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Ethical attitudes and ethical behavior in organizations may have substantial ramifications on a firm's operation. This study investigates whether or not managers are perceived by employees to exhibit ethical attitudes and ethical behavior and thereby being their role models. A sample of 111 employees within the finance department of a major municipality who are exposed to unethical behavior responded to a structured questionnaire concerning ethical and unethical episodes. There were three major findings: first, consistently perceived ethical behavior is lower than perceived ethical attitudes of the employee, his peers and of his managers; second, self-enhancing bias exists; and third, managers do not exhibit an ethical role model in the organization. Implications for human resource management and policies are discussed.

Management studies have been criticized for lagging behind the actual needs of organizations, ignoring experiential dimensions. We address this issue by applying experiential learning theory using an accountancy-oriented board game designed to help participants learn about cost management. The game was played in a pricing course with an enrolment of 104 accountancy students. We examined the impact levels of game entertainment and comprehensibility on the course material comprehension as well as the game’s impact on the final grade in the course. Results show that game participants had significantly higher grades than students that did not participate in the game, and that entertainment and comprehensibility of the game predict the understanding of course material. We also found that managerial employment capability can be predicted by level of challenge participants derive from the game. This study addresses the gap between traditional management education and practice. It provides empirical evidence of the value of hands-on gameplay experience for assimilation of course concepts and strategies. The results confirmed the importance of exposing players through an entertaining game simulation to challenges that arise in the business world. In addition, we lay the ground for future studies on the novel usage of the game as a tool to assess management skills.

The debate continues as to whether or not entrepreneurial traits and abilities can be taught or not. This study reviews the opinions of 408 students from the University of Windsor, Ontario as to whether certain traits and abilities are trainable (a) to themselves and (b) to others. Overall, it was found that both traits and abilities can be taught with independent thought and the ability to set goals and develop plans found to be the most trainable. The least trainable traits and abilities were creative thinking and the use of analytical and diagnostic skills. Respondents were subdivided by sex and by seniority at university. SOMMAIRELe debat se poursuit sur Ia question de savoir si /'esprit d'entreprise peut ou non s'enseigner a /'ecole. Cette etude expose le point de vue de 408 etudiants de I'Universite de Windsor, Ontario, sur Ia possibilite: a) d'apprendre et b) d'enseigner aux aut res certains traits de caractere ou certaines aptitudes. Dans /'ensemble, /'etude a permis de constater qu 'il est possible d'enseigner comment acquerir certains traits de caractere et certaines aptitudes indispensables a /'esprit d'entreprise, comme l'independance de pensee, lafaron de sefvcer des objectifs ou de mettre sur pied des pro jets. En revanche, Ia creativite, /'esprit analytique ou scientifique ont etejuges /es plus difflciles a inculquer.

PurposeThe concept of the market economy is gaining ground in China. So also, with the growth of international business partnerships and collaboration with the West, is the significance of management accounting. The purpose of this paper is to provide some background for the development of management accounting practices in China.Design/methodology/approachAs enterprises gain more autonomy, management accounting techniques such as capital budgeting, cost of capital concept, just‐in‐time inventory, inventory model concept, cost‐volume‐profit analysis, total quality management and others will become more important. This paper examines the development of management accounting practices in China from the perspective of transitional economies.FindingsEvidence suggests that the national culture and values practiced for centuries by Chinese business influence the concerted efforts for information dissemination and developing management accounting practices. Because of the lack of understanding of western management accounting practices, the pace of development of Chinese management accounting practices might be slow for now.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper attempts to analyze the development of management accounting practices in Chinese business by looking at the background and contemporary thoughts; however, the value of the paper could be raised if the results were tested empirically, though discussion was aligned to empirics from other research and existing literature.Practical implicationsThis paper argues the necessity of recognizing the significance of culture‐based management accounting systems and practices, but also of realizing that, since the Chinese government opened its doors to foreign investment, international standards and practices have a major role to play.Originality/valueThis paper attempts to analyze the challenges that China, a transitional economy, faces and what factors it seriously needs to consider for developing much needed management accounting practices. It also examines the evolution of management accounting systems in China, with their distinctive features, in order to provide a better understanding of their development.

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We built a method for measuring product-specific inefficiency in bank branches to facilitate precise measurement of waste and identify its causes. Our method combines and integrates two separate, widely used models for measuring costs and efficiency performance: activity-based cost accounting (ABC) and data envelopment analysis (DEA). The resulting method for activity-based management provides managers with detailed quantitative performance benchmarks for the specific business activities of their firms or divisions. We used an integrated model to create a branch profile of a large 250-branch Mideast bank that measures inefficiency separately for customer services and transactions.

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