Hossein Nouri

The relationship between budget participation and job performance: The roles of budget adequacy and organizational commitment

Abstract This study explores the linkages between budget participation and job performance. In the proposed theoretical model, budget participation affects job performance via two intervening variables: budget adequacy and organizational commitment. Accordingly, budget participation leads to high budget adequacy which, in turn, increases job performance directly and indirectly via organizational commitment. To test the proposed relationships, a survey questionnaire was administered to managers of a large American corporation. The results of path analysis support the hypothesized relationships.

A Research Note on the Dimensionality of Daly and Miller's Writing Apprehension Scale

Writing apprehension (WA) has been identified as an important construct for understanding the factors that influence student development of writing skills. Although the 1975 Daly and Miller scale has dominated the WA investigation, psychometric research has been limited to the identification of question groupings within the measure. All but the 1983 study by Boozer, Lally, and Stacks have presented the WA questions in the order specified on the original scale even though no theoretical basis for the ordering was provided. It is possible that items presented in the same order may consistently produce similar factors because an ordering effect exists rather than separate dimensions. The current study employs factor analysis and comparability analysis to investigate the impact of item order on the number of factors and the underlying factor structure stability of the WA construct. Results indicate that the randomized item factor structure was comparable with the original item order factor structure.

Students' perceptions of work in public accounting and employment preferences

Attracting competent accounting students for entry-level positions is a critical challenge for many organizations – especially public accounting firms. Recruiters of accounting students could benefit from an understanding of students’ needs and students’ perceptions of work environments. An understanding of the student perspective by recruiters could facilitate the information exchange that occurs in the recruiting process. This may result in a better matching of student and organization. This, in turn, would result in a number of positive outcomes for the individual (e.g. greater satisfaction) and the organization (e.g. lower staff turnover). Understanding the students’ perspective is important for not only recruiters, but also faculty and guidance counselors who may advise students on employment issues. Prior studies have identified a number of job and employer characteristics that are important to accounting students seeking a job. Further, prior studies reveal that students perceive differences in the work environment of various accounting fields. This study investigates how accounting students in the USA view work in public accounting relative to other accounting areas. The job characteristics examined in this study include those from prior studies and other job characteristics, such as discrimination and job variety, which have been previously neglected by researchers. This study also seeks to determine, using logistic regression modeling, which job characteristics are critical in choosing between public accounting and other fields. Prior studies have not attempted to assess statistically which factors are critical in students’ employment preferences regarding accounting fields. To accomplish these objectives, 123 accounting students at three US universities/colleges were surveyed. The results suggest that students perceive many differences between work in public accounting and in other accounting areas. This includes the perception that Accounting Education: an international journal Vol. 14, No. 3, 293–311, September 2005

Meta-Analytic Procedures for Estimation of Effect Sizes in Experiments Using Complex Analysis of Variance

This paper presents techniques for use in meta-analytic research to estimate effect sizes when studies involve complex ANOVA, ANOVA with repeated measures, and complex ANOVA with repeated measures. Real examples are also provided to show the application of the techniques.

Measurement Data on Commonly Used Scales to Measure Oral Communication and Writing Apprehensions

Curriculum changes and training advances in business communica tion have provided students and practitioners with an opportunity to develop and improve communication skills. Despite such changes, research continues to demonstrate that communication apprehension can injuriously impede skills attainment. Yet, the measurement prop erties of instruments used to measure oral and writing apprehension have received limited attention. In particular, research has not fully explored the impact of question order on the measurement properties of these instruments. This article presents the results of an investi gation about the effect of question order randomization on the psy chometric properties of two frequently used oral and written appre hension instruments. Results showed that the measurement properties of these instruments were significantly altered when the question order was randomized.

Gender, media presentation, and concern with the correct use of words—testing a three-way interaction

Abstract The purpose of this study is to examine the three-way interaction of gender, media presentation, and concern with the correct use of words in affecting student performance in accounting. Prior research is presented to support an expectation that verbal cues and descriptions are more important to female students than to male students in the effective use of imagery for recall of accounting information. Measurement of quiz performance in an accounting classroom setting in the USA is used to provide evidence regarding how language characteristics (accent and correct use of words) and classroom presentation method (media) affect student performance (recall) differently by gender. The findings indicate that at the beginning of the semester, concern with the correct use of words and presentation method may have contributed to poor performance for the quizzes of female students compared to male students. However, as the semester progressed, female performance was not significantly different from the performance of male students. This suggests that female students may have adapted to non-preferred instructor verbal characteristics and presentation method.

The Effects of Different Teaching Approaches in Introductory Financial Accounting

Abstract The purpose of the research is to examine the effect of the two different teaching approaches in the first accounting course on student performance in a subsequent finance course. The study compares 128 accounting and finance students who took introductory financial accounting by either a user approach or a traditional preparer approach to examine their academic performance on a subsequent finance course. The results indicate that there is no significant difference in the finance course grade between students who took the traditional introductory accounting course and students who were taught under the user approach. These findings support the argument that the user approach has no impact on subsequent finance course grade and either method can be used to teach introductory financial accounting. Three factors were found to affect subsequent performance in an introductory finance course: GPA prior to taking the finance course, grades in macroeconomics, and statistics.

The evolution of fair value accounting in the USA: a critical examination of its progress since 1900

Despite the relevance of fair value accounting to the financial statements, it was not adopted by standard setting bodies until recently. This paper investigates the evolution of fair value accounting in the USA and shows that several factors, such as accounting standard setting bodies, government, business and investor-related issues contributed to the lack of adoption of fair value accounting between the 1930s and 1990s. The paper further discusses changes in the standard setting environment as well as other criteria, such as technological advancements, that have contributed to the recent adoption of fair value accounting.

An empirical examination of senior accounting students' ethical reaction to grade inflation

This study examines the ethical behaviour of accounting students. In contrast to most prior studies which have examined perceptions of accounting students, this study investigates the action of accounting students with respect to ethical issues. More specifically, this research investigates whether students behave ethically when they have been exposed to ethical issues but confront a situation in which they have a direct stake. The results of a laboratory experiment using students enrolled in two auditing classes showed that students, in spite of exposure to ethical issues, did not behave ethically in a situation where their interests were directly involved. The implications of the findings as well as future directions are provided in the paper.

Financial terrorists and the offshore outsourcing of tax return preparation

Shifting the process of tax preparation overseas to India and other countries has become more popular in recent years for many reasons including cheaper labour, reduction of seasonal labour needs, and the ability to have services performed around the clock due to time zone differences. Outsourcing can have a positive effect on a firm through increased efficiency and the ability to offer a wider variety of services to clients by having the more basic and time consuming tax preparation tasks completed outside of the USA. However, there are certainly some downsides to off-shoring tax preparation services including the lack of control over the foreign companys personnel as well as the danger of identity theft. This paper suggests that with the current status of relationships between western and other countries, with no legal jurisdictions overseas, it is very dangerous to have so much information of taxpayers to be sent offshore. If such information is obtained by the financial terrorists, it could have devastating consequences for the home countries. We use the current status of outsourcing tax return preparation and how this unregulated outsourcing could end up helping terrorists.