Mary B. Curtis and Eileen Z. Taylor
This study aims to examine how public accounting firms can use developmental mentoring to increase knowledge sharing (KS) among employees directly and indirectly through affective…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine how public accounting firms can use developmental mentoring to increase knowledge sharing (KS) among employees directly and indirectly through affective organizational commitment.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a survey of public accounting professionals to elicit participants’ demographics and their perceptions of KS, mentoring relationships and organizational commitment in their workplace.
Findings
The findings support that two categories of challenges found in developmental mentoring, demonstrating dedication and resilience and career goal and risk orientation, are directly associated with increased KS and they, along with a third, measuring up to mentor’s standards, indirectly influence KS through their positive effect on organizational commitment. Applying social exchange theory, these challenges contribute to a reciprocal relationship between the protégé and mentor, which builds the relationship between the protégé and organization.
Practical implications
This study provides information about developmental mentoring that human resource professionals and managers in public accounting firms can use to address two persistent challenges facing them: increasing employees’ organizational commitment and encouraging employees to share their knowledge with others at work.
Originality/value
This study examines the concept of developmental mentoring, adopting three categories of mentoring challenges and applying them in the context of public accounting to examine their effect on KS.
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Alan Reinstein, Eileen Z. Taylor and Cathleen L. Miller
Materiality is a critical and challenging auditing concept. To help auditors improve their materiality judgments, the authors provide examples from Judaism, primarily due to its…
Abstract
Materiality is a critical and challenging auditing concept. To help auditors improve their materiality judgments, the authors provide examples from Judaism, primarily due to its longevity and the richness and variety of its stories. The authors show how Judaism interprets and applies materiality in many contexts. For each, the authors provide guidance on how auditors might apply these lessons to improve their materiality judgments. The authors examine five areas where Judaic examples can inform modern auditing including: (1) considering both quantitative and qualitative measures; (2) recognizing that small quantitative changes can lead to material qualitative effects; (3) understanding that ignoring small issues can become a slippery slope; (4) considering the importance of financial statement users’ needs in developing materiality criteria; and (5) prioritizing substance over form. In all examples, context is a critical factor to consider when applying materiality. These results should be of interest to auditors, financial statement users and others.
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Alan Reinstein, Natalie Tatiana Churyk, Eileen Z. Taylor and Paul F. Williams
Despite formal ethics education and ethics-related continuing professional education (CPE) requirements, professional accountants continue to play a central role in enabling…
Abstract
Despite formal ethics education and ethics-related continuing professional education (CPE) requirements, professional accountants continue to play a central role in enabling corporations to make unethical business decisions and take unethical business actions. Several jurisdictions in the United States require ethics education for licensure, but often the focus is on memorizing rules and regulations, rather than on providing tools to improve the moral practice of professionals and to help them resolve ethical dilemmas. The authors analyzed recent state Certified Public Accountant (CPA) society course offerings and found much more emphasis on memorization than on ethical reasoning to satisfy State CPA CPE requirements. To improve accountants’ ethical awareness and behavior, CPE providers should stress ethical reasoning rather than merely memorizing rules. Such changes will make future and present accountants and auditors more ethically aware, and thus more likely to improve their ethical decision-making. Nonetheless, the authors suggest that effective ethics education and training should start in the classroom with help from departmental advisory councils. Ethics courses offered in accounting programs as well as those offered by CPE providers can leverage the experience of members of advisory councils to create programs that resonate with professionals and foster lifelong ethical awareness and ethical reasoning skills.
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Alexandra L. Ferrentino, Meghan L. Maliga, Richard A. Bernardi and Susan M. Bosco
This research provides accounting-ethics authors and administrators with a benchmark for accounting-ethics research. While Bernardi and Bean (2010) considered publications in…
Abstract
This research provides accounting-ethics authors and administrators with a benchmark for accounting-ethics research. While Bernardi and Bean (2010) considered publications in business-ethics and accounting’s top-40 journals this study considers research in eight accounting-ethics and public-interest journals, as well as, 34 business-ethics journals. We analyzed the contents of our 42 journals for the 25-year period between 1991 through 2015. This research documents the continued growth (Bernardi & Bean, 2007) of accounting-ethics research in both accounting-ethics and business-ethics journals. We provide data on the top-10 ethics authors in each doctoral year group, the top-50 ethics authors over the most recent 10, 20, and 25 years, and a distribution among ethics scholars for these periods. For the 25-year timeframe, our data indicate that only 665 (274) of the 5,125 accounting PhDs/DBAs (13.0% and 5.4% respectively) in Canada and the United States had authored or co-authored one (more than one) ethics article.
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Louisi Francis Moura, Edson Pinheiro de Lima, Fernando Deschamps, Eileen Van Aken, Sergio E. Gouvea da Costa, Fernanda Tavares Treinta and José Marcelo Almeida Prado Cestari
In the performance measurement and management research field, the applicability of performance measurement systems (PMS) in nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and public…
Abstract
Purpose
In the performance measurement and management research field, the applicability of performance measurement systems (PMS) in nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and public administration has been considered a challenge. The diversity of these organizations makes it difficult to define proper terminology and organizational characteristics. PMS evolution has not yet been able to capture all performance dimensions of a public administration and, especially for NPO considering its dynamic and multiple goals. The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework that identifies and classifies the factors that influence the design of PMSs in NPOs and public administration.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was developed through a systematic literature review (SLR). A set of 29 papers were intensely studied, and the results provide a multi-disciplinary and holistic set of factors.
Findings
A set of ten factors that influence the design of PMSs in NPO and public administration were found. They were categorized into three groups: factor related to purpose, stakeholders and management.
Originality/value
The study synthesized the literature and provided a conceptual framework of the factors that influence the design of PMSs in NPO and public administration. No individual paper collected in the SLR shows a similar organization of the factors as the present paper. The set of factors indicates the importance of this study for NPO and public administration, and how complex a PMS in an NPO and public administration can become. The conceptual model presented can further assist practitioners in developing design process observing the role that the identified factors play.
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Louisi Francis Moura, Edson Pinheiro de Lima, Fernando Deschamps, Eileen M. Van Aken, Sergio E. Gouvea Da Costa, Fernanda Tavares Treintaa, José Marcelo Almeida Prado Cestari and Ronan Assumpção Silva
The purpose of this research is to examine the factors that influence the design of performance measurement systems (PMSs) in nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and public…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to examine the factors that influence the design of performance measurement systems (PMSs) in nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and public administration and explore inter-relationships among these factors.
Design/methodology/approach
Findings resulted through the identification of design factors from the paper portfolio of a previous systematic literature review on this topic and the construction of a factor co-occurrence network for the identified factors.
Findings
The methodology helped to determine the relationships among factors and show how these factors influence PMSs in NPOs and public administration. It also helped to demonstrate how PMSs in these organizations are different from PMSs in traditional companies because of the impact of the factors on the complexity and dynamics of NPOs and public administration. The findings and discussion contribute to the performance measurement literature on NPOs and public administration by presenting a set of design factors related to purpose, stakeholders and management.
Practical implications
This paper presents practical implications for managers regarding the PMS design process and shows how some design factors can be particularly related to these organizations
Originality/value
The design factors are particular to the organizational dynamic and should be considered by managers involved with the design (or redesign) process of performance measurement systems.