State tourism in China and USA

Schuchat, Molly G., “State Tourism in China and USA,” Annals of Tourism Research, October/December 1979, VI(4):425–434. This paper discusses the experiences available to most visitors to the Peoples Republic of China and to those visitors to the United States of America who are cultural exchange grantees. In the United States the Department of State contracts out the programming and direction of its officially invited guests to non-profit agencies that work in cooperation with a nationwide network of local volunteers. Almost all visitors to China, no matter who paid for their trip, were treated as official guests of the country, until 1978. It is only in the last year that they have been considered tourists at all. The range of contacts and experiences offered in both countries have a great deal of similarity. One focus of the paper is on what these guests (or any others not so similarly shepherded) are able to learn of countries not their own through exposure to public life. The material was gathered on visits to China in January, 1977 and September, 1978, and in interviews with programming and interpreting staffs, volunteers and grantees in Washington, D.C.     

Course content and structure in the geography of tourism the Canterbury example

This paper outlines the structure and content of a graduate course in the geography of tourism which was introduced at the University of Canterbury in 1976. Attempts to structure the course and considerations regarding its content are set against the fragmentation and general lack of coherence which characterize much tourism research and literature. Although this paper refers essentially to the Canterbury experience, many of the issues discussed should be relevant not only to geographers but also to those teaching courses on other aspects of tourism.     

简论土地利用结构优化与模型设计

土地利用结构优化是土地利用总体规划的核心内容,如何按自然规律和经济规律来建立合理的土地利用结构是土地利用总体规划的关键所在。作者首先分析了土地利用结构和国民经济结构的关系,论述了通过土地利用结构优化可以提高区域土地利用系统的结构效益和功能,接着阐述了土地利用结构优化的内涵和土地利用结构优化的经济效益、社会效益、生态效益及综合效益目标,然后对土地利用结构优化的一般模型进行了设计,最后就土地利用结构优化模型的实际应用问题进行了辨证剖析。     

Value Relevance of Environmental Provisions Pre‐ and Post‐IFRS

The purpose of this paper is to compare the value relevance of environmental provisions as recorded under Canadian/U.S. GAAP and IFRS accounting frameworks with consideration of the impact of voluntarily issuing stand‐alone sustainability reports. The value relevance of environmental provisions is tested using a modified Ohlson (1995) model. We exploit IFRS reconciliations as a quasi‐experimental setting to conduct this comparison. Results indicate that environmental provisions recorded under either framework only act as liabilities for oil and gas firms that release stand‐alone sustainability reports. For other firms in the oil and gas industry, and the mining industry, the liability nature of these provisions appears to be discounted by the market. Furthermore, for firms in the oil and gas industry that do not have stand‐alone CSR reports, provisions appear to be interpreted by the market as a costly signal about future growth. Instead of downwardly affecting market values, this information is associated with higher market values. In terms of the transition to IFRS, we find that, while the IFRS provisions are significantly higher than under former GAAP, they do not improve value relevance for investors. Accounting standard setters should consider examining the changes in the current standards from the original Canadian environmental provision reporting requirements under Capital Assets section 3060.39, as it was rightfully shown to be a relevant proxy for unbooked liabilities (Li and McConomy, 1999; Bewley, 2005) rather than earnings expectancy. The study builds upon prior research to examine the value of accounting standards that have gone through significant changes.     

Resentful and religious: How religiosity can mitigate the detrimental effects of workplace embitterment on helping behaviors

This study aims to establish how employees' experiences of workplace embitterment may direct them away from voluntary efforts to help coworkers, mediated by emotional exhaustion and moderated by religiosity. Three rounds of survey data, collected from employees and their supervisors in various Pakistani organizations, reveal that a sense of being emotionally overburdened by work links rancorous feelings due to negative work events with tarnished helping behavior, mitigated by employees' ability to draw on their religious faith. As an original contribution, this research addresses the effect of an actually felt negative emotion (workplace embitterment), instead of a source of emotional hardship, on employees' propensity to halt extra-role work efforts; it also describes how the personal resource of religiosity influences this process.     

Evaluating Constructive Lease Capitalization and Off‐Balance‐Sheet Financing: An Instructional Case with FedEx and UPS

This case illustrates the effects of the proposed new lease standard by the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board on existing outstanding operating leases. Specifically, the case examines the effects of the proposal that all firms report existing operating leases as capital leases upon the initial adoption of the proposed standard. By applying a constructive capitalization model to two firms who rely on operating leases for financing, FedEx and UPS, we found that both companies would have to record billions of dollars of liabilities that had only appeared in the footnotes of their financial statements under the current lease standards. In addition, the firms would experience a decline in retained earnings and key financial ratios, such as the debt‐to‐equity, return‐on‐assets, and interest coverage ratios, by reporting operating leases as capital leases under the new proposed standard. Furthermore, the magnitude of the lease capitalization impact is much smaller for UPS than for FedEx.     

Effects of Advice on Effectiveness and Efficiency of Tax Planning Tasks

Supervisory advice is generally given to tax professionals in public accounting firms before they commence tax planning tasks. The objectives of giving advice are to achieve effectiveness and efficiency in tax planning, as well as for training tax professionals. An experiment with 54 tax professionals, from accounting firms across Canada, was conducted to determine the effects of supervisory advice on effectiveness and efficiency in performing tax planning tasks of different complexity. Advice results in lower effectiveness in lower‐complexity tasks, as evidenced by more technically inadequate tax plans, signs of confusion and overdetermined solutions (i.e., unnecessary information in the tax plans). In higher‐complexity cases, the results suggest a limited improvement in effectiveness, as evidenced by more technically adequate plans, but at a cost of limiting insightful judgment. On the other hand, advice results in limited gains in efficiency for both the lower and higher‐complexity tasks. This study extends the advice and tax literatures by investigating the role of advice in the performance of tax planning tasks of different complexity, which has not been examined in other research. This study also contributes to tax practice, as public accounting firms should consider the limited gains in efficiency with the decrease in effectiveness for lower‐complexity tasks and the potential to limit insightful judgment for higher complexity tasks. The results of this study suggest that firms face trade‐offs in achieving efficiency, effectiveness and the training objective.     

Assembly FG: An Educational Case on MRP II Integrated within ERP

This case teaches students how discrete (job order) manufacturing companies use Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP II) within Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to plan purchase orders for direct materials and shop orders for work‐in‐process and finished goods. Students simulate MRP II integrated within ERP, using Microsoft Excel to learn MRP II's bill‐of‐materials (BOM) Explosion that plans order quantities and MRP II's scheduling logic that uses lead‐times to determine start dates for planned orders. Students explain why MRP II is most practical and effective when executed within ERP and how MRP II can reduce excess inventories, prevent inventory shortages, and help companies deliver quality products to customers on schedule. Also, students explain why BOM, inventory, and lead‐time inaccuracies can adversely affect the accuracy of MRP II‐planned replenishments and identify controls that reduce the risks of these inaccuracies.     

Value Relevance of Fair Values—Empirical Evidence of the Impact of Market Volatility

This study examines empirically the effects of market volatility on the value relevance of fair values. Using the modified Ohlson model ( 1995 ) and a sample of U.S. financial companies for the period of 2008 to 2013, this study shows that fair values are priced at a significant discount when market volatility is high. Song ( 2013 ) shows analytically that the effectiveness of fair value accounting is negatively affected by market volatility. Findings of the current study suggest that investors understand the effects of market volatility on fair values and price them accordingly. The study extends the research on the determinants of the usefulness of fair values by looking beyond factors associated with the reliability of estimated fair values (Level 2 and Level 3 fair values). This study has practical implications: current accounting standards for fair value measurement acknowledge the limitations of the market as a source of fair values by offering a three‐level fair value hierarchy with provisions for fair values to deviate from market prices. Findings of this study shed light on a previously little studied factor, that is, market volatility, on the usefulness of fair values.