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ABSTRACT:Immersive virtual worlds such as Second Life ™ promise the possibility of an engaging platform for learning. This paper examines the success of Second Life ™ in enabling an engaging learning environment within a first-year financial accounting course, specifically the relationship between student engagement and performance. The paper details the use of two 3-D objects built to support the course, an interactive accounting equation, and t-account model. Results indicate that student engagement, as enabled via Second Life ™ may lead to greater student performance. However, results also indicate a reduction in performance if students have adverse ͑dizziness, nausea͒ reactions to the environment.

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The history of Alaska is a colonial history (Pomeroy 1947; Haycox 2002). The purpose of this paper is to examine how the corporate form of organization and corporate accounting were used by the United States (U.S.) government to rationalize decisions, exercise control, and exploit Alaskan resources to benefit corporate America and the existing U.S. states. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA) established Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs), whose stock was distributed to qualifying Alaska Natives in exchange for their agreement to extinguish all aboriginal land claims. Guided by prior work in accounting and postmodern colonialism, our analysis uncovers ways in which ANCSA, though lauded by the U.S. government as an innovative and generous settlement, perpetuated a historical pattern of indigenous exploitation by western economic interests, and employed corporate accounting policies and techniques to further the interests of the U.S. government and large corporations at the expense of Native Alaskans.

This study tests the hypothesis that political action committee (PAC) contributions paid by the accounting profession are indirectly associated with the speech performance of congressional committee members debating issues related to auditor independence during the 107th Congress (2001–2002). The hypothesis is based on the assumption that PAC contributions represent payments for access to lobby legislators and a theory of lobbying as legislative subsidy that predicts legislators who are granted legislative subsidies will increase their participation and effort. Legislative effort is measured as the qualitatively coded speech counts of 126 individual committee members during 17 hearings related to financial auditing held over 21 days by 6 committees of the U.S. House of Representatives. The results indicate a positive association between aggregate PAC contributions paid by the Big 5 and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and anti-regulatory speech counts of House committee members. No association was found for aggregate contributions and pro-regulatory speech counts. Results are mixed when PAC contributions are disaggregated by funding source indicating heterogeneity among firms in their contribution patterns.