Suchergebnisse

Shortly before the beginning of the Great Depression, certified public accountants were struggling for both an acceptable definition of their role as well as professional recognition. This paper describes the environment in which CPAs worked as well as their concerns. Areas reviewed include training and entry into the field, ethical and legal standards, conduct of practice, financial rewards, professional concerns, and perceptions of the future. The purpose of the paper is to increase our appreciation of the challenges and opportunities facing CPAs in 1929.

Actor-network theory is an analytical framework used to study the roles played by humans and non-humans (such as technology) in the structuring of relationships. This theoretical framework is used to discuss the construction of actor-networks in public accounting practices and how information provided by the client of a public accounting practice is combined with previous 'facts' such as legislation, accounting standards and generally accepted accounting principles to produce business reports such as business plans, profit and loss statements and balance sheets. The framework also suggests that the ultimate goal of the accountant is to make the public accounting practice an obligatory passage point. Clients must utilize the 'facts' produced by the profession to solve problems. In this way, the status and influence of the accountant in particular and the profession in general is increased.

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of various educational degree paths on promotion probabilities in public accounting in the Big 4 firms. We analyze survey responses from 860 accounting professionals in the United States who work at the Big 4 accounting firms to examine six distinct degree paths. Survival analyses indicate that Master's and M.B.A. degrees positively impact promotion probability relative to 120-hour or 150-hour undergraduate degrees. In general, technical degrees (Master's of Tax or Master's of Accountancy) offer a higher promotion probability for senior to manager, and M.B.A. degrees offer a higher promotion probability for senior manager to partner. This suggests that an M.B.A. with a concentration in tax or accountancy might be the best degree path for success in the accounting profession. Our results should be of interest to all accounting stakeholders, including accounting program advisors and their student advisees, accounting firms, state boards of accountancy in the United States, as well as the Federation of Schools of Accountancy.

Background:Maintaining the independence of contract government program evaluation presents significant contracting challenges. The ideal outcome for an agency is often both the impression of an independent evaluation and a glowing report. In this, independent evaluation is like financial statement audits: firm management wants both a public accounting firm to attest to the fairness of its financial accounts and to be allowed to account for transactions as it sees fit. In both cases, the evaluation or audit is being conducted on behalf of outsiders–the public or shareholders–but is overseen by a party with significant interests at stake in the outcome–the agency being evaluated or executive management of the firm.Method:We review the contracting strategies developed to maintain independence in auditing. We examine evidence on the effectiveness of professionalism, reputation, liability and owner oversight in constraining behavior in auditing. We then establish parallels with contracting for evaluations and apply these insights to changes that might maintain and improve evaluator independence.Conclusions and Recommendations:By analogy with the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 reforms in auditing, we recommend exploring using a reformulated Technical Working Group to encourage more prompt release of more evaluation results and to help insulate evaluators from inappropriate pressure to change their results or analysis approach.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between distributive justice, procedural justice, and turnover intentions for Millennial employees working in the public accounting environment.


Design/methodology/approach
Data collection utilized an online survey sent to members of a regional certified public accountant organization (n=75).


Findings
Lower levels of both distributive and procedural justice predicted higher turnover intentions, controlling for gender and job tenure. Procedural justice was found to have a stronger relationship with turnover intentions than distributive justice for Millennial public accountants.


Practical implications
The public accounting industry is facing a crisis based on the shortage of staff and senior level accountants, which are primarily Millennial employees. The study results have practical implications for public accounting firms. The findings suggest that the fairness of organizational processes could impact Millennials' turnover intentions more than the fairness of organizational rewards. Employers could use this information to manage levels of procedural justice, which could reduce turnover intentions, actual turnover, and other byproducts of the staffing shortage.


Originality/value
This study examined the relationship between organizational justice and Millennial turnover intentions in public accounting. The study replicated the findings of some prior studies in a purely Millennial sample in the public accounting context and addressed some of the contradictory results seen previously related to organizational justice. As the public accounting industry has an abnormally large percentage of Millennial employees, these findings may be applied to other environments as the Millennial population in the workforce increases.

Editor's Note: This article has been adapted from a series of articles written by Howard F. Miller for the Albany (N.Y.) Times‐Union in February 1961. Dr. Miller, who resigned as New York State's director of the budget this past June after an extended illness, now serves as fiscal policy advisor to the governor. His stature as a fiscal expert is attested to by his selection by four governors, two Republicans and two Democrats, to serve as deputy director of the budget, a discretionary political appointment.Dr. Miller, a graduate of Syracuse University who earned two graduate degrees from Harvard, also served as secretary of the Ways and Means Committee of the New York State Legislature from 1965 to 67. While there, he established the first full‐time professional analytical staff in the legislature.The only person in the history of New York State to hold the top fiscal staff positions in both the legislative and the executive branches, Dr. Miller was on the faculty of the Maxwell School at Syracuse University from 1947 to 1969, except for periods while on leave to New York State.