This series is devoted to the factors influencing accounting practice. It analyzes topics such as regulatory philosophy, self-regulation in accounting and regulatory policy. Each volume is structured into three parts - main articles, perspectives and book reviews. This volume includes a theoretical investigation of client internal control structures and management fraud. It also covers topics such as the volatility of pension costs, public accountant's professional conduct, an examination of borrower and lender perceptions, bank loan loss provisions after resignation, retirement or death, and the economic consequences of accounting standards and Islamic banks.

This sixth volume in the series deals with such topics as international accounting theory, Australian accounting standard setting and the conceptual framework project, country studies and technical studies, and international management accounting.

Recent megatrends such as increasing complexity, volatility, internationalization and increased demand for transparency and compliance have changed the expectations towards the controlling function. During his professional experience, the author observed the increased expectations towards the controlling function. If controlling is to maintain its influence in a company, it needs to adapt to the changes in management expectations. To outline "how to increase the value added by the controlling function in multinational production companies", four research questions were addressed and answered. The questions which were answered were "what does controlling involve and which factors influence the set-up of the controlling function in a company", "how are the expectations towards the controlling function changing over time and what is its value contribution", "how can the controlling function add value to standard reporting and budgeting activities" and "how can the controlling function add value to reorganization activities".

This series focuses on the academic and theoretical side of the profession in the areas of financial accounting, accounting education and auditing. Articles range from empirical and analytical, to the development of new technologies.

Finally a book that teaches both the philosophy and step-by-step instructions for building wealth through the financial planning process.
An easy to read and understanding guide to the steps of constructing a financial plan. The author does a masterful job of explaining a complex topic in a way that makes it easy to understand and implement.
By comparing a financial plan to a sailboat, readers are able to vision a financial plan that has both defensive and offensive elements.
The financial plan is tailored to the objectives, timeframe and risk tolerance of the reader. At the center of the plan are the financial goals that the reader chooses. This makes the book indispensable in creating a very personal and useful tool for realizing life-time goals.

The authors analyze the schism between accounting practitioners and academics, providing historical, philosophical, and political perspectives on this division. They support the efforts of the Accounting Education Change Commission in its call for sweeping changes in the scope and quality of accounting education. This schism originated before the turn of the century in the United States over concerns about the best preparation for professional accountants. Since that time, the nature of the schism has broadened considerably. Accounting has largely been taught in a structured framework, far removed from the dynamic and ill-structured situations resulting from environmental changes in which accounting is practiced. This gulf between accounting and practice reflects the schism today, which has become a division between individuals with different philosophical, economic, and political goals and attitudes. Nevertheless, the authors view the schism in a positive light--as a natural reflection of different ideas that lead to beneficial changes.

The authors begin with a philosophical perspective on the schism, as a division between opposing ideas, and deal with three areas of the accounting schism: education, practice, and standard-setting. The main focus is on education. The history of the schism is then delineated. Other views of the schism are considered next, including economic, political, and utilitarian. The function of the schism in the world of accounting is examined. Recent changes in the nature and complexity of the environment in which accounting is practiced are presented. This book is suitable for use in accounting theory and policy courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels and in accounting education seminars at the graduate level. In addition, the book should be of interest to accounting practitioners.

Accounting may be viewed and analyzed as its own special sort of language says Riahi-Belkaoui, and accounting is the language of business. It represents phenomena in the business world as language represents phenomena in the larger world. To understand accounting as a language one must study such things as its readability and understandability, its impact on users behavior, its various linguistic repertories, and the impact that bilinguality has on accounting practices. Riahi-Belkaoui covers all this in a way that not only academics versed in linguistics will understand, but in a way that trained accountants will also find fascinating and useful, particularly in their international and multicultural activities.

Riahi-Belkaoui examines what he considers to be the four major aspects of his topic. First, he explores how accounting messages are based on levels of readability and understanding. Second he shows how accounting includes both lexical and grammatical characteristics, and how these shape the perceptions and thoughts of users. He then illustrates the ways in which different linguistic repertories are used by different professional groups, and shows how this leads to communication problems and from there to a schism between academics and practitioners. Finally he argues that bilingualism in accounting has clear advantage. It provides greater mental and cognitive flexibility, increased metalinguistic ability, and also makes it possible to formulate concepts better and to deal with divergent thinking.

This ground-breaking book introduces macro accounting. Most modern money emerges out of accounting documentation of private executory debt contracts within exchange processes. Money-information markers are basically negotiable (exchangeable for value) debt instruments. Macro accounting techniques provide sufficient detail to examine the complex coupling relations and the resulting constraints among exchanges of good, services, and money-information markers of various sorts.

The book begins with a discussion of the fundamental concepts of trades, exchanges, and the accounting basis of money. Accounting is then described as an aspect of empirical science--a means of observing concrete processes. Drawing on these basic ideas, Swanson extends organizational accounting to societies and supranational systems. The last four chapters simulate economic processes. The book should be read by serious students of economics, accounting, and political science as well as societal policy markers and the international banking community.

This book analyses the role of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Business Intelligence (BI) systems in improving information quality through an empirical analysis carried out in Italy. The study begins with a detailed examination of ERP features that highlights the advantages and disadvantages of ERP adoption. Critical success factors for ERP implementation and post-implementation are then discussed, along with the capabilities of ERP in driving the alignment between management accounting and financial accounting information.The study goes on to illustrate the features of BI systems and to summarize companies' needs for BI. Critical success factors for BI implementation are then presented, along with the BI maturity model and lifecycle. The focus of the research entails a detailed empirical analysis in the Italian setting designed to investigate the role played by ERP and BI systems in reducing information overload/underload and improving information quality by influencing the features of information flow. The practical and theoretical implications of the study are discussed and future avenues of research are suggested. This book will be of value for all those who have an interest in the capacities of ERP and BI systems to enhance business information quality.

The functioning of the global economy depends very much on the quality and quantity of information provided by multinational corporations, not only to investors and taxing agencies but also to governmental policymakers. Underlying this is the concept of disclosure adequacy. It refers to ways in which the quality of information that MNC's divulge about their economic transactions can be measured, and such information and its adequacy can vary widely from country to country. How this happens and why it should be so-what the nature of disclosure adequacy and its determinants are-is the subject of Riahi-Belkaoui's latest Quorum book. Academics in finance and accounting will recognize quickly the beginnings of a contingency theory of disclosure adequacy internationally, one that identifies various relativisms and presents empirical evidence for their validity. Financial analysts and other investment professionals will gain useful ways to work with (and make sense of) foreign firms' annual reports, while public policy people will find insights to aid in the harmonization of accounting principles.

Riahi-Belkaoui's contingency approach to disclosure adequacy identifies determinants based on cultural, linguistic, political, civil, economic and demographic relativisms, on legal and tax relativisms and even on religious relativism. He presents evidence that accounting for information adequacy does in fact have a positive impact on economic growth. It is also an ideal mechanism by which firms can control conflicts created by favorable or unfavorable information regarding the general investment climate of a particular country. He examines international differences in disclosure adequacy, then proves there is a positive relationship between the functionings of global stock exchanges and economic and human development. From there he discusses the relationship between disclosure adequacy and political, economic, and civil factors. Finally, he examines four cultural dimensions-individualism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity-and their impact not only on disclosure adequacy but on the way the entire accounting enterprise is practiced internationally.

A book that goes behind the more official presentations and accounts of research methods to explore the lived experiences, joys and mistakes of a wide range of international researchers principally working in the fields of accounting and finance, but also in management, economics and other social sciences.
The authors of the articles in this book address a wide range of issues and obstacles that they have confronted at various stages in their respective research careers. In reflecting on their personal experiences, they provide practical guidance on how to overcome the types of problems that typically confront academic researchers in their day-to-day work.
Includes:
- Practical tips on how to undertake research and get findings published
- Research project management skills
- Inernational and interdisciplinary perspectives

Dan Bavly takes a fresh look at how business is supervised and how that system can be improved. He begins by assessing the performance of the government regulator and suggests reasons for the failure to prevent many of the debacles of the recent past. New fiascoes often engender a spate of legislation, but the regulator remains the one who gets away--he is simply not accountable and does not shoulder the blame. Clearly, a new definition of regulator responsibility is required.

Drawing on his years of company board and auditing experience, Bavly analyzes why the average director cannot do his job, and he shows how a complete, but feasible, overhaul of the way company boards function can help solve this problem. Bavly then goes on to explore, as an insider, the profession of accounting and to show why the CPA should be considered an endangered species. Along the way, Bavly examines many of the difficult issues of contemporary ac counting: Where is the trend of mammoth accounting organizations leading? Is the addiction to mergers suicidal? How is the accounting profession coping with technology? What is the relationship between the outside CPA and the corporate internal audit division? For each specific flaw in the system, Bavly provides a practical remedy. The general message is the need for constant reassessment and, perhaps, a plea to cut all the agencies of corporate governance back to human proportions.

Advances in International Accounting is a referred, academic research annual, that is devoted to publishing articles about advancements in the development of accounting and its related disciplines from an international perspective. This serial examines how these developments affect the financial reporting and disclosure practices, taxation, management accounting practices, and auditing of multinational corporations, as well as their effect on the education of professional accountants worldwide. Advances in International Accounting welcomes traditional and alternative approaches, including theoretical research, empirical research, applied research, and cross-cultural studies.

This book attempts what for many in the accounting profession has been the impossible: a unified accounting system for measuring and reporting the performance of human service organizations as well as firms in the profit sector. The model developed recognizes the centrality of the consumer and the significance of optimizing consumer preferences whether the consumer is an individual purchasing services and products in the profit sector or the consumer is society in the role of consumer-payer of the services and products of human service organizations. Equating society as the consumer-payer of human services leads to the use of societal income as a measure of the effectiveness of human service organizations.

Accounting is a social institution whose chief function is measurement. Given a statement of goals, accounting should measure the achievement of these goals. Thus accounting can be viewed as a feedback system to report the differences between goals and their achievement. In a democratic society, the economic goal for its members should be their continuing gains in independence from a self-sufficiency viewpoint and satisfaction of their needs and wants from a consumption viewpoint. These are common goals in the profit and nonprofit sectors. The societal model developed by Herson, Gordon, and Cherny has long-run implications for the professions of accounting, human services, economics, and political science and the book will be a provocative work for professionals in these disciplines for some time to come.