This is a monograph that examines US individual federal income taxation. It is suitable for acade... more This is a monograph that examines US individual federal income taxation. It is suitable for academics, graduate students, and those interested in tax policy and the historical evolution of contemporary individual federal income tax issues.
South African Journal of Accounting Research, 2001
In recent years, corporations have increasingly used their annual reports to voluntarily disclose... more In recent years, corporations have increasingly used their annual reports to voluntarily disclose information relating to their social actions, particularly those concerning the natural environment. The conventional accounting framework, with its emphasis on decision-usefulness, has largely proved unsatisfactory in explaining this practice, as have various economic theories. This paper uses a legitimacy theory framework to explain why companies engage in this type of voluntary reporting. This research contributes to the accounting literature by advancing legitimacy theory as a framework for examining environmental reporting and applying this in an effort to understand the environmental disclosure practices of two Canadian pulp and paper companies.
Predatory journals operate as vanity presses, typically charging large submission or publication ... more Predatory journals operate as vanity presses, typically charging large submission or publication fees and requiring little peer review. The consequences of such journals are wide reaching, affecting the integrity of the legitimate journals they attempt to imitate, the reputations of the departments, colleges, and universities of their contributors, the actions of accreditation bodies, the reputations of their authors, and perhaps even the generosity of academic benefactors. Using a stakeholder analysis, our study of predatory journals suggests that most stakeholders gain little in the short run from such publishing and only the editors or owners of these journals benefit in the long run. We also discuss counter-measures that academic and administrative faculty can employ to thwart predatory publishing.
This research note contributes to the discussion about the scientific status of accounting by con... more This research note contributes to the discussion about the scientific status of accounting by contrasting Thomas Kuhn’s modem approach to science with Jean-Francois Lyotard’s postmodern perspective for the current situation regarding knowledge in advanced societies, which he describes as language games.It is suggested that a distinctly postmodern as opposed to modem motif has emerged in the field of accounting, as is evidenced by the structural features of fragmentation as well as competing discourses, theories and paradigms currently in existence. From a postmodern perspective, disagreements and differences amoung participants in a language game (for example, accounting) function in a generative fashion, and science progresses because of the “agonistic” competition between scientific rivals.
Predatory journals operate as vanity presses, typically charging large submission or publication ... more Predatory journals operate as vanity presses, typically charging large submission or publication fees and requiring little peer review. The consequences of such journals are wide reaching, affecting the integrity of the legitimate journals they attempt to imitate, the reputations of the departments, colleges, and universities of their contributors, the actions of accreditation bodies, the reputations of their authors, and perhaps even the generosity of academic benefactors. Using a stakeholder analysis, our study of predatory journals suggests that most stakeholders gain little in the short run from such publishing and only the editors or owners of these journals benefit in the long run. We also discuss counter-measures that academic and administrative faculty can employ to thwart predatory publishing.
eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), a financial accounting application of XML, provide... more eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), a financial accounting application of XML, provides a taxonomy for facilitating the analysis of financial statement information. This taxono-my promises to enhance the financial analyst’s ability to process financial information both cross-sectionally and temporally. However, limitations exist in the taxonomy that inhibit the analyst, in-telligent agent or application to process information in the most effective way. In particular, fi-nancial statement element analysis can only be properly conducted when the additional semantics provided by additional disclosures are incorporated into the process. UML provides a conceptual framework to capture more meaningful semantics, particularly among related, collaborating ob-jects. The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework that will couple the strengths of both technologies in order to develop better systems for financial statement analysis.
Ghostwriters are “hired guns” who complete online tests, write term papers, or even take entire c... more Ghostwriters are “hired guns” who complete online tests, write term papers, or even take entire courses on behalf of others. Several surrogate indicators suggest that the market for ghostwriting is growing. This paper explores the antecedents, ethical considerations, and legal issues involved with ghostwriting, and discusses the authentication techniques, identity-management methodologies, and proctoring options that can help control ghostwriting activities. It also describes a pilot study that the authors conducted of a promising authentication system. Both institutions of higher learning and accounting educators can adopt policies and procedures to deal with ghostwriters, and we include a list of best practices for this problem.
We contribute to the literature by examining, for the first time, degrees of separation of duties... more We contribute to the literature by examining, for the first time, degrees of separation of duties and ask whether SOD is an effective preventive control. We develop a mathematical model of the theoretical number of organizational fraud incidents, with and without SOD. We find that SOD results in the same or increased possibilities of fraud, relative to a lack of SOD, and that SOD needs to prevent 99 percent of frauds to always be an effective preventive control. Moreover, SOD's effectiveness is impaired by collusion. We suspect, however, that while acknowledging this impairment most people disregard or assign a low probability to collusion. We find that even when we assign low probabilities, the sheer number of possible collusive engagements weakens SOD as an effective preventive control. We illustrate our results with evidence provided by the Association for Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE).
This paper evaluates our current Accounting Information Systems (AIS) curriculum, developed using... more This paper evaluates our current Accounting Information Systems (AIS) curriculum, developed using a Model-Oriented, Tool-Enhanced (MOTE) framework, by comparing it to the recommendations of the International Federation of Accountants' (IFAC) Guideline No. 11. The IFAC recommendations offer guidance on the information technology content in accounting curricula and are supported by the AICPA. The evaluation resulted in suggestions for improvements to our existing curriculum. An analysis of the guideline was also completed.
This paper gathers evidence about an Accounting Information Systems (AIS) curriculum developed us... more This paper gathers evidence about an Accounting Information Systems (AIS) curriculum developed using a Model-Oriented, Tool-Enhanced (MOTE) framework. The evidence was gathered by eliciting the perceptions of employer stakeholders about the curriculum. The curriculum follows recommendations of the International Federation of Accountants' (IFAC) Guideline No. 11. The IFAC recommendations offer guidance on the information technology content in accounting curricula and are supported by the AICPA. The evidence gathered supports the inclusion of most elements of the curriculum.
This is a monograph that examines US individual federal income taxation. It is suitable for acade... more This is a monograph that examines US individual federal income taxation. It is suitable for academics, graduate students, and those interested in tax policy and the historical evolution of contemporary individual federal income tax issues.
South African Journal of Accounting Research, 2001
In recent years, corporations have increasingly used their annual reports to voluntarily disclose... more In recent years, corporations have increasingly used their annual reports to voluntarily disclose information relating to their social actions, particularly those concerning the natural environment. The conventional accounting framework, with its emphasis on decision-usefulness, has largely proved unsatisfactory in explaining this practice, as have various economic theories. This paper uses a legitimacy theory framework to explain why companies engage in this type of voluntary reporting. This research contributes to the accounting literature by advancing legitimacy theory as a framework for examining environmental reporting and applying this in an effort to understand the environmental disclosure practices of two Canadian pulp and paper companies.
Predatory journals operate as vanity presses, typically charging large submission or publication ... more Predatory journals operate as vanity presses, typically charging large submission or publication fees and requiring little peer review. The consequences of such journals are wide reaching, affecting the integrity of the legitimate journals they attempt to imitate, the reputations of the departments, colleges, and universities of their contributors, the actions of accreditation bodies, the reputations of their authors, and perhaps even the generosity of academic benefactors. Using a stakeholder analysis, our study of predatory journals suggests that most stakeholders gain little in the short run from such publishing and only the editors or owners of these journals benefit in the long run. We also discuss counter-measures that academic and administrative faculty can employ to thwart predatory publishing.
This research note contributes to the discussion about the scientific status of accounting by con... more This research note contributes to the discussion about the scientific status of accounting by contrasting Thomas Kuhn’s modem approach to science with Jean-Francois Lyotard’s postmodern perspective for the current situation regarding knowledge in advanced societies, which he describes as language games.It is suggested that a distinctly postmodern as opposed to modem motif has emerged in the field of accounting, as is evidenced by the structural features of fragmentation as well as competing discourses, theories and paradigms currently in existence. From a postmodern perspective, disagreements and differences amoung participants in a language game (for example, accounting) function in a generative fashion, and science progresses because of the “agonistic” competition between scientific rivals.
Predatory journals operate as vanity presses, typically charging large submission or publication ... more Predatory journals operate as vanity presses, typically charging large submission or publication fees and requiring little peer review. The consequences of such journals are wide reaching, affecting the integrity of the legitimate journals they attempt to imitate, the reputations of the departments, colleges, and universities of their contributors, the actions of accreditation bodies, the reputations of their authors, and perhaps even the generosity of academic benefactors. Using a stakeholder analysis, our study of predatory journals suggests that most stakeholders gain little in the short run from such publishing and only the editors or owners of these journals benefit in the long run. We also discuss counter-measures that academic and administrative faculty can employ to thwart predatory publishing.
eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), a financial accounting application of XML, provide... more eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), a financial accounting application of XML, provides a taxonomy for facilitating the analysis of financial statement information. This taxono-my promises to enhance the financial analyst’s ability to process financial information both cross-sectionally and temporally. However, limitations exist in the taxonomy that inhibit the analyst, in-telligent agent or application to process information in the most effective way. In particular, fi-nancial statement element analysis can only be properly conducted when the additional semantics provided by additional disclosures are incorporated into the process. UML provides a conceptual framework to capture more meaningful semantics, particularly among related, collaborating ob-jects. The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework that will couple the strengths of both technologies in order to develop better systems for financial statement analysis.
Ghostwriters are “hired guns” who complete online tests, write term papers, or even take entire c... more Ghostwriters are “hired guns” who complete online tests, write term papers, or even take entire courses on behalf of others. Several surrogate indicators suggest that the market for ghostwriting is growing. This paper explores the antecedents, ethical considerations, and legal issues involved with ghostwriting, and discusses the authentication techniques, identity-management methodologies, and proctoring options that can help control ghostwriting activities. It also describes a pilot study that the authors conducted of a promising authentication system. Both institutions of higher learning and accounting educators can adopt policies and procedures to deal with ghostwriters, and we include a list of best practices for this problem.
We contribute to the literature by examining, for the first time, degrees of separation of duties... more We contribute to the literature by examining, for the first time, degrees of separation of duties and ask whether SOD is an effective preventive control. We develop a mathematical model of the theoretical number of organizational fraud incidents, with and without SOD. We find that SOD results in the same or increased possibilities of fraud, relative to a lack of SOD, and that SOD needs to prevent 99 percent of frauds to always be an effective preventive control. Moreover, SOD's effectiveness is impaired by collusion. We suspect, however, that while acknowledging this impairment most people disregard or assign a low probability to collusion. We find that even when we assign low probabilities, the sheer number of possible collusive engagements weakens SOD as an effective preventive control. We illustrate our results with evidence provided by the Association for Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE).
This paper evaluates our current Accounting Information Systems (AIS) curriculum, developed using... more This paper evaluates our current Accounting Information Systems (AIS) curriculum, developed using a Model-Oriented, Tool-Enhanced (MOTE) framework, by comparing it to the recommendations of the International Federation of Accountants' (IFAC) Guideline No. 11. The IFAC recommendations offer guidance on the information technology content in accounting curricula and are supported by the AICPA. The evaluation resulted in suggestions for improvements to our existing curriculum. An analysis of the guideline was also completed.
This paper gathers evidence about an Accounting Information Systems (AIS) curriculum developed us... more This paper gathers evidence about an Accounting Information Systems (AIS) curriculum developed using a Model-Oriented, Tool-Enhanced (MOTE) framework. The evidence was gathered by eliciting the perceptions of employer stakeholders about the curriculum. The curriculum follows recommendations of the International Federation of Accountants' (IFAC) Guideline No. 11. The IFAC recommendations offer guidance on the information technology content in accounting curricula and are supported by the AICPA. The evidence gathered supports the inclusion of most elements of the curriculum.
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