Sexual Harassment in the Public Accounting Profession?

Federal discrimination laws have defined two distinct types of activity that constitute sexual harassment – "hostile environment" and "quid pro quo." The Civil Rights Act of 1991 and more recent Supreme Court rulings make it easier for workers to win lawsuits claiming they were sexually harassed in the work environment.While the public accounting profession continues to address gender-related problems, it remains vulnerable to claims of sexual harassment. In an attempt to better understand the underlying risk the public accounting profession faces, this study focuses on identifying (1) the extent of sexual harassment in the public accounting profession, (2) the type of harassing behavior that is most common, and (3) where the harassment occurs.The research questions are addressed through a survey of female public accounting professionals who are members of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Their responses provide evidence that public accounting firms are exposed to significant internal risk. Sexual harassment and a sense of frustration in coping with this issue is evident in the data.Public accounting firms and their respective clients must pause and evaluate their working environment. The responsibility to design and establish a business atmosphere that will encourage and maintain professional relationships between colleagues lies with these firms.     

Accounting for operating environments in measuring water utilities’ managerial efficiency

In this paper adjusted input-specific scores of technical efficiency are computed for a sample of Spanish water utilities. Performance is adjusted by netting out efficiency scores from the effect of operating environments and statistical noise. The results show that computation of adjusted efficiency scores at the input level manifestly improves the assessment of utilities’ performance in our sample of water utilities. In addition, several environmental variables capable of affecting input-specific technical management are discovered, ownership or demand seasonality among them. Finally, distributions of conventional and adjusted scores of technical performance are found to be statistically different for some inputs.     

Interim Provisions Concerning the Establishment and Operation of Accounting Offices in China

China is opening its accounting entitymarket conditionally. To facilitatethe practice in society, the Ministryof Finance has formulated and published aseries of documents, including "InterimProvisions Concerning the Control of thePermanent Office of Representatives ofForeign Agencies of Certified Accountantin China", "Interim Provisions Concerningthe Control of the Offices of Certified PublicAccountant Operated Jointly by Chinese andForeign Partners" and a Circular Concerning     

The Accounting Standards Setting Process in the U.S.: Examination of the SEC–FASB Relationship

In the U.S. there is a close relationship between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a governmental agency legally responsible for setting accounting standards, and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), a private sector body to whom the SEC has delegated this responsibility. In this paper we examine the influence of the SEC on the FASB as evidenced by all major statements issued by the FASB. Minor statements, amendments, and strictly technical pronouncements were omitted because of their limited exposure to the political process. Our analysis reveals that the SEC applied substantial pressure on the FASB in the standard setting process and has not adopted a position of benign neglect.     

Ethical Decision Making in the Public Accounting Profession: An Extension of Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior

The purpose of this study is to expand our understanding of the factors that influence ethical behavioral intentions of public accountants. Recent scandals have dominated the news and have caused legislators, regulators and the public to question the role of the accounting profession. Legislative changes have brought about major structural changes in the profession and continued scrutiny will surely lead to further changes. Thus, developing an understanding of the personal and contextual factors that influence ethical decisions is critical. An extension of the theory of planned behavior [Ajzen, I.: 1985, Action Control-From Cognition to Behavior (Springer, Heidelberg)], the model used in this study examined the influence of personal, social and organizational factors on ethical intentions. Specifically, the individual level model tested direct effects of attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, moral sensitivity and ethical climate. Professionals from five accounting firms completed a survey that measured responses to ethical dilemmas related to the public accounting domain. To minimize the potential impact of common method bias, the survey instrument was administered in two phases. Hypotheses were evaluated using a structural modeling technique, partial least squares. Results show strong support for a direct relationship between attitudes and ethical intentions. The proposed direct effect of subjective norms was not supported. However, a significant relationship between subjective norms and attitudes was found. Professionals’ attitudes towards ethical issues clearly influence intentions. Moreover, this study illustrates the potential influence of social factors in attitude formation. Future research should explore the factors in the public accounting domain that most strongly influence attitude formation. This study suggests that the theory of reasoned action offers a useful framework for exploring these issues.     

What’s in it for Me? An Examination of Accounting Students’ Likelihood to Report Faculty Misconduct

Since there are so few controls over detecting and preventing faculty misconduct, one of the most common ways in which it is discovered is through student reports (in other words, whistleblowing). Given the importance of student reports in bringing to light faculty’s ethical lapses, this paper seeks to understand what factors influence students’ likelihood to report faculty misconduct. We develop an empirical model that integrates the decision process of the Prosocial Organizational Behavior (POB) Model with insights from the emotional perspective on whistleblowing. Specifically, we use an experimental survey to examine how students’ perceived unfairness of the faculty misconduct, feelings of anger, and the students’ self-interest in the situation in conjunction with situational “cues for inaction” lead to the intention to blow the whistle. Overall, the results from our structural model partially support our theoretical model. Interestingly, these findings demonstrate that, in the case of faculty member misconduct, anger and perceptions of unfairness play a greater role than the more rational cost-benefit process of the POB model. These results could aid in development of ethics education for students and could also inform the development of university policies that encourage students to come forward when faced with faculty misconduct.     

The Accounting Court: Some Speculations on Why Not?

The accounting court proposed by Spacek (Account Rev 33(3):368, 1958) was a potent and controversial idea. The court would provide a venue to which auditing firms and clients could bring disputes over the application of accounting principles and over time would build a database of casework illustrating the court’s decisions on proper application and interpretation of accounting principles. In this paper, we contribute to the literature on the accounting court and on standard setting by analyzing group value orientations and motivations that should promote the likelihood of an accounting court appearing in these times. We base our analysis in value group theory (Shakun 1988 Evolutionary systems design: policymaking under complexity and group group decision support systems. Holden-Day, Oakland, CA.), an analysis rooted in an examination of operational and terminal values of key participants. The analysis brings to light a contradiction between the terminal values of the key players and the actions of those players. We argue that common conditions of existence came between the operational goals and terminal values in the accounting domain and key actors willingness to seek the specified values. This analysis provides a flexible but powerful tool for analyzing motivations that may influence behavior of key organizations in the accounting domain.     

Can Accounting Earnings Predict Future GDP Growth? Evidence from China

This study investigates whether accounting earnings can predict future Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth within China’s institutional settings. Konchitchki and Patatoukas (2014a) find that accounting earnings is a significant leading indicator of GDP growth for the next three or four quarters. We conjecture, however, that earnings management would weaken such predictive power for accounting earnings because it distorts earnings from real corporate profit. As earnings of Chinese firms are more seriously manipulated than those of US firms, this study finds that earnings of Chinese listed firms can only predict GDP growth for a single quarter. We further decompose accounting earnings into operating cash flow and accrual earnings and find that operating cash flow which is less affected by earnings management has better predictive power for GDP over the longer horizon of the next three quarters, but accrual earnings can only predict GDP growth for the next quarter.     

Does Social Performance Really Lead to Financial Performance? Accounting for Endogeneity

The empirical relationship between a firm’s social performance and its financial performance is still not well established in the literature. Despite more than 30 years of research and more than 100 empirical studies on the issue, the results are still mixed. We argue that the heterogeneous results found in previous studies are not due exclusively to problems related with the measurement instruments or the samples used. Instead, we posit that a more fundamental problem related with the endogeneity of social strategic decisions could be driving most of the empirical findings. We show that, using a panel data of 658 firms from 1991 to 2005, how some of the results found in previous research change, and some are even reversed when endogeneity is properly taken into account.     

Ethical Attitudes of Accounting Practitioners: Are Rank and Ethical Attitudes Related?

We address a previous finding in the business ethics literature in which accounting professionals in higher rank levels, i.e., “manager” or “partner” of auditing firms, appear to have lower moral reasoning ability than their junior counterparts. Prior investigations have relied upon a similar methodology for estimating ethical beliefs, namely testing “moral reasoning ability” using either the Moral Judgment Interview or Defining Issues Test. In the present study, we use a multiple vignettes approach to test for the existence of the inverse rank-ethical beliefs effect. With only 2 of the 30 vignettes resulting in both managers and partners being more accepting of the ethically charged behaviors, the results presented here using this alternative methodology are generally not supportive of the inverse rank-ethical beliefs phenomenon. We also use a multivariate analysis in order to control for demographic characteristics. Our results suggest that the most robust predictor of ethical attitudes among accounting practitioners is age, not rank within a firm.     

An Exploratory Study of Chinese Accounting Students’ and Auditors’ Audit-specific Ethical Reasoning

This study uses three audit-specific ethical dilemmas to assess the level of ethical reasoning between Chinese accounting students (as proxies for new entrants to the auditing profession) and experienced auditors. A sample of U.S. accounting students is used as a base for comparison. Consistent with expectations based on particularly salient aspects of Chinese national culture, we find the Chinese students’ levels of ethical reasoning to be significantly lower than those of their U.S. counterparts in the two cases that invoked these cultural attributes. In contrast, the Chinese students’ level of ethical reasoning is slightly higher than that of the U.S. students in the third, control case. We further find that the Chinese auditors’ levels of ethical reasoning are even lower than those of the Chinese students in two cases, while not being significantly different in the third. Together, these findings suggest that cross-national differences in auditors’ ethical reasoning depend on the nature of the ethical dilemma and caution against wholesale inferences about ethical reasoning levels in China.     

Discussion of “An Examination of the U.S. Public Accounting Profession’s Public Interest Discourse and Actions in Federal Policy Making”

The history of the public accounting profession is filled with perceived crises in professionalism. Baudot et al. (An examination of the U.S. public accounting profession’s public interest discourse and actions in federal policy making, 2015) focus on the post Sarbanes–Oxley period, highlighting how the advocacy efforts of the public accounting profession directed toward financial regulation represent the most recent of crises. This study makes an important contribution to the literature because it illustrates the inherent challenges faced by a regulatory structure that requires private interests to act in the public good. The purpose of this commentary is to provide a historical and institutional context for the study’s findings, to assess the current state of research, and to offer suggestions for future research.     

The Evolving Economic Role of Accounting Standards： Evidence from Bilateral Cross-Border M＆A Flows

Cross-border M＆As are important to the participating countries. I posit that mandatory International Financial Reporting Standards （IFRS） adoption lowers the systemic information noise embedded in countries＇ accounting standards. This reduces the associated information processing costs and enhances the economic role accounting standards play on cross-border M＆A flows. After mandatory IFRS adoption, a 1% increase in accounting standards disparity suppresses bilateral M＆A flows by around 2%; a decrease in accounting standards disparity helps promote bilateral M＆A flows when paired countries＇ governance infrastructure gaps are relatively wider. I do not find that these associations were significant prior to mandatory IFRS adoption. Overall, this paper documents an evolving economic role accounting standards play on bilateral cross-border M＆A flows and sheds light on the economic benefits of adopting IFRS for policy makers.     

The Strength of an Accounting Firm’s Ethical Environment and the Quality of Auditors’ Judgments

This study examines the impact of the strength of an accounting firm’s ethical environment (presence and reinforcement vis-à-vis the presence of a code of conduct) on the quality of auditor judgment, across different levels of audit expertise. Using a 2 × 2 full factorial ‹between subjects’ experimental design, with audit managers and audit seniors, the impact of different levels of strength of the ethical environment on auditor judgments was assessed with a realistic audit scenario, requiring participants to make judgments in respect of an inventory writedown. Based on prior research, and as hypothesized, participants possessing greater auditing experience made higher quality technical judgments. While there were no significant differences between the quality of audit judgments made by participants in the stronger ethical environment, over-all results indicate that managers are more sensitive to differences in the strength of the ethical environment than seniors. This is consistent with the hypothesis, and with prior research which suggests that the impact of the code will only be significant if it has been bilaterally internalized by individuals. This has important implications for accounting firms and regulators, given that the International Standard on Quality Control 1, requires the communication and reinforcement of ethical principles as part of firms' quality control processes. It suggests that firms will need to carefully consider the means by which they communicate and reinforce ethical principles, as it is possible to differentially impact auditors of different rank.     

Incorporating International Accounting into the MBA Curriculum: Exploring Implications of the Financial Reporting Crisis of 2001–2009

Recent developments in the global business environment have led to important changes in accounting/auditing regulations, and have implications for the business school curriculum. While many of these issues are covered in advanced accounting courses, generally taken only by majors, the issues are sufficiently important that nonaccounting majors, at both the graduate and undergraduate level, should be aware of these issues as well. Recent developments favoring the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in the United States provide an overall compelling context for incorporating these standards into the business curriculum. The purpose of this article is to provide a road map for such incorporation.     

Toward a More Coherent Understanding of the Organization–Society Relationship: A Theoretical Consideration for Social and Environmental Accounting Research

In this study we analyze the overlapping perspectives of legitimacy theory, institutional theory, resource dependence theory, and stakeholder theory. Our purpose is to explore how these theories can inform and be built upon by one another. Through our analysis we provide a broader theoretical understanding of these theories that may support and promote social and environmental accounting research. This article starts with a detailed analysis of legitimacy theory by bringing some recent critical discussions on legitimacy and corporations in the management literature into accounting research. The notion forwarded by legitimacy theory then serves as an overarching concept to examine the relationship between and among theories. We conclude that two theoretical considerations are important for future social and environmental accounting research. First, it must be acknowledged that some business entities initiate social activities based on direct interactions with stakeholders, whereas others may also undertake similar activities to manage their societal level of legitimacy. Second, from analyzing the perspectives of legitimacy theory, institutional theory, resource dependence theory, and stakeholder theory, it is possible to reach compatible interpretations of business social phenomena, and the selection and application of these theories should depend upon the focus of study.     

Economic Keywords in 2007 in China

RMB exchange rate The exchange rate of Renminbi, the Chinese currency,witnessed an appreciation of around six percent to one U.S.dollar this year.On Decem- ber 13,the central parity rate stood at RMB 7.3568 against one dollar, according to the Chinese Foreign Exchange Trading System,breaking the 7.36 mark.