Accounting Perspectives最新文献

This fictional case centers around a young Dutch couple who emigrated to Canmore, Alberta. Upon arriving, Saul and Rens opened two successful food trucks and are now looking to promote each truck's main chef to truck manager. They plan to offer a performance bonus based on the net income of each truck and have requested a local accounting student to advise them on the new bonus structure. Goode Food Trucks Inc. presents an opportunity for students to demonstrate technical competence in managerial accounting (rate methods, period cost allocation, and data visualization); strategy and governance (employee performance incentives); and financial reporting (reporting needs) while incorporating enabling competencies (communicating and adding value). The case and teaching notes were adapted from principles used to train and evaluate Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) candidates and tailored to an appropriate level for undergraduate learners. MBA instructors may also use this case to apply multiple concepts in a defined context, thus enhancing a course's “real-life” applicability.

Peer recognition systems (PRS) have gained popularity in recent years as a means for organizations to promote employee helping behavior. However, there are theoretical reasons to believe that peer information that is publicly disclosed in PRS may reduce subsequent helping behavior, and I use an experiment to test my theory. Specifically, I examine a three-employee setting where an employee (the worker) receives no recognition for helping a coworker (the recognizer) but another coworker (the helper) does. I predict and find that the worker's willingness to subsequently help the recognizer/helper is lower when the worker perceives that the worker's initial help exceeds (vs. subceeds) the helper's. I also find that the worker's perception of fairness mediates the process, and the worker's willingness to help the recognizer has a spillover effect on the worker's willingness to help the helper. My study provides the first empirical evidence of the negative impact that PRS have on helping behavior.

This fictional case is based on a real specialty tea company in Nova Scotia. Ted's Teas is a two-part crossover case that illustrates the integration of financial accounting and audit learning outcomes applied to real-world scenarios. In Part 1, students assume the role of an internal accountant and apply knowledge of the Chartered Professional Accountants (CPA) of Canada's CPA Way to identify how to treat leases, changes in policy, and estimates as part of accounting knowledge under both Accounting Standards for Private Enterprises and IFRS frameworks. In Part 2, students “cross over” and change roles, so they are now external auditors for Ted's Teas, tasked to provide an analysis of risk of material misstatement, recommend an audit approach, and develop substantive procedures. This two-part case presents opportunities for students to demonstrate technical competence in multiple areas, either separately in two different courses or combined in one “capstone” or case course. The case and teaching notes, including the marking rubrics, were adapted from principles used to train and evaluate CPA Professional Education Program candidates, tailored to an appropriate level for undergraduate and graduate learners.

Companies spend significant amounts of money on tangible rewards programs, even during the economic turmoil of the COVID-19 pandemic. The prevalence, growth, and significance of these expenditures highlight the importance of understanding the purpose and use of these programs by organizations. Research on public accounting (PA) firms' compensation plans has focused on the balance between professional and commercial incentives in partner profit-sharing schemes but has failed to examine the incentives for nonpartner audit professionals. However, it is exactly these professionals who do a substantial amount of work on audit engagements. This paper has three main purposes. First, we investigate the nature and composition of PA firms' tangible rewards programs and provide a detailed description. Second, we examine the use of firms' tangible rewards programs to provide evidence of what actions are being rewarded. We use Almer et al.'s (2005, Behavioral Research in Accounting 17: 1–22) framework, which presents dimensions of the auditors' professional contribution, and explores whether firms recognize these dimensions using tangible rewards. Third, we develop future research questions to help explore the use of tangible rewards in firms without structured output. We collect archival data on the use of tangible rewards from each of the Big 4 PA firms and three of the next four largest international accounting firms in Canada. We find that firms use their tangible rewards programs for “building a culture of recognition,” for performance incentives, and for employee and firm development, thus rewarding a broad set of measures beyond the incentive measures for hours worked.

This study explores how key organizational and governance actors perceive the effectiveness of whistleblowing at nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and how whistleblowing is interrelated with other anti-fraud mechanisms. Using a systems approach, we develop a conceptual framework of anti-fraud mechanisms consisting of a set of interrelated components: control-focused mechanisms and employee-focused mechanisms (whistleblowing) intended to prevent and detect fraud, influenced by the environment (regulation and stakeholders) and human factors (employees' attitudes and leaders' awareness of fraud). We conducted 14 semistructured interviews with key actors at Canadian NPOs and noted that diverse control mechanisms were in place at these groups, but seemingly no formal whistleblowing policy existed. The organizations were disinclined to formalize a whistleblowing system in the short term despite viewing such a system as effective. Whereas prior research has examined the role of control-focused mechanisms, NPOs' adoption of whistleblowing systems, and the benefits thereof, we contribute to the literature by stressing that employee empowerment is crucial to overcoming reluctance to blow the whistle. If the board of directors is aware of fraud risk and provides employees with the resources, motivation, and protection to speak up, whistleblowing could be implemented in these organizations. Whistleblowing should be interrelated with other mechanisms to form an effective anti-fraud system.

This paper expands on a letter recently submitted by a group of Canadian business academics to the Independent Review Committee on Standard Setting in Canada (IRCSSC) in response to the committee's proposed Canadian Sustainability Standards Board. We highlight sections of the IRCSSC's Consultation Paper that we find problematic and draw on accounting and other research to explain why it fails to live up to its potential. Chief among the problems we identify is that the IRCSSC appears to be wedded to the same narrow, investor-based focus promoted by the International Sustainability Standard Board. We also draw attention to the rushed nature of the process, its exclusion of lay experts, the IRCSSC's ambiguous use of the term public interest, and its inattention to alternative understandings of value and the environment (including the people within it). Finally, we problematize the IRCSSC's sidestepping of the issues of power, culture, and conflict; its neglect of monitoring and enforcement; and its surprising disregard of the Global Reporting Initiative. Along with a number of suggestions for improving the process and its outcome, this paper also contributes to ongoing debates on standard setting and the question of whether accounting is currently equipped to provide the necessary tools for sustainability reporting.