Reducing accounting students' oral communication apprehension: Empirical evidence

Although communication skills are recognized as crucially important to success in the accounting profession, the issue of oral communication (OC) skills development has not been widely examined in accounting education studies. Further, some have questioned whether a program can be designed to effect significant gains in OC skills in relatively short periods, given the resource constraints often associated with accounting programs. One important facet of OC is oral communication apprehension (OCA) -anxiety related to interpersonal OC. Since OCA has been linked to OC skills as well as other communication behaviors, reducing OCA is a step towards improving OC skills. We describe an experimental, undergraduate accounting course that had reducing students' OCA as one of its main objectives. Pretest and posttest measures of OCA for treatment and control groups of accounting majors indicated a significant reduction in OCA for the treatment group but not the control group. This suggests that significant reductions in OCA can be made in a single course. The implications of such short-term gains in reducing OCA are that accounting educators should not necessarily presume that limited resources impose a prohibitive constraint on the inclusion of procedures to reduce OCA in accounting curricula, and should consider incorporating exercises such as those described in this study in their courses where appropriate. Further research is needed to help guide these efforts, however, for OCA remains an underexamined phenomenon in accounting education.     

Book Reviews

Radius Prawiro (1998), Indonesia's Struggle for Economic Development: Pragmatism in Action, Oxford University Press, Kuala Lumpur, pp. xxvi + 374.

Yujiro Hayami (1997), Development Economics: From the Poverty to the Wealth of nations, Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp. xx + 316. A$160.00.     

The Box-Cox transformation-of-variables in regression

The application of the Box-Cox transformation to the dependent and independent variables is discussed. Maximum likelihood and iterative GLS estimators are used and bootstrapping is carried out to compare the bootstrap sample variability with the finite sample variability (RMSE) and improve RMSE estimation. The biases of parameter estimators were shown to be substantial in small samples. The standard errors obtained from the Hessian matrix were a poor measure of the finite sample variability. Thet-ratios of the linear parameter estimators may not be normally distributed in small samples.The authors acknowledge the helpful comments of two referees.     

Book Reviews

Hadi Soesastro and Man Pangestu (eds), Technological Challenge in the Asia-Pacific Economy, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, in Association with the Pacific Trade and Development Conference Secretariat at the Australian National University, 1990, pp. xiv + 371. A$34.95.

Jeffrey D. Sachs and Susan M. Collins (eds), Developing Country Debt and Economic Performance, Voi 3: Country Studies - Indonesia, Korea, Philippines, Turkey. Book I: Wing Thye Woo and Anwar Nasution, Indonesian Economic Policies and Their Relation to External Debt Management, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press for the National Bureau of Economic Research, 1989, pp: x + 821 (Book I, pp. 17-149).

Yoon-Je Cho and Deena Khatkhate, Lessons of Financial Liberalization in Asia: A Comparative Study, Washington DC: The World Bank, 1989, pp. xviii + 228.

Nick Devas (with Brian Binder et al.), Financing Local Government in Indonesia, Monographs in International Studies, Southeast Asia Series, No, 84, Athens, OH: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1989, pp. xvi + 344. US$14.00.

James Clad, Behind the Myth: Business, Money and Power in Southeast Asia, London: Unwin Hyman, 1989, pp. xii + 275. £14.95.

Lea Jellinek, The Wheel of Fortune: The History of a Poor Community in Jakarta, Asaa Southeast Asia Publications Series 18, 1991, pp. xxviii + 214. A$24.95.

Daniel Benoit, Patrice Levang, Marc Pain and Olivier Sevin, Transmigration et Migrations Spontanees en Indonesie [Transmigration and Spontaneous Migrations in Indonesia]: Propinsi Lampung, Paris and Jakarta: Orstom (Institut Francais de Recherche Scientifique pour le Developpement en Cooperation) and Department of Transmigration, 1989, bilingual text in French and English, pp. 444, large Size (21 × 30 cm), + 20 separate maps (50 × 56 cm) + wall map (100 × 118 Cm).

J. W. Taco Bottema, Hoky Siregar, Sahat M. Pasaribu, Govert Gijsbers and Rofik S. Basuki, Potato in Indonesia: Prospects for Medium Altitude Production, CGPRT No. 21, Bogor: CGPRT, 1989, pp. xxvi + 136.

CGPRT, Soybean Commodify System in Indonrsio. CGPRT No. 3, Bogor. CGPRT, 1988, pp. xvi + 83.

BRIEFLY NOTED: H.W. Arndt, Pembangunan Ekonomi Indonesia: Pandangan Seorang Tetangga [Indonesian Economic Development: As Seen by a Neighbour], Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press, 1991 [translation edited by Mubyarto], pp. xi + 286.

David Anderson (Ed.), Australia and Indonesia: A Partnership in the Marking, Sydney: Pacific Research Institute, 1991, pp. 63. A$5.00.     

The flow through of cost changes in competitive telecommunications: Theory and evidence

Flow through refers to the effect of a change in incremental production costs on the prices of goods or services, and is a topic of great interest to regulators and others. This article provides a framework for both analyzing flow through, and for evaluating whether or not flow through, properly defined, occurs in the long distance telecommunications industry. We focus on the effects of changes in switched access charges on domestic long distance prices for the largest U.S. long distance carriers in the late 1990s. Utilizing a double bootstrap technique uniquely suited to this problem, we find flow through occurred over the sample period. The technique illustrated here may find useful applications in other regulated sectors.First version received: March 2003 / Final version received: January 2004The authors are grateful to the editor and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions. All remaining errors are the responsibility of the authors.     

Indonesia After the Asian Crisis*

Indonesia was deeply affected by the 1997–1998 crisis, more so than its East Asian neighbors. Its economic contraction was deeper and more prolonged. It was the only one to experience a (temporary) loss of macroeconomic control. It also suffered “twin crises,” in the sense that its serious economic and financial problems were accompanied by regime collapse. Consequently, recovery was a slow and complex process, as new institutions had to be created, and old ones reformed under successive short‐lived administrations. But this process is largely over. The directly elected president with a strong popular mandate is in power. The new institutional framework for economic policy‐making is in place. Macroeconomic stability has been restored. Although growth has yet to return to pre‐crisis levels, by 2004 per capita income and poverty incidence had recovered to levels prevailing in the mid‐1990s, and in the circumstances economic recovery has arguably proceeded about as quickly as could reasonably have been expected.     

Insider Trading after Repurchase Tender Offer Announcements: Timing versus Informed Trading

Abnormally high net insider selling is commonly observed after repurchase tender offer (RTO) announcements although, on average, firms experience positive abnormal returns in the years after the repurchases. We explore two potential explanations: liquidity trade timing and informed trading. Consistent with the notion that fixed price RTOs are more likely than Dutch-auction RTOs to signal undervaluation, the results suggest that insider selling after fixed price RTO announcements are driven largely by insiders who time their trades with the repurchase announcements. In contrast, selling after Dutch-auction RTOs seems to be driven primarily by informed traders who exploit mispricing associated with the repurchase announcements.     

Managing industrial brand equity: Developing tangible benefits for intangible assets

Young and Rubicam's (Y&R) BrandAsset Valuator® (BAV), commonly used to assess brand equity in consumer markets, was applied to assess the brand health of an industrial B2B supplier. Customers were asked questions about perceived esteem, relevance, knowledge and differentiation of the company to find its strengths and weaknesses. The results were then plotted to reveal the overall customer perception of the company and also its competitors. Through this plot, the strategic direction how to improve the brand equity of the company became clear. Evidence suggests that the BAV can be used in industrial markets to assess the brand equity of the firm.     

Environmental Protection,Agency Motivations,and Rent Extraction: The Regulation of Water Pollution in Louisiana

Direct environmental regulation has been in place in the United States for more than twenty-five years. Yet there has been little study of what actually affects regulatory enforcement levels. This study examines enforcement issues by focusing on water quality enforcement by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. The study finds that penalties are more likely to occur, and are likely to be higher, the more serious a firm's violation of a regulation. Penalties are also more likely, and likely to be higher, if a firm has a previous record of environmental violations. In contrast to other studies, however, we do not find that enforcement varies across regional offices. In addition, we did not find any systematic effects of the Weingast and Moran (1983) theory of legislative dominance. We did, however, find evidence of rent extraction, along the lines of McChesney (1987; 1991).