The book introduces pragmatic constructivism as a paradigm for understanding actors' construction of functioning practice and for developing methods and concepts for managing and observing that practice. The book explores, understands and theorises organisational practices as constructed through the activities of all organisational actors. Actors always act under presumptions of a specific actor-world-relation which they continuously construct, adjust and reconstruct in light of new experiences, contexts and communication. The outcome of the actor-world-relation is a reality construction. The reality construction may function successfully or it may be hampered by fictitious and illusionary elements, due to missing or faulty actor-world relations. The thesis is that four dimensions of reality - facts, possibilities, values and communication - must be integrated in the actor-world-relation if the construct is to form a successful basis for effective, functioning actions. Drawing on pragmatic constructivism, the book provides concepts and ideas for studies regarding actors and their use of management accounting models in their construction of organized reality. It concentrates on researching and conceptualizing what creates functioning reality construction. It develops concept and methods for understanding, analysing and managing the actors' reality constructions. It is intended for people who do research on or work actively with developing management accounting.

Advances in Management Accounting (AIMA) publishes well-developed articles on a variety of current topics in management accounting that are relevant to researchers in both practice and academe. As one of the premier management accounting research journals, AIMA is well poised to meet the needs of management accounting scholars.

Featured in Volume 13 are articles on expanding management accounting researchers frontiers in the next decade, innovation strategy and the use of performance measures, performance effects of financial incentives, evaluating product mix and capital budgeting decisions, performance-based government organizations, a nomological framework of budgetary participation and performance, organization-mandated budgetary involvement and managers budgetary communication, effects of individual and group performance feedback and task interdependence, fairness perceptions and managers use of budgetary slack, and effects of responsibility and cohesiveness on group escalation decisions.

Researchers in both practice and academe, as well as libraries, would be interested in the articles featured in the AIMA.

Become the forensic analytics expert in your organization using effective and efficient data analysis tests to find anomalies, biases, and potential fraud--the updated new edition Forensic Analytics reviews the methods and techniques that forensic accountants can use to detect intentional and unintentional errors, fraud, and biases. This updated second edition shows accountants and auditors how analyzing their corporate or public sector data can highlight transactions, balances, or subsets of transactions or balances in need of attention. These tests are made up of a set of initial high-level overview tests followed by a series of more focused tests. These focused tests use a variety of quantitative methods including Benford's Law, outlier detection, the detection of duplicates, a comparison to benchmarks, time-series methods, risk-scoring, and sometimes simply statistical logic. The tests in the new edition include the newly developed vector variation score that quantifies the change in an array of data from one period to the next. The goals of the tests are to either produce a small sample of suspicious transactions, a small set of transaction groups, or a risk score related to individual transactions or a group of items. The new edition includes over two hundred figures. Each chapter, where applicable, includes one or more cases showing how the tests under discussion could have detected the fraud or anomalies. The new edition also includes two chapters each describing multi-million-dollar fraud schemes and the insights that can be learned from those examples. These interesting real-world examples help to make the text accessible and understandable for accounting professionals and accounting students without rigorous backgrounds in mathematics and statistics. Emphasizing practical applications, the new edition shows how to use either Excel or Access to run these analytics tests. The book also has some coverage on using Minitab, IDEA, R, and Tableau to run forensic-focused tests. The use of SAS and Power BI rounds out the software coverage. The software screenshots use the latest versions of the software available at the time of writing. This authoritative book: Describes the use of statistically-based techniques including Benford's Law, descriptive statistics, and the vector variation score to detect errors and anomalies Shows how to run most of the tests in Access and Excel, and other data analysis software packages for a small sample of the tests Applies the tests under review in each chapter to the same purchasing card data from a government entity Includes interesting cases studies throughout that are linked to the tests being reviewed. Includes two comprehensive case studies where data analytics could have detected the frauds before they reached multi-million-dollar levels Includes a continually-updated companion website with the data sets used in the chapters, the queries used in the chapters, extra coverage of some topics or cases, end of chapter questions, and end of chapter cases. Written by a prominent educator and researcher in forensic accounting and auditing, the new edition of Forensic Analytics: Methods and Techniques for Forensic Accounting Investigations is an essential resource for forensic accountants, auditors, comptrollers, fraud investigators, and graduate students.

Principles of External Auditing has become established as one of the leading textbooks for students studying auditing. Striking a careful balance between theory and practice, the book describes and explains, in non-technical language, the nature of the audit function and the principles of the audit process. The book covers international auditing and accounting standards and relevant statute and case law. It explains the fundamental concepts of auditing and takes the reader through the various stages of the audit process. It also discusses topical aspects of auditing such as legal liability, audit risk, quality control, and the impact of information technology. Brenda Porter is currently visiting Professor at Exeter University and Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok.

Today, increasingly more, the word sustainability is present in all kinds of discussions: at home, at work, at school, in all society. Conscious of the environment where we live everybody looks to find the best solutions to solve problems that result from Human Being evolution. Management for a sustainable development appears as a process from which organizations try to use all its resources, as well as improve its organizational and technological development, in order to answer not only to the present but also to future human and social needs. Only in this way is it possible to improve the quality of life. Seen in this way, sustainable development is understood to be people centred. We have a special concern with cultural, social and economic dimensions, where individuals can develop, together as a society, whilst at the same time individual and organizational activities can be implemented without destroying the present diversity and complexity of the ecological system where we live. Taking into account these concerns, this book looks to cover issues related to the management for sustainable development in a context where organizations are continually facing high challenges for what concerns the items related to, amongst others, the re-use, recycling, waste reduction, add value, low costs and time of production, sustainable behaviour, not only in an environmental perspective but also in an organizational perspective. Today's organizations can no longer develop their practices based in the existent paradigms. On the contrary, it is necessary to completely break from these paradigms, creating a total change of mentality in the way we manage the organizational activities. Taking into account this reality, managing for a sustainable development appears as a management philosophy focused in productivity improvement considering different kinds of goals, such as biological, economic and social systems goals. Conscious of this reality, this book contributes to the exchange of experiences and perspectives about the state of research related to the management for a sustainable development, as well as the future direction of this research field. It looks to provide a support to academics and researchers, as well as those operating in the management field and who need to deal with policies and strategies related to sustainable development issues.

As millions of Americans struggle to find work in the wake of the Great Recession, politicians from both parties look to regulation in search of an economic cure. Some claim that burdensome regulations undermine private sector competitiveness and job growth, while others argue that tough new regulations actually create jobs at the same time that they provide other benefits. Does Regulation Kill Jobs? reveals the complex reality of regulation that supports neither partisan view. Leading legal scholars, economists, political scientists, and policy analysts show that individual regulations can at times induce employment shifts across firms, sectors, and regions-but regulation overall is neither a prime job killer nor a key job creator. The challenge for policymakers is to look carefully at individual regulatory proposals to discern any job shifting they may cause and then to make regulatory decisions sensitive to anticipated employment effects. Drawing on their analyses, contributors recommend methods for obtaining better estimates of job impacts when evaluating regulatory costs and benefits. They also assess possible ways of reforming regulatory institutions and processes to take better account of employment effects in policy decision-making. Does Regulation Kills Jobs? tackles what has become a heated partisan issue with exactly the kind of careful analysis policymakers need in order to make better policy decisions, providing insights that will benefit both politicians and citizens who seek economic growth as well as the protection of public health and safety, financial security, environmental sustainability, and other civic goals. Contributors: Matthew D. Adler, Joseph E. Aldy, Christopher Carrigan, Cary Coglianese, E. Donald Elliott, Rolf Fare, Ann Ferris, Adam M. Finkel, Wayne B. Gray, Shawna Grosskopf, Michael A. Livermore, Brian F. Mannix, Jonathan S. Masur, Al McGartland, Richard Morgenstern, Carl A. Pasurka, Jr., William A. Pizer, Eric A. Posner, Lisa A. Robinson, Jason A. Schwartz, Ronald J. Shadbegian, Stuart Shapiro.

This book discusses various common occupational and organizational fraud schemes, based on the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) fraud tree and assist fraud examiners and auditors in correctly choosing the appropriate audit tests to uncover such various fraud schemes. The book also includes information about audit test red flags to watch out for, a list of recommended controls to help prevent future fraud related incidents, as well as step-by-step demonstrations of a number of common audit tests using IDEA (R) as a CAATT tool.

Advances in Management Accounting (AIMA) publishes well-developed articles on a variety of current topics in management accounting that are relevant to both practitioners and academicians. As a respected professional journal, AIMA is well poised to meet their information needs. Featured in volume 10 is an article reporting on the findings of an in-depth field study at Bell Atlantic, now Verizon. The impact of teaming on productivity, quality, and employee satisfaction was measured using research design methods not commonly found in field study research. Another article reports field research describing how two firms used accounting in new product development and proposes a conceptual framework hypothesizing how management accountants' participation can enhance the firm's performance. The remaining nine articles deal with a variety of topics such as the frequency and perceived usefulness of strategic management accounting, the relationship between a product's revenue and cost functions and much more. The eleven articles represent relevant, theoretically sound, and practical studies the discipline can greatly benefit from, providing a high level of contributions to management accounting research and practice. Accountants at all levels who work in corporations and not-for-profit organizations will be interested. Contents

Volume 4 in this research series contains nine papers. Following the tradition of the earlier volumes, it is similar in style to the first three volumes and illustrates ongoing research thrusts on a variety of financial economics issues that are germane to working capital management. The papers have been logically divided into three parts.

The first part of the volume focuses on the issues covering short-term interest rates, short-term financial management, and a cash balance model. Part two contains papers that examine the issue of trade credit analysis under a competitive pricing situation and an environment in which the level of sales fluctuates. Finally Part 3 departs from the traditional discussions on working capital management in that it explores dividend payouts and tax environment changes as a source of concern to treasury (and financial) managers.

This fourth volume presents a rich variety of papers that address an expanding facet of working capital management. It is hoped that the papers are found to be informative and act to stimulate research and practice in the area of treasury/financial management.

Matthias Eder zeigt verschiedene Einflussgroessen auf das Controlling von institutionellen Immobilieninvestoren auf und entwickelt mithilfe von Experteninterviews einen Rahmen zur Untersuchung seiner Gestaltungsmoeglichkeiten. Des Weiteren analysiert der Autor Verbesserungs- und Entwicklungsmoeglichkeiten im Controlling und ermittelt, welche Gestaltungsformen erfolgversprechend sein koennen. Er greift damit das Phanomen auf, dass ein Immobiliencontrolling in den letzten Jahren bei vielen Immobilienunternehmen in Deutschland eingefuhrt wurde, und untersucht tiefgehend die Zusammenhange. Eine empirische Erhebung bei institutionellen Immobilienbestandshaltern in Deutschland eroeffnet einen Einblick in die tatsachliche Auspragung und den Entwicklungsstand des Immobiliencontrollings.

This text applies sociological approaches to organizational change and development to explain process innovation and diffusion in internal auditing and management accounting systems. While management accounting reports have emphasized the measurement of quality and improved organizational performance, the extent to which process innovation strategies of total quality management (TQM) and reengineering have been integrated into behavioral accounting research has been limited. The book broadens quality and process innovation research by incorporating theories from organizational development, systems analysis, organizational learning, contingency theory, population ecology and collaborative management. In doing so, it integrates the study of TQM and reengineering into management accounting, internal auditing and control systems. TQM and process reengineering are presented as specific process innovation approaches, which can bring about either incremental or radical organizational change and development in management control systems, particularly in internal auditing and accounting control systems.

Practical Financial Modelling, 3e is a book on model development and model assurance. It enhances the modelling process by emphasizing controls and checks for accuracy and reliability. New content on validation and verification, model use and sensitivity analysis is presented alongside a modelling methodology that underpins the various proprietary standards used in financial modelling today. It provides more details than other books and yet is general enough for applying its methodology to many applications. This book isn't just about the details of building cash flow models, it's about building better cash flow models.

Auditing is generally considered to be a particularly practical discipline. This hampers theoretical research, as does its complex nature. The unquestioning acceptance and implementation of rules governing auditing practice could lead to poor outcomes. This book provides a theory of auditing that underpins auditing practice. Identifying the objectives of auditing in the context of financial reporting, this book examines underlying beliefs to provide a deeper understanding of the concepts of auditing. In analyzing the field from a theoretical perspective, the author encounters important concepts such as materiality, verification, evidence, risk and professional judgement. Philosophical ideas about the social construction of reality are employed to explain the role of theory in a building block of the business world. This book is vital reading for auditing scholars globally, whilst its conclusions offer an interesting case study in the philosophy of professional judgement

The valuation of Heritage Assets (HA), which are a vital resource for the non-profit public or private organizations operating in the heritage sector is on the one hand sometimes difficult to do, and on the other, can be excessively costly with respect to the correlated disclosure benefits. The growing application of the (full or modified) accrual basis of accounting in the public and non-profit sectors has extended and reanimated this issue. This book applies the comparative method, in order to provide new information on the analyzed subject. Specifically, after having investigated the different theoretical and technical proposals, it compares the reporting behavior of significant cases of Italian and American public and private organizations, coming from different cultural and management approaches. Proposing a link between the managerial and reporting issues of the organizations involved in the management and maintenance of heritage assets, this book is crucial in the task to optimize the performance of organizations in this sector.

Interventionist research has been proposed as one way of increasing societal impact of management accounting (MA) research. However, there are no guidelines regarding what sort of phenomena would be the most suitable ones to be studied using research interventions. This book builds on top of the methodological literature of interventionist management accounting research, as well as the published studies applying it. Through selected case studies, Interventionist Management Accounting Research shows how societal impact of MA research can be increased by not only applying IVR approach, but also looking into how MA is used in the borderlines between MA and other organizational functions. In many cases, MA research can provide tools and concepts helping to understand contemporary trends within the business environment, thereby naturally providing potential for increasing the societal impact of scholarly work. In particular, this book discusses how to position empirical research endeavours with interventionist elements in a way to ensure important theory contributions with outcomes interesting also outside the MA academia, whether that means MA practitioners, managers in general or scholars in other fields of management. Aimed at primarily researchers, academics and students in the fields of research methodology, management accounting and interventionist research, this book provides methodological guidance on how to execute research projects with interventionist elements, aiming at strong theory contribution with broader societal impacts. Focusing on research in accounting and management, this book also provides interesting insights to scholars and doctoral students in other fields of management research.

The income gap between women and men has gotten plenty of attention in the last few decades: today women earn seventy-nine cents for every dollar med earn. But few people are aware of the much more serious gap: for every dollar in wealth men own, women own thirty-two cents. Wealth is what gives us a financial safety net when we lose our jobs, break up a relationship, become sick, or get hit by some other financial crisis. It enables us to build security, to give our children a future, and to retire. Wealth can generate income, whether through investments in the financial markets, or real estate, or through funding a startup business. Significant wealth even allows us to influence our world by allowing contributions to political campaigns or policy initiatives. The Savvy Women’s Guide to Property Law lays the blame for the gender wealth gap where it belongs—on the legal system—and helps women avoid the pitfalls that deprive them of their rightful share. Property laws disadvantage women at key stages of life. While treating men and women equally on its face, these laws play out in a discriminatory fashion because men and women are often not equal when it comes to income, career opportunities, and caregiving. Spivack explains how the legal system disadvantages women who are going through six difficult life events in which the distribution of wealth and property comes into play: Breaking up with someone they’ve cohabited with Negotiating prenuptial agreements Going through a divorce Surviving domestic and financial abuse Caring for an elderly or sick family member Outliving their spouse and inheriting part of their estate

This book contains a collection of research papers on accounting information systems including their strategic role in decision processes, within and between companies. An accounting system is a complex system composed of a mix of strictly interrelated elements such as data, information, human resources, IT tool, accounting models and procedures. Accounting information systems are often considered the instrument by default for accounting automation. This book aims to sketch a clear picture of the current state of AIS research, including design, acceptance and reliance, value-added decision making, interorganizational links, and process improvements. The contributions in this volume emphasize that AIS has grown into a powerful strategic tool. The book provides evidence for this observation by examining a wide range of current issues ranging from theory development in AIS to practical applications of accounting information systems. In particular it focuses on themes of growing interest in the realm of XBRL and Financial Reporting, Management Information Systems, IT/IS Audit and IT/IS Compliance. The book will be of interest to financial and managerial accountants and IT/IS practitioners, including information systems managers and consultants.

This study examines the relationship between multinationality and the performance of Japanese manufacturing companies during the period 1999 2008 by using geographic segment information. Despite the enormous interest in and importance given to multinationality from the academic and business worlds, prior findings about the multinationality performance relationship are conflicting and inconsistent. The overall results of the present study show that multinationality has a positive impact both on accounting performance and on market-based performance. In additional tests, Japanese electric and electronic equipment companies reliance on the Asian market was found to have a negative impact on profitability and no significant impact on firm value, whereas reliance on other foreign markets such as the Americas and the EU had a positive impact on profitability and firm value. The multinationality performance relationship cannot be generalized and varies among geographic regions. This book contributes to both the multinationality performance literature and the geographic segment reporting literature by offering empirical evidence about Japanese manufacturing companies and comparing them with prior findings about American companies. "

Arising from the author s experience as a practicing CPA, this book is quite different from other research in this field, as it confronts the subject of audit quality from a pragmatic perspective. The first goal of Jonas Tritschler is to develop an audit quality metric on national audit firm level. Financial reporting errors, as detected by the German enforcement institutions during examinations, which subsequently are published in the German Federal Gazette by the involved companies, are the data basis for this measurement. Using the developed audit quality metric, the second goal of this study is to analyze audit quality differences of selected audit firms by comparing their deployed audit input factors such as employee s competence (ratio of certified professionals to total audit staff), experience of employees (average tenure of employees in years) and client-specific experience (client fluctuation rate). Results indicate a correlation between audit quality according to the developed metric and the operationalized audit input factors mentioned above."

One of the main aims of management accounting is to provide managers with accurate information in order to provide a good basis for decision-making. There is evidence that the information provided by management accounting systems (MAS) is distorted and the occurrence of biases in accounting information is widely accepted among users of MAS. At the same time, the intensity and the frequency of use of MAS increase, too. Consequently, the quality of the provided information is critical. The focus of this simulation study is twofold. On the one hand, the impact of the sophistication of traditional costing systems on error propagation in the case of a set of input biases is investigated. On the other hand, the impact of single and multiple input biases on the quality of the information provided by traditional costing systems is focused. In order to investigate the research questions, a simulation approach is applied.

This volume covers such topics as prior evidence on corporate annual reports, research methodology and the demographics of the corporate shareholder, investors' investment objectives and their information sources, and the readership and usefulness of corporate financial statements.

Whether students pursue a professional career in accounting or in other areas of management, they will interact with accounting systems. In all organizations, managers rely on management accounting systems to provide information to deal with changes in their operating environment. This book provides students and managers with an understanding and appreciation of the strengths and limitations of an organization's accounting system, and enables them to be intelligent and critical users of the system. The text highlights the role of management accounting as an integral part of the organization's strategy and not merely a set of individual concepts and computations. An analytical framework for organizational change is used throughout the book to underscore how organizations must adapt to create customer and organizational value. This framework provides a way to examine and analyze the organization's accounting system, and as a basis for evaluating proposed changes to the system. With international examples that bring the current business environment to the forefront, problems and cases to promote critical thinking, and online support for students and instructors, Management Accounting in a Dynamic Environment is no mere introductory textbook. It prepares readers to use accounting systems intelligently to achieve organizational success. The authors have identified several cases to accompany each chapter in the textbook. These are available through Ivey Publishing: https://www.iveycases.com/CaseMateBookDetail.aspx?id=434

Sustainable development will not happen without substantial contributions from and leading roles of companies and business organizations. This requires the provision of adequate information on corporate social and ecological impacts and performance. For the last decade, progress has been made in developing and adapting accounting mechanisms to these needs but significant work is still needed to tackle the problems associated with conventional accounting. Until recently, research on environmental management accounting (EMA) has concentrated on developed countries and on cost-benefit analysis of implementing individual EMA tools. Using a comparative case study design, this book seeks to redress the balance and improve the understanding of EMA in management decision-making in emerging countries, focussing specifically on South-East Asian companies. Drawing on 12 case studies, taken from a variety of industries, Environmental Management Accounting: Case Studies of South-East Asian Companies explores the relationship between decision situations and the motivation for, and barriers to, the application of clusters of EMA tools as well as the implementation process itself. This book will be useful to scholars interested in the environmental and sustainability management accounting research field and those considering specific approaches to EMA within emerging economies.