Julia Grant

Faculty evaluation as a social dilemma: a game theoretic approach

This paper considers issues pertaining to accounting faculty performance evaluation as it is generally applied in the United States. How performance is evaluated is a question of interest to all stakeholders in the enterprise of accounting education, particularly in the light of recent changes in the educational environment. Some characteristics of faculty performance evaluation are institutionspecific. For example, the number of years of service required before a tenure decision can vary across universities, and the level of formality in the evaluation process is not uniform. Furthermore, some business schools do not use the separate academic department structure. Regardless of these differences, evaluation is typically a function of the faculty members research, teaching, and service contributions, and precise expectations are rarely fully specified, leaving open the question of just how any particular contributions are evaluated. We use game theory to create a model of faculty efforts and outcomes within a social dilemma; and we develop interdependent social dilemmas, two social dilemmas played simultaneously. Within accounting academia, these two dilemmas represent the resource allocation among departments within a business school, and the payoff scenarios facing individual faculty within an accounting department. The interdependence arises because the payoffs available in each dilemma simultaneously depend on the outcome of the other. Our model highlights the dependence of group performance and resulting resource availability on the distribution of faculty efforts toward the attainment of personal and collective goals. The results indicate the possibility of increasing the resources available to all by recognizing a broader definition of faculty contribution. Placing faculty evaluation within the social dilemma context can improve both departmental and individual outcomes by encouraging both collective and individual efforts.

Demographic challenges facing the CPA profession

Prior research (Young, 1995) using AICPA and census data illustrated a level of maturity in the accountancy profession, with numbers of CPAs increasing dramatically within the population from the early 20th century. This work also illustrated strong growth in AICPA membership, and reported a shift in the activities of the AICPA members. Corporate practice was growing more quickly and public practice growing only very slowly, sometimes shrinking. The current paper examines 10 additional years of AICPA data and gathers further economic and demographic U.S. census data to explore these patterns and related issues. The professional membership of the AICPA continues to have relatively flat growth overall, and public practice has continued to decline relative to other pursuits of AICPA members. When the data are split into gender and age cohorts, different patterns are detected and challenges identified for continued involvement in the profession as defined by AICPA membership.

The design of an interactive and dynamic representation of the firm

Interpretation and audit of financial information is a significant undertaking that must rest on a fuller understanding of the firm and its operations. A pictorial representation of firm activity offers promise for supporting this requirement. After reviewing the literature related to visualizations, we describe the design of an interactive animated version of the cycle model. Business Animator assists users in developing an intuitive sense about the cycle model itself, while exploring and visualizing how firms at various stages of growth, sustenance, and decay are affected by specific operating decisions. Principles and findings from the accounting and information systems literatures were used to drive the design of the representation and software used to control it. This resulting system adds depth to traditional accounting representations by conveying information about the momentum of the firms activities, the rate of change at which various activities are occurring. The animation facilitates identification of backlogs or breaks in operating processes, thus increasing understanding of the firms financial health.