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- All Subjects: Accounting
- All Subjects: Education
- Creators: Department of Information Systems
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
- Resource Type: Text
Description
The nonprofit sector has experienced exponential growth in recent decades, thus creating a separate industry for nonprofits—an industry that requires education and training to run efficiently and successfully. As a result, Nonprofit Management Education (NME) at both graduate and undergraduate levels has steadily increased in number and demand. Recent changes in the political climate and changes in the government funding present new challenges to nonprofit professionals, thus enhancing the value of specific NME to prepare professionals for these challenges. To leverage NME and ensure that students are adequately prepared for these challenges, it is important to design curriculum that addresses the needs of the growing nonprofit industry. The Nonprofit Academic Center of Councils is the creator of the NACC Curricular Guidelines, which are currently used as a model all NME curricula should emulate. This study utilizes Arizona State University (ASU) to compare its current curriculum model to the NACC Curricular Guidelines, as well as the current challenges facing the nonprofit sector. In so doing, this study will provide an in-depth overview of NME at ASU through 1) focus groups of nonprofit leaders; 2) survey data from former students; and 3) curriculum mapping.
The comprehensive results indicated areas of opportunity for both ASU and the NACC Curricular Guidelines. According to the feedback of students, nonprofit professionals, and the current state of the ASU curriculum, ASU may wish to increase emphasis on Financial Management, Managing Staff and Volunteers, Assessment, Evaluation, and Decision Making, and Leading and Managing Nonprofit Organizations. After considering feedback from nonprofit professionals, NACC may consider amending some new competencies that reflect an emphasis on collective impact, cross sector leadership, or relationship building and the use of technology for nonprofit impact. The research team recommends accomplishing these changes through enhancing pedagogy by including case studies and an integrated curriculum into the ASU NME program. by applying the suggested changes to both the ASU curriculum and the NACC guidelines, this research prepares both ASU and NACC towards the process of accreditation and formalizing the NLM degree on a national level.
The comprehensive results indicated areas of opportunity for both ASU and the NACC Curricular Guidelines. According to the feedback of students, nonprofit professionals, and the current state of the ASU curriculum, ASU may wish to increase emphasis on Financial Management, Managing Staff and Volunteers, Assessment, Evaluation, and Decision Making, and Leading and Managing Nonprofit Organizations. After considering feedback from nonprofit professionals, NACC may consider amending some new competencies that reflect an emphasis on collective impact, cross sector leadership, or relationship building and the use of technology for nonprofit impact. The research team recommends accomplishing these changes through enhancing pedagogy by including case studies and an integrated curriculum into the ASU NME program. by applying the suggested changes to both the ASU curriculum and the NACC guidelines, this research prepares both ASU and NACC towards the process of accreditation and formalizing the NLM degree on a national level.
ContributorsFindlay, Molly Rebecca (Author) / Legg, Eric (Thesis director) / Ashcraft, Robert (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / School of Community Resources and Development (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
Company X is one of the world's largest manufacturer of semiconductors. The company relies on various suppliers in the U.S. and around the globe for its manufacturing process. The financial health of these suppliers is vital to the continuation of Company X's business without any material interruption. Therefore, it is in Company X's interest to monitor its supplier's financial performance. Company X has a supplier financial health model currently in use. Having been developed prior to watershed events like the Great Recession, the current model may not reflect the significant changes in the economic environment due to these events. Company X wants to know if there is a more accurate model for evaluating supplier health that better indicates business risk. The scope of this project will be limited to a sample of 24 suppliers representative of Company X's supplier base that are public companies. While Company X's suppliers consist of both private and public companies, the used of exclusively public companies ensures that we will have sufficient and appropriate data for the necessary analysis. The goal of this project is to discover if there is a more accurate model for evaluating the financial health of publicly traded suppliers that better indicates business risk. Analyzing this problem will require a comprehensive understanding of various financial health models available and their components. The team will study best practice and academia. This comprehension will allow us to customize a model by incorporating metrics that allows greater accuracy in evaluating supplier financial health in accordance with Company X's values.
ContributorsLi, Tong (Co-author) / Gonzalez, Alexandra (Co-author) / Park, Zoon Beom (Co-author) / Vogelsang, Meridith (Co-author) / Simonson, Mark (Thesis director) / Hertzel, Mike (Committee member) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / WPC Graduate Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Financial statements are one of the most important, if not the most important, documents for investors. These statements are prepared quarterly and yearly by the company accounting department, and are then audited in detail by a large external accounting firm. Investors use these documents to determine the value of the company, and trust that the company was truthful in its statements, and the auditing firm correctly audited the company's financial statements for any mistakes in their books and balances. Mistakes on a company's financial statements can be costly. However, financial fraud on the statements can be outright disastrous. Penalties for accounting fraud can include individual lifetime prison sentences, as well as company fines for billions of dollars. As students in the accounting major, it is our responsibility to ensure that financial statements are accurate and truthful to protect ourselves, other stakeholders, and the companies we work for. This ethics game takes the stories of Enron, WorldCom, and Lehman Brothers and uses them to help students identify financial fraud and how it can be prevented, as well as the consequences behind unethical decisions in financial reporting. The Enron scandal involved CEO Kenneth Lay and his predecessor Jeffery Skilling hiding losses in their financial statements with the help of their auditing firm, Arthur Andersen. Enron collapsed in 2002, and Lay was sentenced to 45 years in prison with his conspirator Skilling sentenced to 24 years in prison. In the WorldCom scandal, CEO Bernard "Bernie" Ebbers booked line costs as capital expenses (overstating WorldCom's assets), and created fraudulent accounts to inflate revenue and WorldCom's profit. Ebbers was sentenced to 25 years in prison and lost his title as WorldCom's Chief Executive Officer. Lehman Brothers took advantage of a loophole in accounting procedure Repo 105, that let the firm hide $50 billion in profits. No one at Lehman Brothers was sentenced to jail since the transaction was technically considered legal, but Lehman was the largest investment bank to fail and the only large financial institution that was not bailed out by the U.S. government.
ContributorsPanikkar, Manoj Madhuraj (Author) / Samuelson, Melissa (Thesis director) / Ahmad, Altaf (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
This thesis, entitled "A Community Perspective on Alcohol Education," was conducted over a ten month period during the Spring 2014 and Fall 2014 semesters, composed by Christopher Stuller and Nicholas Schmitzer. The research involved interviewing twelve professionals from Arizona State University and the City of Tempe to gather a holistic view on alcohol education and alcohol safety as it involves the students at ASU. Upon completion of the interviews, recommendations were made regarding areas of improvement for alcohol education and alcohol safety at Arizona State University. These recommendations range from creating a mandatory alcohol education class to passing a Guardian Angel Law to creating a national network of alcohol education best practices. Through this thesis, the authors hope to prevent future alcohol related injuries, deaths, and tragedies. For the final display of this thesis a website was created. For the ease of reading, all information has been presented in text format.
ContributorsSchmitzer, Nicholas (Co-author) / Stuller, Christopher (Co-author) / Koretz, Lora (Thesis director) / Scott Lynch, Jacquelyn (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
This piece aims to discuss the roles of emerging geographies within the context of global supply chains, approaching the conversation with a "systems" view, emphasizing three key facets essential to a holistic and interdisciplinary environmental analysis: -The Implications of Governmental & Economic Activities -Supply Chain Enablement Activities, Risk Mitigation in Emerging Nations -Implications Regarding Sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility In the appreciation of the interdisciplinary implications that stem from participation in global supply networks, supply chain professionals can position their firms for continued success in the proactive construction of robust and resilient supply chains. Across industries, how will supply networks in emerging geographies continue to evolve? Appreciating the inherent nuances related to the political and economic climate of a region, the extent to which enablement activities must occur, and sustainability/CSR tie-ins will be key to acquire this understanding. This deliverable aims to leverage the work of philosophers, researchers and business personnel as these questions are explored. The author will also introduce a novel method of teaching (IMRS) in the undergraduate business classroom that challenges the students to integrate their prior experiences both in the classroom and in the business world as they learn to craft locally relevant solutions to solve complex global problems.
ContributorsVaney, Rachel Lee (Author) / Maltz, Arnold (Thesis director) / Kellso, James (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
This software can process transactions for small businesses and store those transactions for reporting purposes. The specific build is tailor made for a small business run by the author and their partners. The software is a customized, in house solution for maintaining accurate accounting information. It uses C# code and windows forms to create a unique GUI to both enter and retrieve data. The code for each form is attached at the end of the user manual.
ContributorsGodfrey, David Emmanuel (Author) / Olsen, Christopher (Thesis director) / Anderson, Dennis (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
This paper explores factors to study why the number of students in STEM are not as high as they could be. Based on both Veda and Soumya's personal experiences, factors were chosen to understand their impact on whether a high school student would choose a STEM major in their college of choice, which could lead them to having a career in STEM. The factors explored will be location, grade level, school, parent/guardian involvement, teacher involvement, media influences, and personal interest. Data was collected through surveys sent to both high school and college students. The high school data came solely from schools in the Phoenix area, whereas college students' data came from across the world. These surveys contained questions regarding all of the above factors and were crafted so that we could gain further insight into each factor without producing bias. Each factor had at least one personal experience by either Veda or Soumya. Many of the survey responses gave insight to how and why a student would decide to pursue STEM or why they did pursue STEM. The main implications derived from the study are the following: the importance of a good support network, active parent/guardian and teacher involvement, and specifically active science teacher involvement. Data from both college and high school students showed that students highly valued a science teacher. One recommendation from this thesis is to provide a training for teachers to learn about how to connect concepts they teach to real-world applications. This can be administered through the district so that they may bring in anyone they feel is qualified to teach such topics such as industry professionals or teachers who specialize in teaching STEM. The last recommendation is for parents to participate in a workshop that will inform them of how to be more involved/engaged with their student.
ContributorsPushpraj, Soumya (Co-author) / Inamdar, Veda (Co-author) / Scott, Kimberly (Thesis director) / EscontrÃÂas, Gabriel (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Cognitive technology has been at the forefront of the minds of many technology, government, and business leaders, because of its potential to completely revolutionize their fields. Furthermore, individuals in financial statement auditor roles are especially focused on the impact of cognitive technology because of its potential to eliminate many of the tedious, repetitive tasks involved in their profession. Adopting new technologies that can autonomously collect more data from a broader range of sources, turn the data into business intelligence, and even make decisions based on that data begs the question of whether human roles in accounting will be completely replaced. A partial answer: If the ramifications of past technological advances are any indicator, cognitive technology will replace some human audit operations and grow some new and higher order roles for humans. It will shift the focus of accounting professionals to more complex judgment and analysis.
The next question: What do these changes in the roles and responsibilities look like for the auditors of the future? Cognitive technology will assuredly present new issues for which humans will have to find solutions.
• How will humans be able to test the accuracy and completeness of the decisions derived by cognitive systems?
• If cognitive computing systems rely on supervised learning, what is the most effective way to train systems?
• How will cognitive computing fair in an industry that experiences ever-changing industry regulations?
• Will cognitive technology enhance the quality of audits?
In order to answer these questions and many more, I plan on examining how cognitive technologies evolved into their use today. Based on this historic trajectory, stakeholder interviews, and industry research, I will forecast what auditing jobs may look like in the near future taking into account rapid advances in cognitive computing.
The conclusions forecast a future in auditing that is much more accurate, timely, and pleasant. Cognitive technologies allow auditors to test entire populations of transactions, to tackle audit issues on a more continuous basis, to alleviate the overload of work that occurs after fiscal year-end, and to focus on client interaction.
The next question: What do these changes in the roles and responsibilities look like for the auditors of the future? Cognitive technology will assuredly present new issues for which humans will have to find solutions.
• How will humans be able to test the accuracy and completeness of the decisions derived by cognitive systems?
• If cognitive computing systems rely on supervised learning, what is the most effective way to train systems?
• How will cognitive computing fair in an industry that experiences ever-changing industry regulations?
• Will cognitive technology enhance the quality of audits?
In order to answer these questions and many more, I plan on examining how cognitive technologies evolved into their use today. Based on this historic trajectory, stakeholder interviews, and industry research, I will forecast what auditing jobs may look like in the near future taking into account rapid advances in cognitive computing.
The conclusions forecast a future in auditing that is much more accurate, timely, and pleasant. Cognitive technologies allow auditors to test entire populations of transactions, to tackle audit issues on a more continuous basis, to alleviate the overload of work that occurs after fiscal year-end, and to focus on client interaction.
ContributorsWitkop, David (Author) / Dawson, Gregory (Thesis director) / Munshi, Perseus (Committee member) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The Internet has brought along countless benefits to society and for the case of this thesis, especially educational benefits. Students can now have endless resources to whatever they wish to learn. This is especially beneficial in a time where a clear majority of studies show that the U.S.'s financial literacy is in a concerning state. However, even though there may be a bounty of websites and programs available non-exclusively, they do not all effectively teach accounting and finance. In fact, many websites aimed at teaching accounting or finance simply replicate textbooks and glossaries, even though there are ways to make them more effective learning tools. Since the scope of this empirical observation is too large to confront, this thesis is mainly concerned with students currently learning accounting and finance who wish to have more supplemental learning information. Accordingly, the overarching argument of this thesis, is that college students aiming to learn accounting do not have enough resources to fully understand the classroom formulas and concepts. The creative solution for this problem is a website, name FIN-WIT aimed at providing financial content in plain language and with real-world examples.
ContributorsDitore, Heather Beatrice (Author) / Orpurt, Steven (Thesis director) / Sopha, Matthew (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
With growing levels of income inequality in the United States, it remains as important as ever to ensure indispensable public services are readily available to all members of society. This paper investigates four forms of public services (schools, libraries, fire stations, and police stations), first by researching the background of these services and their relation to poverty, and then by conducting geospatial and regression analysis. The author uses Esri's ArcGIS Pro software to quantify the proximity to public services from urban American neighborhoods (census tracts in the cities of Phoenix and Chicago). Afterwards, the measures indicating proximity are compared to the socioeconomic statuses of neighborhoods using regression analysis. The results indicate that pure proximity to these four services is not necessarily correlated to socioeconomic status. While the paper does uncover some correlations, such as a relationship between school quality and socioeconomic status, the majority of the findings negate the author's hypothesis and show that, in Phoenix and Chicago, there is not much discrepancy between neighborhoods and the extent to which they are able to access vital government-funded services.
ContributorsNorbury, Adam Charles (Author) / Simon, Alan (Thesis director) / Simon, Phil (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05