Candidate Performance On The Business Environment And Concepts Section Of The CPA Exam

This paper examines how differences in curricular design of undergraduate accounting programs influence pass rates on the Business Environment and Concepts Section of the CPA Exam. The association of the pass rate of a school's accounting graduates to the design of the schools accounting program and to other school characteristics was examined with linear regression models. Characteristics considered were semester hours in courses covered by the CPA exam section, entrance exam scores of the schools' freshmen, whether the schools were AACSB accredited and whether the schools were public or private institutions. The number of cost and managerial accounting semester hours was consistently found to be a significant determinant of success on the new section of the CPA exam.

The Impact Of Merit Pay On Teaching And Research Outcomes Of Accounting Programs

Basing the compensation of accounting professors on merit pay in order to encourage better teaching, research and service is controversial. This study uses data from a survey of the 852 accounting programs in the United States to empirically examine the influence of merit-based salary plans. Findings indicate a strong positive association between the presence of a merit plan at a school and the quality of the school’s research outcomes. However, no association was found between the presence of a merit program at a school and the school’s teaching outcomes

The Chaos Based Bankruptcy Model -- Current Status

This study reexamines whether chaos theory can be used to develop a bankruptcy prediction model. In a 1996 paper, we applied chaos theory to bankruptcy prediction using a pair-matched sample of bankrupt firms and demonstrated that returns of firms nearing bankruptcy would exhibit significantly less chaos, as measured by Lyapunov exponents. The current study extends that work but differs from the earlier study by utilizing a binary logistic regression and bootstrapping to test a recent sample of bankrupt firms and their pair-matches. The current results show that the phenomena observed in 1996 persist

On Developing The Writing Skills Course For Accounting Students

The CSU, Stanislaus, accounting program is providing a new course that meets the university-wide upper-division writing requirement and offers accounting students additional professional study. While a writing skills course is not unusual in a business program, few offer an alternative centered on the accounting body of knowledge. Undergraduate students’ research questions are usually not addressed before graduate study and reinforce skills learned in their regular accounting courses. Initial reactions from students have ranged from appreciation for additional time spent on accounting topics to disappointment at missing out on the "general business" writing course. Continual reassessment of the course is planned

Predicting Retail Company Bankruptcies in the Era of COVID

Trade journals and the popular press have suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic precipitated a second “retail apocalypse.” The current study tests whether pre-pandemic data can be used to predict COVID-19 retail firm bankruptcies using a chaos-based model. This study successfully uses a chaos statistic calculated from stock market time-series returns for pair-match retail firms prior to the pandemic to predict bankruptcies occurring shortly afterwards

Adrift In Auditing Class

In 2011, Arum and Roksa challenged the higher education community to examine its practices and improve its performance in Academically Adrift. While recognizing the near universal accessibility achieved by American colleges and universities, the study suggested that students are not learning as well as they should. They measured academic rigor by considering the amount of reading and writing required of students and questioned whether courses are appropriately rigorous. Considering auditing as the accounting course most likely to require writing as well as reading, this study explored the auditing course for the condition of “academic rigor” as defined in the challenge

An Accounting Writing Proficiency Survey

  Although there has been much discussion about improving college student writing with college-level courses, little is known about how accounting programs, in particular, are addressing the writing proficiency challenge. This study surveys the 852 accounting programs in the United States to identify the frequency and types of accounting writing courses currently offered. Results indicate that few schools require an accounting-specific writing course or require students to pass any kind of writing proficiency test as juniors or seniors. Most programs do, however, require students to demonstrate English composition skills within several of the upper division accounting courses. Most department chairs do not believe that the graduates of their programs write well enough. 

Predicting COVID-19 Related Corporate Bankruptcies Prior to the Pandemic

In a previous study, it was shown that firms approaching bankruptcy exhibited less chaos than pair match firms based on their SIC (standard industry classification) code that did not enter bankruptcy. Chaos can be used to compare systems as quantified by calculating the Lyapunov exponent. In this study, the exponent was calculated using time series of daily stock market returns. Given that unhealthy systems display less chaos than healthy systems, bankruptcy is considered in this study as an expression of an unhealthy system. The sudden emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic placed firms under stress. This study successfully uses the Lyapunov exponents calculated for pair match firms based on the newer NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) code prior to the emergence of the pandemic to predict bankruptcies occurring shortly afterwards

An Accounting Program Merit Pay Survey

Basing the compensation of accounting professors on merit pay in order to encourage better teaching, research and service is controversial. Before the effectiveness of merit-based salary plans can be examined empirically, it must be determined which accounting programs use such a system. In this study, the 852 accounting programs in the United States were surveyed to identify the methods in use to adjust the salaries of individual professors. Initial findings indicate that schools using a merit system usually do not also offer time in grade increases and that doctoral granting schools and AACSB accredited schools are more likely to use a merit system. &nbsp

The Impact Of Merit Pay On Research Outcomes For Accounting Professors

Merit pay for professors to encourage better teaching, research and service is controversial. Its effectiveness can be examined empirically. In this study, the existence of a merit plan and ACT scores of incoming freshmen were strongly associated with measurable research outcomes. Additional study is needed to test the association with the other dimensions of faculty performance