Accounting for Forestry Assets: Current Practice and future Directions

Discussion Paper 23 and Exposure Draft 83, dealing with self-generating and regenerating assets, have been positive steps in the development of accounting for foresty operations. DP 23 was successful in canvassing a wide range of relevant issues. Its most significant recommendations relate to the measurement of foresty assets - but there emerges a problem: no concepts statement on measurement generally has been developed and in its absence the DP 23 and ED 83 recommends ti0 ns appear premature.     

Accounting information systems research over the past decade: Past and future trends

This article reviews the extant accounting information systems (AIS) literature by conducting an analysis of AIS articles published in 18 leading accounting, management information systems, and computer science journals from 1999 to 2009 with a view to identifying whether or not the focus of AIS research has changed, and if so how it has changed, since the Poston and Grabski’s (2000) review of AIS research from 1982 to 1998. We also report our insights into where AIS research is likely to be heading in the future. We analyse each of the 395 articles identified as reporting AIS research to identify their underlying theory, research method and research topic. Our results confirm the continuing decline in analytical and model‐building research in AIS‐related research and this decline is associated with a similar decline in the use of computer science theory to motivate this research. We also find that two theoretical platforms, in particular, now account for almost half (48 per cent) of all AIS research: cognitive psychology and economics. Experimental research methods and archival studies continue to grow as the preferred methods for testing the AIS‐related theories derived from these theory domains.     

Accounting education: A learning-styles study of professional-technical and future adaptation issues

In the fall of 1984 Baldwin and Reckers reported the results of an exploratory study of the learning styles of business students based on Kolb's Experiential Learning Model and its related empirical methodology.This study applies the same methodology to investigate the learning styles of accounting practitioners in addition to business students. The results are used to evaluate the potential merits of Kolb's approach for accounting education research and to consider the possible impact on learners of two orientations to accounting education evident in the literature.     

养老金会计处理的探讨

人口老龄化趋势已成为全球性的问题 ,世界各国一直在不断努力寻求解决的途径 ,至今已形成了各具特色的养老保险制度。在会计处理上 ,西方国家已形成一套比较完善的体系 ,而我国在这方面尚处于探索阶段。本文分析了养老金的性质及养老金会计核算的原则 ;借鉴西方 (主要是美国和IASC)养老金会计领域的研究成果 ,分别就两种养老金给付方式下的会计处理进行论述 ;结合我国养老金制度发展的实际情况 ,对养老金计划及会计问题进行初步探讨。     

Accounting education research: a retrospective over ten years with some pointers to the future

Abstract

This paper proposes principles to guide accounting students' and accounting educators' use of Facebook as an educational resource to engage students with their learning. A body of cross-disciplinary research has investigated potential applications of Facebook to invigorate student engagement. Generic guidelines for educators who are contemplating integrating Facebook into pedagogical practice are a recent addition to this research. However, there is a lack of disciplinary-specific guidelines to inform both accounting educators' and accounting students' use of Facebook as a learning resource. Indeed, Facebook's pedagogical affordances are a generally overlooked field of enquiry in accounting education research. The principles proposed in the paper are informed by the literature on Facebook and student engagement, and the concept of digital citizenship, which illuminates the importance of the responsible and professional use of Facebook by accounting students and the development of online practices and behaviours that enhance students' appeal to the accounting profession.     

Accounting measures of unfunded pension liabilities and the expected present value of future pension cash flows

The associations between three alternative measures of the unfunded pension obligation discussed in the accounting literature and a measure that reflects the present value of expected cash flows (economic liability) are examined in this study using simulated data. The sensitivity of the correlations to funding methods, growth rates of the plan population, interest rates, plan initiation dates, and extent of sweetening are also studied. It is shown that all the accounting measures of the pension obligation are highly correlated with the total economic liability when funding is excluded, but the correlations decrease significantly when the net (unfunded) liability is examined. Furthermore, it is shown analytically that one cannot predict ex ante which measure of the unfunded liability will be most highly correlated with the economic liability. The implication for accounting standard-setting bodies is that both the pension plan assets and pension obligations should be disclosed to facilitate users in making predictions about changes in the economic liability. A recent official pronouncement, SFAS 87, provides for such disclosure in most circumstances.     

Accounting for rituals

The paper considers the proposition that accounts describe the relationships which exist between certain collaborators in the firm, rather than the activity of the firm itself. These relationships are essentially ritualistic, insofar as they are the outward forms of rather complex realities. Moreover, the ritual, and the “theology” which underlies it, are anthropocentric rationalisations, which may not completely capture the essence of the reality they are intended to portray. Such problems are especially likely at this time, in view of the discrepancy between accounting theory and the more holistic approach of the modern world-view. Conflicts tend to be circumvented rather than resolved, by devices which are strictly irrational. The function of accounting and financial professionals is both to devise new rituals to meet new circumstances and accommodate them within the orthodox canon; parallels are drawn between this activity and that of the witchdoctor in more primitive societies.     

会计师行业如何应对中国加入WTO

中国经济正由出口导向性转向消费主导型,加入WTO必然会使其贸易、投资和商业行为发生很多变化.不少行业的进口限制将逐步放宽,营造有利于外商投资以至市场竞争的环境.与此同时,国内企业也必须急起应对,迎接新的挑战,否则就可能失去市场占有率.     

Accounting for Foucault

Michel Foucault's concept of governmentality has been central to critical accounting research for two decades, a centrality that has placed systems of calculation as the starting point of discussions of the state, the firm and the market. We begin by outlining the development of governmentality in Foucault's own work. Despite the rich, productive nature of the concept, Foucault was careful to define governmentality as broadly and loosely as possible, the better to convey its open-endedness. The second section considers the introduction of Foucault to accounting research. The combination of Foucault and accounting history is not at all obvious, but became possible because a series of important contextual studies demonstrated that accounting history had to consider both the historicity of the profession and that its practices were vital in constructing measures of organisational performance, not simply uncovering previously obscure or hidden social realities. Moreover, accounting history studies the production of targets and measures of progress towards utility and welfare, processes that are not reducible to the firm or even to economic calculation. Our third section outlines the genesis of the ‘London School of governmentality’ and the main strands of their theoretical contribution. Finally, we examine the governmentalists’ analysis of corporate restructuring and the introduction of new production organisation by Caterpillar. Our aim is to use the Caterpillar case as the vehicle for a broader consideration of governmentality, strategy and the enterprise.     

Accounting for reserves

Views on the effectiveness of sterilized reserve intervention vary. Sterilized intervention is generally seen as ineffective in advanced countries while persistent intervention by some emerging markets is often cited as contributing to undervalued exchange rates and current account surpluses. This paper argues that capital controls reconcile these views. We find strong and highly robust evidence that sterilized intervention is fully offset by outflows of private money in countries without controls, while controls partially block this offset. For a country with extensive capital controls, every dollar in additional reserves increases the current account by some 50–100 cents. This is mainly offset by an opposite adjustment in the current account of the United States—the dominant reserve currency issuer with the deepest and most liquid bond markets—with a smaller diversion to emerging markets.     

Accounting Education for the Twenty-first Century

The task of accounting is to provide reliable knowledge. The standard textbooks and curricula give no analytical attention to what this means. They perpetuate processes that had their origins in the desire to conceal rather than to disclose. Recurrent criticism of the products of practice may only be averted if the educational establishment gives greater attention to the nature of money and prices, the conditions of valid measurement, the logic of choice, the regulation of complex processes, and the consequences of misdirected thought and misleading practices.     

会计实务问题(一)——资产核算

为促进注册会计师业务知识与技术的学习,我刊新设“业务讲座”栏目。本期开始,先约请浙江天健会计师事务所主任会计师胡少先根据现行会计制度、会计准则规定的基本精神,参照国际惯例,对若干会计实务问题的处理进行了分析,并提出处理建议,供行业同人参考。     

Accounting for the Private Finance Initiative

This article examines how the context out of which the PFI emerged has conditioned its implementation. Attention is directed, in particular, towards how public expenditure is scored for the purposes of the national accounts and for public expenditure planning. The Treasury's decision to substitute accruals for cash accounting across central government has significant implications for the accounting treatment of PFI assets. Certain important distinctions are analysed, notably that between assets which generate revenue streams from third-party payers and those which do not. The authors conclude that disclosure practices must give primacy to transparency about future obligations, over claims to commercial confidentiality.     

A framework for the future

The essays in this section on management of change are based on presentations made at the International Symposium: Organisation, Infrastructure and Management in the 1980s, Lo ndon, 14–15 October 1974. Dr Priban, who organised the symposium, is a strategic planning counsellor in London.