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Accounting literature is replete with quantitative models that use financial ratios to identify the probability of a going concern qualification. These studies, however, ignore qualitative cues that auditors use to identify going concern problems and mitigating factors (sound financial plans etc.) that auditors take into account in their choice of report. Tests whether, in the presence of financial distress, non‐financial cues play an important role in auditors’ choice. Results indicate that non‐financial variables can be used to discriminate between the auditor’s decision to issue the going concern qualified versus the clean report. Helps company management understand how auditors evaluate their clients and the importance of the qualitative criteria used in their evaluation. Can be used to predict the most probable outcome prior to the external audit. Second, facilitates understanding of the non‐financial red flags that could trigger the going concern report. Third, can be used to analyze potential acquisition targets, and, if the acquisition target is still otherwise desirable, be used in pricing negotiations. Fourth, can be applied to aspects of the firm’s own division’s operations in order to enable the internal audit department to better allocate its own investigational and problem‐solving resources. Finally, the fact that qualitative factors have power in predicting the going concern modified report suggests that company decision makers can evaluate others even if the auditor for political or other reasons has chosen not to render a modified report.

Internal auditors have a direct interest in understanding how external audit firms make decisions that may have important implications for their own firm. Explores whether differently sized audit firms apply professional standards in a similar manner. Such uniform application should be expected given that all auditors should be guided by professional standards in making the qualification decision. The micro‐economic environments facing big six and non‐big six firms differ. Investigates whether big six and non‐big six firms use the same information in deciding whether to issue a going concern modification. This study found that differently sized auditing firms did not apply the standards in a similar manner and did not use information available similarly. Internal audit audiences should find this lack of uniform application of interest since the internal audit function may be called in to contribute information to the decision‐making process involved in selecting a new auditing firm. Also, the internal audit function may be involved in selecting acquisition targets for the firm. Should there be a suspicion of going concern problems involving a potential acquisition, the information provided in this paper should be useful to the internal audit function in evaluating the presence or lack of a going concern modification with respect to the potential acquisition’s financial statements.

Analyzes mentoring as a learning forum for the accounting professional. Data collected from national CPA firms was utilized in the model development and hypotheses. This study examined how learning forums contribute to individual professional growth, performance and attitudes. Analysis of the model indicates that mentoring functions account for significant variance in job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intentions to leave, role ambiguity and job burnout. The analysis indicates that mentoring functions considerably influence socialization and personal learning. The research results highlighted the significance of the socialization process for accounting professionals within a CPA firm. Results of this study stressed the critical role of mentoring as a forum for individual learning. Accounting professionals who experience personal learning through mentoring relationships are less likely to leave the CPA firm since the socialization educates them to the firm’s goals, values and politics.

Argues that strong social analysis can make a large contribution to understanding and fighting HIV/AIDS plus other infective diseases. Contends a global perspective is necessary to rethink our approach to infections as, globally, the virus seems to be strengthening, generally. Describes, through case studies, the transition of HIV outbreaks in South Africa, Eastern Europe, Russia, and Indonesia. Makes the case that HIV/AIDS is deeply tied up in fundamental structure and processes.

The pace of organizational and environmental change seems to demand that such professional organizations as CPA firms become learning organizations in order to compete adequately with other firms. The flattening out of traditional hierarchical structures within organizations argues that traditional mentoring and supervisory structures may be inadequate for fostering needed individual learning and personal learning. One effect of the lack of such learning may be increased role stress, job burnout, loss of commitment to the organization, intention to leave, and diminished job satisfaction. Using a sample of 440 accounting professionals from major CPA firms in several regions of the USA, studies the ability of team social interaction processes within work teams to foster the personal, organizational, and team‐source learning, and also to influence attitudinal outcomes directly and indirectly. Also examines whether personal learning, organizational socialization and team‐source learning mediate the impact of team social interaction process on attitudinal outcomes. Uses a hierarchical regression‐based test to evaluate our hypotheses. The results supported our expectations. A structural equation modeling test of the model showed that organizational and personal learning mediated the relationship between team social interaction processes and the attitudinal outcomes, but team‐source learning did not.

The public accounting sector of the accounting profession has long been very concerned with the problem of employee recruitment and retention. As early as the 1970s, the then Big 8 firms funded extensive studies of the determinants of employee turnover. The problem is no less real today. Indeed, much has been written about the problem of the vanishing accounting student. If reducing employee turnover and dissatisfaction becomes important in order for the public accounting firms to fulfill their mission of helping to assure the quality of information that investors receive, then having tools that foster an understanding of the determinants of employee dissatisfaction, stress, and turnover is vital. Sheds light on these issues by demonstrating how sophisticated statistical techniques can illuminate the underlying determinants of employee turnover and other important job attitudes. Applies structural equation modeling to Collins and Killough's dataset in order to demonstrate how it can provide important additional substantive insights about relationships between the stressors and job outcomes in public accounting. This important interpretive information is not available, or is available in only limited fashion, in the comparison method of canonical correlation analysis.

Even as theorists of social movements have paid increasing attention to culture in mobilization processes, they have conceptualized its role in curiously circumscribed fashion. Culture is often treated as a residual category; that is, invoked to explain what structure does not explain in accounting for movements’ emergence, what instrumental rationality does not explain in accounting for movement groups’ choice of strategies and tactics, and what policy change does not encompass in accounting for movements’ impacts. As a result, culture’s role in creating structural opportunities, in defining what counts as instrumentally rational, and in determining movement impacts within the policy arena as well as outside it has gone largely untheorized. An alternative view of culture focuses on the schemas that guide, and are reproduced in, institutions. Such a perspective makes it possible to identify the conditions in which culture has independent force in shaping identities, interests, and opportunities, and to grasp culture’s simultaneously enabling and constraining dimensions. Drawing on recent empirical studies, I show how this perspective can illuminate neglected dynamics of movement emergence, tactical choice, and movement impacts.

Although mental health problems increase markedly during adolescent years, therapists often find it difficult to engage with adolescents. The majority of disturbed adolescents do not receive professional mental health care and of those who do fewer still will fully engage with the therapeutic process (Offer et al. 1991; US Surgeon General 1999). Personal Investigator (PI) is a 3D computer game specifically designed to help adolescents overcome mental health problems such as depression and help them engage more easily with professional mental health care services. PI is an implementation of a new computer mediated model for how therapists and adolescents can engage. The model has its theoretical foundations in play therapy and therapeutic storytelling and applies current research on the educational use of computer gaming and interactive narrative systems to these foundations. Previously demonstrated benefits of computer games and interactive narrative systems in education include increased motivation, increased self‐esteem, improved problem solving and discussion skills and improved storytelling skills (Bruckman 1997; Bers 2001; Robertson 2001; Robertson and Oberlander 2002; Bers et al. 2003; Squire 2003). PI aims to take advantage of these benefits in a mental health care setting. PI incorporates a goal‐oriented, strengths based model of psychotherapy called Solution Focused Therapy (SFT). By engaging adolescents, in a client‐centred way, it aims to build stronger therapeutic relationships between therapists and adolescents. PI is the first game to integrate this established psychotherapy approach into an engaging online 3D game. Results of trials of PI with four adolescents, referred to clinics for issues including anxiety and behaviour problems, attempted suicide, and social skills difficulties, are presented.

This study examines whether a regulation on mandatory disclosure of financial forecasts since June 1991 and further sanction imposition since March 1998 contribute to lower IPO firms’ initial and aftermarket returns, and shorten honeymoon periods. The study is based on 423 IPO firms after the regulation required them to disclose their forecasts and 53 IPO firms prior to the regulation. The findings report that initial and aftermarket returns are lower, and honeymoon periods are shorter in the post‐regulation period than those in the pre‐regulation. The findings also report that initial and aftermarket returns are relatively smaller, and the honeymoon periods are shorter after the March 1998 regulatory sanction was imposed after controlling other variables. These results document that the financial forecasts disclosure regulation evidently contributes to mitigating information asymmetry.

In 2005 Manchester United was taken over by US businessman Malcolm Glazer, in part because of the club's brand name prominence in the global sport of soccer. This paper examines how Manchester United rose to a pre-eminent position in world football through its on-field performances and its off-the-field management strategies. It shows how the club took its storied history into world markets to take full advantage of globalisation, the opportunities extended through the English Premier League's reputation and developments in global media technologies. Astute management of club resources is identified as the major factor in global brand management.