Developing interviewing skills of accounting students on the Web – a case study approach

Increasing emphasis on the need for accounting graduates to develop personal skills has led to changes in many undergraduate programmes. This paper discusses one project at a Scottish university aimed at developing interviewing skills, using Web technology. Based on the theory of experiential learning, the project involves case study material delivered via a specially-written application which tracks students' questions and provides feedback on their interviewing styles. The interpersonal skills required in interviewing in a workplace context are analysed, and expressed in terms of the attributes of the questions used. The problem of providing feedback without excessive input from tutors is addressed and, finally, a method of evaluating the effectiveness of the learning experience is suggested.     

Impacts of the timing of the discovery of a subsequent event on the auditors’ approach to subsequent events

This study investigates the underlying causes affecting auditors’ approaches to subsequent events. As auditors are required to perform the majority of subsequent events procedures near the due date of the audit report, I examine whether auditors are less likely to make adjustments or disclosures regarding subsequent events that occur after the audit completion, but before issuing the audit report. Results indicate that auditors were less likely to adjust Type I events that occurred after audit completion when the risk was low, but not when the risk was high. This was not the case for Type II events, which only require disclosure.     

Fraud: from national strategies to practice on the ground—a regional case study

The intentions of a number of national strategies and other initiatives to address fraud are reviewed in the context of one UK region. This paper considers how far various agencies in that region have responded to fraud. It then discusses which factors appear to have influenced the role of the strategies and other initiatives as an anti-fraud framework or to deliver anti-fraud work.     

New development: Managing the Covid-19 pandemic—from a hospital-centred model of care to a community co-production approach

ABSTRACT

Covid-19 is not only a crisis of intensive care but a social and humanitarian crisis. Until mass vaccination is undertaken, control of contagion will rely on responsible behaviour by citizens. Strategies for fighting Covid-19 in different regions of Italy have shown that an area-specific approach, not just hospital-focused, pays off. This article proposes a community co-production approach, in the light of discussions with politicians and key health decision-makers and actors.     

Asset–liability modelling and pension schemes: the application of robust optimization to USS

This paper uses a novel numerical optimization technique – robust optimization – that is well suited to solving the asset–liability management (ALM) problem for pension schemes. It requires the estimation of fewer stochastic parameters, reduces estimation risk and adopts a prudent approach to asset allocation. This study is the first to apply it to a real-world pension scheme, and the first ALM model of a pension scheme to maximize the Sharpe ratio. We disaggregate pension liabilities into three components – active members, deferred members and pensioners, and transform the optimal asset allocation into the scheme's projected contribution rate. The robust optimization model is extended to include liabilities and used to derive optimal investment policies for the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), benchmarked against the Sharpe and Tint, Bayes–Stein and Black–Litterman models as well as the actual USS investment decisions. Over a 144-month out-of-sample period, robust optimization is superior to the four benchmarks across 20 performance criteria and has a remarkably stable asset allocation – essentially fix-mix. These conclusions are supported by six robustness checks.     

Toward the NGO-involved schooling: a study on teachers’ risk perceptions and teachings

This paper focuses on revealing the ambivalent situations in teachers’ risk perceptions and teachings. Three ambivalent situations are found. The first is that, although the teachers reported that collective-related risks are more important than personal-related risks, they are less active in gathering knowledge regarding collective-related risks. The second situation is that, although teachers try to supplement their teaching materials with more risk phenomena, this may just be in response to their occupational needs, rather than due to their moral reflexivity. The third ambivalent situation is that the competitive and individualized environment seems to limit the teachers’ risk teaching. Based on these findings and other research, the author states that NGO-involved schooling might be a significant strategy to face the challenge of world risks in the neoliberal world.     

A new theoretical framework to assess Multinational Corporations’ motivation for Foreign Direct Investment: A case study on Vietnamese service industries

PurposeThis paper develops a new theoretical framework, based on eclectic paradigm and institution theory, to evaluate Multinational Corporations’ (MNCs’) incentives for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The new framework is applied as a case study in the service sector across Vietnam.Design/methodology/approachThis study applies the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach to investigate the motivational factors of MNCs by using primary data on MNCs working in service industries in Vietnam. This paper introduces five motivational factors, and conducts a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to study the construct validity of the research measures and to cluster the variables into common factors that can be used to present relationships among sets of interrelated variables.FindingsThe SEM results reveal that the key determinants of MNCs’ incentives to invest in service industries are market-seeking government policies and culture, all of which have significantly contributed to FDI.Originality/valueThis study offers new knowledge and insights into the factors that motivate FDI by MNCs in general and in service industries in Vietnam. The findings are plausible and in line with the recent economic reforms launched in Vietnam, along with the increased FDI inflows into the country in the last twenty-five years.     

Sensitivity of willingness to pay to the magnitude of risk reduction: a Taiwan­United States comparison

Estimates of willingness to pay (WTP) for health, environmental, and other goods obtained using contingent valuation (CV) have been criticized as inadequately sensitive to the scope or magnitude of the good. We investigate the sensitivity of WTP to variation in the magnitude of reductions in health risk using survey data collected in two countries, Taiwan and the United States, that differ dramatically with respect to economic development and cultural background. WTP is elicited for reductions in acute risks associated with food poisoning and blood transfusion, and for reductions in the chronic risk of pneumonia at advanced ages. Results are similar in the two countries and provide little evidence that CV-based estimates are sufficiently sensitive to the magnitude of the risk reduction. Inadequate sensitivity of estimated WTP to the magnitude of risk reduction suggests that improved methods are required for estimating consumers' rates of substitution between health risk and other goods.     

Spillover effects of the 2008 global financial crisis on the volatility of the Indian equity markets: Coupling or uncoupling? A study on sector-based data

This paper focuses on the following question: has the global financial stress in the US markets during the subprime crisis induced a persistent volatility of Indian equity stocks? We answer this question using sector-based data and we propose a simple stochastic volatility model augmented with exogenous inputs (financial stress indicators in the US market). We derive analytically the autocorrelation of the squared returns using cross-moments and estimate the impact of several variables such as the CDS spreads, the ABCP spreads, market liquidity, the volatility of the S&P 500 using a Kalman filter approach with the impact captured through Almon polynomials. We find a strong evidence of persistent volatility irrespective of the sector and interpret this finding as the result of two factors: the lower liquidity of the Indian equity markets during the subprime crisis and a wake-up call effect.     

Coping with risk: analysis on the importance of integrating social perceptions on flood risk into management mechanisms – the case of the municipality of Águeda,Portugal

The paper reflects on how populations prone to flood risk perceive such hazards and the way this perception has or has not been incorporated into the measures and mechanisms of flood risk management. The frequent occurrence of flooding, as well as the population's vulnerability and exposure to this risk, shows that the municipality of Águeda is a paradigmatic case for analysis of these issues. Similar to the rest of the country, the municipality of Águeda has been neglecting the multidimensional nature of flood risk. The data collected present some disparity between the proposals and technical perspectives regarding the management and mitigation of flood risk and the perception of local populations. In addition, neither knowledge of social perception of flood risk nor of the local communities is being integrated in a substantial and pro‐active way, whether in the processes of policy‐making or in the implementation of these policies. Empirical evidence equally shows that there is a clear tendency towards acceptance and coping with flood risk by the population in the municipality of Águeda. This seems to be connected to the local populations' recognition that though it is impossible to eliminate risk, there are at the same time advantages to occupying the floodplains.     

The day the index rose 11 %: a clinical study on price discovery reversal

On October 28, 2008, Germany’s leading equity index Deutscher Aktienindex (DAX) rose 11.28 % which is the highest daily performance since its inception. That day, the arbitrage relationship between the cash and the futures market broke down. Based on this clean natural experiment, we examine price innovation dynamics of DAX related spot products for the days surrounding the event day. We find that price discovery is strongly reversed during the extreme event day with futures losing their common leadership to less liquid index certificates of market leading issuers. Evidently, strategic quote setting of certificate issuers drives the negative futures spot basis. An important broader implication from our research is that such an event is not unlikely to reoccur in the future. Although the Deutsche Börse AG calculating the DAX has reconsidered its rules since then, 30 out of 49 leading indices around the world do not include a relative weight cap. When the number of included firms is additionally low, the odds of another “Volkswagen event” increase. 14 out of the 30 uncapped indices include less than 50 firms.     

The role of affective processes on young drivers’ risk perceptions: a dual process model approach

Young adults continue to be over-represented in injury and death statistics associated with transport-related crashes. The current paper investigates the application of the dual process model of risky judgement to the processing of transport-related risky behaviours. One hundred Australian participants completed an online survey exploring four transport-related risky situations. Participants were assessed on their cognitive and affective evaluations of the risky situations as well as their self-reported likelihood of participation in them. The findings indicate that perceptions of risk for specific transport-related behaviours are not processed in a consistent manner. Predictive factors, including gender, affective and cognitive processing, as well as the subsequent self-reported likelihood of engaging in the behaviours, varied between situations. The research indicates that driver interventions may need to be individually targeted to specific transport-related risky behaviours to compensate for the variation in predictive factors.     

How the enterprise risk management function influences decision-making in the organization – A field study of a large,global oil and gas company

Risk management has been a discipline for decades. However, organizations have only recently begun to introduce a separate enterprise risk management (ERM) function. The aim of this study is to examine the transformation of the ERM function's influence in a company over time. We use a historical case study informed by social theory on how to influence others to investigate this phenomenon. The findings show that the construction of risk technologies over time triggers a change in the ERM function's influence on decision-making. Two processes of influence are used by the ERM function: selling new ideas and managing knowledge across boundaries. In the first process, the ERM function attempts to vertically influence top management's decisions regarding acceptance of new risk management technologies. In the second process, the ERM function attempts to horizontally influence decision makers to use risk knowledge in decision processes. Theoretically, our findings contribute to our understanding of how the ERM function influences decision-making in organizations over time.     

Impact of internal control quality on the information content of social responsibility reports: A study based on text similarity—Evidence from China

To date, the impact of internal control on text information social responsibility reports has been rarely explored. This study investigates the correlation between internal control and information content of social responsibility reports based on the similarity of text information of reports by listed enterprises in 2006–2017. Overall, high-quality internal control results in low text similarity of social responsibility and high information content of social responsibility reports. The internal control quality could enhance the information content of social responsibility reports by decreasing the enterprise’s agency costs. For large-scale corporations, non-state enterprises and those with intensive public attention, effective internal control can enhance the information content of social responsibility reports. The agency cost can exert a partial mediating effect for large-scale corporations and enterprises with intensive public attention and complete mediating effect for non-state enterprises. Moreover, this study extends the scope of internal control to the quantitative dimension of text information and has crucial implications for listed enterprises, investors, and governments regarding internal control and disclosure of social responsibility information.     

Understanding the framing effect: do affective responses to decision options mediate the influence of frame on choice?

Little research has examined how gain- and loss-framed options influence participants’ affective states. In the current paper, we present two studies that measure affective responses to framed options to identify a potential mediator of the relation between frame and choice. We found that participants reported more positive responses after reading gain-framed options that presented a certain outcome compared to loss-framed options that presented a certain outcome, consistent with the choice patterns of the framing effect. We also found that framing effects were mediated by affective evaluation of the options. We suggest future researchers continue to assess the influence of affective response on evaluating options and making decisions.     

‘Living on the edge’: using cognitive filters to appraise experience of environmental risk

Individuals respond to an experience of risk, both in attitudinal and behavioural terms as a result of how that experience is interpreted and appraised. Experience of local flooding can in theory, inform individuals’ attitudes towards climate change. This trend however, is not observed in all cases and is highly dependent on the local, situational context. This paper postulates that the variation observed in attitudinal and behavioural responses by farmers to climate change following experiences of local flooding can, in part, be explained by the Cognitive Filters of Experience Appraisal Model introduced in this paper. The model is developed firstly through a review of the existing literature concerning appraisal (cognitive and experience). Secondly, the model is framed by empirical research via fifteen face to face interviews with farmers in Gloucestershire, England, who have all directly experienced flooding in recent years. The study is exploratory in nature, and the qualitative data serve as contextualised accounts of the different patterns of experience appraisal. The paper contributes to existing literature by developing current understandings of experience appraisal as well as providing qualitative detail to an area which has generally only been researched quantitatively. The model of experience appraisal which is put forward could be applied to multiple contexts of environmental risk.     

Using video to disclose forward-looking information: the effect of nonverbal cues on investors’ judgments

Review of Accounting Studies - We conduct two experiments to examine how investors react to nonverbal cues of certainty as displayed by a CEO communicating forward-looking information via the...