Stephen C. Gara

Professional ethical crises

Purpose – To investigate how accounting majors have reacted to recent accounting scandals and to evaluate the extent to which they are familiar with the scandals, the effects of the scandals on their opinions of accountants and corporate managers, and the consequent influences on the students educational and career plans.Design/methodology/approach – In total 105 accounting majors at two institutions were surveyed. Forsyths ethics position questionnaire was used to evaluate the students ethical orientation. The survey instrument also measures student demographic data, the students knowledge of the profession and the scandals, and how the scandals affected the students opinions and plans. The data are analyzed using linear regression.Findings – Accounting students are generally knowledgeable about the scandals but seem to know considerably less about the accounting profession. Accounting students lowered their opinions of corporate managers more than that of accountants. Accounting students also expre...

Efficiency-Based Funding for Public Four-Year Colleges and Universities.

We propose an efficiency-based mechanism for state funding of public colleges and universities using data envelopment analysis. We describe the philosophy and the mathematics that underlie the approach and apply\break the proposed model to data from 362 U.S. public four-year colleges and universities. The model provides incentives to institution administrators to eliminate wasteful spending and increase positive outcomes while maintaining educational quality and research productivity. The institutions in our study spent

An Empirical Examination of the Pricing of Seasoned Equity Offerings: A Test of the Signaling Hypothesis

96.74 billion, and states would reimburse

Current factors and practices related to instructional approach in the introductory financial accounting course

88.02 billion. Thus efficiency-based funding would reduce state government expenditures on these institutions by

Security price reaction to tax law changes: A case of tax amortization of purchased goodwill

8.72 billion, or approximately 9.0 percent. Efficiency-based funding is politically viable, as demonstrated by North Carolina’s successful use of this approach in pupil transportation operations since 1994. The model will be of interest to state legislators, state education officials, and others who are concerned with funding formulas for institutions of higher education.

XBRL Usage: A Socio-Economic Perspective

This paper tests the predictions made by Signaling Theory against the competing Price–Irrelevance Hypothesis (Eckbo and Masulis, 1992). Signaling Theory suggests that the issue price of a security provides a signal of quality of the issuing firm. In contrast, the Price–Irrelevance Hypothesis suggests that equity pricing does not possess information content. This paper investigates the pricing of seasoned equity offerings by examining the role of firm quality and relative firm valuation on issue price discounts. Additionally, this paper investigates the relationship between the issue price discount and the market reaction at the issuance of seasoned equity offerings. The results indicate that firm quality does not have a significant impact on the degree of price discounting by the issuing firm. Relative firm market valuation does appear to be a determinant of the magnitude of discounting in setting the issue price. This paper also provides evidence that seasoned equity offerings firms that provide a lower issue-price discount experience a lower stock-price decline following the issuance as compared to firms offering a higher price discount.

The Benefits of XML implementation for tax filing and compliance

For nearly two decades, accounting educators have debated whether to continue with a preparer approach, or adopt a user perspective, or a blended model in the introductory financial accounting course. We examine the extent to which accounting programs have chosen to employ each approach, the factors that influenced their selection, as well as the relative importance of each factor. We also explore institutional and course characteristics associated with the choice of instructional method. Our results indicate that one-third of programs employ the user perspective, and one-fifth the traditional preparer approach, while nearly half use a blend of the two. Programs using the preparer approach tend to focus on the accounting major (e.g., performance and career goals). In contrast, user approach institutions appear to emphasize performance issues and career paths of non-accounting majors.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002: A New Ballgame for Accountants

This study examines the market reaction to the adoption of an allowance for tax amortization of purchased goodwill. Specifically, this study compares the market reaction between asset-acquiring firms with substantial purchased goodwill, which could most utilize this provision, and stock-acquiring firms, which could not benefit from this allowance, as well as firms with insubstantial purchased goodwill. The results of this study indicate that the market did react to the goodwill amortization provision. The market reaction for asset-acquiring firms with high goodwill, relative to total assets, experienced positive abnormal returns. A positive reaction also was observed for the Supreme Courts decision in Newark Morning Ledger and the vote in the House of Representatives on an earlier version of the legislation. The study provides evidence that there is a relationship between the type of acquisition and level of abnormal returns, but not between the magnitude of goodwill acquired and the level of abnormal returns.