Marvin E. Darter, William Acar and William J. Amadio
olving the wrong problem is a common occurrence in business practice. This paper presents a straight forward procedure that can be used by a decision‐making unit to ensure a more…
Abstract
olving the wrong problem is a common occurrence in business practice. This paper presents a straight forward procedure that can be used by a decision‐making unit to ensure a more complete diagnosis during problem formulation, and suggests a solution investigation scheme. The basic idea is to avoid wasting precious time treating symptoms instead of problems, and also to gain time during the diagnostic process by starting with a conceptual framework about the nature of problems.
Details
Keywords
William J. Amadio and M. Elizabeth Haywood
In today’s marketplace, accountants must understand and master Big Data and data analytics, and many educators have devised approaches to help students acquire these critical…
Abstract
In today’s marketplace, accountants must understand and master Big Data and data analytics, and many educators have devised approaches to help students acquire these critical skills. At our university, we have worked closely with our accounting advisory council to develop an adaptable classroom case where students not only gain a broad understanding of what data analytics means to the profession but also what specific tools are available to analyze an accounting-centered problem – cash collections. Using patterns and behaviors discovered in their data analyses, students develop collection procedures and controls for a case firm. Such a project begins to fulfill the profession’s initiative that accountants must exploit Big Data and data analytics for organizational growth and opportunity.
Details
Keywords
Art Taylor, Xiangmin Zhang and William J. Amadio
The purpose of this paper is to examine changes in relevance assessments, specifically the selection of relevance criteria by subjects as they move through the information search…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine changes in relevance assessments, specifically the selection of relevance criteria by subjects as they move through the information search process.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper examines the relevance criteria choices of 39 subjects in relation to search stage. Subjects were assigned a specific search task in a controlled test. Statistics were collected and analyzed using descriptive statistics and the chi‐square goodness‐of‐fit tests.
Findings
The statistically significant findings identified a number of commonly reported relevance criteria, which varied over an information search process for relevant and partially relevant judgments. These results provide statistical confirmations of previous studies, and extend these findings identifying specific criteria for both relevant and partially relevant judgments.
Research limitations/implications
The study only examines a short duration search process and since the convenience sample of subjects were from similar backgrounds and were assigned similar tasks, the study did not explicitly examine the impact of contextual factors such as user experience, background or task in relation to relevance criteria choices.
Practical implications
The paper has implications for the development of search systems which are adaptive and recognize the cognitive changes which occur during the information search process. Examining and identifying relevance criteria beyond topicality and the importance of those criteria to a user can help in the generation of better search queries.
Originality/value
The paper adds more rigorous statistical analysis to the study of relevance criteria and the information search process.