Does workload and institutional pressure on accounting educators affect academia at Australian universities?

This paper examines accounting academics’ perceptions as to whether institutional pressure has increased in the previous 5–10 years subsequent to changes in the higher education environment, encouraging universities to adopt private sector managerialism. Results from 87 respondents indicated that workload pressures have increased and they experienced pressure to perform acts related to a student-as-customer model, which have negatively affected their well-being and work quality. The majority are not actively seeking to leave academia, but believe it is not a good time for others to aspire to such a career. This paper contributes to the debate about the sustainability of accounting academia at Australian universities.     

The future workplace: Views from the floor

Speculation on the future of work and the nature of the future workplace has come to dominate much academic discourse in recent years. Rarely however has the voice of what might be termed the average skilled employee been heard; those who are still shaping a career and may be most at the mercy of whatever changes occur. This study seeks to fill this gap. Stemming from a 1-year research project at Cranfield School of Management, this paper focuses on data collected from a survey exploring the understanding of current and future organisations, and the nature of current and future leadership. The survey was carried out in 2003 and sampled 469 MBA graduates and a further 340 respondents to a web-based questionnaire. The paper provides an overview of the academic discourse on the future workplace, explores the perceptions and expectations of the sample and draws conclusions regarding significant anticipated trends for the future workplace as seen by those on the shop floor. These centre around increased flexibility and autonomy, but with limited awareness of the nature of leadership skills required to lead such a workforce.     

Perceptions and experiences of career success among aspiring and early career accountants and the role of organisational support

Positive perceptions of career success are critical among accounting professionals, given their connection with performance, turnover and organisational commitment. Drawing on career stage theory, this study explores the perceptions and experiences of career success among 475 aspiring (Accounting/Finance students), 305 early career accountants (ECAs) and 165 managers/recruiters in Australia. Findings reflected both objective and subjective dimensions of career success alongside notable differences between aspiring accountants and ECAs, highlighting shifting views across the career stages of exploration and establishment. While ECAs were largely positive about their access to career success, managers/recruiters identified ways to create further opportunities for ECAs' career success.     

The dynamics of international equity market expectations

This paper develops a noisy rational expectations model of the way in which international investors adjust their expectations of asset payoffs in a given country in response not only to public information signals but also to private information signals whose precision differs across investors. The model predicts that the perceptions of investors in one country about the future market returns in another country are related differently to realized past returns depending on their informational disadvantage relative to other investors: the greater is that informational disadvantage, the greater is the change in perception associated with returns. The predictions are confirmed by monthly survey data of institutional money managers investing in developed markets from 1995 to 2000.     

Student career aspirations and perceptions: The case of Israeli accounting students

The study investigates changes in Israeli accounting students' career aspirations during their course of studies, and the relationship between these and their perceptions of professional accountancy firms. We employed a cross-sectional analysis of students across consecutive educational levels from the first year to the end of their formal education. We assumed that revealed differences between the accounting student cohorts, in terms of their perceptions of professional accountancy firms and their career aspirations, could be interpreted as reflecting changes over time in students' attitudes. Results from the sample show that accounting student' aspirations to pursue a career with a professional accountancy firm decline significantly between the first and postgraduate years, while their desire to work in the business sector increases. The results show the same trend with regard to the student's positive perceptions of the above firms as future workplaces. Non-parametric tests demonstrate significant relationships between students' career aspirations and their perceptions of professional accountancy firms. We suggest that the change in students' perceptions and aspirations is a symptom of something similar to a ‘reality shock’, and that it results from the students' exposure to the accounting profession. Professional accountancy firms need to implement innovative policies to meet the challenge.     

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.     

储户预期与金融稳定

本文利用中国88家银行的面板数据及中国人民银行的储户问卷调查数据,研究储户对未来经济和收入感知的预期对金融稳定性的影响。研究发现,通过储户资产配置、货币政策预期与银行风险承担三个渠道储户预期水平上升有助于提高金融稳定性;机构储户对金融稳定性的边际影响高于居民储户;城市储户的预防动机需求会降低金融稳定性;从系统重要性银行角度看,储户预期对非系统重要性银行的影响更大,储户对房价信息与股市波动等信息的适应性学习会降低储户预期对金融稳定性的影响。     

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR CORPORATE RISK DISCLOSURE EMERGING FROM THE AGENDA FOR CORPORATE GOVERNANCE REFORM

During the last decade an implicit conceptual framework for internal control and corporate risk management has arisen from risk management practice and policy within UK companies. An explicit conceptual framework for risk management is now emerging and is expressed in the Turnbull Report. In this paper, we develop a diagrammatic representation for the conceptual framework for internal control, risk management and risk disclosure. We consider the recent practical and policy developments in the disclosure of risk-related information in order to establish the current state of the art of corporate risk disclosure. Thus, we focus only on the disclosure aspect of the conceptual framework for internal control. We use a questionnaire survey to canvas the attitudes of UK institutional investors towards risk disclosure in relation to their portfolio investment decisions. Our empirical findings indicate that institutional investors do not generally favour a regulated environment for corporate risk disclosure or a general statement of business risk. The respondents agree that increased risk disclosure would help them in their portfolio investment decisions. However, for other aspects of the risk disclosure issue they are more neutral in attitude. Further, we found that the variation in the attitudes of institutional investors appears to be associated with the characteristics of the funds they manage as well as with their investment horizons. Further, we find that institutional investors’ perceptions of corporate governance are related to their investment horizons, among other factors.     

The perceived availability of resources which contribute to accounting faculty productivity

This study collected evidence from administrators and faculty of accounting programs concerning their perceptions of the availability of selected resources that potentially influence faculty productivity. The objective of the analysis was to determine if there were differences in the perceptions of respondents due to their professorial rank, their employing institution (stratified into three institutional groups by highest degree offered) and/or their employment role, that is, administrator versus faculty. The results suggest that faculty perceptions are influenced more by institutional differences than by rank. When faculty were compared to administrators, the evidence indicated that administrators' perceptions of resource availability consistently exceeded that of the faculty groups.     

Transitioning to IFRS in Japan: Corporate Perceptions of Costs and Benefits

This paper examines the ongoing transition to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Japan with a particular focus on recent institutional developments and corporate concerns. While Japan has committed to the convergence of Japanese generally accepted accounting principles (J‐GAAP) with IFRS it has not as yet formally adopted IFRS. This paper reports on Japanese corporate perceptions of the likely costs and benefits of adopting and implementing IFRS using survey data collected from senior financial executives of 292 Japanese listed companies in 2013–14. Our findings reveal that Japanese companies identify a number of major areas of general concern with the adoption and implementation of IFRS. Most importantly, uncertainty regarding the interpretation of standards followed by staff training, IT systems, technical knowledge and differences between J‐GAAP and IFRS were reported as major concerns. Our survey also highlights that revenue recognition, depreciation, consolidated financial statements, financial statement presentation and the retrospective application of IFRS were viewed as key IFRS accounting issues. While the large majority of companies expected a moderate degree of benefits to arise from IFRS, substantial benefits were perceived more likely to apply to large and overseas listed companies mainly arising from improvements in the international comparability of financial statements.     

Reproducibility in Accounting Research: Views of the Research Community

We have little knowledge about the prevalence of irreproducibility in the accounting literature. To narrow this gap, we conducted a survey among the participants of the 2019 JAR Conference on their perceptions of the frequency, causes, and consequences of irreproducible research published in accounting journals. A majority of respondents believe that irreproducibility is common in the literature, constitutes a major problem, and receives too little attention. Most have encountered irreproducibility in the work of others (although not in their own work) but chose not to pursue their failed reproduction attempts to publication. Respondents believe irreproducibility results chiefly from career or publication incentives as well as from selective reporting of results. They also believe that practices like sharing code and data combined with stronger incentives to replicate the work of others would enhance reproducibility. The views of accounting researchers are remarkably similar to those expressed in a survey by the scientific journal Nature. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings and provide several potential paths forward for the accounting research community.     

Software section

Abstract

In this study, first year commerce students in Australia were surveyed about their perceptions of their accounting studies and their perceptions of the attributes required of professional accountants. The paper specifically addresses the factors important in determining whether first year students intend to become accountants. The study uses a logistic regression model incorporating demographic and academic factors, as well as students' perceptions of the work of accountants, to predict intention to become an accountant. The results show that the perception of importance of generic skills, intrinsic interest in the discipline area, and course satisfaction were significant in determining intention to pursue a career as an accountant. As many students formed their judgments about the work of accountants from their accounting studies, the findings have implications for accounting educators in terms of the enthusiasm and motivation required in teaching accounting, as well as curriculum development that reflects the skill set required for an increasingly sophisticated business environment.     

Family control,multiple institutional block-holders,and informed trading

This paper investigates how large family shareholders and institutional block-holders jointly influence informed trading and firm valuation in the Hong Kong stock market. It combines market microstructure research with studies on the governance roles of multiple block-holders and finds that institutional block-holders rely on their relative controlling power vis-à-vis family owners to mitigate problems associated with informed trading. They also use their ownership rights to improve the structure of informed trading. However, these governance roles are predominantly exercised by pressure-resistant institutional block-holders. Informed trading reduces firm valuation, while an improvement in its structure increases valuation. Therefore, the governance roles of controlling families and pressure-resistant institutional block-holders may have different implications in terms of investors’ perceptions of private information risk.     

The Role of the Independent Director: Evidence from a Survey of Independent Directors in Australia

The purpose of this paper is to report the results of a survey of independent directors on a range of issues relating to the execution of their role including the independent directors' perceptions relating to board effectiveness, board interactions, information sources, and performance and evaluation. A survey was forwarded to independent directors of the top 200 Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) listed companies. The paper aims to provide the perceptions of independent directors themselves and so contribute to the literature through a better understanding of the nature of the work performed by Australian company independent directors and the environment in which it occurs. Findings suggest that the fundamental role of the independent director has not changed as a result of the corporate governance reforms.     

Stock market response to analysts' perceptions and earnings in a technology-intensive environment

This paper investigates the contemporaneous stock market response to financial analysts' perceptions of the firm and accounting earnings in the telecommunication and electronics industry in Finland. Analysts' perceptions used in the study are based on the Most Admired Companies survey similar to that conducted by Fortune magazine in the United States. The results indicate the nonfinancial information of the firm measured in terms of the analysts' perceptions has value relevance in a technology-oriented stock market.     

Institutionalising XBRL for financial reporting: resorting to regulation

By integrating and streamlining financial information within and among various organisations, eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) has been developed with a view to enhancing the efficiency, accuracy, and transparency of corporate accounting information. Taking an inter-organisational focus, this paper investigates the process of how XBRL was institutionalised. It explains and offers insights on how institutional arrangements emerge and become relevant as heterogeneous organisations consider adopting accounting innovations while evidence concerning their benefits is unavailable. The original and overall contribution of this study is that it improves current understanding of coal-face actors' perceptions, behaviours, and strategies as they interact in the organisational field and become engaged in developing accounting innovations to produce the macro-level observations documented in existing institutional theory studies.     

Student Perceptions of the Insurance Profession

To attract students to the risk management and insurance profession, strategies need to be developed to overcome biases in their perceptions of the profession. This study attempts to determine some of those perceptions of students—specifically a group of business career high school students and a group of college students enrolled in an introduction to business course—about the personality traits of insurance professionals. A Personality Factor Questionnaire previously used extensively in other research was used to measure differences in student perceptions of personality profiles of different professions. We also measured how student characteristics such as age, sex, and expected college major influence student perceptions of these traits. The overall general conclusion was that perceptions of the profession are not as negative as many imagine, but do require some substantive work to improve, even among students seeking business careers.     

Accounting for Research: Academic Responses to Research Performance Demands in an Australian University

This study examines the perceptions of individual academics about performance management systems (PMS) developed by an Australian university to meet government research assessment requirements. Using a case study method, the research examines the period 2006–2010 within a university, relying on academics’ responses to a survey on the effect of research PMS, contextualised with publicly available organisational documents. The case study university performed well in the Australian Government's first research assessment exercise, Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) 2010. However, academics reported increasing levels of stress and decreasing job satisfaction, consistent with research that identifies the commodification of academic research. This process of commodification has occurred as a result of the implementation of PMS designed to assess academics’ research‐focused performance and thereby strengthen the university's performance under ERA. In investigating in detail the responses of individual academics to Australia's research assessment initiative, the paper reveals a disconnect between the macro‐institutional demands placed on the higher education sector, university changes made to accommodate these demands, and the ability of academics to meet these demands in a sustainable way.     

Motivated monitoring by institutional investors and firm investment efficiency

We find that motivated monitoring by institutional investors mitigates firm investment inefficiency, estimated by Richardson's (2006) approach. This relation is robust when using the annual reconstitution of the Russell indexes as exogenous shocks to institutional ownership during the period 1995–2015 and after classifying institutional ownership by institution type. We also show that closer monitoring mitigates the problem of both over‐investing free cash flows and under‐investment due to managers’ career concerns. Finally, we document that the effectiveness of the monitoring by institutional investors appears to increase monotonically with respect to the firm's relative importance in their portfolios.     

Rethinking the Career Anchors Inventory framework with insights from a finance transformation field study

It is claimed that the re-engineering and automation of routine work should free accountants to adopt broader, so-called ‘value-adding’ roles as partners to business decision-makers. The ‘new world of work’, involving new process-based methods, single instance ERP systems and the wholesale relocation of professional work to lower cost areas, brings opportunities for accountants in systems design and adding value to the business. For many others, the new reality may be a more competitive and less secure working environment, with a mid-level career bottleneck reflecting a polarisation between the upper and lower layers of the finance function.Based upon Schein's theory of career anchors and using exploratory sequential mixed methods, we consider the impact on the career perceptions of individual accountants as accounting expertise, traditionally embodied in people, is codified and embedded within end-to-end business processes in the context of a finance shared service centre. Key findings include new perceptions of careers with greater emphasis on the acquisition of general managerial competence and leadership skills, with the importance of cultivating a sense of ‘global connectedness' to maintain individual employability. Suggestions are made to update Schein's Career Orientation Inventory to better reflect the reality of accounting in the ‘new world of work'.