Future Business Professionals Research Articles

Enhancing Business Students International Capabilities Through Global Education Programs

Today, the development of a global vision is the cornerstone that guarantees personal, economic and social development, improves competitiveness, and strengthens democracy. Future business professionals will need to understand international business patterns and cultures in order to successfully work in corporations in either the United States or abroad. One way to achieve these goals is through the use of study abroad programs. Study abroad programs develop cross-cultural awareness as well as the interpersonal and professional skills necessary to operate in a changing business environment.A common perception of North Americans is that they are in general ethnocentric and resist efforts to internationalize. While this may or may not be true for all those who reside in the United States, it is undeniable that future college graduates require a better education in international business and cross-cultural differences. The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International (AACSB) has risen to this challenge by requiring participating schools to include a global perspective in their business education programs. In accordance with AACSB accreditation, colleges and universities must incorporate into their mission a focus on “strong and growing global economic forces” (AACSB Standards for Business Accreditation, 1991). For business schools, this entails covering topics that convey to students the United States’ role in the global environment and understanding economic and cultural dynamics that play a role in transactions between businesses in other countries. Teaching the intricacies of international business law and the difficulties associated with marketing to individuals of a different language cause can lead to a diminished learning environment in traditional classroom settings. In response to AACSB’s charge to improve education on international issues, some schools have stepped out of the classroom and literally moved courses into the global marketplace (Pretzels & Curico, 1996). This paper discusses the rationale for experiential education programs, the benefits of these initiatives to students, and current trends in international study abroad programs.

The moral awareness of future accounting and business professionals

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the moral awareness and ethical virtue of current university students with a view to identifying whether there are any gender differences.Design/methodology/approachThe study analysed undergraduate responses from final year honours student cohorts, one from a degree in accounting and finance (n=51), the other from a programme in business studies (n=79), to a series of value statements and a number of academic and business‐related scenarios. The study employed a Kantian approach to ethics.FindingsAccounting students who had been exposed to ethical educational interventions do not display a higher level of moral awareness or ethical intention than their business counterparts. Whilst gender differences were apparent, this was only evident for moral awareness not ethical virtue and only the case for business students, thus suggesting that gender id may have more explanatory power than biological gender.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample size was small as the study was restricted to relevant class populations and hence may not be generalisable. In addition, a gap may exist between what students state they would do in a situation and their actual behaviour.Practical implicationsFurther work is required which concentrates on gender id rather than biological gender and examines why feminine moral awareness would appear to be higher than the masculine but converges for ethical intention.Originality/valueThe study presents a comparative analysis of two different student cohorts which enables a more detailed investigation of gender differences, initially for moral awareness and then ethical virtue.

The Psychology and Sociology of Fraud: Integrating the Behavioral Sciences Component Into Fraud and Forensic Accounting Curricula

INTRODUCTION The 2008 Report to the Nation issued by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners indicated that U.S. organizations lose almost 7 percent of their revenue to fraud, and that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)-based annual fraud estimate for the United States alone was $994 billion (ACFE, 2008). Of course, we all now recognize that the scourge of fraud is a global phenomenon that extends far beyond the borders of the U.S. However, the study of white collar crime has hitherto been relatively sparse because ‘‘few areas of criminological investigation are plagued [with such] intractable controversies [including] conceptual ambiguities, distinctions, and taxonomies’’ (Shover 1998). Nevertheless, future business professionals, and especially accounting majors, must have a keen understanding of the new 21st century era of governance and accountability spawned by the post-Enron/WorldCom environment. In this regard, colleges and universities must do their part by encouraging business, criminology, and law faculty to carry out much-needed research in this important area and teach courses in fraud and forensic accounting (FFA). Because any organization can be plagued by fraud, organizations should strive to understand the behavioral root causes of fraud—who commits fraud and why—and thus, proactively manage their fraud risk exposure. Indeed, these are the fundamental premises underlying the model FFA curriculum developed by and implemented at West Virginia University (2007). In this paper, I will make the case for looking seriously to the behavioral sciences—

A Comparative Study Of Ethical Values Of Business Students: American Vs. Middle Eastern Cultures

Business schools must prepare students to face the world and yet maintain strong ethical convictions. The question of ethics in the business environment is not exclusive to the United States. Ethical business behavior is a multinational issue, and all business schools world-wide must deal with this issue. However, cultural differences often define acceptable ethical behavior. For example, the acceptable amount of a “token” gift from one party to another is an ethical issue. Some American businesses do not even allow employees to accept gifts from clients, while within other businesses, both National and International, it is an acceptable tradition. Bribery of foreign officials during the 1970’s addressed this issue of what is acceptable in the form of gifts and/or payments between public officials when they initiated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, which prohibits the “paying, offering, promising to pay (or authorizing to pay or offer) money or anything of value…..to corrupt payments to a foreign official, a foreign political party or party official, or any candidate for foreign political office” (usdoj.gov). Ethical situations involving foreign officials and diplomats in other countries can also affect business transactions, which may ultimately be controlled by graduates from business schools in our colleges and universities. Consequently, the question is “What are the differences in ethical perceptions and values between cultures?” Once this question is addressed, business professors can adapt their teaching methods to help shape and mold the ethical values of business students. In a search for the answer to these ethical questions between cultures, the authors representing two universities, decided to conduct a small research sample on their business students. One of the colleges is a small public university located in the Southeastern United States, and the other is a university located in the Middle Eastern country of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A small sample of students from selected business classes of each school were given a 16 question ethics quiz which had been taken from The Wall Street Journal. The questions ranged from personal use of company e-mail on the job to whether or not the individuals had lied about sick days or had taken credit for another’s work. The authors hoped to determine whether there were any significant differences between the answers given from the two schools pertaining to these types of ethical issues and to learn to what extent the different cultures had in shaping the ideas of these future business professionals.

Effect of Business Education on Women and Men Students’ Attitudes on Corporate Responsibility in Society

This article describes a survey among Finnish business students to find answers to the following questions: How do business students define a well-run company? What are their attitudes on the responsibilities of business in society? Do the attitudes of women students differ from those of men? What is the influence of business education on these attitudes? Our sample comprised 217 students pursuing a master’s degree in business studies at two Finnish universities. The results show that, as a whole, students valued the stakeholder model of the company more than the shareholder model. However, attitudes differed according to gender: women students were more in favor of the stakeholder model and placed more weight on corporate ethical, environmental, and societal responsibilities than their men counterparts – both at the beginning and at the end of their studies. Thus, no gender socialization effect of business school education could be observed in this sense. Business school education was found to shape women and men students’ attitudes in two ways. Firstly, valuation of the shareholder model increased and, secondly, the importance of equal-opportunity employment decreased in the course of education. This raises the question whether the educational context is creating an undesirable tendency among future business professionals. The results further suggest that the sociocultural context can make a difference in how corporate social responsibility is perceived. The article also discusses possible ways to influence the attitudes of business students.

The Impact Of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act Of 2002 On The Business And Accounting Curriculums

Business and accounting curriculums are designed to educate and train future business professionals and leaders. When Congress passed SOX in 2002, it dramatically impacted the responsibilities of corporate executives and CPAs and consequently required corresponding changes in the business schools prepare students to assume these roles. Because the Act changed the manner in which corporate decisions are made and how corporate organizations are governed and because of its impact on corporate business and CPA firms, it required business schools to modify the curriculums in business and accounting. This paper demonstrates the impact on the undergraduate business and accounting programs. In most cases, it is suggested that SOX material be integrated into existing courses because of the various constraints on undergraduate programs.

Responsibility Incorporated

Responsibility Incorporated

Ethical Beliefs and Behaviors of Future African-American Business Professionals

With the increasing diversity of the workforce, the ethical standards of business students are a major concern to business educators and employers. The main concern is the differing ethical perceptions of workers. Since individuals come from different cultural and sub-cultural environments, there is little agreement on basic ethical issues relating to the performance of the job. Indeed, businesses face a growing challenge in instilling ethical behavior in the workplace (Burns, 1993). Because an individual's ethical perceptions are believed to be formed in his or her childhood environment, it is assumed that workers' ethical perceptions will reflect their culture or subculture and their future behavior in the workplace (Berkman and Gilson, 1986). Some studies (England, 1975; Tat, 1981; Tsalikis and Nwachukwu, 1988) have concluded that business practices considered ethical by the white culture in the United States are not necessarily viewed as such by the black culture. The difference in ethics, according to Tat may be the type of environment under which the two groups (black and white) of students were raised (1981: 215). Today's African-American business students are tomorrow's business employee, managers, and administrators. It is, therefore, important to understand their ethical beliefs and behaviors. How ethical are they? What

Quality of Earnings: An Introduction to the Issues in Accounting Education Special Issue

In September 1998, Arthur Levitt, then Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), presented an address at New York University, Numbers Game. In that speech, he called attention to an escalating problem with the quality of financial reporting in filings with the SEC. The topic received a great deal of attention over the next several years, both at the SEC and in the business world at large; in the first six months of 2002 the quality of accounting reports has even been discussed in Congress. In 2000, pursuant to an SEC consent order under the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, the American Accounting Association received a grant funding a multipart of Earnings Project. Recognizing the need to introduce future business professionals to the importance of quality early in their careers, one part of that project included funding for a special edition of Issues in Accounting Education. As stated in the call for papers to be considered for this special issue, submissions [wer e to] address some aspect of quality, and [could] be in financial accounting, managerial accounting, international accounting, auditing, systems, or tax....The overriding requirement [was] that the reader [would] be provided with ideas or materials about the quality of that he or she [could] take into the classroom. The seven cases included here are part of the response to that call. Additional manuscripts still in the review process will appear in Issues in Accounting Education, February 2003. Quality of earnings is a multidimensional concept. There are at least three distinct sets of decisions that affect the quality of earnings: decisions made by standard setters, choices made by management about which accounting methods should be chosen from a set of acceptable alternatives, and judgments and estimates made by management in order to implement the chosen alternatives. The set of accounting standards making up U.S. GAAP is generally considered to be of high quality. However, a perfect set of standards is unattainable due to the inherent tension between relevance and reliability of accounting numbers, and due to the changing nature of economic transactions over time. Even if it were possible for standard setters to agree on a single acceptable accounting alternative for every type of transaction, it might be inadvisable to do so. There may be valid reasons for allowing companies to choose among different allowed accounting alternatives. (Dechow and Skinner [2000], among others, discuss this issue in more depth.) For example, companies may enter into certain business transactions with different intents; allowing three different accounting treatments for certain investments in debt securities allows financial statements to reflect those different business objectives. Earnings management is a concept related to, but clearly not synonymous with, quality. Earnings management activities, broadly considered, can affect quality of on each of the three dimensions mentioned in the preceding paragraphs. Actions of participants in the standard-setting process that affect the quality of the allowed accounting standards could be considered management. For example, opposition to the FASB's proposed mandatory expensing of the fair value of executive stock options affected the quality of earnings. Similarly, managements' choices among allowed accounting alternatives also could be considered management. For example, decisions such as choosing the FIFO inventory cost-flow assumption in a period of increasing prices, or choosing to use straight-line depreciation, will result in earlier recognition of income, other things equal. Finally, as time passes and managements apply selected standards, when using judgments about whether criteria for recognition ha ve been met or whether estimates need revision, management may occur. …

Practising Information Systems Approach for Developing Information Technology Skills Used in Business

The changing information technology (IT) skill requirements for business professionals in the new millennium have forced many universities to review their IT curriculum. The concept of a traditional approach to developing IT skills to meet the educational needs of all future business professionals is becoming obsolete, and other approaches are needed. This article describes the practice of Information Systems Approach (ISA) along with the Traditional Approach (TA) for developing IT skills in the College of Commerce and Economics of Sultan Qaboos University, the only national university in Oman. In order to study the effectiveness of the ISA, two groups were randomly selected; one followed the ISA, and the other group used the TA. The design was pretest-posttest, control group. The initial and final IT skills were compared. This study was repeated three times and was segmented into Phase I, Phase II, and Phase III in order to increase the validity and reliability of the results.

Alternative Negotiating Conditions and the Choice of Negotiation Tactics: A Cross-cultural Comparison

The growth in international trade in recent years necessitates a better understanding of customs and expectations in cross-cultural negotiations. While several researchers have sought to examine and detail the similarities and differences between select countries, their data have generally been obtained under neutral or unspecified negotiating conditions. However, issue importance, opponent (prowess, ethical reputation), and context (location, confederate awareness, urgency) can play a significant role in the use of negotiating tactics. This paper describes a study comparing the perceptions of one hundred and forty-two current and future business professionals from two emerging trade partners, Brazil and the United States, regarding the appropriateness and likely use of five categories of negotiation tactics under seven challenging or unfavorable negotiating conditions commonly faced by negotiators. The results indicate an overall conditional effect for both attitudes (perceived appropriateness) and intentions (likelihood of use). In addition, while no significant difference in perceived appropriateness was found due to country, there were differences in likely use due to country for six conditions-behaviors.

Ethicality in Negotiations: An Analysis of Perceptual Similarities and Differences Between Brazil and the United States

Similarities and differences in perceptions of the ethicality of negotiation behaviors were examined for 271 current and future business professionals from Brazil and the United States. Five categories of behaviors were considered: traditional competitive bargaining, misrepresentation of information, bluffing, information collection, and influencing an opponent’s professional network. The results suggest similarities among respondents regarding behaviors that involve third parties to a negotiation (information collection, influencing an opponent’s professional network) but significant differences regarding behaviors involving immediate opponents (misrepresenting information, bluffing). In addition, gender and age were found to be significant moderating factors. The implications of these findings for cross-cultural negotiations are discussed, along with suggestions for future research.

A COMPARISON OF PERCEPTIONS OF ETHICAL NEGOTIATION BEHAVIOR IN MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES

Perceptions of the appropriateness and likelihood of use of seventeen negotiation tactics were compared for current and future business professionals from Mexico and the United States. The results suggest differences in perceived appropriateness as well as in the gap between perceived appropriateness and likely use, consistent with the cultures of these two countries. The implications of these findings for cross‐national negotiations and future research are discussed.