Abstract Reviews the book "Strategic Management Accounting Survey: Overhead Cost Allocation and Performance Evaluation Practices of Australian Manufacturers," by Graeme W. Dean, Marc P. Joye and Paul J. Blayney.
Abstract The purpose of this article is to discuss the inconsistency in findings reported, regarding the effect of separation of ownership from control on accounting policy decisions. The major surprise stressed in the study is that, when smoothing changed periods are compared with no-change periods, smoothing behavior takes place in both groups of firms when it has the most utility to management. When preliminary income is substantially different from the target, manager firms were expected to make smoothing changes. The main focus of these managerial theories generally has been determine what effect, if any, the type of control has upon the pattern in which managerial decisions are made. Modern managerial theories of the firm generally have criticized the neoclassical theories of managerial behavior for failing to maintain the distinction between owner-controlled firms and manager-controller firms and for testing hypotheses with samples drawn uncritically from populations which contain both owner-controlled firms and manager-controlled firms.
Abstract ABSTRACT: Empirical evidence of the effectiveness of learner-directed instruction has been somewhat inconclusive. This article reports the results of an experiment utilizing the self-paced, competency-based method, in contrast to the traditional lock-step instructional method. The experiment was designed to examine whether the use of competence-based requirement in the setting of an accounting class will improve students' performance and whether the self-paced format has differential effects on student performance, The analysis of results indicates that the answer to both questions is positive.
Abstract This article presents comments of the author on the paper "An Intra-Industry Comparison of Alternative Income Concepts and Relative Performance Evaluations," by S.H. Kratchman, R.R. Malcom and R.D. Twark that was published in the October 1974 of the periodical "The Accounting Review." The authors presented an empirical analysis of the impact of basic income concepts on the evaluation of a firm against others in its industry. They concluded that in using net income/total assets as a performance measure, each income concept could be used as a surrogate for other concepts, but in using net income/owners' equity as a performance measure, considerably more caution is needed in using one concept as a surrogate for another. The research methodology used by Kratchman, Malcom and Twark has been examined in three different aspects, that is, statistical methods used, components of net income for the rate of return computation, and the test of impact on rank order changes. Two types of situations to which the rank correlation coefficient is applicable may be distinguished.