Ethics education in accounting: An investigation of the importance of ethics as a factor in the recruiting decisions of public accounting firms

In recent years, significant attention has been directed to the role of ethics in the business environment and to the ethical development of business students. This study explores the importance of ethical behavior as a factor in the recruiting decisions of public accounting firms. Factors related to the ethical behavior of entry-level employees were compared with other personal characteristics that are traditionally viewed as important to public accounting firms (e.g., personality, appearance, academic performance, etc.). Recruiters from both Big-Six and non-Big-Six firms indicated strong views on the importance of the students' ethical propensities. In fact, ethics received the highest rating by the public accounting firms regardless of their size. The results of this study provide strong evidence for accounting educators to continue to stress to their students the importance of ethical behavior and to continue their efforts to more fully integrate ethics education into the accounting curriculum.     

我国民间非营利组织会计规范问题

文章分析了我国民间非营利组织在市场经济发展中的重要作用以及对其进行会计规范的必要性和紧迫性 ,并就我国民间非营利组织会计制度体系的设计和民间非营利组织的界定问题进行了探讨。最后 ,文章就我国民间非营利组织所涉及的基本会计问题及其规范作了重点研讨 ,并提出了规范建议     

Managing employees in aged care: live the principles

Aged care services are a large recipient of public money in many developed countries and are primarily provided by nonprofit organizations in Australia. This paper reports on an investigation into the impacts of the psychological contract for nurses in nonprofit aged care. The results highlight the importance of nonprofit organizations fulfilling their obligations and living their principles. Aged care nurses who perceive breaches to their psychological contract are likely to de-identify from the organization.     

非营利组织财务制度问题及构建对策研究

当前,我国非营利组织已暴露出许多财务问题,致使社会公益事业在某种程度上陷入了信任危机.在此现实背景下,本文依据新制度经济学,对我国非营利组织财务制度进行探讨,并提出相应的构建对策.非营利组织财务制度是用于规范组织财务活动、处理组织财务关系的一套行为规则.尽管我国非营利组织财务制度历经变迁,但依然难以有效指导和规范非营利...     

Determinants of nonprofits’ taxable activities

Although nonprofit is often considered to be synonymous with tax-exempt, many nonprofit organizations earn revenues from unrelated taxable activities, and on average these taxable activities generate $1.5 million in revenues. Policymakers have expressed concern that the pursuit of unrelated taxable revenues can distract a nonprofit from its primary charitable mission. Our results show that nonprofits earn taxable revenues when the taxable activities produce a relatively higher return, the nonprofit itself is experiencing lower profitability, and donor aversion is lower. These results suggest that nonprofits will pursue specific types of unrelated taxable activities, and then only under certain circumstances, reducing concerns over mission drift caused by widespread nonprofit expansion into taxable markets.     

Stakeholder rights and economic performance: The profitability of nonprofits

This paper explores whether ownership matters in a fundamental sense by comparing the performance of stockholder-owned firms with the much less analyzed nonprofit firms. No stakeholder has residual cash flow rights in nonprofit firms, and the control rights are held by customers, employees, and community citizens. Accounting for differences in size and risk and comparing only firms in the same industry, we find that stockholder-owned firms do not outperform nonprofit firms. This result is consistent with the notin that the monitoring function of stockholders may be successfully replaced by other mechanisms. We find evidence that product market competition may play this role as a substitute monitoring mechanism.     

BALANCING ACTS: NPO-LEADERSHIP AND VOLUNTEERING

Volunteering is regarded as an increasingly important phenomenon and the 'employment' of volunteers as one of the typical traits of nonprofit organizations. However, the consequences of volunteering for everyday practices of NPO-leadership, i.e. the question of how non-paid employees are treated in settings where formal power is lacking, have so far not received the attention they deserve. Our paper discusses practices for leading without formal power by presenting findings from an empirical research project. Using a Grounded Theory approach, we identify five interrelated practices that question conventional notions of transformative or charismatic leadership.     

Does it pay to pray? Religious nonprofits and funding

This study examines whether religious identity has an impact on two types of funding, donations and government grants, received by nonprofit organizations. We argue that religious nonprofits attract more donations because (1) donors feel an affinity or special tie to religious organizations and/or (2) donors regard religious organization as having good stewardship. Using 54,917 organization-year observations we find that 18% of the largest U.S. nonprofit organizations have some religious identity and that these organizations receive more donations than their non-religious counterparts. We further find that the association is more pronounced for nonprofits in more religious geographic areas, those with unrestricted donations, and organizations with better stewardship. Conversely, we find that government grants are negatively associated with religious identity, a result consistent with the separation between church and state established under U.S. law and tradition. This negative relationship, however, is mitigated for nonprofits with better stewardship. Our results should be of interest to donors and policymakers who seek to understand the impact of religion on nonprofit funding as well as the role of donor affiliation and stewardship in the fundraising process.     

An Experimental Examination of US Individual Donors’ Information Needs and Use

This paper adopts an internet‐based experiment to investigate whether and how individual donors use nonprofit organizations’ financial and nonfinancial information when making their donation decisions. Using undergraduate students in the United States (US) to proxy for individual donors, our results indicate that individual donors are more likely to acquire nonfinancial information, such as nonprofit organizations’ goals, outcomes, programs and missions, than financial information. Donors integrate nonfinancial information into their decisions as their actual donations are significantly correlated with such information. Our results also indicate that while individual donors acquire financial efficiency measures, including the program expense ratio and fundraising expense ratio, they do not seem to integrate such information into their decisions as their actual donations are not significantly correlated with the efficiency information. This study contributes to the nonprofit literature and research domain focusing on charitable giving and donor preferences.     

慈善组织财务信息披露质量的影响因素与后果研究

本文调查并实证检验了慈善组织财务信息披露质量的影响因素及后果。基金会财务信息披露质量受组织复杂性和管理效率的影响,但影响公募和非公募基金会财务信息披露质量的因素存在差异。成立年限长、管理效率高、非教育助学类的公募基金会财务信息披露质量更高,收入来源分散和管理效率较高的非公募基金会财务信息披露质量更高。而且,基金会财务信息披露质量与后期捐赠收入显著正相关。本文研究证明了财务信息披露质量的确能影响捐赠者的捐赠决策,加强慈善组织财务信息披露监管显得非常必要。     

The use and consequences of perquisite types in nonprofit organizations

We document perquisite use in the nonprofit sector, the determinants of that use, and the ensuing consequences. Relative to the for-profit sector, the nonprofit sector is characterized by a lack of residual ownership rights and less detailed disclosure requirements, factors that have the potential to influence this piece of the compensation package. Using a sample of over 126,000 organization-year observations from 2008 to 2018, we document that approximately 24% of organizations report providing one or more of their executives with perquisites. We find that perks are more likely in larger nonprofits with excess endowments and fewer governance policies, and less likely at organizations with more outside monitors. We also find that perk disclosure has a negative impact on future donations. However, when we decompose our analysis by type of perk, we find evidence that some perks have a positive effect on future donations. Our results are robust to a variety of alternative formulations and provide useful insights for nonprofit regulators, boards, and donors.     

Nonprofits: check your attention to customers

Nonprofit organizations chronically face financial difficulties. Now the situation has worsened because they are being squeezed between the uncertain economic climate and cutbacks in government support. While the managers of these institutions may think that they have already tried everything possible, more than ever they must be innovative in developing additional funding sources. As Mr. Andreasen argues, most nonprofits have failed to exploit marketing techniques which can build support from users or customers that leads to improved cash flow. The author contends that managers of nonprofit organizations focus too closely on their products or services; he admonishes them to give more attention to the needs and wants of their consumers.     

DONORS, IDEOLOGUES, AND BUREAUCRATS: GOVERNMENT OBJECTIVES AND THE PERFORMANCE OF THE NONPROFIT SECTOR

Ideologically driven managers of non profits prefer to deal with donors whose ideologies match their own. Bureaucratic managers prefer to control large organizations. In this paper, we model the goverment's interest in nonprofit service provision and how it leads goverment toprefer larger firms then pure ideologues will choose, and smaller firms then pure bureaucrates choose. We explore the effect of population growth on the optimal than pure bureaucrates choose. We explore the effects of population growth on the optimal size of nonprofit organizations from the goverment's point of view, and review policy tools available to goverment to influence the attrictiveness of the nonprofit sector to managers with varying degrees of ideological and beureaucratic motivation.     

The impact of an ethical environment on managers' project evaluation judgments under agency problem conditions

This paper proposes that a strong ethical environment will be effective in reducing the tendency for managers to continue failing projects in both the presence and absence of agency problems. The findings support these propositions, with a strong ethical environment found to significantly reduce managers' tendency to continue failing projects. Also, while agency problem effects were still present under a strong ethical environment, their impact was similar to the case of a weak ethical environment in the absence of agency problems. These findings suggest that creating a strong ethical environment may be a highly desirable control option for organizations generally.     

Making sense of nonbusiness accounting.

The nonbusiness world of municipalities, colleges and universities, hospitals, and other nonprofit organizations follows its own rules when it comes to financial statements, and these are often confusing to anyone who is accustomed to business accounting. According to this author, it was the concept of fund accounting that divided the two worlds of business and nonbusiness accounting and led to a situation where it is almost impossible to judge the financial performance of nonbusiness entities. He shows how financial statements of the business and nonbusiness worlds can use the same standards, with a few modifications for the unique features of nonbusiness organizations.     

The role of the paid preparer in nonprofit reporting quality

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the preparer of the Form 990 influences the Form 990 reporting quality. Currently, the Form 990 is the only widely available source of governance and financial information for nonprofit organizations. The leading rater of nonprofit organizations, Charity Navigator, relies primarily on information from the Form 990 in developing their ratings. We identify misreporting by utilizing five measures of reporting quality. We find organizations that hire an outside accounting firm to prepare the Form 990 report higher quality financial information than organizations that choose to prepare the Form 990 in house. Interestingly, the size of the accounting firm is not associated with the quality of Form 990 reporting with the exception that paid preparers who are sole proprietors are more likely to misreport. Further exploration reveals that paid preparers who file more returns are less likely to misreport indicating that specialization is associated with more accurate reporting on Form 990. Our study contributes to the literature by using multiple reporting measures to examine the impact of paid preparers on the reporting quality of 990s. Furthermore, our study is the first to consider how specialization affects the accuracy of 990 returns.     

A review of ethical considerations in benefits planning

The rising cost of employee benefits and ongoing pressure to improve existing benefits is forcing employers to make difficult decisions. Most employers are truly concerned about the welfare of their employees and attempt to make these decisions in an ethical manner. This article offers practical advice on maintaining an ethical perspective, which the authors contend is necessary to maintain when facing these challenging responsibilities. The article identifies the various stakeholders as well as the necessary steps to consider when attempting to make an ethically sound decision involving employee benefits.     

El estado del arte de la orientación al mercado en las organizaciones culturales

A diversity of studies in previous literature has focused on determining the contribution of market orientation in the companies' performance. However, the research on the effects of market orientation in the performance of cultural organizations is an incipient area of research. In this sense, the present study has the purpose of presenting a review of the main aspects of market orientation in nonprofit organizations, specifically in cultural organizations, and identifies future research directions for this still fertile field of study.     

A FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT THEORY OF THE NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION

Certain unique operational and financial characteristics of nonprofit organizations prevent the transfer and successful application of orthodox economic and financial management theories to financial management decisions in the nonprofit context. These characteristics include a dual management structure composed of professional and financial managers, multiple objectives, legal restrictions on the disposition of earnings and assets, and the constant threat of illiquidity as the result of the uncoupling of organizational goals and cash flows. The financial management theory presented here separates the financial management goals from the professional goals and allows the finance practitioner to concentrate on keeping the nonprofit organization operating as a going concern. The theory is designed as a “partial” theory of the firm and is completely consonant with accepted economic orthodoxy. Hence, by employing financial decision rules based on the new theory, a nonprofit organization can survive financially through time while its professional manager pursues utility-denominated goals delineated by the organization's tax-exempt status.     

Nonprofit executive incentive pay

We utilize information only recently disclosed on Form 990 to examine the use, and consequences of, incentive pay at nonprofit organizations. Bonuses are common in nonprofits, as we observe that approximately 45% of the 44,000 organization-year observations in our sample reported paying CEO bonuses. We find that the bonuses are positively associated with profitability, competition from other nonprofits, firm size, available cash, and use of compensation consultants and committees, while negatively related to board oversight, donations, and grants. Our results also suggest that donors look unfavorably at the payment of bonuses; that is, bonuses are associated with lower future donations. Nonetheless, we find evidence consistent with the payment of bonuses incentivizing nonprofit executives, as despite reduced fundraising, future profitability and program services are positively associated with current bonus compensation.