A comparison of V-I-E model predictions: A cross-national study in professional accounting firms

Behavioral research in accounting has largely ignored the impact of cross-national differences. This paper deviates from that trend and reports the results of a study comparing the predictive ability of the Valence-Instrumentality-Expectancy (V-I-E) model of motivation in two cultural settings: Australia and the United States of America. Data was collected from a matched sample of 45 staff-level auditors drawn from a large public accounting firm in each of the two respective countries. The findings indicate that few differences exist between the two groups with respect to personal value structures, motivation levels, and perceptions of the work environment. The results are significant both as a systematic cross-national comparison of accounting groups and as an extension of current V-I-E research in accounting.     

Perceived environmental uncertainty,organizational adaptation,and employee performance: A longitudinal study in professional accounting firms

The importance of organizational adaptation to the environment has been long recognized. A major feature of this adaptation process involves coping with environmental uncertainty. This paper reports the results of an exploratory longitudinal study which investigated the effectiveness of organizational coping in several large professional accounting firms. A significant positive relationship was observed between the reported level of organizational coping and employee performance. The implications of this finding for professional accounting firms, and organizations in the general, are discussed.     

The roles of accounting in organizations and society

The paper seeks to contrast the roles that have been claimed on behalf of accounting with the ways in which accounting functions in practice. It starts by examining the context in which rationales for practice are articulated and the adequacy of such claims. Thereafter consideration is given to how accounting is implicated in both organizational and social practice. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for accounting research.     

Sustainability accounting regulation in Spanish public sector organizations

In 2011, the Spanish government made sustainability accounting mandatory for public sector organizations. This paper documents why, despite the new legislation, the quantity and quality of sustainability accounting practices remains low.     

An examination of professional commitment in public accounting

This study analyzes the professional commitment of Canadian Chartered Accountants who are partners, managers (supervisors) and other staff CAs in public practice. This commitment is examined in relation to organizational commitment, professional-organizational conflict, satisfaction with income and organizational level. The commitment to organization is shown to be the most powerful predictor of CAs' professional commitment in all organizational levels. At the same time, professional-organizational conflict has a negative impact on professional commitment, and satisfaction with income has a positive influence on such a commitment.     

Fusion of expertise among accounting faculty: towards an expertise model for academia in accounting

This paper aims to portray an accounting faculty expert. It is argued that neither the academic nor the professional orientation alone appears adequate in developing accounting faculty expertise. The accounting faculty expert is supposed to develop into a so-called ‘flexpert’ (Van der Heijden, 2003) who is able to deploy practical accounting exposure in teaching and research. This ‘fusion’ (mix of expertise) resulting from gaining expertise in quite different occupational areas, is attainable at academic career start levels in accounting, where during one's career orientation a professor is both an academic and a professional by training. Fusion is also attainable in complementary competence building wherein the faculty member invests in training and development in the non-core competence domain. The so-called ‘fusion framework’ that is depicted in this contribution could be usefully applied in recruitment efforts of business schools in search of a promising accounting professor.     

Reforming central government: An evaluation of an accounting innovation

This paper examines a significant accounting innovation in central government accounting – the introduction of Resource Accounting and Budgeting (RAB) in the UK. This innovation is studied through the lens of Rogers diffusion theory. The study setting is the Scotland Parliament. This research shows that, in the terms of diffusion theory, RAB can be classified as an accounting innovation. However, the implementation of RAB is problematic. While the reform of the UK central government system was initially sought as a mechanism to enhance democratic accountability, this paper shows that RAB does not connect with parliamentarians. The introduction of RAB flows as much from a managerial agenda as it does from the aim of democratic accountability.     

Organizational commitment and performance in a professional accounting firm

In recent years, the concept of employee commitment to the organization has received increased attention as a determinant of employee performance. Research on the relationship between these two variables, however, has produced conflicting results. The study reported herein examines the relationship between a group of antecedent variables and organizational commitment, and the relationship between commitment and employee performance. The study was carried out using a sample of 123 junior-level staff accountants and a validation sample of 46 senior-level accountants. It was found that for both samples, work-related antecedent variables influenced commitment whereas personal variables did not. With respect to the commitment-performance relationship, the results differed between the two samples. At the junior-level, performance was found to be influenced by a willingness to exert effort on behalf of the organization, whereas at the senior-level, performance was found to be influenced by a desire to maintain membership in the organization.     

谈谈中介机构业务收入分配办法的改进与规范

目前,许多中介机构对业务收入分配采取业务提成的办法,即将承办业务人所实现的业务收入按一定比例返给业务承办人(部、室)用于奖励(工资).它为中介机构业务创收带来了明显的经济效益,也使中介机构的员工从中获取了益处.     

Rational, rationalizing, and reifying uses of accounting data in organizations

This paper reports the results of a longitudinal field study of information use in a public sector organization. The investigation focused on the extent to which the use of cost accounting data by military repair facilities in the U.S. fits one of three conceptual models of information use. The models reflected the technical-rational, socio-political and institutional perspectives on organisations. Data were obtained by visiting 14 military installations, interviewing 95 people in depth, examining archival data, and conducting in-depth studies of problem areas within the cost system. The study included data covering a period of 22 years. Results indicated little use of the cost data consistent with the technical-rational perspective. Most uses of the data were consistent with either the social-political or institutional perspectives. The study also revealed interesting dynamic properties of the system over time such as the change in the patterns of data use from socio-political and institutional to technical-rational, and the creation of new users for the system.     

Continental European accounting model and accounting modernization in Germany

Classification techniques based on one or few dimensions are widely used in research studies and textbooks to explain and predict the development of accounting systems internationally. However, their usefulness in international accounting has been limited in today's globalized world. For example, in the context of the EU, IFRS are required for consolidated accounting, while national accounting systems continue to be the dominant system for unconsolidated accounting in many countries. Using Germany as a case study, the objective of this paper is to examine whether Germany can still be classified within the Continental European model of accounting following the Act to Modernize Accounting Law (Bilanzrechts-modernisierungsgesetz — BilMoG), which was promulgated on May 29, 2009. This Act introduced some major reforms to the German Commercial Code (Handelsgesetzbuch — HGB), such as removing the close connection to tax rules and introducing new recognition and valuation regulations, which changed traditional principles of orderly accounting (Grundsätze ordnungsmäßiger Buchführung). As a result, the current German approach of financial reporting separates Germany from the traditional Continental European model of accounting and moves it somewhere on a spectrum between the traditional Continental European model of accounting and the Anglo-American model of accounting.     

A pragmatic model to estimate journal quality in accounting

This article presents a model to estimate the relative quality of publication outlets based on objective journal characteristics. Our model improves upon the one proposed by Bean and Bernardi [Bean, D. F., & Bernardi, R. A. (2005). Estimating the ratings of journals omitted in prior quality ratings. Advances in Accounting Education, 7, 109–127.] in three important ways. First, we develop a dependent variable that is a composite score based on five prior journal perception studies. Second, our model considers different independent variables; audience, journal availability, inclusion in the Social Sciences Citation Index (an independent measure of quality), and the journal’s submission fee. This combination of variables increases the model’s explanatory power by 21% compared to Bean and Bernardi’s average R². Finally, the results of our model are more consistent with those of prior perception studies. We also apply the model to recent accounting faculty publications, which provides a comparative rating of more than 200 journals. We expect our model for estimating journal quality to help faculty, promotion and tenure committees, and university administrators evaluate the quality of journals where accounting faculty publish, an important aspect of assessing research productivity.     

A longitudinal study of the research productivity of graduates of accounting doctoral programs

While the number of graduates from U.S. accounting doctoral programs has declined significantly since the early 1990s (thus producing a significant faculty shortage), many schools' research requirements to achieve promotion and tenure [P & T] have increased significantly—along with salary packages for new faculty. The purposes of the study reported here are to: (1) compare the research output of accounting doctoral graduates across time (1989–1993 period versus their 1999–2003 counterparts) to see if there is sufficiently enhanced output to justify today's higher entry level salaries; and (2) extract from productivity measures information relative to P & T decisions, thus providing benchmarks for promotion to associate and full professor. We examine research records for six and 12 years beyond graduation because these are frequently relevant to tenure and promotion decisions.     

A stochastic model of professional accountant turnover

High turnover rates have tended to characterize the public accounting profession. Probabilistic estimates that generate duration models have been often used in engineering and to a lesser extent in business fields. This study suggests a stochastic model and methodology to be used in professional accountants' turnover analysis. The model is simple, can help evaluate numerous policy implications and allows for future turnover prediction. A set of published data is utilized to illustrate the use of the model. This illustration describes turnover patterns for accounting staff broken down by admission year and sex. The stochastic model also predicts the number of accountants that will quit in 5 yr.     

Problem-centred research and knowledge-based theory in the professional accounting setting

The paper discussess the emerging need for theory development and much more extensive task and context analysis with respect to cognition in the professional accounting setting (“accounting” being taken to include the various accounting, auditing, tax and related subjects about which accounting professionals exercise judgment). The paper examines how such theory development and task and context analysis can improve the research and its contribution to understanding the professional settings that are the province of accounting research. Our analysis reflects our proposal that accounting judgment research contribute more strongly to the general body of accounting research, and deal better with practitioners' problems. From our analysis, we conclude that the lack of theory development is associated with several problems in the research, including an over-emphasis on transference of simplified models from psychology, inappropriate use of normative criteria for evaluating performance, and an over-emphasis on accountants and auditors rather than accounting and auditing. We offer a large number of constructive comments about task analysis, theory development and other steps to guide future accounting judgment research.     

Some issues in blockchain for accounting and the supply chain,with an application of distributed databases to virtual organizations

This paper reviews some recent blockchain‐based applications for information capture, distribution and preservation. As part of that review, this paper examines two key concerns with current blockchain designs for accounting and supply chain transactions: data independence and multiple semantic models for the same information distribution problem. Blockchain applications typically integrate database, application and presentation tiers all in the same ledger. This results in a general inability to query information in the ledger and other concerns. Further, since most applications appear to be private blockchain applications, there is a concern of agents needing to accommodate multiple blockchains depending on who their trading partners are and what they request. Finally, this paper uses a distributed database to design a ‘blockchain‐like’ system for virtual organizations.