ownership Structure Matter?, Sara Abdallah, Khaled Samaha, Khaled Dahawy, Ahmed Abdel-Meguid

Business Administration

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of corporate governance attributes of listed Egyptian companies on the propensity (adoption) and comprehensiveness (quality) of corporate internet reporting (CIR) practices.

Design/methodology/approach – This study uses archival data from the largest (top) 100 listed companies on the Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX 100). Corporate governance attributes are captured by ownership structure (free float, managerial ownership, government ownership) and board of directors’ structure (board size, board independence, CEO-chair duality). Empirical models are used to estimate the effects of these attributes on the propensity, content, presentation, and overall comprehensiveness of CIR. …

Accounting For Goodwill Pre&Post Sfas 142 And The Implications For Earnings Management, Liang Jian Wu

Honors Scholar Theses

This thesis explores how impairment charges driven by management assessment have led to the possibility of earnings management under the SFAS 142 standard. The goal of carrying out this research is to help the user understand the implications behind allowing management to judge impairment charges (US GAAP) versus pre SFAS 142 when intangibles such as a goodwill were amortized (currently IFRS).

How has SFAS 142 opened the door for earnings management? If there is evidence to prove this assumption, then what factors drive management's impairment decisions. This information is pertinent to investors when analyzing a potential investment as goodwill can …

Detecting Fraud In Bankrupt Municipalities Using Benford's Law, Allyn H. Haynes

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores if fraud or mismanagement in municipal governments can be diagnosed or detected in advance of their bankruptcies by financial statement analysis using Benford’s Law. Benford’s Law essentially states that the distribution of first digits from real world observations would not be uniform, but instead follow a trend where numbers with lower first digits (1, 2…) occur more frequently than those with higher first digits (…8,9). If a data set does not follow Benford’s distribution, it is likely that the data has been manipulated. This widespread phenomenon has been used as a tool to detect anomalies in data …

Organizational Ethics In Accounting: A Comparison Of Utilitarianism And Christian Deontological Principles, Katherine Y. Masten

Senior Honors Theses

Within the field of accounting, there never seems to be a lack of conflict between an individual’s morals and the ethical responsibilities an employee has to the company. This paper will demonstrate many of these ethical conflicts within the field of accounting. It will also demonstrate how strong leadership and leaders who adhere to strong values and ethical systems will positively affect the relationship between employees’ ethical values and the application of their moral values to the company. A specific ethical dilemma that arises within accounting tends to be the utilitarian conflict. Since the greater good is accomplished in this …

Fair Value Accounting: How Bad Decisions Bring Blame To Beneficial Accounting Procedures, Thomas John Ciulla

Senior Honors Theses

The Great Recession has sparked a debate amongst accounting professionals and economic analysts. There has been a concerted effort to blame fair value accounting and FAS 157 as the recession’s root cause and an attempt to challenge FASB to return to the historic cost principle. This paper examines the guidelines and procedures for mark to market as established by FASB, observes the events leading up to the recession, conditions that materialized at the start of the recession, evaluates the role fair value played in the financial crisis, and considers how fair value should be used in the future.

Accounting Capstone Course Design: Using The Internet To Modernize A Graduate Accounting Capstone Course, Diane S. Bloom, Clemense Ehoff Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Business

This second paper describes how the Internet was used to modernize a graduate accounting capstone course to enhance student interest and learning, and is an extension of an earlier paper that examined a similar approach with an undergraduate accounting capstone course. Course content was developed from contemporary issues and cases obtained from the Internet. Benefits, drawbacks, and feedback from students who completed the updated course are presented as a basis for future study. The concepts and techniques presented in this analysis can easily be applied to capstone courses in other disciplines.

Journal Of Public Budgeting, Accounting And Financial Management [Abstract], Mary Fischer, Treba Marsh

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Survey Of Accounting Faculty Perceptions Regarding Tenure And Post-Tenure Review, James H. Thompson

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Business

Attaining tenure is a goal of every faculty member. Indeed, at the beginning of every faculty member’s career, there is concern regarding the process of earning tenure. Many factors enter into the tenure decision, but most universities place weight on three primary factors: teaching effectiveness, research activity, and demonstration of service to the university and beyond. The relative importance of these three factors varies, but most universities expect “satisfactory” performance in all three areas. One of the historical reasons for faculty tenure is to protect academic freedom. Once tenure was attained, a faculty member’s academic freedom was considered safe. Recent …

Three Interdisciplinary Studies On It Outsourcing, Sonia Gantman Vilvovsky

2012

This dissertation provides interdisciplinary insights into the role of client's internal collaborative experience in managing communication during a complex outsourced project, building a quality client-vendor relationship and ultimately achieving success in the project. Each of the three studies in this dissertation identifies a gap in existing scholarship and proposes an interdisciplinary research agenda.

The first essay advances the development of the public sector IT outsourcing (ITO) inquiry by consolidating the existing research into an analytical framework and validating a part of the framework with rich qualitative data collected from collaborative initiatives of public safety agencies ("Public Safety Networks", or PSN). …

Three Studies Of Stakeholder Influence In The Formation And Management Of Tax Policies, Jason Chen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three separate but interrelated studies examining the formation and management of tax policies. The first study uses stakeholder theory (ST) to investigate the strategic management practices of the Transport for London (TfL) during discrete stages in the adoption, implementation, and amendments of the tax policy reform known as the London Congestion Charge (LCC). Results indicate that TfL has utilized power, legitimacy, and urgency as its main policy management tactics with a significant emphasis on legitimatizing the LCC and its subsequent policy amendments. The second study draws on social exchange theory (SET) to reexamine the relationship between …

Outsourcing: More Harm Than Good, Ly Luu Pham

Honors Theses

Outsourcing is a highly effective strategy, widely used in various types of business to gain a competitive edge. The tremendous growth of outsourcing first started in the manufacturing and information technology industries. It has also spread into the accounting industry as well. However, in accounting the major problems and benefits caused by outsourcing are different from those identified in the manufacturing and IT industries. This leads to the question of whether or not outsourcing in accounting would create more advantages than disadvantages. This paper analyzes the question through four steps: (1) how accounting outsourcing is done, (2) which accounting tasks …

The Effect Of Ifrs Convergence On Coastal Carolina University Accounting Major Students, Stephanie Wehrung

Honors Theses

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been working with the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in converging United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US GAAP) with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The US is one of the last large economic powers in the world remaining that has yet to start reporting using IFRS. The business environment is not the only group that is facing great obstacles with this change; universities will also be facing difficulties as they try to properly prepare students for their future careers. Accounting students will obviously be affected, …

The Smartest "Guise" In The Room: Why America Is Doomed To Repeat An Enron-Like Scandal, Shayne Reddington

Honors Theses

There is no question that Enron has brought change to the landscape surrounding business practices both domestically and globally. After the Emon Scandal occurred, Congress passed a very controversial and groundbreaking legislative act known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act as a means of stopping the conditions that made this widespread scandal possible. There are several reasons why another Emon-type Scandal is prone to repeat itself in the near future. One of the reasons is that Sarbanes-Oxley is not the perfect bill. Although the controversial Sarbanes-Oxley is a valiant effort to reform the environment that fostered Enron, there are major gaps and …

Comprehensive Income Reporting: Fasb Decides Location Matters, Dennis Chambers

Faculty Articles

The article reports on Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2011-05 issued by the Financial Accounting Services Board (FASB) in June 2011. It states that the standard requires all companies to report comprehensive income and components either in one continuous statement or in two separate, but consecutive, net income and other comprehensive income statements.In both cases, companies must reportedly now report in an income statement-type location for total comprehensive income.

Students Perceptions Of Cheating In Online Business Courses, Michael P. Watters, Paul J. Robertson, Renae K. Clark

School of Accountancy Faculty Publications

Accounting majors enrolled in business courses at two different universities were asked to complete a survey questionnaire pertaining to cheating in online business courses. Specifically, students majoring in Accounting were asked about their awareness online business courses as well as their opinions regarding the credibility of online courses and the effectiveness of different techniques that may be used to prevent cheating. Forty-six percent of students indicated that they had knowledge of students receiving help with an online exam/quiz. Overall, 75 percent of respondents indicated that the most effective technique to prevent cheating on online exams/quizzes is the use of random …

Personal Intern Experience Assessment, Jacob Reed

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

I am a senior, finishing up the last accounting class for my undergraduate degree in accounting. I recently completed an internship with PwC in the McLean, Virginia office. At PwC, I was an assurance intern primarily responsible for assisting my engagement teams by performing tests around financial statement line items such as 'cash.' I learned quite a bit about the PWC process for auditing these items because I performed these same procedures on six different clients.

My role as an intern was to perform uniform tasks that needed to be done on each engagement, and when I was done I …

Impact On Financial Statements Of New Accounting Model For Leases, Wenqi Ma

Honors Scholar Theses

On August 17, 2010 the IASB and FASB published an Exposure Draft on leases. A new accounting model for leases which would include both financing lease and operating leases was proposed. According to the World Leasing Yearbook 2010, $640 billion was involved in leasing activity, of which a significant amount is not reported on the lessees' balance sheets [1]. The current leases which firms report in the financial statement notes showed that most companies currently have financing leases although many do not capitalize all of these leases. The new accounting model for leases would be a challenge for companies to …

The Role Of Accounting In The Use Of Employee Options, Hemang Desai, Zining Li, Suning Zhang

Accounting Research

The determinants of the dramatic increase in the use of employee stock options in the 1990s and the subsequent decline in their popularity have been the subject of intense debate. Some have argued and found evidence to support that the discretion granted to firms to avoid recognizing the fair value of options as an expense led to their overuse for employee compensation. Others have argued and found evidence that the market “sees through” the accounting treatment for options and values firms as though options were expensed at fair value, regardless of financial statement treatment. We revisit this issue with the …

Ethics In Accounting: Sustainability As A Predictor Of Financial Statement Usefulness, Kyle L. Shipley

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines the impact of ethics on financial statement usefulness in 120 publicly traded companies. Because ethics are difficult, if not impossible, to quantify, Corporate Social Responsibility ratings are used as a proxy. The potential implications of this study are vast, though the main idea is that investors would be able to make better financial decisions should the hypothesis come to fruition. Contrarily, investors will also be able to avoid potentially bad investments if they can ascertain certain companies that lack ethical values. In this paper, I will discuss several facets of corporate ethics such as creative accounting in …