This article presents a study on a system dynamic approach to human resource accounting in the U.S. It seems inevitable that increasing concern with socioeconomic matters will continue to force accountants to try and include material on the externality effects in accounting statements. As this material gets more comprehensive, it will reach a point at which the supplementary material will give the lie to the conventional interpretation of the normal accounts. It can be seen that not only is this future productivity dependent on retraining the worker's services, but also it will be necessary to maintain at the least his or her level of skill over the intervening period.
This article focuses on auditing. Auditors have always used their professional judgment when confronted with attestation problems. Surprisingly, however, studies of the application of audit judgment as a cognitive information processing problem are nonexistent. In fact, even the important and all-pervasive materiality concept remains subject to a good deal of debate, and the generally accepted accounting principles can no longer be considered as sufficient decision criteria for audit judgments. Nevertheless, all these discussions and recent attempts to identify a set of criteria that have been used by auditors in grading their opinions represent important contributions towards the needed understanding and explanation of the audit judgment processes. A Statement of Basic Auditing Concepts recognizes auditing as a purposeful human activity and contains a methodological foundation of auditing which supports further important conceptual and operational extensions towards an information processing theory of auditing.
This article presents a reply to a comment on the study of the audit staff assignment in accounting in the U.S. There are no actual implementations of linear programming in audit staff scheduling. There are lamentably few implementations of linear programming or other quantitative decision models. There is a report of an application of linear or goal programming to audit staff scheduling or other problem. As accounting professionals the responsibility to encourage applications of the proposed models is the priority.
The article reports that intermediate accounting is generally considered to be the most important course in the accounting curriculum. Students frequently make their decision concerning accounting as a major based upon their success or lack there of in intermediate accounting. The subject matter of this course is central to all aspects of accounting, and if the material presented is mastered well, a student not only will have a satisfying educational experience, but he will also have a strong foundation for his accounting career. At Brigham Young University (BYU) great differences in student performance in intermediate accounting have been found. Factors that apparently were contributing to the differences in performance were: the large number of students who had transferred from other colleges and universities; the extended time delay between the students' introductory accounting courses and their intermediate accounting course, aggravated at BYU because of the large number of students who interrupt their college program for military or church service; the differences in the students' mastery of the basic accounting concepts; the differences in the students' aptitude for accounting study; and the curriculum at BYU which permits a student to begin intermediate accounting with either one or two introductory courses in accounting.
Presents a reply to comments made by Holzmann and Gressis on a study about diversification at the company level. Selection of investment projects; Information on a measure of ex ante diversification success which alleged to have ex ante relevance for the capital budgeting decisions of management; Conclusions.