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This paper aims to advance the case for accounting scholars possessing substantial professional accounting expertise to use judgement drawing on that expertise (target-disciplinary judgement) as a major component of their research methodology.

The paper addresses methodological issues drawing on the criteriological debate within the methodological literature, a review of the ironies of contemporary narrative accounting research, including professional firm research, and an analysis of epistemological congruence seeking analogous cases in mainstream social scientific research.

The paper shows that, within a vocationally related subject like accounting, appropriately trained and qualified scholarly researchers have the opportunity to deploy their professional expertise to make expansive target-disciplinary judgements in ways that satisfy accepted social scientific methodological criteria and offer epistemological convergence comparable to that of mainstream approaches like insider anthropology and autoethnography.

Using target-disciplinary expertise to make expansive judgements provides scholars with a way of expanding the range of research questions they address, including resuming evaluative-descriptive surveys that can, among other things, examine the quality of disclosures holistically rather than in the highly atomistic way often adopted by academics at the moment.

The approach defended in this paper offers accounting scholars the opportunity to apply their particular skills to investigate questions likely to be of interest to preparers and users of financial statements, to explore issues of wider interest, such as the adequacy of environmental or social responsibility disclosures, and to test and augment professional firm findings. In so doing, scholars can go some way to remedying the gap between academic research and practice.

Little attention has been given to the use of expansive, expert target-disciplinary judgement in the methodological literature.

Analyses the influence of value judgements in the mechanics of testing econometric theories against empirical data. The orthodox view of mainstream, positive economics is that value judgements play no part in the above process. Contests this view; defines value judgements and shows the orthodox conception to be too narrow, compared with the meaning and use of the term in other disciplines. Reviews many published examples from the 1970s and 1980s and ways in which value judgements have affected testing procedures in economics. Hypothesis testing via econometric techniques is fraught with value judgements because the application of statistical methodology is not a determinate, neutral or objective process.

The Flemish Examination Centre designed an intervention to establish a professional learning community on the topic of writing assessment. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of this intervention and explain how this intervention succeeded in establishing a professional learning community.

A mixed method design was used to answer the research questions. Quantitative analysis of comparative judgement data provided insight into the effects of the intervention. More specifically was analysed whether examiners judged more in line after the intervention. Qualitative analysis of the conversations within the intervention served to examine how interdependent examiners behaved in the professionalisation exercises and to gain insight into how a professional learning community was established.

The analysis showed that the intervention of the Flemish Examination Centre facilitated the formation of a professional learning community. This was visible in the quantitative analysis. The qualitative analysis showed that highly interdependent activities were helpful in establishing the professional learning community.

This study shows that interactions of high interdependence are beneficial to facilitate professional learning communities.

This study shows that the assessment data can guide a well-thought out design of interventions to establish professional learning communities among assessors. Assessment data can be a guidance for supportive group constellations and discussions to improve assessment practices. The key in this regard lies in the level of interdependence that is created among participants.

The purpose of this study is to determine how Western business practitioners, specifically Australian accounting professionals, identify with the Chinese value concept of guanxi and the impact of their perceptions of guanxi on their ethical decision-making. This objective is predicated by a belief that aspects of guanxi are similar to the Western concepts of social networking and would be identified by practitioners as an organizational process providing positive benefits to those associated with its application. Further, it is anticipated that concepts of guanxi influence the way Australian accountants form ethical judgements and intentions, precursors to acceptable moral behaviour.

A cross-sectional questionnaire based on a survey of 111 usable Australian accounting professionals was completed during 2012. A confirmatory factor analysis was used to validate each construct of guanxi before a path analysis was performed.

Australian accounting professionals associate well with the favour-seeking aspects of guanxi, suggesting an affiliation with Western concepts of social networking. Both groups (i.e. public accountants and private accountants) reject rent-seeking guanxi as clearly unethical. Rent-seeking guanxi is seen to directly influence ethical judgement and intention; however, their favour-seeking guanxi attitudes do not influence ethical judgement or intention, regardless of employment type. Public and private accountants apply guanxi in a differential manner when determining moral intention. Public accountants are viewed as acting spontaneously without adequately considering the consequences (via the judgement phase), which appears to be a function of the nature of their personal association with the case study applied in this research.

The research provides evidence that Australian accounting professionals relate to favour-seeking guanxi as representative of a broader notion of social networking. In this context, the guanxi instrument appears to be amenable to cross-cultural evaluations of group behaviour. Significant differences of opinion exist compared to the prior Chinese studies when unethical practices are considered. The guanxi instrument proves to be a useful tool when examining the group interactions involving Western professionals and also helps establish differences in moral constructions based on employment types.

This research examines the impact of organisational culture on the ethical judgement and ethical intention of corporate accountants in Vietnam.

The study relies on survey data collected from 283 practising accountants in Vietnam. Organisational culture was measured using the Organisational Culture Assessment Instrument, developed by Cameron and Quinn (2011). The Instrument is developed based on the competing values framework comprised of four distinct cultures: clan, hierarchy, market and adhocracy. Ethical judgement and ethical intention were measured based on respondent responses to five ethical scenarios, each linked to a principle of professional conduct in the code of ethics.

The findings indicate that the clan culture (family oriented) is dominant and has a significant positive influence on accountants' ethical judgement and ethical intention. Respondents in the clan culture evaluate scenarios more ethically compared with accountants in the adhocracy and market cultures but not the hierarchy culture. Accountants who emphasise the adhocracy and market cultures display a more relaxed attitude towards unethical scenarios whereas respondents in the hierarchy culture (rule oriented) display the highest ethical attitude.

The code of ethics, its content and how it is interpreted and applied may differ between professions, organisations or cultures.

Organisational research on ethical decision-making is ample but few studies link organisational culture with ethical judgement and ethical intention from the perspective of individual accountants.

This paper aims to provide an empirical analysis of the effects of regulatory enforcement and customer risk determinants on money laundering risk judgment. The study further explores the moderating impact of regulatory enforcement on compliance officers in the banking and money service business (MSB) sectors. The analysis is conducted to find the important factors that contribute to the issues of risk judgement among compliance officers to establish effective anti-money laundering (AML) and countering financing of terrorism compliance at the financial institutions, as highlighted in the National Risk Assessment Report 2017 by the Central Bank of Malaysia.

An experimental study with four different scenarios of case studies distributed to 124 compliance officers at the banking and MSB sectors was conducted via online platforms. The paper uses a quantitative approach via structural equation modelling.

The result shows a significant effect of customer risk determinants and regulatory enforcement on money laundering risk judgement, taking into account competency as the control measure. A further test on the interaction effects of both determinants shows a significant result on the money laundering risk judgement. The empirical evidence indicated that regulatory enforcement influenced compliance officers’ money laundering risk judgement and suspicious transaction report submission. In other words, the banking and MSB sectors’ AML compliance significantly depends on the regulators’ enforcement activity.

This study is limited to two independent variables: regulatory enforcement and customer risk determinants. Future studies may consider other factors affecting compliance officers’ money laundering risk judgement, such as technical competency, knowledge management, digitalization and technology and ethical issues.

This study provides several theoretical and practical implications. Emphasizing the excellent quality of judgement and, eventually, good quality of reporting the suspicious transactions will not be achieved merely from enforcing fines and punishment, but comprehensive measures must be taken. Increasing the competency and training, educating the compliance officers, supporting the industry and practitioners with incentives and digitalization, enhancing the campaign and awareness among the public and standardizing the policy shall be the good initiatives for the regulatory enforcement to establish.

This paper provides a valuable contribution to the body of knowledge and fulfills the significant gaps in the literature on money laundering, not to mention, the integration between behavioural studies and anti-money laundering compliance, which has scarcely been statistically evident from the research studies.

In A Conceptual Framework for Auditing (Pratt & Van Peursem, 1993) it was argued that audit risk, materiality and judgement are fundamental auditing concepts which should form a part of any conceptual framework. However, it was identified that the New Zealand Society of Accountants treats these issues as guidelines only; they are not treated as fundamental issues. This paper compares the different positions in respect of audit risk, materiality and judgement that have been adopted by the various professional bodies responsible for auditing standards in English speaking Pacific Rim countries and the United Kingdom. Countries included in the study are: New Zealand, Australia, United States of America, Canada, United Kingdom, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia. It is concluded that the tendency in all the standards has been to under‐emphasise these three conceptual issues, despite auditing standards and guideline frameworks that profess interest in broad theoretical issues. As a result, the auditing standards have tended to focus upon procedural ‘how to’ questions rather than more complex questions of ‘why’, or ‘how much’. It is recommended mat the auditing standard setters in all the countries included in this analysis should consider the adoption of a conceptual framework of auditing to better inform the process of standard setting, and to assist the achievement of internal consistency within the standards and guidelines.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the capital investment process, guided by concepts from cognitive and social psychology. The intention is to gauge the extent to which managerial judgement can be detected by applying a psychological lens to the process. Initial fieldwork is subsequently reported on the extent to which managerial judgement is managed. Discovery of variations suggest an alternative perspective on understanding capital investment decisions (CIDs) that may be potentially worthwhile in understanding the long‐term success and survival of modern commercial enterprises.

Following a systematic review, employing the psychological concepts of heuristics, framing and concensus to prior case and fieldwork studies, the CID process in three companies engaged in new market/site development projects is reported. The participants initially responded to a survey and subsequently agreed to be interviewed about their processes and involvement.

The psychological concepts provided a satisfactory gauge of managerial judgement. The fieldwork revealed variety in the management of the CID process and the influence of managerial judgement.

There is an increasing call to examine the CID by case or fieldwork but, to date, the role managerial judgement plays has not been directly addressed. Applying psychological concepts to the CID process offers an opportunity to focus enquiries and improve understanding of corporate practices.

The relative reliance companies place on heuristics, framing and consensus within their specific organizational contexts ultimately may provide insights to the long‐term survival of companies.

The paper provides useful information on the cognitive and social psychology in the capital investment process.

Judgement is a pivotal notion for understanding learning. But how we view judgement is crucially shaped by our favoured conception of learning. The favoured conception of learning is shown to distort judgement, while an emerging conception of learning does justice both to judgement and learning from work.

The present studies provide support for a functional approach to instrumental and terminal values and the value‐attitude‐behaviour system. Study 1 surveyed individuals’ human values, the type of meaning to which they prefer to attend in products (i.e. utilitarian or symbolic), and how they choose to evaluate the products (i.e. a piecemeal or affective judgement). The study found that individuals who favoured instrumental to terminal human values showed a predisposition to attend to the utilitarian meanings of products and make piecemeal judgements. In contrast, individuals who favoured terminal over instrumental values preferred symbolic meanings, affective judgements, and human values in general. Study 2 found that individuals who favoured instrumental to terminal values had stronger instrumental attitudes towards cars and sun‐glasses. The results suggest that: psychological functions are not limited to attitudes or human values but span the breadth of the value‐attitude‐behaviour system; that two such psychological functions are instrumental and expressive; and that instrumental and terminal values serve instrumental and expressive functions, respectively.