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Differences in the perceived usefulness of five multiple-attribute decision support systems versus a basic spreadsheet are empirically assessed. Twenty-four college faculty members participated in a repeated measures experiment in which they used decision support software for personal computers to analyse semistructured multiple-attribute problems. The software packages employed were Criterium, Expert Choice, Logical Decision, VIMDA, VISA and the spreadsheet package Quattro Pro. A questionnaire was developed to assess user-friendliness of the software, confidence in the procedure implemented by the software, and users' confidence in their results when employing the decision aids. Time to reach a decision was also measured. Significant differences were found in the overall way users ranked these aids, in the perceived user-friendliness and the confidence in procedure among aids, and in the time it took to arrive at a result.

Presents the findings concerning a search for an objective way of assessing the quality of commercially‐available, multi‐criteria decision support software. As hardware prices continue to decline, consumers are spending relatively large sums of money on software. There is a powerful need for decision makers to justify these cash outlays based on the impact on the quality of the decisions made using multi‐criteria tools. After a thorough literary search for such an assessment uncovered the lack of field‐tested assessment batteries, develops an evaluation tool and undertakes an experiment to gain insight on the performance of this evaluation tool.

Entry-level public accountants in the U.S. must satisfy a litany of historically unparalleled requirements and demands. This unique set of challenges calls forth new questions about how effectively entry-level accountants are navigating the divide between their conceptual educations and the practical rigors of public practice. To examine these questions, we relied on qualitative analysis predicated on a theoretical framework of constructivism and systems theory. Our study confirmed practitioners' perceptions about the preparation of entry-level accountants that have been documented for nearly a hundred years: Entry-level accountants' shortcomings often include written and oral communications skills, interpersonal skills and critical thinking skills. However, what is unique to this study is that we also considered faculty perspectives. Faculty concurred with practitioners' perspectives on entry-level accountants' strengths and weaknesses-noting considerable growth in most problem areas over the college years. Practitioners and faculty also largely agreed about the pathway to successful and unsuccessful careers in public accounting. We suggest that continuing the historical perspective of extreme separation between academia and the business world is not particularly beneficial to the career preparation of junior accountants. Rather, we recommend that viewing accounting faculty and practitioners as part of the same continuum is likely to be more advantageous to the preparation of entry-level accountants and to the profession as a whole. We also conclude that differences in faculty and practitioner perspectives serve as checks and balances on the accounting profession-although more collaboration might facilitate greater improvements.

An analysis of 177 students at an AACSB-accredited university explores the impact of the instructional delivery mode used on students’ course performance. A comparison of students’ performance as measured by final course grades earned is analyzed to determine the impact (or lack of it) of face-to-face versus online instructional delivery modes, holding all other variables constant.