William W. Stammerjohan

Budget participation and job performance of South Korean managers mediated by job satisfaction and job relevant information

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to extend the participative budgeting literature, and specifically the budgetary participation literature that has examined the casual mechanisms linking participation to satisfaction/performance and the literature that has examined culture as an explanatory factor in the budgetary participation/performance relationship.Design/methodology/approach – This paper employs the path model to examine and compare the budget participation–performance relationship for South Korean managers working for either US controlled or Asian controlled companies in South Korea. The path model allows the examination of the direct effects of budget participation on performance and the indirect effects between budget participation and performance that run through job satisfaction and job relevant information.Findings – The primary findings of this study are that while there are strong associations between budget participation and performance for both samples of managers, the causal mechanis...

Factors affecting initial placement of accounting Ph.Ds

The perceived prestige of the doctoral degree granting institution traditionally has had a major effect on job opportunities available to a new accounting Ph.D. However, given recent shortages of accounting academics, the role of program prestige may have changed. It is possible that individual factors also may now play a role in the initial placement decision. This study examines the effects of both doctoral program prestige and individual factors on the initial placement decision. While our results indicate that doctoral program prestige still largely dictates the initial placement decision, several other factors are found to be important. New graduates initially placed at higher level institutions report faculty involvement during the application process as well as significant research support by the hiring institution. New faculty placing lower than expected report the mix of teaching and research as well as the quality of life as being significant factors in their employment decision.

Legal Costs and Accounting Choices: Another Test of the Litigation Hypothesis

This paper provides another test of the litigation hypothesis proposed by Hall and Stammerjohan (1997) and provides evidence that subtle differences in the underlying business environment may be very important in predicting the accounting reaction of management to major events. The litigation hypothesis predicts that firms that are defendants in litigation with potentially large damage awards (major litigation) will attempt to reduce the size of those damage awards by making income-decreasing accounting choices. The oil firms in the Hall and Stammerjohan study appeared to systematically reduce reported earnings during the litigation periods by under-reporting new reserves. The fourteen chemical and pharmaceutical firms, involved in fifteen litigation events, examined by this study produce a very different result. The chemical and pharmaceutical firms faced a different business environment during their litigation periods and appear to have made income-increasing accounting choices. These firms appear to have been able to perpetuate earnings growth without corresponding sales revenue growth during the litigation periods through unexpected reversals in deferred income tax expense.

The Moderating Effects of Power Distance on the Budgetary Participation–Performance Relationship

Abstract Purpose This study extends the budgetary participation–performance/cultural effects literature by isolating and examining the moderating effect of one cultural dimension, power distance, on the budgetary participation–performance relationship. Isolating the impact of power distance is important to this literature because of the fact that participative budgeting remains a possibly underutilized management tool in high power distance countries. Methodology/approach We regroup our multinational sample of managers by power distance level, and employ multigroup structural equation modeling (SEM) and a set of nonparametric bootstrap tests to triangulate our findings. Findings We find that the majority of our managers from three high power distance countries (Mexico, Korea, and China) score in the lower half of the power distance scale, that there is significant correlation between participation and performance in both the high and low power distance subsamples, but that the mechanisms connecting participation to performance are quite different. While job satisfaction plays a role in connecting budgetary participation and performance among low power distance managers, job relevant information alone connects budgetary participation and performance among their high power distance counterparts. Originality/value The primary contribution of our work is that we not only demonstrate that budget participation can improve the performance of subordinate managers in high power distance cultures, but also provide evidence of how and why this is plausible. First managers may not share the same high power distance tendencies of their countrymen, and second, the communication aspect of budget participation appears to be more important for increased performance among those with high power distance tendencies.

Relationship of budget participation conflict and job performance of South Korean managers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of budget participation conflict (BPC) on job performance and the mediating effect of job satisfaction and job tenure on this relationship in a South Korean setting. BPC is defined as the difference between a manager’s actual budget participation and the same manager’s preferred level of budget participation. Design/methodology/approach – Survey data, analyzed using path analysis, were used to measure the direct effect of BPC on performance, and the indirect effects between BPC and performance running through job satisfaction and job tenure. Findings – Findings suggest that BPC does not directly impact job performance. Overall, this study suggests that BPC has a negative impact on job satisfaction and that job satisfaction in turn can significantly influence job performance. The authors also find some marginal effect of job satisfaction on job tenure, implying that increasing satisfaction can marginally increase job tenure. Research limitations/...