Resource Consumption Accounting Where Does It Fit?

With the increasing sophistication of recent costing innovations, such as resource consumption accounting, the selection of a costing system can be a daunting decision as one seeks to choose the appropriate costing methodology for a given (1) decision context, (2) production environment, and/or (3) information system available to a firm. Taking a big picture perspective, this article illustrates the distinguishing features of RCA, ABC, and TOC as compared to the traditional costing approach (as a benchmark) and attempts to offer some basic guidance as to when each system may be appropriate. This comparative presentation of RCA is designed to provide time-pressured management accounting practitioners a frame of reference for considering RCA (or one of the other methodologies) prior to a more in-depth investigation. Managers may also use this comparison to support organizational efforts to train staff with varying levels of management accounting background on the similarities and dissimilarities between the various product costing alternatives. Finally, we believe this presentation can benefit teachers of cost accounting who are interested in exposing their students to the conceptual differences between RCA and the other costing methodologies

Stakeholder Salience And Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence From Three Companies

In this paper, we examine the corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts of three socially conscious companies over time by employing Mitchell et al.’s (1997) stakeholder salience theory.  Mitchell et al. maintain that the extent to which managers pay attention to the interests of various stakeholder groups is based on the power, legitimacy, and urgency of the claims of each group.  Using these attributes of power, legitimacy, and urgency, we analyze how the CSR activities of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, Malden Mills, Inc., and Nova Chemicals Company have changed over time.  Our investigation revealed that attributes of stakeholder salience shift over a firm’s life cycle, and therefore levels of CSR activities change as well.  For these firms, we found that power is the primary attribute of stakeholder salience driving CSR.  That is, in order for a firm to engage in purposeful CSR activities, the stakeholder(s) pursuing a CSR agenda must possess the power to impose such an agenda on management.  Based on the results of our analysis, we conclude that without power, legitimacy and urgency may not provide sufficient stakeholder salience to promote CSR activities.&nbsp

Institutional Impediments To Voluntary Ethics Measurement Systems: An International Perspective

Despite numerous appeals in the business ethics literature for a multiple-stakeholder perspective to corporate governance, in practice the widespread adoption of voluntary ethics measurement systems that consider multiple stakeholders remains elusive.  In this paper, we employ an institutional economics framework to examine the legal environment in several English-speaking countries in order to determine potential constraints that might cause managers to avoid the adoption of such systems.  Our findings indicate that in British Commonwealth countries (1) the courts tend to view stockholders as the primary corporate constituency group and (2) there is a lack of documentary privilege.  Therefore, any internally generated metrics on ethics and corporate social responsibility matters could potentially be either trivialized or used against the corporation in court proceedings.  Before adopting a voluntary ethics measurement system, managers should be aware of these and other potential institutional constraints that may impede such efforts

Service Learning: A Valuable Experience

In this paper, we describe how our department recently incorporated a major service learning component into the curriculum. Specifically, we employed participation in the IRS’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program as an effective means of experiential and service learning for the past two years for Masters of Accountancy students. We designed a course devoted entirely to serving in a VITA program operated on a local Air Force base. Our experience confirms that service learning can be a powerful tool in teaching. It has enhanced our students’ academic and professional development. It has given significance to our mission and it has strengthened community relationships. However, recent developments have made it difficult for us to maintain this service learning project in its present form. It appears that we, like many other programs, must consider again how to implement service learning as part of our curriculum, but we will do so now with a greater appreciation and enthusiasm for its unique contributions to learning

Inherent Conflicts Of Interest In The Accounting Profession

In this paper, we critically examine three situations in the accounting/auditing profession in which conflicts of interest arise. Specifically, we describe conflicts of interest that occur (1) because audit fees are paid by the very companies being audited, (2) due to the tension built into accountants’ codes of professional ethics between the responsibility to maintain client confidentiality and the need to serve the public trust, and (3) because of most auditors’ perspective of who is their primary client. Based on our analysis, we conclude that these three inherent conflicts of interest, in the absence of some unforeseen revolutionary changes, are likely to persist within the auditing profession. We also conclude that attempts to mitigate some of these conflicts of interest through the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation have only been moderately successful. We therefore propose that audit professionals must learn to identify and manage the conflicts of interest that will likely remain a part of the profession for the indefinite future

Cultural Diversity, Country Size, And The IFRS Adoption Decision

In this paper, we empirically examine the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption decision of 61 countries in an attempt to determine why some countries have adopted IFRS while others, at least to this point in time, have chosen not to adopt.  In particular, we examine the influence of cultural diversity and country size on the adoption decision.  Our results indicate that the IFRS adoption decision is significantly related to the size of the country, while we are unable to document any cultural influences on the decision.  Our chief result is that larger countries are less likely to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards than small countries.  This result is consistent with the notion that larger countries have a well-established set of financial accounting and reporting standards already in place, and therefore would be reluctant to incur the costs of changing to an international set of standards

Service Learning and Faith Integration in Accounting

oai:cbfa-cbar.org:article/1In this paper, we describe a graduate level tax course that we added to our curriculum that was devoted entirely to service learning. Specifically, the major requirement of the course was for our students to participate as volunteer tax return preparers in the Internal Revenue Service’s Voluntary Income Tax Assistance program at a local air force base. The purpose of this paper is to describe how our students grew intellectually, personally, and especially spiritually as a result of their participation in this service learning tax course

The NANOGrav Nine-year Data Set:Astrometric Measurements of 37 Millisecond Pulsars

Using the nine-year radio-pulsar timing data set from the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav), collected at Arecibo Observatory and the Green Bank Telescope, we have measured the positions, proper motions, and parallaxes for 37 millisecond pulsars. We report twelve significant parallax measurements and distance measurements, and eighteen lower limits on distance. We compare these measurements to distances predicted by the NE2001 interstellar electron density model and find them to be in general agreement. We use measured orbital-decay rates and spin-down rates to confirm two of the parallax distances and to place distance upper limits on other sources; these distance limits agree with the parallax distances with one exception, PSR. J1024-0719, which we discuss at length. Using the proper motions of the 37 NANOGrav pulsars in combination with other published measurements, we calculate the velocity dispersion of the millisecond pulsar population in Galactocentric coordinates. We find the radial, azimuthal, and perpendicular dispersions to be 46, 40, and 24 km s(-1), respectively, in a model that allows for high-velocity outliers; or 81, 58, and 62 km s(-1) for the full population. These velocity dispersions are far smaller than those of the canonical pulsar population, and are similar to older Galactic disk populations. This suggests that millisecond pulsar velocities are largely attributable to their being an old population rather than being artifacts of their birth and evolution as neutron star binary systems. The components of these velocity dispersions follow similar proportions to other Galactic populations, suggesting that our results are not biased by selection effects

The NANOGrav Nine-year Data Set:Mass and Geometric Measurements of Binary Millisecond Pulsars

We analyze 24 binary radio pulsars in the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) nine-year data set. We make 14 significant measurements of the Shapiro delay, including new detections in four pulsar-binary systems (PSRs J0613−0200, J2017+0603, J2302+4442, and J2317+1439), and derive estimates of the binary-component masses and orbital inclination for these MSP-binary systems. We find a wide range of binary pulsar masses, with values as low as ${m}_{{\rm{p}}}={1.18}_{-0.09}^{+0.10}\,{M}_{\odot }$ for PSR J1918−0642 and as high as ${m}_{{\rm{p}}}={1.928}_{-0.017}^{+0.017}\,{M}_{\odot }$ for PSR J1614−2230 (both 68.3% credibility). We make an improved measurement of the Shapiro timing delay in the PSR J1918−0642 and J2043+1711 systems, measuring the pulsar mass in the latter system to be ${m}_{{\rm{p}}}={1.41}_{-0.18}^{+0.21}\,{M}_{\odot }$ (68.3% credibility) for the first time. We measure secular variations of one or more orbital elements in many systems, and use these measurements to further constrain our estimates of the pulsar and companion masses whenever possible. In particular, we used the observed Shapiro delay and periastron advance due to relativistic gravity in the PSR J1903+0327 system to derive a pulsar mass of ${m}_{{\rm{p}}}={1.65}_{-0.02}^{+0.02}\,{M}_{\odot }$ (68.3% credibility). We discuss the implications that our mass measurements have on the overall neutron-star mass distribution, and on the "mass/orbital-period" correlation due to extended mass transfer

PSR J1024-0719:A Millisecond Pulsar in an Unusual Long-Period Orbit

PSR J1024-0719 is a millisecond pulsar that was long thought to be isolated. However, puzzling results concerning its velocity, distance, and low rotational period derivative have led to a reexamination of its properties. We present updated radio timing observations along with new and archival optical data which show that PSR J1024-0719 is most likely in a long-period (2-20 kyr) binary system with a low-mass (approximate to 0.4 M-circle dot), low-metallicity (Z approximate to -0.9 dex) main-sequence star. Such a system can explain most of the anomalous properties of this pulsar. We suggest that this system formed through a dynamical exchange in a globular cluster that ejected it into a halo orbit, which is consistent with the low observed metallicity for the stellar companion. Further astrometric and radio timing observations such as measurement of the third period derivative could strongly constrain the range of orbital parameters