Science Publications

Customer Profitability Analysis Reports for Resource Allocation:The Role of Complex Marketing Environments

admin — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 01:08:51 +0000

Most decision making research in management accounting remains focused on cost information in a production context. Little is known on the relevance of customer profifitability analysis (CuPA) reports, which more accurately reflect revenue and marketing support variations acrosscustomers, for marketing decisions. (more…)

Corporate Lobbying on Accounting Standards:Methods, Timing and Perceived Effectiveness

admin — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 01:05:47 +0000

There is a long-standing concern in the literature about the potential importance of non-observable forms of lobbying that may be used by corporate managers to influence accounting standard setting bodies. To date, however, no study has documented their nature or their volume. This study provides such evidence in the context of the U.K.’s Accounting Standards Board (ASB) standard setting process for the period 1991-96. (more…)

Political Influence and Coexistence of a Uniform Accounting System and Accounting Standards: Recent Developments in China

admin — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 01:02:24 +0000

This article investigates the role of political influence, as well as accounting tradition and the equity market, in China’s recent changes in accounting regulation. We find that the Chinese government, in part self-motivated and in part under external pressure, has been active in developing accounting standards in harmony with international accounting standards. However, it has retained a uniform accounting system in the (more…)

Gaps in Guidelines on Audit Committees

admin — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:57:21 +0000

Since the 1940s, advocacy of the establishment of audit committees was undertaken by regulatory agencies, and subsequently by the accounting profession, and committees representing combinations of interest groups. Over time, this advocacy literature has reflected changing views about the key responsibilities of audit committees. (more…)

Applying Conceptual Framework Principles to Superannuation Fund Accounting

admin — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:52:50 +0000

The Australian accounting standard AAS 25, Financial Reporting by Superannuation Plans, was the first pension accounting standard internationally to apply established conceptual framework (CF) principles. In Australia those principles have guided standard setting for more than a decade. However, AAS 25 has been criticized for failing to provide useful financial information. The analysis provided in this article addresses this paradox. The findings reveal major anomalies in AAS 25 associated with the treatment of accrued benefits that distort financial position and performance measures. The conceptual flaws in the standard are attributed to the misapplication of CF principles and an absence of adequate guidance in the CF for non-corporate entities such as superannuation funds. (more…)

Judgment and Decision Making in Project Continuation: A Study of Students as Surrogates for Experienced Managers

admin — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:51:20 +0000

This work explores the efficacy of using students as surrogates for experienced managers in escalation studies. Participants were 222 managers with substantial project planning and evaluation experience and 146 undergraduate business students. Our results show that the experienced managers exhibited a strong tendency to continue projects, with this tendency being positively related to the degree of project completion. (more…)

The Impact of the Type of Accounting Standards on Preparers’ Judgments

admin — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:49:28 +0000

This article examines preparers’ consolidation judgments and how they are impacted by the precision of accounting standards (substance-over-form versus rules-based). The examination is performed via two laboratory experiments in a consolidated accounting setting. (more…)

The Profits of the Dutch East India Company’s Japan Trade

admin — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:47:37 +0000

This article analyses the eighteenth-century accounting practices of the Japanese trading station or factory of the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC). The factory’s trade and its reported profits declined during the eighteenth century, but because of the complexity of the accounting issues involved, contemporaries held different views on whether the accounting data supported a continuation of the factory’s operations. For similar reasons, some historians have argued that the maintenance of the factory in the face of declining profits illustrates the poor quality of the VOC’s management, while others have argued in favour of the economic viability of the factory. The purpose of this article is to a more comprehensive analysis of the accounting issues facing the Japanese factory present in the eighteenth century than offered to date, in order to propose a way in which the accounting records may be approached as a source of data for historical research. :The conclusions are twofold. First, there were three main accounting issues facing the factory that should be considered when interpreting the accounting records. These issues can be summarized as transfer pricing, currency translation and overhead allocation. (more…)

Stock Price Response to News of Securities Fraud Litigation:An Analysis of Sequential and Conditional Information

admin — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:46:00 +0000

This study examines investor response to three events that help define a federal class action securities lawsuit, specifically, the announcement that names an issuer as a defendant in the lawsuit (at the class action filing date), the disclosure or accounting restatement that ‘corrects’ the information deficiency (at the end of the class period), and the date at which the fraud on the market allegedly begins (at the beginning of the class period). (more…)

Modern Costing Innovations and Legitimation: A Health Care Study

admin — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:43:47 +0000

This article is a study of the introduction of a modern costing technology - activity based costing (ABC) - into a health care organization which is undergoing change. The transformation of this organization is of particular interest as it focused on the experience of a service which had always existed by collecting blood, which is given as a free donation (the gift), and which is then converted into a variety of health care products. (more…)