The effect of inspections,rotations and client preferences on staffing decisions

With increased regulatory focus on audits and concerns about whether audit regulation is achieving its stated aims, it is timely to investigate how regulator inspection of audit files and partner rotations may be affecting staffing decisions. This is an important issue, which affects all audits, as the calibre of staff allocated across engagements impacts the quality of audit work delivered. This study reports the results of an experiment where auditor participants allocate staff across two audits, where regulation anticipated (none, inspection, rotation) and a client request for the best staff (absent, present) are manipulated between‐subjects. We find that auditors allocate lower calibre staff when neither an inspection nor rotation is anticipated than when either is anticipated. When an inspection is anticipated, auditors allocate staff with more knowledge and compliance skills. When a rotation is anticipated, auditors allocate staff with more people skills. A client request for the best staff only has an effect when a partner is due to be rotated, where auditors allocate staff with more people skills in response to the client request. Our findings provide greater understanding of staffing decisions, which may affect audit quality if concerns around audit inspections and partner rotations are perceived by auditors as more important than the underlying risk or complexity of an engagement when allocating staff.     

Opportunities and Challenges in Engaging Citizens in the Co-Production of Infrastructure-Based Public Services in Australia

Research and practice have observed a shift towards service-oriented approaches that depend on input from citizens as co-producers of services. Yet in the delivery of public infrastructure the focus is still on managing assets rather than services. Using a Policy Delphi approach, we found that although experts advocate service-centric approaches guidelines and policies lack a service-centric perspective. Findings revealed a range of impediments to effective stakeholder involvement. The paper contributes to co-production and new public governance literature and offers directions for public infrastructure decision-makers to support and reconnect disengaged government–citizen relations, and determine ways of understanding optimal service outcomes.     

Making sense of complex data using interactive data visualization

An important role for accountants today is to provide decision support to senior management by assisting them in the analysis of large, complex data sets. Interactive data visualization (IDV) facilitates this process by allowing users to navigate, select, and display data via an easy-to-use interface often used as a component of data analytics. Given the increasing popularity of IDV as a tool for making sense of complex data, it is important that accountants become familiar with and learn how to use this technology. This case provides a hands-on opportunity to organize complex accounting data to create IDVs for decision makers to use. Further, the case enables students to understand the potential impact of IDVs on preparers and users of accounting information. Students will assume the role of a division controller in a hypothetical company and create an IDV to assist the chief executive officer (CEO) in decision making.     

Gendering and Gender in Public Service Organizations: Changing Professional Identities Under New Public Management

This article examines the enactment of new public management (NPM) in public service professional organizations, the nature of professional/managerial subjectivities promoted within the NPM discourse, and the implications for male and female professionals/managers. The article has two aims. First, taking a gender ing organization perspective, it explores the gendered meanings of NPM and the promotion of new professional/managerial subjectivities. Second, focusing on gender in organizations, the article then considers the implications of the enactment of NPM for male and female professionals/managers. The article illustrates the complex, manifold and fluid nature of both the meanings ascribed to NPM and individual responses. It is argued that a gender lens offers a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of NPM enactment and the implications of this for public service professionals/managers are considered.     

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS,UNEXPECTED DEPRECIATION AND FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE ADJUSTMENT

Prior management and manipulation of financial accounting information research has overwhelmingly been focused within a private sector setting. This study adopts a public sector focus in empirically examining the use of a specific discretionary accrual (i.e., depreciation) to adjust the financial performance of New South Wales (Australia) local governments. Findings indicate a significant positive association between absolute unexpected depreciation and absolute local government income before capital contributions, and a significant positive association between absolute unexpected depreciation and capital contributions. Overall, the results make significant contributions to various literature streams with implications for various stakeholders interested in local governmental financial performance.     

Exchange rates and commodity prices: the case of Australian metal exports

Exporters of homogeneous commodities are usually regarded as ‘price takers’ who operate in perfectly competitive international markets, so that the pass-through of exchange rate changes to foreign-currency prices must be zero. However, many Australian commodities are subject to influences that may produce more complex pricing strategies, for example, markets in which Australia is a dominant exporter, or where there are few buyers and sellers due to the presence of large multi-national corporations. This study uses multivariate cointegration techniques to examine the pricing of Australian metal exports, with particular emphasis on the degree and timing of the pass-through of exchange rate and other changes.     

The association between audit committee effectiveness and audit risk

Audit committees (ACs) are expected to play a key role in improving financial statement integrity and as a consequence reduce audit risk. Companies reporting conformity with regulations can have an AC that appears effective but is not actually effective in substance. We surveyed audit partners and managers to identify their indicators of actual AC effectiveness (auditor‐chosen list). We hypothesize a negative association between AC effectiveness and audit risk, only when an auditor‐chosen list, rather than extent of conformity with regulations, is used to measure effectiveness. Results support our expectations.     

Social Marketing as Transformational Marketing in Public Services

Abstract

This article presents a case study of a social marketing intervention, developed as an innovative action research project for a Fire Service, to tackle the public service challenge of reducing the incidence of deliberate countryside fire-setting in certain communities. The case demonstrates the effectiveness of a social marketing approach to tackling an anti-social behaviour that had become a local social norm which conventional education-based campaigns had failed to change. The case also explores unexpected impacts that applying a social marketing approach had on the sponsoring Fire Service, acting to transform certain aspects of its operations and culture.     

ADVERSE CONTRACT INCENTIVES AND INVESTMENT BANKER REPUTATION: TARGET FIRM TENDER OFFER FEES

I measure the potential economic importance of fee-contract incentives and investment banker reputation as factors that can mitigate conflicts of interest between investment bankers and their target firm clients in tender offers. I find that the fee contracts used between target firms and their investment bankers contain incentives that can create substantial conflicts of interest. Simulated losses from these adverse incentives can be large—up to 16.7 percent of target firm value. I also find, however, that when investment banker reputation capital is included in the simulation, losses are substantially reduced.