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The purpose of this paper is to survey, organize, and evaluate extant research on service-learning to provide guidance to both educators and researchers. Because little has been written about service-learning in academic accounting, the research cited comes primarily from other disciplines. Our literature survey is divided into two sections: (1) student outcomes related to intellectual skills, and (2) student personal outcomes. After surveying the literature, we synthesize the results to offer guidance for educators interested in using service-learning and make suggestions for how accounting researchers could contribute to the literature regarding the student outcomes of service-learning. In addition, to illustrate our recommendations for educators, we provide examples of desired outcomes and assessment criteria for several accounting service-learning projects.

"Decision usefulness" has been the organizing criterion for accounting policy and accounting scholarship for over forty years. Its authority however, was not gained over time through explicit theory development or argumentation, but was instead "born full grown" (Staubus, 1999, p. 163)as a conceptual "takeover in the dead of night" (p. 338). In essence, the concept of decision usefulness assumed a central place as the rationale for accounting choice by stealth rather than by careful argument or based on empirical evidence. The lack of an extended period of argumentation and debate over the meaning of decision usefulness meant its conceptual weaknesses were allowed to remain remarked upon but never resolved.In this paper we argue that as the central focus defining and guiding accounting policy, decision usefulness has not proven any more useful than earlier, allegedly normative theories of accounting did. The recent debates on IFRS versus GAAP provide vivid testament to the inadequacy of decision usefulness as a criterion for selecting among alternative accounting choices. We briefly examine the history of decision usefulness and its emergence as the chief criterion for selecting policy. We then argue that in light of recent developments in our understanding of human decision-making and the shortcomings of conventional economic understanding, decision usefulness cannot be defined in a manner that allows its application to policy choice at either the micro (individual decision-maker) level or the macro, economy-wide level. . We find that the current concept of decision usefulness is incoherent because policy makers and scholars have not seriously dealt with deeply-flawed ontological assumptions inherent in its definition and justification. We also describe how the decision usefulness criterion applied in the policy realm seriously undermines the current dominant methodology employed in accounting research to understand financial reporting phenomena. In our conclusions we argue for a root metaphor for accounting policy and research that is more consistent with the regulatory function of accounting in society, i.e., a more explicit return to accountability for understanding accounting and for making accounting policy.3

The small number of full-scale adoptions of activity-based costing (ABC) coupled with ABC implementation failures have fueled a debate about the costs and benefits of ABC relative to more traditional volume-based costing (VBC) systems. ABC differs from VBC by focusing attention on activities and resources that are under the control of multiple workers. Reducing these costs often requires a coordinated effort. Therefore, incentives that motivate workers to cooperate are a prerequisite to successful process improvements based on ABC. Alternatively, when competitive incentives are combined with ABC, the result can be unexpected and negative. We examine how accounting cost system and incentive structure choices interact. We find that profits are highest when ABC is linked with group-based incentives, which provide high motivation to cooperate. In contrast, the lowest level of profit occurs when the same information-rich cost system, ABC, is coupled with tournament-based incentives. VBC, a cost system that provides a lower level of cost driver information, moderates the incentive effect. Thus, our results demonstrate that the effectiveness of ABC relative to traditional VBC is influenced by its interactive effect with incentive compensation.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a natural experiment involving academic cheating by university students. We explore the relationship of moral judgment (as measured using the defining issues test) to actual behavior, as well as the relationship between the honesty of students self-reports and the extent of cheating. We were able to determine the extent to which students actually cheated on the take-home portion of an accounting exam. The take-home problem was not assigned with the intent of inducing cheating among students. However, the high rate of observed cheating prompted the instructor to return to class and ask the students to provide information on their motivation. The students' responses are the data analyzed in this natural experiment. We found that in a simple regression the relationship between moral judgment scores and cheating behavior was insignificant. However, when we tested whether including Utilizer scores (i.e. the extent to which people select actions based on notions of justice) affected the relationship of cheating and moral judgment we found that Utilizer affected the relationship significantly. Finally, we found that moral judgment and honesty were not related, but higher levels of cheating behavior related to less honesty. KeywordsAccounting, accounting students, cheating, defining issues test, ethics, honesty, moral judgement is a manuscript of an article from Journal of Business Ethics 54 (2004): 173, doi: 10.1007/s10551-004-9463-x. Posted with permission. The final publication is available at Springer Cheating and Moral Judgment in the College Classroom:A Natural Experiment AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to present the results of a natural experiment involving academic cheating by university students. We explore the relationship of moral judgment (as measured using the Defining Issues Test) to actual behavior, as well as the relationship between the honesty of students self-reports and the extent of cheating. We were able to determine the extent to which students actually cheated on the take-home portion of an accounting exam. The take-home problem was not assigned with the intent of inducing cheating among students. However, the high rate of observed cheating prompted the instructor to return to class and ask the students to provide information on their motivation.The students' responses are the data analyzed in this natural experiment.We found that in a simple regression the relationship between moral judgment scores and cheating behavior was insignificant. However, when we tested whether includingUtilizer scores (i.e. the extent to which people select actions based on notions of justice)affected the relationship of cheating and moral judgment we found that Utilizer affected the relationship significantly. Finally, we found that moral judgment and honesty were not related, but higher levels of cheating behavior related to less honesty.