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The aim of this paper is to present the findings of a qualitative investigation of intellectual capital (IC) in the engineering industry in the UK within the context of a recession.

Due to the fact that IC involves tacit knowledge which can often be “non‐verbal” or in some cases “non verbalable”, intuitive and unarticulated (Hedlund), qualitative methodology was chosen as it allows the flexibility to explore the IC in the target population in greater detail and to explore area/ideas of interest that may have developed during the data collecting process. Ten interviews were conducted on companies chosen from the Reed Business database’s classification of precision engineering. Data collection was via a semi‐structured interview, the results were coded into Nvivo and analysed.

It was discovered that there is an interrelatedness of the components of IC, knowledge of IC management as a strategy in the engineering industry is low and the academic discourse on IC is in to transferring into practical implementation.

There is greater need to address the practical implications and barriers to the implementation of IC management strategy within industry.

The author having examined the data collected and the characteristics of the responding company and the dominant element of IC within each have coined the phrases Sector of Innovative Potential (SoIP), Sector of Collaborative Potential (SoCP) and Sector of Operating Efficiency (SoOE).

The purpose of this paper is to introduce counterfactual analysis and reasoning to the study of accounting history. The counterfactual focus is the institutionalisation of public accountancy in the UK.

The study adopts a counterfactual research design using Ferguson and Bunzl and asks a “what if” question of an event of importance to accounting historians in order to create a plausible counterfactual outcome that is grounded in rationality and causal analysis. The specific counterfactual question relates to the royal charter granted to public accountants practicing in Edinburgh in 1854. The counterfactual outcome is compared to the actual timeline of public accountancy institutionalisation in the UK.

The “alternative” history reveals uncertainties that confronted public accountants in the past and provides a basis for suggesting that the current fractured and inefficient state of institutionalised public accountancy in the UK has its origins at least partially in the 1854 royal charter. It also suggests that attempts to register and unify public accountants in the UK have been hindered by nineteenth century royal charters.

The study argues that counterfactual analysis is a useful historical tool with which to understand the consequences of historical decisions made in the professional project of British public accountancy. In addition, the study reveals the potential for counterfactual analysis to illumine the consequences of decisions in other areas of accounting and auditing history.

This study is the first counterfactual analysis in the accounting history literature and therefore provides a template for further studies and improved research design.

I reexamine the conflicting results in Frank, Lynch, and Rego (2009) and Lennox, Lisowsky, and Pittman (2013). Frank et al. (2009) conclude that firms can manage book income upward and taxable income downward in the same period, implying a positive relation between aggressive book and tax reporting. Lennox et al. (2013) conclude the relation is negative and aggressive book reporting informs users that aggressive tax reporting is less likely. I identify four key differences in the research designs across the two studies, including measures of aggressive book reporting, measures of aggressive tax reporting, sample time periods, and empirical models. I systematically examine whether each of these differences is responsible for the conflicting results by altering the key difference while holding other factors as constant as possible. I find the relation between aggressive book and tax reporting is driven by the measure of aggressive book reporting, as the relation is positive for some subsets of firms and negative for others. Firms accused of financial statement fraud have a negative relation while nonfraud firms exhibit a positive relation. Using discretionary accruals, I also look for, but do not find a “pivot point” in the relation between aggressive book and tax reporting. I provide a better understanding of the relation between aggressive book and tax reporting by identifying research design choices that are responsible for prior results. I show that measures of both discretionary accruals and financial statement fraud are necessary to gain a more complete picture of the relation between aggressive book and tax reporting.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether acute inpatient psychiatric staffs’ attitudes and self-efficacy towards adults with mild intellectual disability, were different than towards the general mental health population. And whether their understanding of the policy for those with mental illness and intellectual disability differed.

The study is a between-subject design, using a self-administered postal questionnaire. The sample was all qualified staff from the acute inpatient psychiatric provision of an inner London borough. Potential participants were randomly assigned to two research groups, half being given a questionnaire regarding people with intellectual disability and the other half an identical one regarding people with mental illness. Comparisons were made between the two.

The majority of staff were unaware of the current policy direction for adults with intellectual disability although were on the whole in agreement to the idea that they should access mainstream services. Staff overall did not have more negative attitudes to those with intellectual disability although were less likely to empower or encourage self-advocacy. Staff were significantly less confident that they had sufficient training and experience, and in their perceived ability to be able to communicate, assess and treat adults with mild intellectual disability when compared to those with mental illness.

The response rate and small sample size is a limitation. Further research could usefully look at whether self-efficacy and attitudes differ in different models of mainstream psychiatric care.

Government policy in the UK regarding services for people with intellectual disability advocates for inclusion and equality (Chaplin and Taggart, 2012). Those requiring psychiatric care should access this from mainstream services (Department of Health, 2001, 2009, 2011; Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities et al., 2004; Bradley, 2009.) There are, however, no UK-based studies investigating the views of mainstream acute inpatient psychiatric staff towards their role. Intellectual disability staff have concerns about their attitudes and self-efficacy and it is know that acute care is the setting where most adults with intellectual disability will come across mainstream psychiatric staff. Findings have relevance to managers and staff in both intellectual disability and psychiatric services and could be considered in the context of trying to work together as is the direction of policy.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether the change in accounting standards from the rules-based local GAAP to the principles-based IFRS influences a manager’s opportunistic auditor choice for a favorable audit opinion, opinion shopping (OS) behavior. The authors view that IFRS adopters exploit the flexibility of IFRS to their advantage and search for auditors that are more likely to give clean opinions. However, auditors may refuse to yield to client pressure for OS, because of the greater potential audit risk under principles-based standards.

This study applies a difference-in-differences methodology by using Korean listed firms (i.e. IFRS adopters) as a treatment sample and Korean unlisted firms that do not voluntarily adopt IFRS (i.e. K-GAAP users) as the control sample. OS behavior is measured by the methodology of Lennox (2000).

The results of this study show that the OS behavior of IFRS adopters increases after IFRS adoption compared to that of K-GAAP users. This phenomenon is more prevalent when they are audited by non-Big 4 auditors or when they are economically important to auditors. These suggest that the principles-based IFRS without specific rules increase the scope of OS, and auditors tend to accept OS clients by weighing up its costs and benefits.

This study contributes to the literature on OS by presenting that the approach of accounting standards can be an important influencing factor on a firm’s successful engagement in OS. This finding also provides policy implications for many economies by suggesting mechanisms that can be developed to reduce clients’ opportunistic auditor choices under principles-based accounting standards.

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of an urban folktale on the purchasing intentions and buying behaviour of the consumer. Specifically, it examines a rumour involving fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger, in which he purportedly made disparaging statements about African‐Americans. A survey of African‐American generation Xers revealed a relationship between the rumour and the decision to purchase Tommy Hilfiger clothing. Implications of the findings are discussed.

George Lennox Sharman Shackle is now in his 82nd year having been born on 14 July 1903. Yet during the 25 years that I have known him (beginning when I was an undergraduate at the University of Liverpool in 1957) he has hardly seemed to change at all, in physical appearance, in temperament, and in his attitude to his work: retirement is a word that does not enter his vocabulary. In appearance, Professor Shackle lives up to the popular image: out of any crowd, “the man in the street” would have no hesitation in identifying him as a professor. He looks the true scholar (rounded glasses and all), benign, self‐contained, appearing absent‐minded, preoccupied with higher thoughts. Since, indeed, he has altered so little over the years it is difficult to think of him as having had to pass through the “ages of man”. As he has done so, however, his temperament has also hardly changed. He is a most modest and kind person, ever willing to assist those, young and old, who seek his help with the unravelling of economic theory. As with all true scholars and researchers of distinction, Professor Shackle's byword is humility.

This paper aims to examine how compensation committees perceive audit quality as indicated by audit firm tenure. Using the contracting weight attached to earnings and cash flows in chief executive officer (CEO) compensation as proxy for the compensation committee’s perception of audit quality, the study examines whether compensation committees perceive performance metric informativeness as being affected by auditor tenure.

The paper regresses CEO cash compensation on accounting-based performance metrics and on interactions between auditor tenure and accounting-based performance metrics while controlling for other factors previously shown to affect CEO pay. Auditor tenure is measured using continuous and dichotomous variables.

Auditor tenure is associated with a reduced (positive) weight on earnings (operating cash flows), which suggests lower perceived audit quality as tenure lengthens consistent with the auditor closeness argument. This relation is asymmetric, i.e. the negative effect of longer auditor tenure on incentive contracting is more pronounced for positive earnings. The results are robust to using CEO total compensation as the compensation measure, as well as using level and change specifications.

The inability to control for audit partner tenure in assessing the effect of audit firm tenure on incentive contracting and the potential endogeneity between auditor tenure choice and incentive contracting are the main limitations of this study. Given the lack of information on US audit partner tenure, the study could not control for the audit partner tenure issue. However, the study has attempted to mitigate the endogeneity issue by using a Heckman selection model that includes in the first-stage a regression of auditor tenure on various firm, performance measure and CEO-related governance characteristics, based on existing models (Li et al., 2010).

Compensation committees view auditor tenure as an indicator of accounting quality in setting CEO pay. Further, long auditor tenure is perceived as detrimental to financial reporting integrity, particularly when earnings numbers suggest positive managerial performance and innovations.

This study provides empirical evidence that auditor tenure matters in setting executive pay. Further, this study shows evidence on the link between auditor tenure and audit quality from an internal user’s perspective. Prior studies have focused either on external users (investors, creditors) or on the preparer (using measures such as discretionary accruals or meet/beat analysts’ forecasts or forecast guidance).