Reviews the book "Introduction to Federal Taxation," by William L. Raby and Victor H. Tidwell.

In this study, an exploratory analysis of the work of the audit manager was undertaken using the critical incident methodology. Eighty-eight critical requirements of managerial work were identified from a total of 582 critical incidents that were reported in a series of 69 structured interviews involving partners, managers, and senior field staff from five national and international public accounting firms in Canada. Critical task requirements were assigned to one of ten managerial roles originally identified by Mintzberg [1973] by a panel of seven judges. Analysis of the pattern with which critical incidents were reported was undertaken. Significant differences were found to exist in the pattern with which partners, managers, and field staff reported particular incidents. The role of the individual within the firm thus seemed to be associated with the character of the incident reported. When the pattern of critical incidents reported was analyzed for partners, managers, and senior field staff on a firm-by-firm basis, only the character of the incidents reported by senior field personnel seemed to be associated with their firm affiliations.

In this article, the author responds to comments of the analyst Paul A. Ryder on his research paper "The Nature of Managerial Work." The author says that Ryder raises a number of general methodological issues about organizational research and the critical incident methodology which have been well documented in the literature. Issues raised are ones regularly revisited by organizational theorists and are, in general, issues which have not been unambiguously resolved. Measures which intrude may elicit atypical roles and responses, and, to the extent that they do, these measures are said to be reactive. Research methods may be obtrusive without necessarily being reactive, and conversely research methods may be reactive while not being particularly obtrusive. For the purpose of describing the nature of managerial work in large organizations, a number of research methodologies have been used. Suggestions that stereotyped perceptions from different organizational levels is a product of the methodology applied, is a critique which provides some cause for concern.

Reviews the book "Recognition of Contractual Rights and Obligations," by Yuji Ijiri.

Reviews the book "Imperial Sportswear, Inc.: An Audit Case Problem," by Stephen Fogg.

The purpose of this exploratory research is to assess empirically the potential usefulness of municipal accounting data for explaining voting decisions. The economic theory of voting behavior forms a conceptual foundation for examining the utility of accounting information for discriminating between mayoral election results. A stepwise discriminant analysis was used to develop multivariate models that distinguish between samples of cities clustered into three homogeneous groups on the basis of socio-demographic attributes. The dependent variable for the discriminant analysis was the outcome of elections for mayor in 113 cities with populations exceeding 25,000 in 1977, and the independent variables were municipal accounting ratios. Statistically significant discriminant functions were produced which correctly classified a greater-than-chance percentage of the election outcomes. These results suggest that municipal accounting numbers may provide useful information for explaining voter behavior since they measure the effects of municipal policy decisions consistent with voter assessments.

Wei Shih, professor of applied statistics and operation research, presented a general decision model that accounts for uncertainty in demand, while assuming that costs and selling prices are known parameters. Under this model, Shih developed methods for computing the optimal production level and formulas for the mean, variance and distribution of the amount of profit. In this article, the author investigates how management should perform break-even analysis when confronted with production decisions for situations satisfying Shih's model. At first the author demonstrates by argument and counter-example that Shih's analysis of the break-even decision is incorrect and then presents a valid approach to break-even analysis for the general decision model. Shih's model assumes that price, variable cost and fixed cost are known parameters. Demand has to be determined by the decision maker. Usually the decision maker will choose the value of demand so as to maximize the expected profit. According to Shih's model, since the profit is a linear function of demand, it is only necessary to compare the average demand with the break-even point to determine the profitability of new product.

Reviews the book "Capital Budgeting: Planning and Control of Capital Expenditures," by John J. Clark, Thomas J. Hindelang and Robert E. Pritchard.

Reviews the book "Managerial Accounting: An Introduction," 3rd ed., by James H. Rossell, William W. Frasure and Donald H. Taylor.

Reviews the book "Foreign Exchange Management in Multinational Firms," by Vinh Quang Tran.