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Purpose – A considerable body of literature has evolved on the topic of appropriate research methodology for cross-national data collection. Additionally, prior commentaries on cross-national research in the marketing have cited significant deficiencies in this body of research in terms of the theoretical foundations, methods, and analytical techniques used. The purpose of this chapter is to summarize guidelines for conducting cross-national research in marketing and assess the degree to which these rules are being followed.

Design/methodology/approach – The literature on cross-national research methods in marketing studies is first reviewed to identify key issues and methodological guidelines. A content analysis of cross-national studies appearing in 10 major journals in the marketing and advertising field for the period from 2005 to 2010 is conducted to assess whether the guidelines for researchers are being followed. The chapter also explores whether recent research is addressing key deficiencies identified by prior commentaries on this body of research.

Findings –Results are indicative of some promising trends. A wider range of theory bases, methodological techniques, and analytical techniques are being used in cross-national marketing studies. Additionally, methodological guidelines for conceptualizing studies, including following appropriate procedures to ensure equivalence and verifying the existence of cultural differences, are being followed at a higher rate than in the past. Still, some studies do not follow accepted guidelines, and there is a need for a wider range of theory bases and methods to be used.

Research limitations/implications – The study examines only cross-national studies published in 10 journals over a recent six years (2005–2010). As a result, no direct comparison to earlier periods is made.

Originality/value of paper – This chapter outlines key guidelines for conducting cross-national studies in marketing. It also calls attention to the need to follow these guidelines based on the trend toward a majority of studies complying with them. Finally, the chapter calls attention to the need for certain theory bases and methods to be used more frequently.

We have designed this in-class exercise to benefit undergraduate or graduate students enrolled in courses in auditing. This in-class exercise involves six short independent analytical procedures scenarios, two each for three different accounts: Payroll Expense; Depreciation Expense; and Interest Expense. The scenarios require students to perform substantive analytical procedures for each of the financial statement accounts. Students must use their accounting knowledge, analytical thinking skills, and problem-solving ability in order to compute an estimated expectation for an account balance. Following computing an estimate of the expected balance, students must then compare the result to the client-recorded balance and determine if the difference is within tolerable limits established for the audit. The primary learning objectives for the in-class analytical procedures exercise involve the following:

1. Understanding when it might be appropriate for the auditor to perform substantive analytical procedures,

2. Understanding how to form an expectation of an account balance when performing analytical procedures, and

3. Understanding how to evaluate the results of a substantive analytical procedure.

Understanding when it might be appropriate for the auditor to perform substantive analytical procedures,

Understanding how to form an expectation of an account balance when performing analytical procedures, and

Understanding how to evaluate the results of a substantive analytical procedure.

In cooperation with KPMG, we believe that the analytical procedures exercise gives students a better understanding of performing substantive analytical procedures. ¹ As identified by Auditing Standard AU-C 520, PCAOB Standard AS 2305, and in the academic literature (e.g., Hirst & Koonce, 1996), analytical procedures are an important part of the audit process. Understanding when and how to perform substantive analytical procedures, combined with how to evaluate the results, will aid in student knowledge of the audit process.

The digital economy has significantly altered the way business is conducted and financial information is communicated. A rapidly growing number of organizations are conducting business and publishing business and financial reports online and in real-time. Real-time financial reporting is likely to necessitate continuous auditing to provide continuous assurance about the quality and credibility of the information presented. The audit process has, by necessity, evolved from a conventional manual audit to computer-based auditing and is now confronted with creating continuous electronic audits. Rapidly emerging information technology and demands for more timely communication of information to business stakeholders requires auditors to invent new ways to continuously monitor, gather, and analyze audit evidence. Continuous auditing is defined here as “a comprehensive electronic audit process that enables auditors to provide some degree of assurance on continuous information simultaneously with, or shortly after, the disclosure of the information.” This paper is based on a review of related literature, innovative continuous auditing applications, and the experiences of the authors. An approach for building continuous audit capacity is presented and audit data warehouses and data marts are described. Ever improving technology suggests that the real-time exchange of sensitive financial data will place constant pressure on auditors to update audit techniques. Most of the new techniques that will be required will involve creation of new software and audit models. Future research should focus on how continuous auditing could be constantly improved in various auditing domains including assurance, attestation, and audit services.

The traditional audit paradigm is outdated in the real time economy. Innovation of the traditional audit process is necessary to support real time assurance. Practitioners and academics are exploring continuous auditing as a potential successor to the traditional audit paradigm. Using technology and automation, continuous auditing methodology enhances the efficiency and effectiveness of the audit process to support real time assurance. This paper defines how continuous auditing methodology introduces innovation to practice in seven dimensions and proposes a four-stage paradigm to advance future research. In addition, we formulate a set of methodological propositions concerning the future of assurance for practitioners and academic researchers.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate that when produced through relations of power, West Nile virus (WNV), as it exists on the Public Health Agency of Canada's (PHAC) website, is an effect of the kinds of knowledge, techniques of power, and disciplinary apparatuses that operate on the website and in society.

Methodology/approach – The approach used in the in-depth research project which informs this chapter is an elaboration of Michel Foucault's work on relations of power which offers an effective way of studying the PHAC's website as a collection of authoritative knowledges and as a product of a set of systems, structures, and processes which have helped to assemble and distribute knowledge about WNV.

Findings – The findings discussed in this chapter offer a critical reading of the PHAC's overall production of WNV, focusing particularly on its initial emergence starting in 2001. Cumulatively, this chapter argues that myriad relations of power have produced WNV as a bio-socio-administrative construct.

Contribution to the field – This research illustrates one way that Foucault's theories of power can be used to conduct a critical analysis of both the discursive and material dimensions of the production of contemporary public health issues. Such an approach is useful to scholars who wish to place the emergence of a disease phenomenon within political, institutional, economic, cultural, and social relations of power; thereby drawing attention to how specific spaces, places, individuals, and institutions contribute to the production of contemporary health alarms.

Our theoretical understanding of subjective well-being in the workplace is incomplete without a dynamic understanding of antecedents and outcomes of subjective well-being. While between-person differences provide useful information about employee outcomes, these differences do not provide information about the relationships between subjective well-being and employee outcomes that evolve over time and across situations. In this paper, we discuss specific statistical methods within the nomothetic and idiographic perspectives that can support dynamic research on subjective well-being in the workplace and outline unanswered contemporary questions regarding structure, processes, and dynamics of subjective well-being that may be addressed with these methods reviewed; some of which were proposed in early research but progressed slowly due to a lack of adequate methods. This discussion highlights how idiographic methods from outside organizational psychology can be applied to the study of worker subjective well-being to strengthen this dynamic approach in a way that addresses limitations associated with reliance on between-person models.

In this paper, the editors argue that management accounting research should seek to expand to examine the broader ecosystem of information sources that influence organizational performance. The editors introduce the concept of the management accounting ecosystem as a means of linking discrete management accounting research topics to the broader environment in which organizations operate. By doing this, a stronger connection can be established between management accounting research and management accounting practice. The goal is to encourage more cross-disciplinary research that provides a better understanding of the ecosystem in which management accounting practitioners operate. The editors encourage researchers to submit studies to “Advances in Management Accounting” that evaluate the effectiveness of new management accounting information sources and the techniques used to analyze them in the broader ecosystem to enhance the effectiveness of management accounting practices. By exploring the wider information sources within the management accounting ecosystem, future management accounting research can become more innovative and better address the decision-making needs of organizational members.

In this chapter, the author builds from foundational scholarship which suggests that service-learning yields positive outcomes for students, faculty, and community partners. The author first suggests that service-learning can be a vehicle for humanizing community partners as well as students, faculty, and course content, then describes a program evaluation context wherein community partners would benefit from a humanizing service-learning experience. The author then introduces the field of program evaluation and the foundational documents espoused by the American Evaluation Association, and looks at the organizational structure of the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, which houses the Evaluation Studies specialization. Next, the author presents a foundational program evaluation course, discussing its emphasis on service-learning and on humanizing the students, community partners, and course content, and introducing the textbooks, readings, and activities used to bring the experience to life. The author concludes by looking at opportunities and challenges to integrating program evaluation into a departmental core at other universities.

Recently, there has been an increase in the number and type of studies in the organizational sciences that examine curvilinear relationships. These studies are important because some relationships have context-specific inflection points that alter their magnitude and/or direction. Although some scholars have utilized basic techniques to make meta-analytic inferences about curvilinear effects with the limited information available about them, there is still a tremendous opportunity to advance our knowledge by utilizing rigorous techniques to meta-analytically examine curvilinear effects. In a recent study, we used a novel meta-analytic approach in an effort to comprehensively examine curvilinear relationships between destructive leadership and followers' workplace outcomes. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an actionable guide for conducting curvilinear meta-analyses by describing the meta-analytic techniques we used in our recent study. Our contributions include a detailed guide for conducting curvilinear meta-analyses, the useful context we provide to facilitate its implementation, and our identification of opportunities for scholars to leverage our technique in future studies to generate nuanced knowledge that can advance their fields.