Accounting Undergraduates' Perceptions of Cooperative Learning as a Model for Enhancing their Interpersonal and Communication Skills to Interface Successfully with Professional Accountancy Education and Training

To interface effectively with professional accountancy training, accounting educationalists should ensure that they turn out graduates who possess the interpersonal and communication skills required of today's accountant. Attainment of these skills is promoted by group work. However, little empirical evidence exists to help academics make an informed choice about which form of group learning enhances interpersonal and communication skills. This paper addresses this deficiency by comparing perceptions of skills enhancement between accounting students who experienced traditional or simple group learning and those who undertook cooperative learning. The findings reveal that the cooperative learning cohort perceived their learning experience to be significantly more effective at enhancing interpersonal and communication skills than that of the simple group learning cohort. This study provides evidence that cooperative learning is a more effective model for delivering interpersonal and communication skills than simple group learning, thereby creating a more successful interface between academic accounting and professional accountancy training.     

Statistical inference using the T index to quantify the level of comparability between accounts

The extent to which the accounts of companies are comparable is considered important to users and regulators. However, prior research has been restricted by a lack of appropriate statistical methods for testing comparability indices. This has made it difficult to assess the true level of comparability from sample data and to test research hypotheses such as whether the level of comparability (a) differs by policy, (b) differs by country, and (c) changes over time. This paper fills this gap by exploring the statistical properties of the T index. The T index generalises the H, C, I and various modifications of these indices and represents a unified framework for the measurement of the extent to which the accounts of companies are comparable. Formulae for the bias and standard error for any index under this framework are provided and proved. The bias is shown to equal zero or be negligible in most practical situations. Using historical data, the standard error is used to illustrate the accuracy with which comparability is estimated and to perform formal statistical inference using confidence intervals and p‐values. Furthermore, the sampling distribution of the T index is assessed for normality. Implications for research design and sample size determination are also discussed.     

关于后危机时代我国商业银行可持续发展策略的思考

银行业的可持续发展,就是在保持银行业与实体经济协调发展的前提下,自身资源配置不断趋于均衡合理、金融风险得到有效控制、金融生态环境持续优化、经济效益和竞争力不断增强的过程。文章从内外部环境分析了我国商业银行可持续发展的推动因素,并从顺应结构调整要求完善信贷业务经营模式,健全资本管理体制,强化全面风险管理机制以及坚持可持续金融创新战略等角度,提出＂十二五＂时期商业银行可持续发展策略建议。     

对美国信息企业成功经营经验的探索

本文通过剖析美国若干信息企业的发展历程来探讨它们在激烈竞争的环境中获得巨大成就的经验。它们善于捕捉历史机遇，并且制定充分利用机遇的独特经营战略。历史机遇为企业提供新的市场空间，而高超的经营战略则有利于发挥自己的优势，提高竞争力     

Has Germany Been Europeanised or Has Europe Become (too) Germanic?

It has often been argued that European monetary unification must basically be seen as a device to Europeanise re-unified Germany. For the Germans it seemed to be the best possible way to prevent a German “Sonderweg” and end any German ambition for hegemony. For the rest of Europe, and particularly France, it seemed to be the best way to curb German monetary dominance and to secure a French imprint on EU policy-making. In this article, however, it is argued that the German impact on the economic governance regime of EMU and its fencing off the French proposal of a “gouvernement economique” is so substantial that the term “Germanic Europe” seems in fact to be appropriate. More importantly, the economic governance system of “Germanic Europe” has locked the European Union into a politics of disinflation which makes it difficult for the EU to prosper and reap the potential fruits of European integration.

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* This paper was written while the author was a guest researcher at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), Brussels, from March to April 2005. He is most grateful to Andrew Watt for his help and the ETUI for its support.