T. Jeffrey Wilks

Measuring the Impact of Faculty Research: A Case Study

A major element of many academic programs’ missions is to produce rigorous research. For a variety of reasons, including accreditation requirements, it is important to measure the impact of that research. For example, such a measurement can help an academic unit understand whether the resources used to enhance faculty research capabilities and productivity are cost beneficial. This paper provides a case study of how the School of Accountancy at Brigham Young University measures the impact of its faculty’s research output. The case study shows how an academic unit’s research should be tied to the unit’s foundation documents and mission and suggests ways in which the impact of faculty research can be assessed. The case study highlights many of the difficult issues in measuring impact and provides an example of how one academic unit addressed these issues. Because every academic unit that attempts to measure the impact of its faculty research must address similar issues and questions, the paper should be helpful to those trying to measure research impact.

The Effects of Out-of-Regime Guidance on Auditor Judgments About Appropriate Application of Accounting Standards

Accountants making judgments with respect to a particular set of standards are increasingly aware of standards from other reporting regimes that offer additional or conflicting guidance. In fact, IFRS encourages reliance on out-of-regime standards when IFRS lacks guidance. This paper reports the results of two experiments which provide evidence that auditors in such circumstances are vulnerable to contrast effects, whereby reporting judgments under IFRS are systematically influenced away from the accounting treatment supported by standards from another regime (U.S. GAAP). Contrast effects are observed (1) when out-of-regime standards are considered before making a reporting judgment under IFRS and (2) when out-of-regime standards are applied as local GAAP for a subsidiary of a foreign parent that reports under IFRS. We also find that contrast effects are reduced when auditors believe IFRS lacks guidance. These results have implications for financial statement preparers and auditors in the current incomplete-convergence environment.