Accounting Perspectives最新文献

In capital budgeting, management accountants may have their own agendas when they are creating cash flow forecasts and recommending particular capital investments. What are the mechanisms management accountants can use to influence cash flow forecasts in capital budgeting? This field study investigates how management accountants prepared cash flow forecasts for product development investment decisions at a car company. We describe in detail two instances of the technical design of new cars, the preparation of cash flow forecasts, and decisions on capital investment projects. When management accountants monetarily quantify various kinds of inputs, they not only make pragmatic choices as part of their normal work of dealing with complexity and uncertainty, but they also purposefully intervene in various ways to make their cash flow forecast support a particular capital investment. These interventions can be differentiated in terms of their nature (qualitative or quantitative) and timing (initiating or counteracting). This field study contributes a conceptualization and empirical evidence on accounting tactics in the context of capital budgeting.

Sustainability reporting was originally intended to improve accountability by providing more transparency around the ecological impact of organizational action. However, as sustainability reports are increasingly used as a tool for legitimacy and a source of information by financial stakeholders, environmental concerns are being framed in economic terms. This paper draws on Boltanski and Thévenot's (2006, On Justification: Economies of Worth, Princeton University Press) sociology of worth framework to explore how the prioritization of market values facilitates the disconnect between sustainability reporting and the environment. We use the Deepwater Horizon disaster as an extreme case to illustrate how the one-sided “compromises” with market values subjugate the values associated with social and environmental stewardship. We suggest that the integration of different conceptions of the common good can provide a more nuanced understanding of the relations between economic and environmental values.

Novice auditors are increasingly being asked to perform tasks that were not expected of them in the past, including evaluation of fair values (FVs). This study contributes to the auditing literature by investigating novice auditors' competencies required for correct performance of FV auditing tasks, identifying weaknesses, and suggesting actions that could be taken by educators and practitioners to address those weaknesses. Using the audit of goodwill impairment under IFRS as the exemplar task for identifying FV auditing competencies, we create a normative process table for the task based on accounting and auditing standards and authoritative valuation literature. We analyze the verbal protocols of novice auditors while they perform the task and compare their processes to the normative table to understand weaknesses in their competencies. Our findings are of interest to auditing educators and audit firm personnel responsible for staff training programs, audit program development (e.g., checklists), supervision, and review.

This literature review includes 187 articles with a technology focus that were published during 2010–2020 in seven accounting education journals. We analyze these articles with a goal of identifying the research conducted at the intersection of technology and accounting education. Five accounting education areas of focus emerge, with each having prevalent themes. Within these themes, we identify the technological infusion and how it was applied or related to accounting education. Where feasible, we report information on the target expected use (users) within each of the five accounting focus areas in the article and present any relevant key findings. We conclude by identifying research voids and suggesting potential directions for future research. The analysis should aid current faculty in their efforts to infuse appropriate technology into accounting education with a goal of producing technologically savvy graduates.

While sustainability has been a subject of growing inquiry in the accounting literature, biodiversity loss, an issue of critical societal importance, has not received the same attention. Furthermore, despite corporations, nongovernmental organizations, and the public sector all having distinct influences on biodiversity loss, the role of the public sector remains largely unexamined. Mobilizing Cuckston's (2022) framework for analyzing disclosures as calculative spaces, our study examines the framing of public sector reporting on biodiversity conservation. Specifically, through discourse analysis, we scrutinize the mandatory annual reports prepared by the Canadian federal government under the 2002 Species at Risk Act (SARA), which is aimed at preventing species extinction. The disclosures within these reports present discussions on the government's administration of SARA, thereby offering insights into the government's efforts to discharge accountability over the protection of species at risk. Our findings examine the significance of public sector reporting in enabling accountability for species conservation and discuss the ways in which mandatory disclosures contribute to this process.