Gail Lynn Cook

Emotional Intelligence Tests: Potential Impacts on the Hiring Process for Accounting Students

Emotional intelligence is increasingly recognized as being important for professional career success. Skills related to emotional intelligence (e.g. organizational commitment, public speaking, teamwork, and leadership) are considered essential. Human resource professionals have begun including tests of emotional intelligence (EI) in job applicant screening processes. Consequently, if accounting education fails to develop EI skills, students may seem to recruiters to be less qualified. Alternatively, if the tests for EI are inaccurate or easily manipulated, qualified applicants may be overlooked. We examine the ability of subjects studying accounting at a Canadian university to purposely alter their results on two of the most frequently used EI tests: the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) and the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT). We find that subjects can purposely change their EI score to fit the job description. We conclude that neither instrument is clearly better than the other is in the hiring process and both require revision as potential applicants are able purposely to alter their scores.

Anti-Intellectualism, Tolerance for Ambiguity and Locus of Control: Impact on Performance in Accounting Education

With the changing business environment, skills rather than familiarity with rules are more important to accountants’ success. In response to mounting criticisms of accounting education and supported by calls from the Accounting Education Change Commission, efforts have been made by some accounting educators to adapt accounting education to this changing environment. However, there is little research to date about the individual characteristics that can be leveraged to improve the outcome of accounting education. We investigate three individual characteristics: anti-intellectualism, tolerance for ambiguity, and internal locus of control. The results show that all three variables may impact performance in accounting education and that the structure of an accounting program may reward characteristics that are not in line with skills required by the profession. Fortunately, the design of an accounting program may help students alter their skills to be more in line with professional requirements.

Creating and Selling Postcards: An Integrative Project Class

Postcards was an innovate venture that brought together students and faculty from business and graphic arts to design, produce, and sell university postcards. In this experiential course, students learned and applied management skills and worked in cross-functionally integrated teams. More than 34,000 postcards were sold, resulting in a

Identifying Fraud in Online Auctions: A Case Study†

1,700 profit. The students were overwhelmingly positive about the course and its learning opportunities. Suggestions for others who might teach a course like postcards include selecting a challenging project with clear-cut external validation of success or failure, designing early opportunities for team building and shared success, and providing sufficient instruction to allow students to succeed.

Self Presentation on Emotional Intelligence Tests

According to the FBI (IC3, 2011), losses as a result of auto-auction fraud exceeded

FURTHER RESEARCH ON THE ACCURACY OF STUDENTS' SELF-REPORTED GRADE POINT AVERAGES, SAT SCORES, AND COURSE GRADES

8.2 million dollars in 2011. How can one detect deception in online auction transactions? The authors use a comprehensive case to teach students about deception detection processes, detection cues, and the e-commerce environment. Students are challenged to make a professional judgment about whether the transaction under consideration is an attempt to deceive. The case is based on a real-life situation and provides a valuable exercise for business students, educating them in the reality of online auction markets and developing their critical thinking skills. The case may be used with undergraduate accounting majors in Accounting Information Systems classes and with graduate students in an e-commerce course either as an in-class assignment or as a term project. Students provided favorable responses as to the value of the case.

Emotional Intelligence: The Role of Accounting Education and Work Experience

Emotional intelligence is increasingly being viewed as a necessary business skill. Some firms administer emotional intelligence tests as part of the recruitment process. Thus, the question of how effectively the tests measure what they purport to measure is important. We examine the ability of subjects to artificially alter their results on two of the most frequently used emotional intelligence tests: the EQ-i and the MSCEIT. We use two job descriptions, one for a job that requires a high degree of emotional intelligence and one that does not. We find that subjects can artificially increase or decrease their emotional intelligence score. The effect is in the appropriate direction for the EQ-i. However, subjects who originally scored high on the MSCEIT actually decreased their score based on the high emotional intelligence job description. We conclude that neither test would be an effective tool to use in the hiring process without some revisions.