The development of adequate performance evaluation techniques for appraising foreign subsidiaries and their managers in an environment different from their domestic ones has been suggested as an area where management accounting should be extended. This study concerned the performance evaluation of foreign subsidiary managers with the following objectives: (1) to examine the relationships among environmental factors and foreign subsidiary performance, (2) to develop a multinational enterprise (MNE) environmental model to evaluate the performance of subsidiary managers on the basis of controllable factors only, and (3) to test the model in American multinational enterprises for the existence of association among environmental factors and measured performance of foreign subsidiaries. The research method employed in this study was to test for association between noncontrollable environmental factors of a particular foreign country and measured performance of the foreign subsidiary (in terms of ROI) in that particular country. Major noncontrollable factor groups used were economic, political-legal, educational, and social environmental constraints.

The purpose of this study was to determine how deans of colleges within the state-supported, four-year universities in Texas use accounting information to allocate and control resources dedicated to faculty salaries, departmental operating expense, and instructional administration expense. Conclusions: 1. Communication is better between deans and financial officers at small universities than at large universities. 2. The relationship between line and staff appears to be misunderstood at several large universities. 3. Ten per cent of the deans at large universities and 2 per cent at small universities do not receive financial reports. 4. The financial reports, if comparative, usually compare year-to-date actual amounts with annual planned amounts. 5. Some of the deans keep their own set of financial records. 6. Deans are cost conscious and aware of the state formulas used in the state appropriation. 7. Many deans are frustrated and angry. 8. Most deans participate extensively in budgeting faculty salaries and departmental operating expense but 20 per cent do not participate in planning of instructional administration expense.

Typical accounting studies attempting to explain accounting method choice employ positive theoretical hypotheses and test for association between adoption method or adoption timing and economic measures that focus upon specific firm stakeholders. Such studies addressing the adoption and impact of SFAS 87, "Employer's Accounting for Pensions," yield mixed and contradicting results. Various researchers have suggested that traditional economic analysis often fails to capture important explanatory variables and is far too simplistic. The purpose of this study is to expand analysis by evaluating a particular accounting choice by means of three different characterizations. SFAS 106, "Employers' Accounting for Postretirement Benefits Other than Pensions," allows management to choose between two very different methods of adopting the standard. The principal question explored in this study is: why did managers of firms that employ defined benefit postretirement plans for benefits other than pensions choose to adopt SFAS 106 using a particular method? The research question is explored by means of three different characterizations: 1) a traditional economic characterization; 2) a sociopolitical characterization); and 3) a joint decision characterization. Logit methodology is used with method of SFAS 106 adoption as the binary dependent variable of interest. Results indicate that all three characterizations are important in …

The 1976 Tax Reform Act made many changes in the taxation of estate and gift transfers. Previously gifts and estates were taxed separately and the gift tax rate was 75 percent of the estate tax rate; and there was a $30,000 exemption for gifts and a $60,000 exemption for estate transfers. Under the new law the exemptions were repealed and replaced with a unified credit against the tax; and the tax on estate and gift transfers was combined into one increasing rate schedule. Under the prior law, deathbed gifts were advantageous because the gift tax paid on the transfer was excluded from the taxable estate but was allowed as a credit against the estate tax since gifts within three years of the date of death were included in the gross estate unless the estate could demonstrate that the gifts were not made in contemplation of death. Under the new law, gift taxes paid on transfers which occur within three years of the date of death are included in the taxable estate.

The Taxpayer Service Division contributes to the Internal Revenue Service mission of achieving the highest possible voluntary compliance with the Federal income tax law by answering questions and helping taxpayers in their return preparation efforts. These services are provided by Taxpayer Service Representatives and Taxpayer Service Specialists (TSS's). The TSS position was established in 1975 to upgrade the quality of assistance provided. TSS duties include being able to provide assistance with problems involving complex areas of the tax law. The purpose of the study was to disclose to what extent TSS's are called on to answer tax questions related to partnerships, corporations, and Subchapter S corporations and to disclose whether they have been trained and are able to answer the inquiries.

The overall purpose of this study was to evaluate the current status of the Sherman Act's application to the professions, with emphasis on the accounting profession. This was further stated as two purposes. 1. The primary purpose was to interpret the historical development and current status of the most important defenses used in the courts by the professions and professionals against alleged violations of the Sherman Act. 2. The second purpose was to evaluate the relative importance of variables, including the defenses used, that have affected the outcomes of court cases involving alleged violations of the Sherman Act.

Prior to the issuance of Financial Accounting Standards Board Statement No. 8 (SFAS No. 8), there was a marked inconsistency in the area of accounting for foreign currency translation. Though designed to make the diverse accounting practices of multinational corporations (MNCs) more compatible, SFAS No. 8 was the subject of a great deal of criticism, eventually leading to the issuance of Financial Accounting Standards Board Statement No. 52 (SFAS No. 52). SFAS No. 52 differs from SFAS No. 8 on objectives and method of translation, and on accounting treatments of translation adjustments. This dissertation provides an empirical examination of the security market reaction to the accounting policy change embodied in SFAS No. 52, and its impact on the volatility of reported earnings of MNCs. The effects of the issuance and early adoption of SFAS No. 52 on security return distributions were determined by both cross-sectional comparisons of cumulative average residuals (CAR) between MNCs and domestic firms and between early and late adopters, and by time-series tests on CAR of MNCs. Two volume analyses were performed to test the effects of SFAS No. 52 on security volume. The first analysis was adjusted to remove the effects of the marketwide factors on …

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the effect of U.S. firms’ geographic location, whether urban or rural, on their corporate disclosure and governance practices. An “urban” firm is one that is headquartered in a large metropolitan area; whereas, a “rural” firm is one that is headquartered some distance from any metropolitan area. Specifically, the study examines whether there are different stock market reactions to urban and rural firms around key event dates relative to the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) on July 30, 2002. Also, the readability and linguistic style in the Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) section of public company’s annual reports (Form 10-K) to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are investigated to determine whether urban and rural firms communicate information differently to investors.

Thesis written by a student in the UNT Honors College discussing the evolution of ethics within the accounting profession and the difficulties encountered when personal ethics conflict with the Code of Professional Conduct.

This empirical study is concerned with whether the oil and gas reserve value data reported by petroleum producers have been utilized by investors. Reporting reserve value data based on a present value approach is the initial step toward the development of the Securities and Exchange Commission's new accounting method called "Reserve Recognition Accounting" (RRA) for oil and gas producers. Experimentation with this new accounting concept in the oil and gas industry has been adopted as a tentative resolution of the long-standing controversy over valuation of oil and gas reserves and the measure of income from oil and gas exploration. Evidence gathered in this research will be valuable to the SEC in its efforts to assess the usefulness of RRA. This dissertation assumes capital market efficiency and address two specific questions. First, do investors behave as if the reported end-of-year reserve value data are effective signals for pricing securities of oil and gas producers? Second, has the SEC-mandated reserve value disclosures induced any response in the capital market? Two research designs were employed to permit extensive investigation of these two questions.

This dissertation attempts to provide an exploratory structure to respond to, and tries to resolve, an existing void in international accounting research. The void is a lack of coherently structured, nation-specific, descriptive research to investigate socio-economic phenomena which may influence financial accounting. This dissertation's salient features include a political economy theory, an exploratory, sociological method, and a case study format. The political economy of accounting, introduced by Tinker [1980] and refined by Cooper and Sherer [1984], emphasizes a persuasive social relations dimension. This theory motivates selection of three countries (the United States, France, and Japan) that appear to have divergent socio-cultural environments. An exploratory and analytical approach of modified (enlarged) exogenism, developed by Smith [1973, 1976] and adapted to accounting by McKinnon [1986], provides an analytic structure for this exploratory investigation. Modified exogenism focuses upon an open, dynamic social system (the process of financial accounting), and provides analysis reflecting four major areas (the environment, intrusive events, intra-system activity, and trans-system activity). After examining the nation-specific financial accounting (socio-economic) structures for each country, an analysis of selected financial disclosures attempts to gain a better understanding of how socio-economic factors have influenced the development of financial accounting. My primary objective is to …

This study contributes to the debate on accounting pedagogy in the basic financial accounting course by examining the pedagogical tool of fluency training as a way to improve student performance. Fluency training has been shown to improve performance of students in other academic disciplines.

The purpose of this research project is to develop concepts for doing cost-benefit analyses for governmental and nonprofit homes. Such concepts should facilitate a differential diagnosis which recognizes the wide individual differences among those served. Developing relevant concepts is a first step in measurement. An aim is to develop appropriate concepts and instruments that will make an ordinal measurement of resident satisfaction possible. This study makes no effort to develop monetary measures of either costs or benefits. These measures and the related cost-benefit analyses must await further developments. Of the home's employees, the nurses and nurses' assistants usually have the most prolonged and intimate contact with the residents. The nurses and nurses' assistants often are the home personified in that they provide the bulk of a home's services to the less able residents. This explains why the environment of the home, which includes the values, needs, and attitudes of nurses and nurses' assistants, is believed to influence resident satisfaction.

The financial crisis facing the United States savings and loan industry has been steadily escalating over the last decade. During this time, accounting treatments concerning various thrift institution transactions have also attracted a great deal of attention. The specialized accounting treatments used in the thrift industry, known as regulatory accounting practices (RAP) have been blamed as one of the culprits hindering the regulators' ability to detect serious financial problems within many institutions. Accordingly, RAP was phased out, and all federally insured savings and loan associations began preparing their financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) as of January 1, 1989. The purpose of this dissertation is to compare the relative predictive values of the two historical cost based accounting conventions (RAP and GAAP) available to the savings and loar? industry during the 1980's. For purposes of this dissertation, predictive value is defined as the usefulness in assessing future financial health and viability. The sample consisted of all the institutions reporting to the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas between 1984 and 1989. Year-end thrift financial report data, obtained from Sheshunoff Information Services, Inc. (Austin, Texas) was used to calculate several financial ratios. The Federal Home Loan Bank …

Previous research has shown that accountants may be inadequate moral reasoners. Concern over this trend caused the Treadway Commission (1987) and the Accounting Education Change Commission (1990) to call for greater integration of ethics into the student's training. Ponemon and Glazer (1990) found a difference in cognitive moral development (CMD) between accounting students at a public university and a private university with a liberal arts emphasis. This study expands Ponemon and Glazer's research by examining two liberal arts universities, one a private, secular institution and one a Catholic institution. The primary research question asks if Catholic university accounting students manifest greater CMD growth than secular university accounting students. Additionally, this study examines and compares the priority that accounting students from the different institutions place on ethical values versus economic values. It was expected that Catholic university accounting students would manifest both greater CMD growth and a greater concern for ethical values over economic values when compared with non-Catholic university accounting students. The study utilized a two-phase approach. In the first phase, an organizational study of two institutions was made to determine how each strives to integrate moral development into their accounting students' education. In the second phase, lower-division and senior …

This research examines how experience and missing information affect judgments of tax return preparers. Tax return preparers may often be faced with the problem of incomplete information, and their responses to this problem may be conditioned by whether or not they recognize information is missing. Based on the Holland et al.'s cognitive theory of induction as applied to tax judgment by Marchant et al., it was hypothesized that experienced tax preparers would correctly classify more items as to their relevance to a specific tax issue than novice tax preparers. Additionally, it was hypothesized that the strength of recommendations of tax preparers who had no relevant information missing would be greater than the strength of recommendations of tax preparers who had relevant information missing and were prompted that information was missing. Lastly, it was hypothesized that prompting that relevant information was missing would have a greater effect on the strength of recommendations of tax return preparers with lesser specific experience than it would on the strength of recommendations of tax return preparers with greater specific experience. The results suggest that experienced tax preparers do recognize the relevance of information to a greater degree than novice tax preparers. There was no significant …

The major thrust of this study is to identify factors that contribute to turnover of black accountants in public accounting and to identify the factors that lead to the success or failure of black accountants. This research was limited to the eight largest national public accounting firms in the United States (the Big Eight). Open-ended questions about the reasons for (1) turnover of black accountants in public accounting firms, (2) success of black accountants in public accounting firms, and (3) failure of black accountants in public accounting firms were presented to three groups of respondents. The population includes (1) personnel managers and supervising personnel in Big Eight firms, (2) black accountants who are either presently or were previously employed by Big Eight firms, and (3) accounting faculty members at predominantly black institutions.

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect tax complexity has on taxpayers' understanding of the tax law. The individual income tax system in the United States is based on self assessment by the taxpayer. A self assessing system requires a high level of voluntary compliance by the participants. Taxpayers who file returns on time and file correctly are considered to be in compliance with the tax law. A taxpayer who cannot understand the rules for tax reporting logically does not have the ability to comply with the law. A tax system predicated on the presumption that the average taxpayer can understand and comply with the tax rules must not become so complex that the taxpayer is forced into either seeking external help or not fully complying. The question arises, does complexity affect the ability of taxpayers to understand, and thus comply with, the tax system?

Private philanthropy is important in America. In 1985, philanthropy totaled almost 80 billion dollars. Philanthropy is partially a function of price. Absent a tax benefit, the price of charitable giving is unity. When tax benefits are available, the price of cash giving is one minus the marginal tax rate of the donor. Philanthropy is not evenly distributed among all classes of organizations. Changes in tax cost bring about changes in the distribution of gifts among organizations. Predictions have been made of a six to twelve billion dollar decline in individual giving as a result of the Tax Reform Act of 1986. The question is, "Whose ox gets gored?" In 1962, the Internal Revenue Service collected data directly linking itemized charitable contributions to class of donee organization. Prior works by Taussig, Schwartz, Feldstein, and Clotfelter have been principally based on this data. Their works document differing elasticities of price on charitable giving. The current research gathered 1985 data on the relationships between income, price, and charitable donee for 298 Dallas County, Texas, taxpayers. Data was obtained from selected certified public accountants in Dallas County who prepared income tax returns for individuals as part of their practice. Two hundred fifty usable responses …

The purpose of this thesis was to analyze a number of auditor change and other peripheral issues from two related perspectives. Empirical data were gathered from publicly available Forms 8-K and 10-K to first assess whether meaningful differences existed between NYSE, AMEX, and OTC registrants regarding disclosures required in those documents. Secondly, the data were analyzed to determine whether differences existed with respect to the accounting firms (Big Eight or non-Big Eight) involved in the auditor changes. In most of the tests designed to achieve these purposes, statistically defensible results were obtained using the nonparametric chi-square test for significance of observed differences and the McNemar test for significance of changes, at the .05 level.

The problem with which this study is concerned is that of determining income concepts employed by members of the agricultural sector to determine change in equity of the owner of an entity. A secondary purpose was an investigation of the factors which influenced the decision model selected to determine income. Major findings of the study indicated that financial data is used differently by members of the sector and the accountant. Respondents did not agree among themselves about the information that should be used in income measurement, nor were they consistent in use of a given concept. Finally, evidence was presented which indicated that changes in terms used to ask for change in equity leads to different responses.

The main purpose of this study is to develop a bankruptcy prediction model for the small business firm. Data was collected from the Dallas Small Business Administration (SBA), making this study specific to its decision makers. Existing research has produced models which predominately use financial ratios and information measures either independently or combined, and a few research models have used economic trends. This study varies from past studies in that it includes regional economic variables from the states of Texas. A sample of three-year data for 138 firms included fifteen bankrupt firms. This proportion of bankrupt/nonbankrupt firms approximates the proportion of repayed/defaulted loans in the SBA. Stepwise regression, set at the .15 level of significance, reduced a total of fifty-three variables to nine. These nine variables were then used to test twelve predictive models. All twelve models tested improved the SBA repayment rate and only two of the twelve would have caused the SBA to deny loans to applicants who eventually repaid. The study determined the model that included financial ratios, information measures, and Texas economic variables as best. It was also demonstrated that some of the variables used in this model could be eliminated without decreasing the predictive power …

The purpose of this study was an empirical investigation of the factors considered by the United States Tax Court in determining whether the principal purpose for an acquisition was tax avoidance (or alternatively, given the totality of the surrounding circumstances, whether there was an overriding business purpose for the acquisition).

Many external parties such as investors, creditors, and regulatory agencies, use a company’s financial statements in their decision-making. In doing so, they rely on audit opinions on whether financial statements are fairly stated. However, evidence suggests that there are factors in the audit environment that influence auditor judgments. For example, nondiagnostic client information dilutes auditor judgments when compared to judgments based on diagnostic information alone, especially for less experienced auditors (Hackenbrack 1992; Hoffman and Patton 1997; Glover 1994; Shelton 1999). High time pressure conditions mitigate this effect by refocusing auditor attention toward relevant client information, therefore reducing the impact of nondiagnostic information (Glover 1994, 1997). This research study examines other common audit environment factors to determine if they too influence audit judgment results. An online questionnaire of 149 auditors, CPAs and other accounting professionals indicate that the inclusion of nondiagnostic client information results in a significant change in auditor judgments. The direction of this change follows a theorized pattern; risk assessments that were initially high are reduced, while those that were initially low are increased. Significance was not consistently found for a workload and PCAOB effect on auditor judgment. However, a comparison of the absolute value of dilution effect means …