Ning Du, Jeffrey Byrne, Robert Knisley, Dwayne Powell and James Valentine
This study aims to examine how financial analysts evaluate other comprehensive income (OCI) information with a focus on the information content and economic substance of OCI gain…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine how financial analysts evaluate other comprehensive income (OCI) information with a focus on the information content and economic substance of OCI gain and loss.
Design/methodology/approach
This study conducted a 2 × 2 between-subject experiment by manipulating profitability (net profit or net loss) and OCI (OCI gain or loss). A total of 103 equity research analysts participated in the experiment.
Findings
The results show that when the company suffers a net loss, the presence of unrealized gain in OCI appears to cause concern for analysts, in that they assigned a lower valuation to the OCI gain company than the OCI loss company. However, in the cases where the company is profitable, analysts appeared to respond to the direction of OCI (i.e. gain or loss) and incorporated the directional information in their valuation judgment.
Originality/value
The experimental results complement prior archival research on OCI valuation. This study extends prior work on OCI’s decision usefulness, improves understanding of the impact of OCI on firm valuation and contributes to the ongoing debate about whether OCI is viewed as a performance measure. The findings indicate that the effect of OCI gains or losses is most pronounced when the company experiences a loss. During such instances, analysts may interpret a combination of net loss and OCI gain as a potential indicator of earnings management opportunities. Consequently, they may perceive it as a signal of deteriorating future financial performance.
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This essay examines how two Marxist anti-colonial intellectuals from Portuguese India and French India – Aquino de Bragança and V Subbiah – differentially theorized movements for…
Abstract
This essay examines how two Marxist anti-colonial intellectuals from Portuguese India and French India – Aquino de Bragança and V Subbiah – differentially theorized movements for independence from colonial rule. Through the analysis of primary source documents in French, Portuguese, Italian and English, I compare V Subbiah's Dalit, anti-fascist anti-colonial Marxism to Aquino de Bragança's internationalist anti-colonial Marxism. Both theorists' approaches have similarities in (1) theorizing the relationship between fascism and colonialism given that the Portuguese Empire was administered by Salazar's Estado Novo and the French Empire was under Vichy rule, (2) rethinking Marxism to better fit the Global South context and (3) intellectual and political connections to Algeria were critically important for theory and praxis. Despite the distinct geographic and social spaces in which they lived and worked, both produced remarkably similar theories of anti-imperialism.
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Nicola J. Beatson, Seedwell T.M. Sithole, Paul de Lange, Brendan O’Connell and Jeffrey K. Smith
This paper aims to examine the self-efficacy beliefs of first-year accounting students and investigate the sources of self-efficacy beliefs for both female and male students. The…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the self-efficacy beliefs of first-year accounting students and investigate the sources of self-efficacy beliefs for both female and male students. The goal is to provide insights to help lecturers support the academic success of accounting students.
Design/methodology/approach
The study involves analysing data from 184 accounting students who reported on four sources of self-efficacy beliefs: enactive mastery experience, verbal persuasion, vicarious experience and physiological and affective states.
Findings
The study reveals that male students are primarily influenced by prior experience and physiological and affective states, while female students are mostly influenced by prior experience and verbal persuasion.
Practical implications
Educators can use these findings to design more effective interventions and support systems that enhance students’ self-efficacy and, consequently, their academic performance and overall learning outcomes.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the development of theory in the underexplored area of self-efficacy beliefs among accounting students. It provides insights on the differences in sources of self-efficacy beliefs between genders and provides valuable evidence for educators to support student success in learning accounting.
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This paper aims to analyze some of the epistemically pernicious effects of the use of the internet and social media. In light of this analysis, it introduces the concept of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze some of the epistemically pernicious effects of the use of the internet and social media. In light of this analysis, it introduces the concept of epistemic pornography and argues that epistemic agents both can and should avoid consuming and sharing epistemic pornography.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on research on epistemic virtue, cognitive biases, social media use and its epistemic consequences, fake news, paternalistic nudging, pornography, moral philosophy, moral elevation and moral exemplar theory to analyze the epistemically pernicious effects of the internet and social media.
Findings
There is a growing consensus that the internet and social media activate and enable human cognitive biases leading to what are here called “failures of epistemic virtue.” Common formulations of this problem involve the concept of “fake news,” and strategies for responding to the problem often have much in common with paternalistic “nudging.” While fake news is a problem and the nudging approach holds out promise, the paper concludes that both place insufficient emphasis on the agency and responsibility of users on the internet and social media, and that nudging represents a necessary but not sufficient response.
Originality/value
The essay offers the concept of epistemic pornography as a concept distinct from but related to “fake news” – distinct precisely because it places greater emphasis on personal agency and responsibility, and following recent literature on moral elevation and moral exemplars, as a heuristic that agents might use to economize their efforts at resisting irrational cognitive biases and attempting to live up to their epistemic duties.
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Jeffrey M. Widener, Travis Gliedt and Ashlee Tziganuk
This study aims to understand if geographers, who teach in a new sustainability program, are conveying new knowledge, understanding, skills and competence about the integrated and…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to understand if geographers, who teach in a new sustainability program, are conveying new knowledge, understanding, skills and competence about the integrated and holistic concept of “sustainability”, rather than individual human-environmental issues to the students. In other words, are geography professors creating effective sustainability courses in a department with a rich history in geography education?
Design/methodology/approach
This study utilizes the McKeown–Ice and Dendinger comprehensive assessment tool for sustainability teaching to examine how geographers teach sustainability from an integrated and holistic perspective. Surveys with students are used to evaluate and compare how effective three geography courses were at teaching sustainability.
Findings
The results suggest that each course was effective in teaching students the main concepts of sustainability. There were, however, differences in teaching practical solutions to achieve sustainability and in the coverage of the causes of sustainability problems. Geographers might consider altering their curriculum or pedagogy to build stronger interdisciplinary linkages to teach the integrated concepts of sustainability rather than its individual parts.
Research limitations/implications
This initial study focuses on one research university in the USA. Its proof of concept will be expanded to evaluate international sustainability education programs nested in existing departments and degree programs.
Originality/value
Sustainability education programs are being created across the globe and are often attached to existing degree programs exhibiting components of sustainability. How effective are they in teaching this interdisciplinary concept? This study validates a framework for assessing sustainability teaching and learning. It recommends changes to enhance the ability for integrated sustainability education programs to comprehensively teach sustainability.
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There is a widely held stereotypical view that accounting is structured, precise, compliance-driven and repetitive. Drawing on social psychology theory, this paper aims to examine…
Abstract
Purpose
There is a widely held stereotypical view that accounting is structured, precise, compliance-driven and repetitive. Drawing on social psychology theory, this paper aims to examine how accountants may contribute to these stereotypical perceptions.
Design/methodology/approach
Individual perception data were collected through questionnaires and interviews with accountants from the corporate, public practice and not-for-profit sectors, along with “Chartered Accountants” who no longer work as accountants.
Findings
These findings suggest that, contrary to results from an earlier study, the targets of the accounting stereotype contribute to the stereotype formation and maintenance and that increased exposure to accountants may serve only to confirm and reinforce the accounting stereotype.
Research limitations/implications
There are a small number of participants in this study, and this limits the ability to generalise the findings.
Practical implications
These findings have important implications for the profession in how it communicates and promotes the role of the accountant in society. Failure to address the issues identified may lead the stereotype to become self-fulfilling. This may result in the recruitment of future accountants who lack the required skills and capabilities. This could lead to the loss of non-compliance-related accounting work to other business professionals.
Originality/value
This study responds to criticism that little is known about how and why the accounting stereotype is formed and how contact with an accountant may increase stereotypicality. Additionally, this paper proposes a strategy to reduce stereotypicality through contact with accountants.
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A strategy of developing key vertical markets resulted in rapid early growth for this document management software firm. Now what will they do?
Nicola Beatson, David Berg and Jeffrey K. Smith
The purpose of this study is to investigate failure in an introductory accounting course. Failure rates are often hard to explain and have a cost to both the individual and to the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate failure in an introductory accounting course. Failure rates are often hard to explain and have a cost to both the individual and to the university. This paper offers insight into this complex matter.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses data gathered from a survey instrument on self-efficacy beliefs and personal written reflections from students who had previously failed the introductory accounting course to diagnose why students may have failed.
Findings
The key finding in this paper is that students are individuals and there can be multiple reasons for failure.
Research limitations/implications
One limitation in this paper is the sample size of six-student reflections. This in itself speaks to the difficultly in researching this area, as students are often not willing to face failure and discuss it.
Practical implications
The main contribution from this paper is an awareness for educators, as failure can occur for multiple reasons. This paper both adds to the literature on failure in accounting courses and helps inform educators of why their students may fail.
Originality/value
It is very challenging to research failure and therefore there is very little work on this area. At this time, the authors have no knowledge of any papers, which address the failure rates in introductory accounting courses from the individual perspective. Therefore, this paper has a unique contribution to the field of accounting education.
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Jeffrey J. Reuer and Tony W. Tong
This paper categorizes and critiques the empirical research strategies that have been employed to test real options theory. Existing research has sought to detect valuable options…
Abstract
This paper categorizes and critiques the empirical research strategies that have been employed to test real options theory. Existing research has sought to detect valuable options in firms’ strategic investments as well as to investigate the payoffs from these investments. Our review highlights some of the evidence that has accumulated in recent years for real options theory. We flag some of the most important challenges and tradeoffs associated with the use of different empirical research approaches for testing real options theory in strategic management. The paper concludes by offering a number of research priorities to advance the theory by probing its descriptive validity as well as by addressing its normative aspirations to bridge corporate finance and strategy.
Venture capital is a critical source of funding and development of new ventures. The investment decision of venture capitalists (VCs) is a multi-stage assessment process where the…
Abstract
Venture capital is a critical source of funding and development of new ventures. The investment decision of venture capitalists (VCs) is a multi-stage assessment process where the entrepreneurs’ characteristics are the most important criteria to determine the decision to accept or to reject the proposal at the screening stage. At this stage, the decision-making of VCs is influenced by their subjective characteristics and their interactions with the entrepreneurs who share the same characteristics as theirs. How do the entrepreneurial experiences of both VCs and entrepreneurs interact and bias the evaluation? Several studies have tried to provide an answer to this still pending question. Research concurs in that entrepreneurial experience drives primarily the screening decisions of VCs. Yet, if many studies have shown that VCs are prone to cognitive biases in their evaluations, research focusing on the relationship between of those biases and entrepreneurial experience in the context of investment decision is scarce. VCs’ cognitive biases have been linked to the subjective characteristics of VCs. Most precisely, many studies have shown that a common bias among investors is the similarity-attraction bias such that VCs’ evaluations improve when VCs and entrepreneurs share the same characteristics. As a result, it is likely that entrepreneurial experience plays a significant role in explaining biases in investment decisions. Overall, research points out the importance of entrepreneurial experience of both VCs and entrepreneurs, their interactions and the cognitive biases shaped by their respective experiences in explaining the investment decisions of VCs at the screening stage.