How to write a great business plan

Every seasoned investor knows that detailed financial projections for a new company are an act of imagination. Nevertheless, most business plans pour far too much ink on the numbers - and far too little on the information that really matters. Why? William Sahlman suggests that a great business plan is one that focuses on a series of questions. These questions relate to the four factors critical to the success of every new venture: the people, the opportunity, the context, and the possibilities for both risk and reward. The questions about people revolve around three issues: What do they know? Whom do they know? and How well are they known? As for opportunity, the plan should focus on two questions: Is the market for the venture's product or service large or rapidly growing (or preferably both)? and Is the industry structurally attractive? Then, in addition to demonstrating an understanding of the context in which their venture will operate, entrepreneurs should make clear how they will respond when that context inevitably changes. Finally, the plan should look unflinchingly at the risks the new venture faces, giving would-be backers a realistic idea of what magnitude of reward they can expect and when they can expect it. A great business plan is not easy to compose, Sahlman acknowledges, largely because most entrepreneurs are wild-eyed optimists. But one that asks the right questions is a powerful tool. A better deal, not to mention a better shot at success, awaits entrepreneurs who use it.     

Internationalization of the introductory financial accounting course

This note describes the method used at Illinois State University to add an international perspective to the introductory financial accounting course. It discusses the materials distributed to the faculty and gives suggestions for integrating them with textbook material.     

The introductory financial accounting course: Its role in the curriculum for accounting majors

This paper reports a study that addressed two related research questions. The first concerns the proper emphasis in teaching introductory financial accounting in terms of the conceptual and procedural aspects of the subject. The second deals with the adequacy of introductory courses in preparing accounting majors for their intermediate and advanced accounting courses. Professors who had recently taught intermediate and/or advanced accounting responded to a questionnaire designed to answer the above questions. A recent study of the curriculum for accounting majors helped provide a framework for part of the questionnaire. The responses provide some evidence favoring a more conceptual emphasis, although it is not conclusive. There is a clear indication that these professors perceive the preparation received by accounting majors to be inadequate. A related finding is that more study of the accounting curriculum is needed, especially in terms of when the various topics should be taught.     

Integrating empirical research into the study of introductory accounting

This article develops a pedagogical tool for integrating the questions and findings of empirical accounting research into the lecture topics typically covered in introductory accounting courses. The objective of synthesizing research into teaching is to create a more appealing framework for the nonaccounting major to understand the sometimes mundane topics which are presented at the introductory level by developing his or her understanding of the role of accounting in the economy. Five examples of this integration are outlined and discussed at a level which the introductory student should comprehend. The benefits of implementing this approach are also noted throughout the article.     

How to have an honest conversation about your business strategy

Too many organizations descend into underperformance because they can't confront the painful gap between their strategy and the reality of their capabilities, their behaviors, and their markets. That's because senior managers don't know how to engage in truthful conversations about the problems that threaten the business--and because lower-level managers are afraid to speak up. These factors lie behind many failures to implement strategy. Indeed, the dynamics in almost any organization are such that it's extremely difficult for senior people to hear the unfiltered truth from managers lower down. Beer and Eisenstat present the methodology they've developed for getting the truth about an organization's problems (and the truth is always embedded within the organization) onto the table in a way that allows senior management to do something useful with it. By assembling a task force of the most effective managers to collect data about strategic and organizational problems, the senior team sends a clear message that it is serious about uncovering the truth. Task force members present their findings to the senior team in the form of a discussion. This conversation needs to move back and forth between advocacy and inquiry; it has to be about the issues that matter most; it has to be collective and public; it has to allow employees to be honest without risking their jobs; and it has to be structured. This direct feedback from a handful of their best people moves senior teams to make changes they otherwise might not have. Senior teams that have engaged in this process have made dramatic changes in how their businesses are organized and managed--and in their bottom-line results. Success that begins with honest conversations begets future conversations that further improve performance.     

Using Pacioli’s pedagogy and medieval text in today’s introductory accounting course

Students today see little relevance in learning double-entry bookkeeping and find it difficult to learn how to prepare journal entries correctly. In particular, they struggle with the first stage of the double-entry process: identifying which accounts are to be debited and which are to be credited for each transaction. This paper reports on an attempt to overcome this situation by using the first printed instructional text on the subject (Pacioli, 1494) as the principal textbook on a 20-hour component of the introductory financial accounting course in an undergraduate accounting degree program. Instruction followed the pedagogy presented by Pacioli and only minimal additional costs to faculty were incurred.     

Deep and surface approaches to learning within introductory accounting: a phenomenographic study

This paper reports the findings of a phenomenographic research study which sought to identify students' approaches to learning introductory accounting and their conceptions of accounting. The findings reveal that, in common with other disciplines, deep and surface approaches to learning can be identified. However, the main contribution of this study lies in two areas. First, it distinguishes those features that are characteristic of the deep and surface approaches within the discipline of accounting. Secondly, it identifies contextual features surrounding these approaches to learning and which are central to an understanding of them. The paper suggests how these findings can be used immediately to make changes within teaching and assessment practice through a phenomenographic pedagogy which: seeks to make students' conceptions of the subject matter explicit; provides diagnostic tools for the identification of distinctively different conceptions of the subject and approaches to learning; and addresses issues of preconceptions and relevance within teaching and assessment. The findings can also be used as the basis for further research into the identification of statistical variation in approaches to learning between students.     

Custom fabric ventures: An instructional resource in job costing for the introductory managerial accounting course

Job costing is a core foundational concept in the introductory managerial accounting course. The purpose of this instructional resource (IR) is to provide a thorough hands-on, active learning resource that will allow introductory students to experience a full set of accounting and management activities necessary to produce a job and assign production costs to it. For example, the IR requires students to analyze overhead costs, determine the optimal job size, schedule production, calculate the amount of materials to purchase, complete material requisitions, update raw materials records, analyze labor time records, complete a job cost record and address critical thinking questions. The IR was developed for use in a “flipped classroom” in which students work under the guidance of the instructor, but could alternatively be assigned as an unsupervised out-of-class assignment or on-line project. Since the IR was specifically developed as a learning tool for novice introductory managerial accounting students, adequate guidance is provided throughout the activity. However, to add realism and challenge students to think beyond the confines of simple mechanics, management and accounting issues are seeded throughout. Student feedback indicates that the IR not only helps students learn how a job costing system operates, but also helps students become aware of management decisions and accounting issues that impact the costs assigned to a job.     

Match your sales force structure to your business life cycle

Although companies devote considerable time and money to managing their sales forces, few focus much thought on how the structure of the sales force needs to change over the life cycle of a product or a business. However, the organization and goals of a sales operation have to evolve as businesses start up, grow, mature, and decline if a company wants to keep winning the race for customers. Specifically, firms must consider and alter four factors over time: the differing roles that internal salespeople and external selling partners should play, the size of the sales force, its degree of specialization, and how salespeople apportion their efforts among different customers, products, and activities. These variables are critical because they determine how quickly sales forces respond to market opportunities, they influence sales reps' performance, and they affect companies' revenues, costs, and profitability. In this article, the authors use timeseries data and cases to explain how, at each stage, firms can best tackle the relevant issues and get the most out of their sales forces. During start-up, smart companies focus on how big their sales staff should be and on whether they can depend upon selling partners. In the growth phase, they concentrate on getting the sales force's degree of specialization and size right. When businesses hit maturity, companies should better allocate existing resources and hire more general-purpose salespeople. Finally, as organizations go into decline, wise sales leaders reduce sales force size and use partners to keep the business afloat for as long as possible.     

The Bakery: a cross-functional case study for introductory managerial accounting

This instructional case is designed to achieve four educational objectives: (1) to give students a more complete appreciation of the importance of considering accounting information along with marketing and economics-related information, avoiding a myopic focus on accounting data, (2) to give students practice in pricing, cost volume profit analysis (CVP) and outsourcing decisions, (3) to help students learn to build spreadsheets that are capable of what-if analysis, and (4) to provide an active learning experience that engages introductory accounting students. The Bakery is a non-profit organization whose primary function is to sell baked goods and beverages to students in a large campus residence hall complex. In completing the case, students utilize information provided about the costs and previous pricing structure of The Bakery, along with information they collect about competitors' product offerings, prices, and accompanying services, and their own knowledge of The Bakery's customers, college students and their parents, as a basis for making pricing decisions. Once they have completed the pricing analysis, students use the resulting variable costing income statement to perform CVP and to analyze a decision to potentially outsource The Bakery's operations.     

Learning to learn in the accounting Principles course: Outcome assessment of an integrative business analysis project

This paper reports on an effort to integrate some of the Accounting Education Change Commission's recommendations for the Principles course. A project involving comprehensive analysis of a publicly traded company was introduced in the Managerial Accounting course as a vehicle to develop critical thinking, problem solving, ethical sensitivity, team-work, and communication skills among sophomore-level business majors. As a means of assessing outcomes, a follow-up questionnaire was administered to measure the effectiveness of the project, and results were analyzed. The project was found to have made positive impacts across several dimensions of the learning process. Implications for Accounting curricula are discussed.     

How to build your network

Many sensational ideas have faded away into obscurity because they failed to reach the right people. A strong personal network, however, can launch a burgeoning plan into the limelight by delivering private information, access to diverse skill sets, and power. Most executives know that they need to learn about the best ideas and that, in turn, their best ideas must be heard by the rest of the world. But strong personal networks don't just happen around a watercooler or at reunions with old college friends. As Brian Uzzi and Shannon Dunlap explain, networks have to be carefully constructed through relatively high-stakes activities that bring you into contact with a diverse group of people. Most personal networks are highly clustered--that is, your friends are likely to be friends with one another as well. And, if you made those friends by introducing yourself to them, the chances are high that their experiences and perspectives echo your own. Because ideas generated within this type of network circulate among the same people with shared views, though, a potential winner can wither away and die if no one in the group has what it takes to bring that idea to fruition. But what if someone within that cluster knows someone else who belongs to a whole different group? That connection, formed by an information broker, can expose your idea to a new world, filled with fresh opportunities for success. Diversity makes the difference. Uzzi and Dunlap show you how to assess what kind of network you currently have, helping you to identify your super-connectors and demonstrating how you act as an information broker for others. They then explain how to diversify your contacts through shared activities and how to manage your new, more potent, network.     

Introducing spreadsheets into an intermediate financial accounting course: the results of a quasi-experiment

Previous research has revealed a measurable decrease in student attitude towards the use of computers when they are integrated into teaching. This fall in attitude is thought to reflect the initial diffculties encountered when attempting to use computers and learn acounting techniques at the same time. However, it is postulated that once the students' computer ability has achieved an adequate level, then attitude will recover. This paper reports the results of a continuing investigation into the attitude of second-year undergraduate accounting students towords the use of computers in their studies. The method used was to ask students to complete a questionnaire about their attitudes and self-assessed ability and to undergo a written test of their computer/spreadsheet Knowledge. These data were merged with those from earlier testing to give a two-year data set. The results indicate that the attitude of students to using computers generally continued to fall significantly. However, their ability to use computers and spreadsheets rose. In the case of spreadsheets, this rise in ability was significant. It was found that students who took, as options, additional courses which integrated computers had more positive attiudes and achieved higher scores in the computer Knowledge test than those who did not. This implies that the initial fall in attitude experienced in previous studies was not an isolated temporary phenomenon. The imporvement in ability is observed, but this did not have the expected effect.     

Integrating a virtual learning environment into a second-year accounting course: determinants of overall student perception

Rapid acceptance of, and changes in, information technology are revolutionizing the way educators teach and students learn. This study reports on the use of Blackboard as a tool for creating a virtual learning environment (VLE). Responses from undergraduate accounting students in New Zealand provide data on the use of the VLE as a learning aid. Findings suggest that the students have openly embraced the VLE and support its adoption by faculty members in other courses. However, students appear unwilling to actively participate in two-way online activities. This has implications for faculty contemplating the adoption of a VLE in their courses.     

小所要巧做"无米之炊"

现在我们经常看到这些报道,会计师事务所普遍都喊"饿"。尤其是那些小所,在人才、品牌、资金等方面无法与大所抗衡,"饿"的程度更为严重。     

How to motivate your problem people

Managers who motivate with incentives and the power of their vision and passion succeed only in energizing employees who want to be motivated. So how do you motivate intractable employees--the ones who never do what you want and also take up all your time? According to Nigel Nicholson, you can't: Individuals must motivated themselves. Nicholson advocates a method that turns conventional approaches to motivation upside down. Instead of pushing solutions on problem employees, the manager should pull solutions out of them by creating circumstances in which the employees can channel their motivation toward achievable goals. That means addressing any obstacles-possibly even the manager's own demotivating style--that might be hindering the employees. The author's method demands that a manager take charge of a difficult situation and resolve it. An investment of time is required, but it will bring the manager to a resolution sooner than other means would. Using detailed examples, Nicholson walks the reader through his method, pointing out potential pitfalls along the way. First, the manager creates a rich picture of the problem person. Second, the manager exercises flexibility and reframes goals so that the employee can meet them. Third, in a carefully staged, face-to-face conversation, the manager meets with the problem employee on neutral ground. Whether a problem is solved or simply resolved, the payoffs from using this method extend beyond the specific employees who have been difficult to motivate. Besides increasing a manager's chances of motivation problem people, the method can inspire an entire team by signaling that the organization deals with difficult people rather than discarding them.