DETERMINANTS OF ACCOUNTING POLICY CHOICE IN THE AUSTRALIAN PROPERTY INDUSTRY: A PORTFOLIO APPROACH

The objective of this research is to explain accounting policy choice in the Australian property industry by reference to costly contracting theory. This paper makes three departures from the predominant literature. First, instead of focusing on a single policy choice, it focuses on a portfolio of 15 choices. Second, instead of measuring each policy choice dichotomously, it measures the dollar effect of each policy choice. Finally, the research focuses on the impact of policy choices on owners' equity as well as income. The results confirm the importance of compensation arrangements as a determinant of accounting policy choice but fail to provide evidence that debt constraints or political costs are significant determinants of accounting policy choice. These results suggest that including property firms in a more heterogeneous sample may reduce the power of tests on the debt constraints and political costs hypotheses. More generally (when compared to previous research) the results suggest that the determinants of policy choice are likely to be industry specific.     

THE VALUATION OF NONMARKET ACTIVITIES IN INCOME ACCOUNTING

Expanding a conventional national accounting framework in order to include activities that are not produced or consumed via ordinary markets requires the accountant to adopt some procedure for assigning unit values to these activities. Often, as is the case with governmental services, unit values are equated with unit costs of production.
This paper argues that the appropriate valuation generally differs depending on whether the activity is viewed from the perspective of the producer, the consumer, or society. The theoretical justification for this position is developed first for the case of nonmarketed environmental services and then for in-kind governmental transfers.
Rather than choosing a single unit value, the paper argues for and outlines an accounting system that will permit the simultaneous adoption of more than one valuation. Techniques for implementing the system for the environment and for in-kind transfers are discussed.
Finally, drawing on the experience of the authors, the paper argues for the importance of developing data sets with more than one valuation. The authors claim that the effort to implement the system has generated valuable ancillary data sets even though data limitations and unresolved methodological questions have precluded complete implementation.     

Public Scholarship and Economics: Engaging Students in the Democratic Process

Public scholarship is an emerging pedagogical practice that integrates teaching, research, and service in ways that expand student learning by tackling critical, topical problems and generating real solutions. This paper describes the use of a course on women and the economy in two widely disparate institutions to demonstrate the process of integrating public scholarship in economics.     

Gendering occupational identities and IT in the retail sector

This article investigates the influence of gendered occupational identities in the social construction of skill and technology in a retail company introducing an IT system. It focusses on female shop floor supervisors and considers the impact that 'femininity' had on definitions of skill and role during a period of change.     

Using Organizational Architecture to Lead Change

Effective leadership involves more than developing and communicating the right strategic vision for the company. To encourage employees to carry out the corporate vision, companies must ensure consistency among the following three main components of their organizational architecture: (1) the allocation of decision‐making authority; (2) performance measurement systems; and (3) reward systems. The authors illustrate the application of this framework with the case of Xerox's (eventually) successful attempt to create a customer‐oriented workforce in the 1980s. But a more effective demonstration of the importance of these principles, as the authors go on to suggest, might well be the same company's well‐known failure to harvest the commercial promise of the many inventions by its research group in Palo Alto, one of which became the basis for Steve Jobs' success at Apple. This organizational framework is especially useful for evaluating the likely effects of major corporate initiatives such as “Six Sigma” or the “Balanced Scorecard.” For example, it could be used to help top management determine whether, and under what circumstances, decentralization is likely to improve decision‐making and performance, as well as the changes in the firm's performance management and incentive systems that would be required to make decentralization work. Finally, the authors apply the framework to another important leadership issue: corporate ethics. Since the scandals of the early 2000s and the passage of Sarbanes‐Oxley, many, if not most, U.S. companies have issued formal codes of conduct, appointed ethics officers, and instituted training programs in ethics. But a key question for top management is whether the incentives established by the company's organizational architecture reinforce or undermine the code of conduct. Ensuring consistency in organizational design is an important leadership function—one that is critical to encouraging ethical behavior as well as the pursuit of shareholder value.