SYNOPSIS
We report the results of a survey of 178 corporate responsibility officers designed to explore how accountants can add value to sustainability initiatives. Specifically, we examine how three areas of accounting expertise (risk identification and measurement, financial reporting, and independent review/assurance) contribute to the strategic integration of sustainability initiatives (cf. Porter and Kramer 2006; IIRC 2011). Our results indicate that accounting professionals are rarely involved in sustainability initiatives, but their involvement is highly associated with strategic integration. This finding suggests that increased involvement likely would provide significant benefits to organizations and their stakeholders. We use these and other important insights into a series of research questions for future accounting or interdisciplinary research in sustainability. These insights about accountants' ability to enhance the strategic integration of sustainability initiatives also should be of interest to accounting and consulting firms as they design and market their sustainability services.
Data Availability: Data are available upon request.
Forensic accounting is a rapidly growing segment of accounting practice, and the demand for forensic accountants far outstrips the current supply (Kellogg 2008). Litigation support and expert witnessing is a major component of the practice of forensic accounting. Virtually all areas of accounting knowledge and expertise are directly applicable to the field of litigation support. Faculty can provide an effective learning environment by carefully fashioning forensic accounting courses, or small portions of other accounting courses, that address the knowledge base and many diverse skills that provide the essential foundation for practicing forensic accounting litigation specialists. The purpose of this paper is to explore the numerous exciting aspects of forensic accounting and to address the unique educational experiences that arise from forensic accounting courses. We start with a brief overview of the litigation environment in the United States. Next, we discuss the nature of litigation support and expert witnessing, including the role-played by forensic accountants in the litigation process. We conclude by addressing the issues involved in designing, developing, and teaching forensic accounting courses.
SYNOPSIS
Enterprise risk management (ERM) programs are an emerging component of managerial accounting that enable senior management to manage critical threats to the organization and identify strategic opportunities to exploit. A growing area of debate within ERM involves the extent to which risk reports should be assessed qualitatively or measured quantitatively (Risk and Insurance Management Society [RIMS] 2012). In many settings, quantitative reports are used and appear to be preferred due to their precision. Additional research suggests, however, that the directional nature of qualitative reports might fit better with senior management's cognitive expectations when considering strategic risks. We conduct an experiment that manipulates risk reporting format (quantitative versus qualitative) across both strategic and operational settings to examine their impact on risk management professionals' perceptions related to the preparer of the reports and the underlying quality of the information. We find that qualitative (quantitative) report information has a positive (negative) indirect association with managerial perceptions regarding strategic risk management activities. Specifically, in the strategic risk setting, the choice of format is directly associated with the perceived reliability and perceived relevance of the risk information. However, we do not find this relationship in the setting where risk reports focus on operational risks. These findings suggest that senior management favors qualitative information for strategic risks, whereas they are skeptical about quantitative measures for complex strategic risks.
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