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The methodologies and the mode of delivery for accounting courses are undergoing dynamic changes as Internet‐based teaching techniques continue to expand into higher education. Private, for‐profit organisations are developing accredited courses and degrees that can be completed at any location, at any time and that compete directly with university programmes of study. The Internet has provided these organisations with an easier entry into the educational market because the infrastuccture of a large campus, required for a resident population, is no longer necessary. It has been found that educational institutions with a tradition of providing accounting education courses and degrees to a resident student population have been slow to adopt new Internet teaching methods. This essay examines several issues facing university programmes in accounting as these environmental changes and challenges continue to accelerate in the new millennium.

Demand by students for access to institutional computing and network resources is a management issue for universities throughout the world. A survey of the IT directors of Australian universities was conducted. The survey sought details of the provision of IT resources to students and particularly the management of network resources for access to institutional CWISs and to the wider Internet. The survey established that considerable investment has been made in the provision and quality of on‐ and off‐campus network access for students. At the same time, universities in Australia face rapid growth in demand for network access. The study reports institutional responses to this demand and the concerns of the management of the IT function in Australian universities.

Traditional patterns of communications between universities and students are multifaceted, relying on a range of printed handbooks, guides, and publications, many of which are available only on the university campus at staff, administration, and student union offices. There is a fundamental mismatch between this method of information distribution and the profile of many institutions of higher education which see a significant proportion of students studying part time either on‐campus, or, increasingly, off‐campus.

Computer assisted audit techniques (CAATs) encompass a range of computerized techniques that internal and external auditors use to facilitate their audit objectives. One of the most important CAATs is generalized audit software (GAS), which is a class of packaged software that allows auditors to interrogate a variety of databases, application software and other sources and then conduct analyzes and audit routines on the extracted or live data. This study seeks to evaluate the nature and extent of the utilization of CAATs in financial institutions. In particular, the study establishes the extent and nature of use of GAS by bank internal auditors and their external auditors. The study is conducted with large local and international commercial banks in Singapore, a major financial center. Given the limited research on GAS in general and in the financial services sector in particular, the study uses exploratory qualitative research.

Qualitative research employing depth interviews with internal and external auditors of financial institutions.

The research finds that the extent and range of use of GAS varies widely between the institutions in the sample. Internal auditors see GAS primarily as a tool for special investigations rather than as a foundation for their regular audit work. External auditors make no use of GAS, citing the inapplicability of this class of tool to the nature of testing the financial statement assertions or the extent or quality of computerized internal controls maintained by the bank.

This is a small sample study. While the data are rich, the findings cannot necessarily be extrapolated to broader populations.

This study provides guidance on the role that CAATs play in the audit process of financial institutions that is relevant for the audit community.

This is the first in‐depth study of the application of CAATs to financial institutions.

This study aims to classify the numbers used in recent financial statement, corruption and asset misappropriation fraud schemes in such a way that these classes can be used to design effective proactive analytics-based fraud detection tests.

The data sources for the classification scheme include the court records of fraud prosecutions, investigative reports and research papers related to fraud cases.

Fraudulent numbers are most often amounts that are round, have a strong period-over-period growth, are just above or below internal control thresholds or other targets, are deviations from Benford’s Law, are purposeful duplicates of authentic transactions, are outliers due to being excessively large and are excessively rounded up or down. The study includes several examples of fraudulent numbers.

The fraudulent number types are based on a sample of fraud-related court documents, and the sample might not be representative of the population of detected and undetected frauds. Further research is needed into the detection of corruption/bribery schemes.

The results are important for auditors and forensic accountants running proactive fraud detection tests. The discussions emphasize that the analysis should include refining and rerunning the tests, and then using groupings and filtering to deal with false positives. The importance of an effective audit of the notable transactions is stressed in the concluding section.

The study is an original in-depth coverage of the patterns found in fraudulent numbers. The discussion sections review implementation issues and considerations for future research.

This paper examines the impact of perceived inequity on knowledge transfer within an accounting environment. It hypothesizes that when perceived inequity exists, knowledge transfer, in the form of budgetary communication, is likely to be impeded. Lowered budgetary communication then has negative consequences including higher levels of role ambiguity and lower job satisfaction and performance. Other behavioral responses to perceived inequity include Type A behavior. These issues are examined using survey data collected in Malaysia. Analysis using Partial Least Squares (PLS) supports the study hypotheses. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings for management and identifies a number of ideas for future research.

This paper examines the issue of fraud on the Internet and discusses three areas with significant potential for misleading and fraudulent practices, namely: securities sales and trading; electronic commerce; and the rapid growth of Internet companies. The first section of the paper discusses securities fraud on the Internet. Activities that violate US securities laws are being conducted through the Internet, and the US Securities and Exchange Commission has been taking steps to suppress these activities. The second section of the paper discusses fraud in electronic commerce. The rapid growth of electronic commerce, and the corresponding desire on the part of consumers to feel secure when engaging in electronic commerce, has prompted various organizations to develop mechanisms to reduce concerns about fraudulent misuse of information. It is questionable, however, whether these mechanisms can actually reduce fraud in electronic commerce. The third section of the paper discusses the potential for fraud arising from the rapid growth of Internet companies, often with little economic substance and lacking traditional management and internal controls. The paper examines the three areas of potential Internet fraud mentioned above and suggest ways in which these abuses may be combated.