Dr. Eric D Bostwick

Both professionals and academics have called for changes to the accounting curriculum over the past 20 years, and more recent research (e.g., Albring & Elder, 2020) has asked schools to share not only their curriculum changes but also the motivations for these changes. This paper responds to these calls by not only providing the results of and rationale for an accounting curriculum change but also sharing the research and processes that supported the change. The six-step process employed in this paper was used to review and revise the Master of Accountancy (MAcc) curriculum at a mid-size Florida university with a strong emphasis on career preparation and student success on the CPA Exam. The results and resources presented include benchmarking curriculum analyses (e.g., tracks offered, number of courses by type, required versus elective courses), techniques for sharing benchmark information with stakeholders, and internal and external stakeholder surveys. Although some resources may be of immediate use “as-is,” it is more likely that schools will be able to enhance, refine, or alter the processes to align with the particular needs and objectives of their stakeholders.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify signs of unnecessary assurance of learning (AoL) complexity and to provide suggestions for simplifying the AoL processes. Design/methodology/approach: While this paper is grounded in the existent AoL literature, the paper also presents several anecdotal observations from the authors’ practical knowledge in designing, leading, maintaining and consulting on AoL systems and processes.
Findings: Based on both a conceptual review of AoL literature and the authors’ own experiences, the authors outline 13 specific symptoms of unnecessary AoL complexity, identify potential underlying causes for each symptom and propose practical solutions that can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of dysfunctional AoL systems and processes. Research limitations/implications: Although this work is grounded in the existent AoL literature, the present paper presents several anecdotal observations from the authors’ experiences. While the intent is to provide guidance that is actionable, it is understood that variability exists within and across schools and programs. Future research is needed to provide a more formal structure for reviewing AoL complexity, efficiency and effectiveness.
Practical implications: While future research is needed to provide a more formal structure for reviewing AoL complexity, efficiency and effectiveness, the intent of this paper is to provide guidance that is actionable with the understanding that variability exists within and across schools and programs.
Social implications: Society increasingly is demanding accountability from institutions of higher learning, and properly structured AoL programs can provide evidence of institutional effectiveness in preparing students to be productive members of society in their chosen fields of study. Stated succinctly, “although accountability matters, learning still matters most” (Angelo, 1999, n.p.).
Originality/value: Consideration of the 13 symptoms presented here along with other drivers that are unique to each school and program should result in the identification and development of practicable remedies to simplify AoL processes and systems, increase efficiency and effectiveness and improve the documentation of improvements to student learning.

Purpose Faculty participation in the assurance of learning (AoL) is requisite both for the effective operation of the system and for accreditation compliance, but faculty often resist engaging in AoL tasks. The purpose of this paper is to provide specific recommendations to address faculty concerns and to guide AoL systems toward maturity.Design/methodology/approach This paper provides a comprehensive model of faculty resistance perspectives aligned to AoL maturity, provides specific responses to faculty resistance and introduces success markers of progress toward maturity.Findings Specifically, a three-stage model of AoL system maturity is presented and aligned with five faculty perspectives. For each faculty perspective, responses targeting causal factors are proposed and signs of progress toward the next level of faculty engagement are highlighted.Practical implications Faculty and AoL leaders will be able to identify their current stage of AoL system maturity and implement practical solutions to move to the next stage of system maturity.Social implications Understanding the motivations for faculty resistance will facilitate more meaningful and effective internal interactions as a school seeks to improve its AoL system. In turn, a more effective AoL system will promote better learning experiences for students; and better learning allows students to become productive in their chosen careers more quickly, thus improving society as a whole.Originality/value To the knowledge, no prior paper has organized faculty resistance along a maturity continuum, provided targeted responses based on the level of maturity or included signs that indicate growth toward the next level of maturity.

Founded in 1910, The First National Bank of Oxford had been in existence for only about 20 years when the Great Depression struck. While other banks failed, this small bank in rural Mississippi survived, and it is still in operation today as FNB Oxford Bank. But beyond merely surviving, the First National Bank of Oxford appears to have thrived in this harsh financial climate: it doubled the balance of its individual depositors' accounts in the midst of the darkest months of the Great Depression. Using historical documents and extant accounting records, this paper examines how the First National Bank of Oxford was able to persist and prosper through the Great Depression.

This study investigates whether or not accounting and legal decision-makers at publicly traded US firms exhibit a professional affiliation bias with respect to their selection of business service providers. Executives at NYSE or NASDAQ firms who were affiliated with the accounting profession, the legal profession, or neither profession indicated their likelihood of using one of three randomly assigned types of firms (i.e., a CPA firm, a law firm, or a firm with both CPA and attorney partners) to provide five selected business services. The five business services represent the range of accounting and legal services that firms often outsource: audit, tax representation, mergers and acquisitions, trade regulation/interstate commerce, and litigation. We find that executive level decision-makers at publicly traded US firms do exhibit a professional affiliation bias in the selection of business service providers and that this professional affiliation bias is stronger in attorneys than in CPAs. The fact that all respondents were NYSE or NASDAQ executives, rather than students or another surrogate population, provides additional relevance and generalizability to our findings. Identifying this bias can help executives avoid suboptimal initial selection decisions and/or inaccurate performance evaluations of external business service providers.

In recent years, the nature and number of administrative reporting requirements have increased substantially for most universities. As a result, faculty find themselves devoting increasingly large amounts of time to these needs (Gardiner, 2002) often at the expense of time devoted to teaching, scholarship, and service. One major driver for administrative reporting is embedded in the assessment of learning process. This paper uses Critical Policy Analysis to examine assessment policies and processes at four universities through the viewpoints of the authors who serve in the roles of administrators, faculty, and students to determine policy “winners” and “losers.” In this process we identify why many faculty resist the assessment process and make recommendations on how universities can develop assessment policies and processes that meet the real requirements for assessment of learning while meeting the demands of all stakeholders.

This study examines the contribution of goodwill impairment information to the prediction and forecasting of future operating cash flows. Extending the framework of Barth, Cram, and Nelson, we find that explicitly including goodwill impairments incrementally improves 1-year-ahead cash flow prediction and forecasting. Improved cash flow forecasting is present over the entire 2001-2009 study period as well as for each year within the study window. In addition, goodwill impairments retain their significance and predictive power when other non-recurring charges (e.g., restructuring, asset write-downs, and merger and acquisition costs) are added to the model, both individually and aggregately, and when market-related information (i.e., change in market capitalization) is included in the model. While these findings are validated by in-sample prediction techniques, this study is also one of only a few studies to investigate the incremental, out-of-sample predictive power of noncurrent accruals on reported (as opposed to computed) operating cash flows. Analysts, investors, creditors, and others interested in future cash flows should separately consider goodwill impairment information, when available, to improve the accuracy of cash flow prediction and forecasting.

This paper examines the effects of selected lease capitalization techniques for five representative companies from five different industries. Changes to financial statement elements (assets, liabilities, equity, and net income) and key performance measures (total debt to assets ratio (D/A), total debt-to-equity ratio (D/E), long term debt-to-equity ratio (LTD/E), return on assets (ROA), and return on equity (ROE)) are compared and contrasted both among companies and by capitalization technique. The retail (pharmaceutical) firm in the sample is the most (least) affected by lease capitalization. In addition, the complexity and/or specificity of the lease capitalization model does not result in greater consensus among the methods. This research informs the continuing harmonization efforts related to lease accounting being undertaken by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).

Few Christians would deny that greater Christian influence is needed on the campuses of non-Christian universities, and the Christian business faculty members already at these universities are the primary agents to exert such influence. Collaboration among the Christian Business Faculty Association (CBFA), Christian business faculty at Christian universities, and Christian business faculty at non-Christian universities presents a tremendous opportunity to introduce and enhance the influence of Christ not only on university campuses, but also throughout society. In this paper, we suggest several ways that Christ’s influence can be extended through increased cooperation among those already serving him in their various spheres of influence. Among other suggestions, we encourage increased co-authorship among Christian faculty at Christian and non-Christian universities, as well as targeting of Christian and non-Christian journals with articles written from a Christian perspective. We also encourage the CBFA to operate to the full extent of its mission by leading the way to facilitate collaborative scholarship among faculty at Christian and non-Christian universities.

In this study, undergraduate business students indicated the degree to which three activities were ethical or unethical, how likely they would be to commit each action, and how likely they thought the average student would be to commit each action. Significant declines in ethicality were found between comparisons of the ethical appropriateness of each scenario and the students' personal intentions to commit the action, and between personal intention and the students' perceptions of other students' actions. The comparison between self and others was attenuated by academic classification with seniors perceiving their peers' behavior as similar to their own. This demonstrates that business students do have an ethical blind spot both in acting contrary to their own stated ethical beliefs and in believing that their peers will commit unethical actions while they would not. We encourage faculty to develop reflective curricula that require students to actively engage in ethical decision-making. In addition, ethical training should, when possible, address the entire ethical decision-making process, from awareness, to intention, to actual behavior. Finally, students should be made aware of the unfounded disparities between their perceptions of their own actions and their perceptions of their peers' actions