Phillip de Jager

The South African chartered accountant academic: Motivations and challenges when pursuing a doctoral degree

Purpose Accounting academics in the South African system understand their primary responsibility to be the teaching of prospective Chartered Accountants (CAs) rather than the advancement of knowledge through research. The purpose of this study is to determine what factors motivate accounting academics who are CAs to obtain doctorates in an environment dominated by the profession, where promotion is possible to Full Professor without a Doctorate but not without the professional qualification of CA. And did these doctoral CAs face challenges on their journey, such as resistance from colleagues? Design/methodology/approach A total of 22 academic CAs with doctorates and 18 academic CAs studying towards doctorates were surveyed to gain a deeper understanding of who they are, what their motivations were for undertaking the doctorate journey and what they experienced. Findings The main finding of this study is that the culture of accounting departments in South Africa is beginning to shift from being teaching orientated towards being more research orientated. The CAs are pursuing doctorates for the purpose of career progression and for intrinsic personal reasons. The main challenges that they faced on their journey were finding the time for family and a social life and a lack of support from colleagues and their institution. However, support seems to be improving. Research limitations/implications The change to a research-orientated culture in South African departments of accounting, as envisioned by Van der Schyf (2008), is only now starting to take place. These CAs with doctorates provide evidence of that change. Originality/value The value of this study is to provide accounting academics and the profession with a better understanding of, and a greater sensitivity to, accounting academics operating under the influence of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA). The study also adds to the limited amount of literature on the motives and experiences of doctoral students, especially accounting doctoral students.

Evaluating the potential of Protestant Christianity to stimulate democracy and good governance in sub-Saharan Africa through the valuing of the individual

ABSTRACT The global distribution of Christians is expected to change by 2050, with the largest proportion of Christians – more than a billion – residing in sub-Saharan Africa. Historical and empirical studies have argued for a positive relationship between the proportion of Christians – Protestants in particular – and the development of liberal democracy. A key explanation for this positive influence is cultural, namely the valuing of the individual. Could the growth in Christianity have the potential to influence democratic development and good governance in the sub-Saharan region? To test our hypotheses – (1) sub-Saharan states with proportionally larger Protestant populations are more likely to have higher levels of democracy and good governance, and (2) sub-Saharan states with growing Protestant populations are more likely to have increasing levels of democracy and good governance – we employ a longitudinal and cross-sectional study (a panel of data) using data from the World Christian Database, Polity IV and the International Country Risk Guide. Our data show that the population share of Protestants is positively related with both levels of and growth in democracy and good governance. With the spread of Protestantism we could expect the future improvement of democracy and governance in the region.The global distribution of Christians is expected to change by 2050, with the largest proportion of Christians – more than a billion – residing in sub-Saharan Africa. Historical and empirical studi...

Accounting doctorates produced in South Africa 2008-2014

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the production of accounting doctorates in South Africa during the period from 2008 to 2014. The investigation was prompted by calls to qualify more academics at the doctoral level, bearing in mind that postgraduate supervision forms part of an academic’s core teaching responsibilities. Design/methodology/approach This archival study uses data obtained from the institutional repositories of four research-intensive universities in South Africa to construct a profile of the accounting doctoral theses produced. Findings Overall, the findings indicate a move towards the international requirement for doctoral-qualified accounting academics, implying an increased research orientation in South African university accounting departments. Some of the detail findings follow: most doctorates were produced at the University of Cape Town and the University of Pretoria. The accounting fields of taxation and financial management produced the most doctorates. Almost 50 per cent of the doctorates went to members of staff. Further, 28 per cent of the doctorates went to students with the CA(SA) professional qualification. The use of the PhD by publication format is growing. The low quantity of PhDs produced can possibly be explained by the low numbers of PhD qualified professorial staff who can act as supervisors. Lastly, the accounting doctorates analysed in this paper were longer and supervised by more people than the typical commerce faculty doctorate. Research limitations/implications Not all South African universities were included in the study and therefore some accounting doctorates might have been excluded. In addition, accounting education doctorates, possibly supervised in faculties of education, would also be excluded in view of the approach followed in this paper, which was to identify accounting doctorates via departments and commerce faculties. Originality/value This article is the first of its kind to examine the accounting doctorates produced in South Africa since Van der Schyf’s (2008) call for the establishment of a research culture in the accounting departments of South African universities. As such, this paper makes an important contribution towards how such a research culture may be enhanced through cultivating doctoral education in this context.

A Commentary on SARS’ Proposed Fair Value Tax on Financial Instruments

On 5 July 2012 the South African National Treasury released its draft Taxation Laws Amendment Bill, which included the proposed insertion of section 24JB into the Income Tax Act. The proposed section will require all banks, company members of the JSE Securities Exchange (stockbrokers) and hedge funds to include in or deduct from their taxable income amounts in respect of financial assets and financial liabilities (as defined) according to the profit recognised on those instruments in terms of International Financial Reporting Standards. The effect will be to introduce a fair value tax on the financial instruments of those entities, within the scope of the proposed section. This constitutes a significant change from the current approach that is mostly realisation based. South Africa is not the first country to consider the introduction of a fair value tax on financial instruments, therefore there is precedent. However, both the timing and the approach of the proposal are possibly problematic. This paper discusses the theoretical tax and economic implications of this proposal and attempts to identify positive and negative potential outcomes. A number of unanswered questions are raised that should be addressed before such legislation can be effectively introduced in South Africa. Interview evidence obtained from tax forum meetings, as well as the tax department of one of the banks that would fall within the scope of this legislation, is used to augment the interpretation of this proposal The main findings are that the postulated benefits of the change are unlikely to be realised, that the proposed greater reliance on accounting figures can have unintended consequences and that taxpayers within the scope of the proposed section will lose the benefit of capital gains tax on certain items.