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This study conducted a comprehensive analysis of the ASB's voting activities for 45 SASs issued over a 12‐year period. The results support earlier studies by Kinney and others that members' respective firm characteristics are strongly associated with their voting behavior. However, while Kinney posited that structured firms investment in audit methodology resulted in more support for new standards due to lower opportunity costs to adopt a new SAS, this study identifies such firms' greater propensity to vote against SASs. This study supports Kinney's (1986) “political cost” hypothesis regarding ASB members' reluctancy to vote against an SAS. This study also supports the relationship between firm characteristics such as audit structure and ASB member voting patterns. Overall, the results suggest that the ASB provides a democratic forum for large and small firms to equally participate in the standard‐setting process. The diversified membership of the ASB appears to result in no systematic dominant influence, other than potentially by the chair position.

The above quote, which recently appeared in the Management Accounting newsletter, characterises the state of affairs for the profession. Presently, academic research and instruction have made very few contributions to the body of knowledge for management accounting. To date, a definitive explanation or theory supporting management accounting does not exist. Practitioners view the field as a multidimensional discipline which integrates managerial, financial, social, and political skills. However, academics generally focus only on the financial skills of management accountants. This is evident in the many behavioural studies that address budgeting or decision making topics rather than a broader set of characteristics.

A major house‐building corporation in the United States employed an organizational change and development (OCD) strategy during the early 1970s to assist its transformation to a mega‐corporation. The outcome was the development of an autocratic, machiavellian, coercive management style. Initial financial success during a growth phase in the construction industry masked the deficiencies of the approach, which only became apparent during an economic slump. Provides a lesson for managers who ignore the participant needs of employees.

Proposes a new model for fraud detection that goes beyond internal accounting controls. Historically, internal and external auditors focus on internal controls and management integrity as the key components to determine the propensity for irregularities. This new paradigm focuses on gaining an understanding of the corporate culture in order to understand better the opportunity for fraud or illegal acts to occur. Corporate culture provides a more holistic and comprehensive view of the overall management philosophy and control environment. Various sources from practitioners, corporate executives to government agencies estimate that the annual cost of fraud exceeds $100 billion. Recognizes the economic impact of fraud and the historical problems associated with fraud detection. Offers recommendations and discussion for a new model to evaluate organizational behaviour as an alternative method to fight the social and economic cost of fraud.

This paper uses an organizational science framework to evaluate the present status of the public accounting profession and make recommendations for a systematic process to influence long‐term effective change. Historically, the profession has implemented short‐term responses to environmental events such as corporate merger mania, globalization of the economy, or demographic changes in the workforce. This paper suggests establishment of a joint long‐term effort among the Big Six firms as well as major national and regional firms to influence long‐term changes to the way the profession manages its human resources, develops and maintains businesses, and operates as a legal entity.

Pharmaceutical companies have received a tremendous amount of attention in the media regarding increases in drug prices at rates much in excess of the rate of inflation. Synthesizes the numerous issues affecting drug pricing and the role that the auditor should play in determining a “fair” price. Evaluates the role of the auditor with regard to the call from investors for additional information in the annual report and more in‐depth analysis of management′s ethical and operational practices. The pharmaceuticals industry represents a unique area for consideration, given ethical and regulatory pressures and the nature of the drug development and distribution process. With the complexities of this process, considers the auditor′s responsibility to understand unfair pricing practices along with the ability to detect such practices.

Seeks to compare the three auditor attributes of brand name or reputation, concentration and structure to determine how they collectively influence the auditor selection process. The methodology for this study involves a comparison of the financial characteristics of the client base of Big Eight and non‐Big Eight firms. Overall, this study finds that comparison of client financial characteristics reveals significant differences in auditor brand name. In addition, the analysis indicates that differences also exist, based on audit structure and auditor reputation. Concludes that the auditor selection process, as proxied by a client′s systematic risk, is influenced by a joint combination of auditor attributes. Therefore the results of the study appear to support the theory that clients and auditors seek to match on desired traits.

Prior literature has found that as uncertainty in a firms information environment increases, optimism increases in equity analysts’ earnings forecasts. The studies suggest an economic incentive explanation, commonly called the management‐relations hypothesis. However, there is conflicting evidence that managers would prefer pessimistic forecasts and encourage analysts to “walk‐down” their forecasts to prevent negative earnings surprises. To test these contradictory findings, this study uses an experimental setting to remove economic incentives from the analyst’s decision process and isolate the cause of observed bias in analysts’ reports. The results of the experiment show that an increase in the perceived uncertainty of the forecasting task results in significantly lower relative optimism in analysts’ earnings forecasts. This finding is consistent with a negativity hypothesis and the managementrelations hypothesis extolled in the empirical research. The findings also show that relative forecast optimism bias is positively related to the level of analysts’ buy/sell recommendations consistent with more recent findings that suggest that analysts use motivated reasoning (the tendency to process information in a manner that supports one’s goal) in their judgments of forecasted earnings and recommendations. Together, these results suggest that analysts consider and use financial information differently depending on their decision goal.

This paper provides a useful template for integrating the teaching of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) into the accounting curriculum.

We document the evolution of the dedicated IFRS course taught at Drexel University, sharing our department’s experiences teaching it at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

We identify instructional delivery options for teaching IFRS either as an independent course or as a supplement to an existing financial reporting, advanced accounting, or special topics course. We discuss the different approaches we have used to deliver such material and present our recommendations for best practices.

Recent surveys note that academia’s slow integration of IFRS into the classroom does not match the expectations of many accounting practitioners, particularly those with an international presence. With more than 100 countries around the world, including most of the emerging and major economies such as China, Brazil, and Germany, having already adopted IFRS, accounting firms expect job candidates to be conversant with international accounting standards and to be appropriately prepared in anticipation of an SEC decision to adopt IFRS.

This paper provides academics who intend to begin teaching IFRS with the essential information they need to keep their students current with global accounting trends.

The paper aims to explore the relationship between accounting and racial violence through an investigation of sharecropping in the postbellum American South.

A range of primary sources including peonage case files of the US Department of Justice and the archives of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) are utilised. Data are analysed by reference to Randall Collins' theory of violence. Consistent with this theory, a micro-sociological approach to examining violent encounters is employed.

It is demonstrated that the production of alternative or competing accounts, accounting manipulation and failure to account generated interactions where confrontational tension culminated in bluster, physical attacks and lynching. Such violence took place in the context of potent racial ideologies and institutions.

The paper is distinctive in its focus on the interface between accounting and “actual” (as opposed to symbolic) violence. It reveals how accounting processes and traces featured in the highly charged emotional fields from which physical violence could erupt. The study advances knowledge of the role of accounting in race relations from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, a largely unexplored period in the accounting history literature. It also seeks to extend the research agenda on accounting and slavery (which has hitherto emphasised chattel slavery) to encompass the practice of debt peonage.