Displaying expected values in risk elicitation tasks: the effect of information in experimental risk research

We investigate the influence of providing expected lottery results to experiment participants in two common risk attitude elicitation tasks. In a between-subject design, either the Holt and Laury task or the Eckel and Grossman task is carried out by a sample of 208 students. We find no significant effect of shown expected values on the risk attitude measured by the tasks. This result even holds true if we divide the experiment participants into specific sub-groups, i.e. female and male, or lower numeracy and higher numeracy participants. Furthermore, comprehension and processing time are not significantly influenced by presented expected values. Therefore, we conclude that providing information on expected values does not influence decision-making in tasks involving risk. This result indicates the robustness of elicited risk attitudes to variation in common experimental methods, and demonstrates that more information could be provided without creating bias in the results.     

Causal reasoning in performance assessment: Effects of cause and effect temporal order and covariation

The role of information in the process of diagnostic inference required for the evaluation of operational performance was investigated. Assuming the role of a manufacturing division manager, subjects were asked to estimate the likelihoods of four potential causes of a department's weekly labor efficiency variance. Given requested items of evidence, subjects were asked to re-estimate the causal likelihoods. The results generally confirmed a set of hypotheses predicting the effects of cause/effect temporal orders and cause/effect covariations, supporting the notions that temporal order and covariation are cues-to-causality used by individuals when inferring causality and that temporal order is a noncompensatory cue. Additional evidence is presented that supports the notion that although individuals prefer evidence concerned with confirming the cause/effect relation to evidence concerned with disconfirming the relation, preference for evidence concerned with disconfirming the relation increases as additional items of evidence are sought.     

Does gender matter in bank–firm relationships? Evidence from small business lending

In this paper we study the relevance of the gender of the contracting parties involved in lending. We show that female entrepreneurs face tighter credit availability, even though they do not pay higher interest rates. The effect is independent of the information available about the borrower and holds if we control for unobservable individual effects. The gender of the loan officer is also important: we find that female officers are more risk-averse or less self-confident than male officers as they tend to restrict credit availability to new, un-established borrowers more than their male counterparts.     

Gender differences in the first course in accounting: An achievement goal approach

We examine whether gendered patterns can be observed in first-year students' achievement goals in an introductory accounting course; a question largely overlooked by prior literature. This investigation is motivated by perceptions of accounting as a masculine field involving gender role stereotypes and business schools as competitive and performance-oriented environments. Our findings suggest that male students tend to adopt performance-approach goal, implying that they are more competitive than female students, and that their performance is thus driven by a desire to outperform others. Our findings further suggest that male students' expectations of learning accounting are higher than those of female students. The expectations explain the gender differences in the performance-approach goal. Finally, we find that this performance-approach goal mediates gender differences in course performance depending on the mode of assessment; male students received higher grades for exams but not for teamwork. Overall, our study highlights the importance of considering contextual aspects related to competitiveness, masculinity, and the mode of assessment on an accounting course when addressing students’ achievement goals and expectations of learning accounting. We thus contribute to the understanding of how learning environment, accounting pedagogy, and the broader field of professional accounting intersects with individual student attributes, creating differential learning outcomes.     

Vernacular accountings: Bridging the cognitive and the social in the analysis of employee-generated accounting systems

We unpack the concept of “informal accounting systems” and bracket “vernacular accountings” based on the modality and source of legitimacy of such systems. Vernacular accountings are accounting and control systems that are self-generated by organizational actors in the context of their work and not officially sanctioned within the organizational hierarchy. We argue that these systems capture actionable knowledge from the epistemic perspective of their users. We identify three ideal types of vernacular accountings: vernacular accountings as an inventory of knowledge that employees construct to meet their task specific information needs; vernacular accountings as a defensive resource constructed and used by employees who resist or do not trust the formally sanctioned systems; and, vernacular accountings as organizational practice that has both pragmatic and epistemic functions and that facilitates distributed cognition. Drawing on an epistemic perspective that spans cognitive and social levels of analysis we develop theoretical propositions on the emergence and use of these three types of vernacular accountings.     

Socialization and processing effects on comprehension of credit card advertisement disclosures

This study examines how college students comprehend the disclosures in a credit card advertisement through two main perspectives: socialization and processing. The results reveal that socialization and processing influence college students’ comprehension of the disclosures differently. In general, message involvement with the disclosures may enhance comprehension of the disclosures positively. However, college students’ experiences in using a credit card, enhanced by information search and number of credit cards owned, may have an inverse and negative effect on comprehension of the disclosures. While female students tend to exhibit more experiences in using a credit card, male and female students comprehend the disclosures to the same degree. This also suggests that female students may be more susceptible to ignore the disclosures, whereas an attended and informed card user provides the best defense against costly mistakes in neglecting important disclosures in credit card solicitations.     

The effects of analyst forecasts and earnings trends on perceptions of management forecast credibility

We examine whether analyst forecasts influence investors’ perceptions of the credibility of a good news management earnings forecast. We hypothesize that the effect of analyst forecasts will depend on whether the analyst forecast confirms management’s forecast and the extent to which management’s forecast is consistent with the prior earnings trend. Findings indicate that the positive effect of a confirming analyst forecast is greater when the management forecast is trend inconsistent than when it is trend consistent. The negative effect of a disconfirming analyst forecast does not differ based on management forecast trend consistency.     

Gender and Performance in Accounting Examinations: Exploring the Impact of Examination Format

This paper addresses the question of whether the increasing use of multiple-choice questions will favour particular student groups, i.e. male or female students. Using data from Belgium, this paper empirically examines the existence of a gender effect by comparing the relative performance of male and female students in both multiple-choice and constructed-response questions in financial accounting examinations. The study is motivated by the increasing number of students in accounting classes, changes in the gender mix in accounting classes, and debates over appropriate means of assessment. We find that female students outperform male students in answering questions in both formats, but their superiority in multiple-choice questions is diminished in comparison with constructed-response questions. This might suggest that multiple choice questions favour male students more than female students. The results hold even if we restrict the comparison to multiple-choice and constructed-response questions having the same general content (e.g. exercise type). Furthermore, the diminishing result was found both for undergraduate and postgraduate students. These results should prompt those involved in assessment to be cautious in planning the type of assessment used in evaluating students.     

An Examination of the Effect of Hypothesis Framing on Auditors'Information Choices in an Analytical Procedure Task

Libby (1985) contends that auditors'search for and evaluation of audit evidence, particularly during analytical procedures, is influenced by an explicitly or implicitly formulated hypothesis. Often a hypothesis may be'framed'in alternative ways. For example, an auditor may frame analytical procedure results in terms of a'misstatement'or a'non-misstatement'frame. The concern arises that alternatively framed, but otherwise identical, audit issues may be treated differently. This concern has led Kinney and Haynes (1990) to propose modifying auditing standards to direct auditors to adopt a'misstatement'frame. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether alternative analytical procedure frames affect auditors'information choices in an analytical procedure task. An experiment was conducted in which auditors listed which information cues were relevant to explain an unusual financial statement fluctuation. Half of the information cues made a misstatement explanation more plausible whereas half of the information cues made a non-misstatement explanation more plausible. The results indicate that hypothesis frame significantly affected auditors'information choices. Specifically, auditors in the misstatement (non-misstatement) frame select more misstatement (non-misstatement) cues as relevant. The hypothesis frame, however, did not significantly affect probability assessments.     

非英语专业学生看图作文构思策略的研究

本研究基于Hayers和Nash的写作构思分类,通过量化的研究手段,探讨在看图作文语料中,非英语专业学生的作文成绩与构思策略的关系.研究表明学生的作文成绩与语言构思显著相关,与解题、内容构思、结构构思不相关.不同水平学生在语言构思上有差异,在其他几项策略上没有显著差异.但高水平学生更注重结构构思,低水平学生更注重内容构思.女生在语言构思上与男生有差异,在其他几项策略上没有显著差异,但女生的结构构思策略要高于男生,而男生的内容构思策略高于女生.同时也反映出与写作活动有关的情境问题以及构思和中西思维模式等方面的问题.     

Organizing information into useful management reports: Short cases to illustrate reporting principles and coding

The accounting information systems course snatches students from their comfort zone of debits and credits and drops them into the position of czar of information needed by managers to make decisions and manage their day-to-day operations. Instructors of this course have the daunting task of teaching students how to report information in a way that it is meaningful to managers. These reports must adhere to principles not necessarily pertinent to the financial statements with which students are already familiar. These principles of management reports include concise and timely reports, inclusion of physical as well as monetary data, and exception reporting. The authors have developed and used three different teaching cases that resemble real-world experience to help students understand and apply these reporting principles. These cases can be used individually, and instructors might choose to use more than one of them in their AIS course. In addition, these cases challenge students to develop data coding methods that must be used to enable the generation of reports adhering to these principles. Learning objectives, implementation guidance, and teaching notes are provided. Feedback from students on the use of these cases has been overwhelmingly positive. The cases were administered at two universities (the authors’ university and another university) during the fall 2013 semester. The questionnaires administered to the instructor and the students are provided. Results included in this paper suggest that both the students and the instructors found the cases interesting and useful.     

Sex role socialization and perceptions of student academic dishonesty by male and female accounting faculty

We examine differences between male and female accounting faculty members’ perceptions of academic dishonesty and their uses of controls to prevent academically dishonest behaviour. We use socialization concepts to motivate our examination of these differences. Specifically, we find that females generally perceive academic dishonesty to be a more significant problem than do males, females see individual incidences of academic dishonesty as more frequent and more significant than do males, and female academics report they exercise controls to prevent academic dishonesty more frequently than do male academics. These findings are consistent with differential sex role socialization for women and men. We also find that male and female accounting academics’ perceptions converge with professional training and teaching experience, suggesting moderating impacts of professional and/or organizational socialization on perceptions of academic dishonesty. Lastly, we document some differences in how male and female accounting academics respond to known incidences of academically dishonest behaviour.     

Factors affecting classroom participation and how participation leads to a better learning

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we analyze various course- and student-related factors that affect participation grades within several college accounting classes. The second purpose is to determine whether in-class participation grades have an effect on exam performance in these classes. We find that, unlike in liberal arts and sciences courses, in accounting courses, participation grades for female students do not differ from participation grades for their male counterparts, regardless of class level. Overall, course level and student major have no direct effect on participation grades; however, the accounting majors and students in the lower level courses have better attendance than do non-accounting majors and students in more advanced courses. We observe that class schedule, in particular class duration and semester, affects students’ participation performance. Lastly, we find that students who participate more in classroom discussions perform 25% better on exams than do those with lower participation grades. This relationship holds for the three elements of participation grading: frequency of participation, consistency of participation, and attendance.     

Media image of the CEO and the impact on auditors' perception of financial reporting reliability and client risk assessments

Regulators and legislators have recently adopted new governance reforms in an attempt to encourage more normative behavior by those in charge of organizations. It should not be surprising, therefore, that the image of the CEO projected by the media has become increasingly salient to decision makers. Still, the impact of CEO image on stakeholders' perceptions and subsequent behavior has received little attention by accounting researchers. In response to this void, we examine the relationship between two important environmental cues: CEO's image as presented in the media and earnings consistency. Our interest is the degree to which these variables influence auditors' perception of the ethics of corporate management, as well as their assessments of the risk of fraudulent financial statements. We document that auditor perceptions are influenced by positive media cues as well as negative cues. These results are inconsistent with auditors exercising professional skepticism which implies no reliance on positive cues, especially “managed media cues”. These results suggest that auditors, similar to others, are not immune to positive media cues about the CEO. This study contributes to the research literature examining factors that affect the perceived reliability of financial information by considering the effect of non-financial information—CEO image.     

Effect of different types of feedback on the level of auditors' configural information processing

Previous audit judgement research has emphasized the importance of auditors processing information configurally (i.e. jointly considering the impact of different cues). This paper examines the impact of four different forms of feedback (outcome, task properties, cognitive and combined) on increasing the extent of configural information processing by auditors. We find that task properties, cognitive and combined (task properties plus cognitive) feedback all lead to increased configural information processing. There is no impact of outcome feedback. We also find that the extent of configural processing is positively associated with our measure of judgement performance. We discuss the implications of the results for audit firms.     

Desired attributes of public accounting firms in the job selection process: an empirical examination of accounting graduates' perceptions

The purpose of this study is to identify attributes of public accounting firms that accounting graduates find most desirable in their job selection decisions, and the impacts of individual differences on these perceptions. Factor analysis performed on the responses of 167 final-year accounting students in Hong Kong to a 30-item questionnaire identified seven factors. The results indicate that accounting graduates considered help in finishing their professional accounting examinations and good staff relationships as the most important criteria in their choice of employers. In addition, female accounting graduates were more concerned about the possibility of being required to travel or be transferred, but were less concerned about the reputation and profile (such as the client base and the size) of the firms than their male counterparts. Accounting graduates with a higher grade point average (GPA) were less concerned about the working environment, but more concerned about a firms' reputation and profile than those with a lower GPA. The implications of these results are discussed.     

An organizational contingencies view of accounting and information systems implementation

Most research on accounting and information systems (A&IS) development and implementation has focused on the individual and small group level phenomena which impact implementation success. While some researchers have considered organizational level variables, no consistent relationships between these variables and A&IS implementation success have yet emerged. To a great extent, this is due to an atheoretical research approach coupled with an undifferentiated view of A&IS.This paper develops a typology of A&IS types based on the nature of the task supported by the system. Theory and the results of research in the organization design area are drawn upon to develop propositions about the differential impacts of eight organizational characteristics on the implementation of different A&IS types. These propositions form an organizational level framework for analyzing A&IS implementation. The propositions can serve as testable hypotheses for future research efforts.     

中国利率市场的价格发现——对国债现货、期货以及利率互换市场的研究

本文采用信息份额模型和基于向量自回归(VAR)模型的格兰杰因果检验,研究了国债现货、国债期货和利率互换三个市场之间的价格发现机制。信息份额模型表明,从整体来看利率互换相对于国债期货和国债现货都具有信息优势,而国债期货相对于国债现货具有信息优势。另外,国债期货的价格发现能力相对于另外两个市场都在随时间增强。格兰杰因果检验结果显示,利率互换在价格发现中单向引领国债期货以及国债现货,国债期货单向引领国债现货。所有结果一致表明, 利率互换和国债期货这两种利率衍生产品在引导中国利率市场价格发现中发挥了重要作用。