AE_141115_12_AB_IDL_AB_19_Nov_2

The Life of an Accounting Information Systems Research Course (11481 words) Introduction In this paper, we describe and evaluate the approach followed by faculty members of a Dutch university to strengthen the research interests of their accounting students We focus in particular on the ‘making of’ and development of an Accounting Information Systems (AIS) course The main research question we try to address is: how can an AIS-research course be designed that unifies the interests of three parties, namely, (1) program management, who is primarily concerned with meeting quality requirements imposed by accreditation committees; (2) faculty members, who wish to conduct (empirical) research, write research papers, and deliver quality teaching; and (3) students, who wish to write a Master of Science thesis in a limited amount of time, and continue their studies to qualify as a CPA1 Accountants are researchers The activities involved in the evaluation of annual reports may be a case in point (Carnegie & Napier, 2010) One of an accountant’s main tasks is to ‘look behind’ the financial figures he/she is presented with, and determine whether these accurately reflect the financial status of an organization, however difficult this may be to assess (Macintosh, 2009) In order to fulfil this task, it is common practice that accountants interview key stakeholders in an organization, review the quality of information stemming from software systems that support the organization’s daily operations, and check the legitimacy of a variety of financial and non-financial transactions Many accountants not seem to realize Most accounting students in the Netherlands opt for a one-year Master’s program after having received their Bachelor of Science diploma In order to become a CPA, it is mandatory to have a Master of Science degree Writing (and defending) a Master of Science thesis is currently required by all institutes that offer an accounting curriculum at this level The assessment criteria for the thesis have become increasingly strict over the last decade: a thesis must have a clear research orientation, and contribute to the extant academic literature, besides having an impact on business practice -1- that correctly assessing an organization’s state of affairs, and thoroughly checking the reliability of the financial information it presents is not that straightforward They often fail to see that having a research ‘mindset’ can help to achieve greater reliability This may be due to a lack of exposure to research and/or limited attention in their education to the importance of research in their daily work (Carnegie & Napier, 2010; Gendron & Spira, 2009) The paper aims to provide insight into the AIS-course’s development process and (shifting) content and structure, so that it may serve as a template or exemplar for similar courses that interested readers may wish to develop2, even if the structure of the curriculum, the kind of students involved (full-time or part-time), and/or the place of the course within a curriculum differs from what is presented here We suggest that the timing and content of the course be adapted accordingly, as will be clarified in the final section of the paper The paper covers the 2010-2015 period, when the authors were actively involved in the course in question Evaluation scores of the AIS-research course during this period suggest that it adequately prepared students for the rest of their studies, as well as for particular issues and problems occurring in their daily practice On top of this, the course seems to have increased faculty coherence: there is no longer a huge divide between ‘those who mainly teach’ and ‘those who mainly conduct research’ in the university department in question Therefore, we believe that the course may be an interesting alternative to other developments in accounting curricula that try to develop students’ research skills (Hoque, 2002; Irving, 2011; Jalbert, 2008) and aim to increase faculty coherence 1.1 Contribution The authors are willing to provide more details on request -2- The role of research in accounting education has been the subject of debate (Polster, 2000; Craig & Amernic, 2002; Watty, 2005) There are various reasons why teaching has been separated from research in accounting curricula (Bui & Porter, 2010) Among others, the requirements placed by universities on tenure-track and post-doc faculty members in terms of research output often does not match (potential) demands for more practice-based research carried out by students and practitioners (Geary, Kutcher, & Porco, 2010) Ter Bogt and Scapens (2012), who examine two accounting and finance faculties, one in a Dutch university, and one in a UK-based university, conclude that the increased focus on research in both universities, using detailed performance management systems, has created anxiety among faculty members about how these systems are used The authors suggest that this may inhibit creativity in teaching and innovation in accounting research, and result in research that has limited links with the complexities of organizational practice Leisyte, Enders, and De Boer (2009) claim that changing institutional environments in both the UK and the Netherlands have created a distinction between what is considered to be ‘good’ research and ‘good’ teaching The authors put forward the view that the two may be increasingly difficult to combine, and argue that there is considerable controversy in the literature regarding whether it can be accomplished, and if so, how The increased publication demands that are placed on faculty members seem to have resulted in growing workloads and a division within faculties between ‘those who teach’ and ‘those who research’ The authors conclude that many of the faculty members they interviewed must have had the feeling that they were living in a “bad dream” (Leisyte, Enders, & De Boer, 2009, p 634) Nevertheless, some encouraging examples of integrating research into accounting education are available Hoque (2002) uses research papers to teach public sector accounting Jalbert -3- (2008) describes his experiences with publishing peer-reviewed research, using input from undergraduate accounting and finance students Irving (2011) describes how specific research activities have been integrated in an undergraduate accounting course, using a pedagogical approach that fosters active learning In the course, students read and discuss excerpts from research papers related to class topics These excerpts and discussions are intended to enhance students' understanding of these topics, and aim to develop their awareness of how accounting research and practice are intertwined (see also Hansen, 1986; 2001) After they have familiarized themselves with academic research papers and what is considered academic research, students are challenged to complete a research project, in which they have to address specific questions related to the course content, and have to test hypotheses using archival data Survey results suggest that the majority of the students find that the course substantially improves their knowledge, skills, reading and research abilities The course discussed in this paper offers an extension and adaptation of Irving’s (2011) approach As will be explicated in Section 3, in the AIS-research course students are explicitly treated as fellow researchers3 (and not as research assistants) as they become actively involved in a research project that faculty members have devised Students work together in groups and have to construct a (small) research project of their own based on the project developed by faculty members They then have to carry out this project themselves and write up their results in a research paper Among other things, students have to collect their own, as well as their fellow students’ data in the process No use is made of archival data in any of these projects Especially these aspects of the course help to substantially improve students’ research skills, as we will see in Section It could be argued that by so doing, students became involved in an action research project (Doran et al., 2011) However, the course was never framed or developed with this idea in mind -4- 1.2 Structure Section describes how the AIS course at hand came about In section 3, the content and structure of the course is set out In section 4, the course is critically evaluated Several changes that have been implemented since 2010 are described The final section contains our main conclusions, lists remaining problems and possible improvements, and discusses how far our conclusions may apply when a course is developed that does not necessarily prepare students for their Master of Science thesis, but aims to strengthen their research interests The ‘Making of’ the AIS-Research Course 2.1 Introduction In early 2010, the management team of the university studied in this paper decided to make considerable room in their accounting curriculum for three research courses They would have to be followed by all students who wished to obtain their Master of Science in Accountancy degree, and become a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) thereafter The research courses had to cover the main subject areas that Dutch CPAs have to master: Accounting Information Systems (AIS), Financial Accounting (FA) and auditing The university never intended to develop a single, general accounting research course It was acknowledged that research traditions in AIS, FA and auditing differed substantially, which made them difficult to combine in a single course The three courses were developed by separate teams at the same time Even though the content of the courses differs, their general structure is comparable The AIS course, in particular, was developed for three reasons First, there were growing concerns among senior faculty members about the exposure of accounting students to research, and academic research in particular They had had this concern for a longer period of time, but it had intensified due to the enhanced thesis assessment criteria imposed by -5- accreditation committees (as indicated in footnote 1), and due to several accounting scandals, such as Ahold, WorldCom and Enron, which had surfaced in previous years (Carnegie & Napier, 2010) Second, in their evaluations of the accounting program, students had expressed that they wanted to be better prepared for their Master of Science thesis The university is the market leader in accountancy in the Netherlands (approximately 35% of all accountancy students follow their Master of Science courses there – which amounts to approximately 350 students per academic year4) Being the market leader, and the main ‘deliverer’ of future accountants, the university’s program management decided that something had to be done, given the students’ comments A third reason for the development of the course was an interest expressed by the university’s management team They wished to create more faculty coherence and place a greater emphasis on research as a faculty activity, instead of as an individual activity Especially the head of the accounting curriculum at that time thought that a research course could be a vehicle to accomplish this, and hence, fully supported its development The idea that the development of a research course might strengthen students’ research interests and increase faculty coherence stemmed from the university’s Part-time Master of Science program in controlling, where such a course had been a success for approximately five years The age range of the students is approximately 23-35 years About 70% of them are male -6- 2.2 Background In the Netherlands, there are fifteen state-accredited5 universities Fourteen of these are public institutions that receive an annual budget from the government based on student enrolment numbers and the number of graduates per academic year One university is privately funded and receives no government support Having obtained a Bachelor’s degree, most students at Dutch universities go on to complete a Master’s The Master of Science degree concludes with a written thesis which must be defended in front of an academic panel (as stated in footnote 1) In finance, economics and accounting, Master of Science programs usually last one year They are mostly offered as a full-time program Only part-time students can enroll in the Master of Science program in accounting at the university in question Hence, this program lasts two years instead of one Students usually work from Monday to Thursday, and follow classes on Friday and/or Saturday The AIS course covered in this paper is part of the second year of the Master of Science in accounting program There has been a clear shift in the program from more practice-oriented courses to research-oriented courses from the first to the second year In the first year, students chiefly follow application-based courses in auditing, FA, AIS, and corporate governance, after having taken various introductory courses on these topics during their undergraduate studies These courses mainly use methods of direct instruction and a ‘chalk and talk’ approach (Hansen, 2001) The second year starts with an introductory course on research methods and scientific writing, and one of the three research courses mentioned in section 2.1 Students can express their preference for one of these courses, but they are encouraged to limit their choice to the topic (AIS, FA, or auditing) they wish to write their Accreditations are awarded by the so-called ‘NVAO’, the Dutch-Flemish accreditation body (‘NederlandsVlaamse Accreditatieorganisatie’), which usually visits universities once every four to five years, using predetermined quality standards and protocols Details about the body and the way in which it operates (in Dutch) can be found at: https://www.nvao.net/ -7- Master of Science thesis on After the completion of the research course, the thesis needs to be written So, research activities are emphasized in the second year of the Master of Science program at hand Students have 14 weeks (between 3-4 months) to complete the AIS-research course Nine ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) points are granted when the course is completed6 This implies that the course requires approximately 250 study hours Sixteen sessions, each lasting three hours, are organized to facilitate the students’ learning process7 The development of every course is a journey Fink (2003) presents an iterative process to structure this journey in such a way that a course ultimately contains a clear link between its learning objectives, teaching and learning activities, and feedback and assessment procedures The development team of the course in question, which consisted of an AIS professor and an associate professor of research methods and methodology, decided to follow Fink’s procedure after several rounds of open-ended discussions had not led to much progress Fink (ibid., p 8) states that one of the main questions that needs to be answered before the development of a course can start is: “What would distinguish students who have taken this course from students who have not?” Discussions in the development team led to the conclusion that the ‘uniqueness’ of the AIS course would have to reside in both the outcome and the structure of the course In terms of its outcome, conducting a research project in small groups together with faculty members, and writing a research paper supervised by faculty members were deemed important In terms of the course’s structure, the development team wanted to ensure that all steps that are typically involved in conducting (empirical) research and writing a research paper would be properly understood and executed by each student, before they started working on their Master of Science thesis (see also Smith, 2015) They also wanted to The aforementioned course on research methods lasts ECTS (approximately 110 study hours), and the Master of Science thesis 17 ECTS (about 480 study hours) The research course on FA has eighteen sessions, instead of sixteen The auditing course has sixteen sessions -8- involve other faculty members in the ‘making of’ and teaching of the course, so as to enhance faculty coherence Some choices had to be made, e.g in terms of the topical focus of the course, and its placement within the academic year, to realize this Both the AIS-related topics that were ultimately chosen, and the research approach that was used to frame these, are outlined below More details on faculty involvement are presented in section 3.2 2.3 Topical focus8 Around the turn of the century, there had been considerable debate in the information systems (IS) literature on what constituted relevant IS research Part of the discussion focused on which topics and types of research would be important in the immediate future (McKnight, 2011) McKnight argues that as consequence of this debate, especially AIS-related research “… expanded into such areas as electronic commerce, ethics, system user participation, group or individual decision aid technologies, assurance services, and knowledge management Reference disciplines for the field are said to include not only computer science for the design science parts of the field, but also psychology, sociology, and philosophy … The definition of the AIS domain is still a work in progress …” (ibid., p 86) Despite the continuing debate on what constitutes (A)IS, it is widely accepted that enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are an important research topic within AIS (Grabski, Leech, & Schmidt, 2011; Rom & Rohde, 2007) Therefore the decision was made to focus the AIS course on ERP-related research, especially since several faculty members found this an interesting topic that they wanted to engage with, or already had some knowledge of The development team suggested that the focus of the course should remain the same for at least the next 2-3 years in order to stimulate faculty involvement After 2-3 years, changes in topical focus were possible These changes could be proposed by the faculty members who were running the course The AIS professor in The course was developed (and first offered) in 2010, and was gradually refined thereafter, which explains the relatively old supporting references in this section -9- charge had to agree with the proposed changes, but was requested by the development team to only agree with such changes if future faculty involvement could be safeguarded Grabski, Leech, and Schmidt (2011) assert that in the AIS literature “… much has been written about ERP implementation and use Unfortunately, much of the research (such as the large number of papers on critical success factors) has been survey-based, without strong underlying theory … Unless a research paper is following a design science methodology … a strong theoretical development and a rigorous research design need to be utilized” (p 64) This prompted the development team to discuss possible research approaches that could be used to frame ERP-related research 2.4 Research Approach Various research approaches could have been adopted in a course such as this Of course, the approach chosen for the course had to be in line with the knowledge and research interests of faculty members Furthermore, the development team did not want to confuse students by confronting them with a large variety of research approaches, given their mostly limited exposure to academic research in the Master of Science program up to that point Lee and Lings (2008) distinguish research approaches9 based on realism (which argue that there is an objective reality that can be directly accessed and/or observed by researchers, who can ‘purge’ their own views by mixing methods, data sources, and/or other researchers’ views), and more interpretive approaches (suggesting that even though there may be a material world ‘out there’, a researcher’s access to it is severely limited At best, personal understanding of a phenomenon that can be shared and discussed with others may be achieved through research Research is therefore very much an [inter-]subjective affair) Following the research interests We avoid using the term ‘paradigm’, given its highly contested nature (Chua, 1986) However, this is what is actually meant -10-