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Presents a review of the psychological contructions of gender and considers the implications of gender construction on gender research in accounting. Constructions of gender contain two competing biases: alpha bias, which is the tendency to exaggerate male‐female differences; and beta bias, which is the tendency to minimize or ignore differences. Both biases have disadvantaged women in the work place. A presumption of female‐male personality traits provides a rationalization for restricting women′s work roles. However, arguing that gender differences are trivial ignores real differences in women′s and men′s access to power and resources. An alternative approach to gender is suggested in which attention is focused on the context in which behaviours are observed. Rather than viewing gender as an issue of absolute difference, gender should be viewed as a process rooted in an asymmetric power distribution between women and men.

The Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No.106, Employers’ Accounting for Postretirement Benefitsother than Pensions is a dramatic change in how companies measure the cost of providing other post retirement benefits (OPEBs). Companies must change from pay‐as‐you go (cash‐basis) to an accrual method of accounting that is similar to that used for defined benefit pension plans.Our review of early adopters shows that most firms (59 out of 64) elected to recognize the transition obligation immediately, there by reducing current earnings and showing all the bad news in the first year of adoption. From an Income Statement viewpoint, the accrued based OPEB cost under SFAS 106 is 1.63 times larger than the previous year cash basis method, increasing from an average of $13 million to $21 million. From a Balance Sheet perspective, the average recorded liability as a percent of equity exceeds 15 percent. Since companies will adopt this standard over a long transition period, it may be several years before valid comparisons and conclusions can be made about the total impact of SFAS 106.

Although men and women enter public accounting in comparable numbers, a disproportionately small number of women advance to the rank of partner. A suggestion is sometimes made that women are either unaware of, or intentionally excluded from, informal communication networks within a firm. These networks socialize individuals into the organization, provide support and offer opportunities to informally influence decisions. The general assumption is that women are not integrated into organizational communication networks; however there has been no empirical research on actual network formation within an accounting firm. This study reports the results of an analysis of work and friendship networks among women and men in an office of an international accounting firm. The analysis uses a computer algorithm to identify networks of closely connected individuals known as cliques and to derive measures of an individual's prominence within communication networks. The clique analysis shows a notable lack of close relationships between female managers and male partners. Although women participate in the firm's informal communication networks, female mangers are less prominent in informal networks and do not have close ties with male partners, which suggests that women may face a glass ceiling in advancement to partner

The current paper reviews behavioral research in financial accounting published in the decade 1990–1999. The review focuses on the usefulness of accounting information and the propensity of users to improperly integrate accounting information into their decisions. Prior research findings are organized in terms of the behavioral finance model of financial decision-making. The review of accounting behavioral research studies suggests that the findings of prior work are disjointed and perhaps contradictory. There does not appear to be a stream of research on a particular task, such as bankruptcy prediction, or a dominant research paradigm such as the lens model, which literature reviews on earlier periods were able to trace. Yet there is a strong theoretical basis for considering the role of individual behaviors in explaining the inability of financial statement users to predict earnings and cash flows with relative accuracy. Additional research that systematically examines individual bias could contribute to an understanding of usefulness of accounting information in a decision context.

In 1990 we compiled an annotated bibliography of official state lists of endangered, threatened, and rare species. In gathering information for that bibliography, which appeared in Reference Services Review in Spring 1991, we found numerous unofficial sources of state lists, such as those developed by universities, institutes, and Natural Heritage Programs, which also provide valuable information on statuses of endangered, threatened, and rare species. A comprehensive search for unofficial lists results in this second bibliography.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.