Identifying and Managing Control System Benefits and Costs

A well‐functioning management control system is essential to ensure the organization's strategy is executed as planned. While accounting students are provided many opportunities to master the design of management control systems, students are provided fewer opportunities to practice applying management control systems. This interactive role play allows students to experience the challenges managers face when applying organizational control systems. The role play fits best at the end of the unit where instructors have reviewed management control system design and application and is best suited for undergraduate and MBA students who have little or no supervisory experience. Students rated the role play as highly effective, as 97 percent (n = 38) of the students recommend that instructors at other institutions adopt this exercise.     

South African Career Guidance Counsellors' and Mathematics Teachers' Perception of the Accounting Profession

The shortage of accounting professionals is well-documented. To address this shortage, greater numbers of school students should be attracted and enrolled in undergraduate accounting programmes. Unfortunately, school students may have misperceptions of the accounting profession. These misperceptions may result in potential entrants to the profession being lost to other professions. Secondary school teachers play an influential role in students' perceptions of future careers. This survey assessed the perceptions of the secondary school career guidance counsellors and mathematics teachers' perceptions of the accounting profession in South Africa in comparison to the medical, engineering and legal professions. The findings suggest that the accounting profession is held in lower esteem than the engineering and medical professions, but in higher esteem than the legal profession. The findings confirm previous research conducted in the USA, Australasia and Japan. Marketing and recruitment programmes should educate secondary school teachers as to the true nature of the accounting profession.     

The budgetary interview: Intentional learning for students in governmental and non-profit accounting

Learning-to-learn skills are critical to the future success of accounting students. This paper reports on a budgetary interview exercise that helps students develop as intentional learners. Students select a government or non-profit agency to investigate, arrange an interview with an agency official to discuss the budgetary process, write a technical paper on what was learned, and record their reflections on the experience. The budgetary interview exercise was implemented with undergraduate students in governmental and non-profit accounting courses over four academic years (one course per year). Effectiveness of the exercise was assessed via content analysis of student papers and reflections. Results indicate the exercise was highly effective in helping students develop intentional learning skills. Furthermore, students successfully connected classroom material to “real-world” practice, and most students reflected on potential careers in governmental or non-profit sectors. Appendices provide materials that instructors may use to implement this exercise.     

Postgraduate research students: You are the future of the Academy

This paper explores the changing role of the university developed and changed over time, and how this is likely to change further in the next 25 years. By drawing on scenarios for the future of the HE sector in the UK in 2035, the article argues that postgraduate research students will be the key factor that sustains the future of the Academy as universities focus more and more attention on the teaching of ever increasing numbers of undergraduate students. The paper highlights the danger of a divide occurring between the idea of the university and the notion of the Academy in the future, and the essential role that research students will play in ensuring this divide remains bridged. The article argues that it is imperative for universities to expand their postgraduate research degree provision if the Academy is to continue in the future as the foundation to knowledge creation.     

The Implementation of IAS 16 and IAS 41 at Andrew Peller Limited

This case asks students to play the role of Doug Grodeckie, Manager of Financial Reporting at Andrew Peller Limited (APL). Doug was asked to prepare a report analyzing Andrew Peller Limited's current tangible long-lived assets disclosures and making recommendations on how best to comply with International Accounting Standard (IAS) 16 Property, Plant and Equipment and IAS 41 Agricultural Property by APL's Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Peter Patchet, and Controller, Gary Laufman. Students are provided with background information on APL, the Canadian wine industry, the implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Canada and the implementation of IFRS at APL. The case is based on field research from interviews with Doug Grodeckie, Gary Laufman and Peter Patchet, and on publicly available information from various sources.     

The Inherent Power of Common Law Courts to Provide Assistance in Cross‐Border Insolvencies: From Comity to Complexity

The weighty and difficult issues associated with cross‐border insolvency have generated considerable debate over the last two decades. Legislative reform has typically proven slow and fragmented. This article analyses the inherent power of common law courts to grant assistance in cross‐border insolvency proceedings and the basis on which the inherent power is exercised. In doing so, it seeks to explore how the inherent power may continue to be of utility to common law courts. In particular, it considers the position in jurisdictions that are yet to adopt the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law Model Law on Cross‐Border Insolvency or enact a substantial statutory regime for recognising and cooperating with foreign courts or representatives in insolvency proceedings. The article considers the benefits and disadvantages of continuing to recognise – and extend – the inherent power. It suggests that although there are fundamental differences concerning the exercise of the inherent power, it may be possible to agree on a number of principles that inform the application of the inherent power and its future development. Copyright © 2017 INSOL International and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Enhancing Students' Enabling Competencies: Student Perspectives and Recommendations for Educators*

Employers continue to express concern that accounting graduates lack the necessary competencies when they enter the workplace. These concerns have been addressed in part by periodic revisions to Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada's (CPA Canada) CPA Competency Map, which is used to define competencies for entry into the profession. The CPA Competency Map has recently been revised to include a new set of enabling competencies (often called generic or soft skills). However, the accounting literature highlights a concern that time and resources spent on the expanding set of enabling competencies could take valuable resources away from teaching technical accounting skills. In addition, the education literature indicates that student motivation plays a key role in learning. If students are motivated to learn enabling competencies, then educational efforts could be more efficient and effective. Conversely, a lack of student motivation could reduce student engagement and learning. To address these concerns, we investigated the student's perspective on the importance of enabling competencies as well as on how and where enabling competencies should be learned. We surveyed 380 students enrolled in the CPA Canada Professional Education Program (PEP). We investigated the three new enabling competencies that are most distinct from the previous set of competencies and that may be the most difficult for accounting educators to teach: adaptability and resilience; creativity and innovation; and active listening. We asked students about the importance of these new enabling competencies for their future careers and whether the competencies should be taught in PEP or in the workplace. Our results indicate that students believe that the new enabling competencies are important and should be learned in both the classroom and the workplace. Moreover, student responses to open-ended questions provide educators with suggestions on how to incorporate enabling competencies into the classroom by blending activities that could simultaneously enhance enabling competencies with technical competencies.     

Measuring Longevity Risk: An Application to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Pension Plan

An employer that sets up a defined benefit pension plan promises to periodically pay a certain sum to each participant starting at some future date and continuing until death. Although both the future beneficiary and the employer can be asked to finance the plan throughout the beneficiary's career, any shortcoming of funds in the future is often the employer's responsibility. It is therefore essential for the employer to be able to predict with a high degree of confidence the total amount that will be required to cover its future pension obligations. Applying mortality forecasting models to the case of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police pension plan, we illustrate the importance of mortality forecasting to value a pension fund's actuarial liabilities. As future survival rates are uncertain, pensioners may live longer than expected. We find that such longevity risk represents approximately 2.8 percent of the total liability ascribable to retired pensioners (as measured by the relative value at risk at the 95th percentile) and 2.5 percent of the total liabilities ascribable to current regular contributors. Longevity risk compounds the model risk associated with not knowing what is the true mortality model, and we estimate that model risk represents approximately 3.2 percent of total liabilities. The compounded longevity risk therefore represents almost 6 percent of the pension plan's total liabilities.     

Hill Valley University

Hill Valley University is faced with a number of issues in the current year, including a $12 million deficit. You, CPA, are asked to analyze a number of strategic and operational issues to help the Board make important decisions regarding various program growth and cost savings opportunities. You also are asked to assess the impact of various initiatives on the university's strategic plan and its students. Some issues, such as recruiting more international students and increasing class size, may affect the student learning experience. Other issues, such as the building of a new residence and the implementation of a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, may help the university increase its ranking. You, CPA, are also asked to incorporate your recommendations into a five‐year budget.     

Accounting education research: a retrospective over ten years with some pointers to the future

Abstract

This paper proposes principles to guide accounting students' and accounting educators' use of Facebook as an educational resource to engage students with their learning. A body of cross-disciplinary research has investigated potential applications of Facebook to invigorate student engagement. Generic guidelines for educators who are contemplating integrating Facebook into pedagogical practice are a recent addition to this research. However, there is a lack of disciplinary-specific guidelines to inform both accounting educators' and accounting students' use of Facebook as a learning resource. Indeed, Facebook's pedagogical affordances are a generally overlooked field of enquiry in accounting education research. The principles proposed in the paper are informed by the literature on Facebook and student engagement, and the concept of digital citizenship, which illuminates the importance of the responsible and professional use of Facebook by accounting students and the development of online practices and behaviours that enhance students' appeal to the accounting profession.     

Extending the classroom boundaries – an evaluation of an asynchronous discussion board

Accounting educators are being challenged to revitalize the accounting curriculum and to expand methods of delivery, especially through the application of technology. Web-enhanced course delivery offers an opportunity to expand delivery techniques. This paper evaluates an asynchronous discussion board group exercise in an intermediate accounting course. Analysis of students' perceptions of the exercise indicated that they considered it had contributed to their learning. The discussion board gave them time to analyse other students' responses and to prepare their own contributions. The results show the discussion board made it easier for non-English background students and students over 30 years of age to express an opinion, and made them feel they had to contribute to the discussion. Students raised issues about the quality of the contributions, the lack of feedback from the lecturer on discussion topics, the time taken to complete the exercise and the amount of work involved for the assessment weighting.     

Informed trading under different market conditions and moneyness: Evidence from TXO options

We examine the informational role of options across exercise prices under different market conditions. We analyze the influence of options' leverage effect, and market cycles on the cause–effect relation between stock and options markets based on an emerging options market—the Taiwan stock index options market. When aggregating market data irrespective of market cycles and options moneyness, we find that the equity market leads the options market. However, as we control options' moneyness and market cycles, we find that out-of-the-money options lead the stock market by up to 90 min with more pronounced results in downtrends and periods of political tension. Our findings suggest that the informational role of options is interacted with leverage effect and market conditions.     

China's search for the future: A genealogical approach

This paper is a dialectical inquiry, presenting a genealogy of, China futures discourses and visions from ancient times through to the, present. It uses both structural and macrohistorical based approaches. The identified worldviews are placed in their broader historical, epistemes; asked why change has occurred, how it fits within patterns of, history and what kind of futures are offered. It is unique in that I use, the futures triangle methodology to discuss the “pulls” of the future in, each historical era with the corresponding “pushes” of the present and, “weights” of the past. The article concludes with a theory of futures in, Chinese history and looks at which philosophies are likely to play a role, in the possible futures of China. The aim is to highlight which visions, and images have been victorious is affecting the present and influencing, the future.     

Electronic commerce and the marketing of Internet banking in the UK

Recent market research findings and financial services consultants' reports have signalled that electronic commerce will play an increasingly important role in consumers' future financial lives. This paper discusses such evidence and seeks to contextualise the debate on the future of banking through a discussion of consumers' financial behaviour, the UK Government's position and an analysis of UK financial providers' current marketing of Internet banking services to consumers.     

Linking metaphors of the future with socio-cultural prospects among Taiwanese high school students

This study is an investigation of diverse future metaphors used by Taiwanese high school students with the values and meanings that lie underneath them. The results show that “the strawberry” generation’s chosen metaphors demonstrate their capability of critical and self-reflective ways of thinking. They also exhibit a deep sense of global awareness, foresight capacity and their role as a change agent for a better future. Their preferred stories of the future involve an open and global environment, broad and diversified friendship, leisure and travel over work, family and relationships, and most importantly, a multicultural and sharing world. The most crucial conclusion is that when young people are asked to discuss their future, they begin to explore new possibilities.     

Coping with ambiguity through the budget: the positive effects of budgetary targets on managers' budgeting behaviours

Much consideration has been given over the years to what may be described as the `negative' aspect of budgeting; that budgets may constrain innovation and learning, and that budgetary pressure may lead to unintended behavioural side effects. In contrast to this, the present study examines the extent to which budgets have a more positive, `comforting' role to play in the individual's work experiences. We argue that managers confronted with uncertainties associated with role ambiguity may respond by becoming positively committed to achieving budgetary targets as budgets offer a source of structure and certainty. We find that the use of budgets as an antidote to role ambiguity is a powerful influence on the manager's budgeting behaviour. We test the strength of this effect and we find that budgetary commitment brought on by the experience of role ambiguity may over-ride the potential for recognised explanatory variables such as leadership style, the expectations of the superior, and occupational socialisation, to inform managers' budgeting behaviours in these circumstances. Budgets, it seems, may be as useful to the individual as they are problematic.     

Transdisciplinarity in the class room? Simulating the co-production of sustainability knowledge

Despite its many advantages, teaching transdisciplinary is a costly enterprise. Transferring diverse theoretical, methodological, and practical skills may require several teaching staff; developing meaningful stakeholder interaction is time-intensive; and managing the research process demands significant efforts in logistics and coordination. This article seeks to make two distinct contributions. Conceptually, it introduces a framework for distinguishing between soft, inclusive, reflexive, and hard transdisciplinarity, based on the notion that there are diminishing returns to all features of the practice. Empirically, it examines a classroom simulation – the Sustainable Development Indicator Exercise (SDIE) – as an example of soft transdisciplinarity. In the SDIE interdisciplinary student groups play the role of policy advisers. Building on a concrete transdisciplinary research project, they explore their understanding of sustainability, develop a multi-criteria decision making method for assessing sustainability criteria and indicators, elaborate and present their results, and reflect on their experience. All aspects of the exercise follow the logic of role playing: organizing group interaction, distributing responsibilities, interacting with their political principal, presenting their findings, and evaluating their progress. Experience from the simulation reveals insights into ways students address and express concerns with objectivity, transparency, deliberation, and balancing sustainability; it also points to ways for moving beyond soft transdisciplinarity.     

Bankers on the board and the debt ratio of firms

We investigate the impact that bankers on the board have upon a firm's debt ratio, debt to total capital, 1 year subsequent to their appointment. We find that the presence of lending bankers on a firm's board negatively affects the debt ratio, while the impact of non-lending bankers varies with the firm's probability of financial distress. The results suggest that non-lending bankers provide expertise and certification for distressed firms while exercising a monitoring role for non-distressed firms. In contrast, the results suggest that lenders on the board exercise a monitoring role independent of the firm's financial distress. When combined with established findings in the literature, we conclude that there may be two ways to avoid conflict between a board-appointed banker's fiduciary responsibility and the interests of her bank. When the potential for conflict is high, lenders may forgo board positions, while non-lending bankers may merely alter their role on the board.     

论新形式下高校旅游人才的培养原则

随着我国经济的发展,旅游在人们的生活中占据着越来越重要的地位,高校旅游教育的质量决定着未来旅游业的发展质量,而旅游教育的原则对高校旅游教育的人才培养目标起指导作用。