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Purpose The purpose of the paper is to examine the corporate social responsibility (CSR) – earnings response coefficient (ERC) relation in the code-law tradition and the early stage of CSR practice to fill the research gap in the literature on CSR–ERC relation. Design/methodology/approach The authors use an association framework for the study. They use the firms listed on Korea Stock Exchange because Korea is classified as a code-law country and most of firms in Korea are in the early stages of CSR development, and Korean samples are considered credible and stable because of the effective financial reforms initiated by Korean government in the late 1990s. The authors collected data from the two data sources: KisValue and Korea Corporate Governance Service. Findings The authors find the following. First, CSR is negatively associated with ERC, which indicates that the ability of earnings to capture CSR implication is lower under the circumstances of the code-law and the early stage of CSR development. Second, political sensitivity (business group effect) is positively (negatively) associated with CSR–ERC relation, which means that the politically noticeable CSR concerns strengthen the CSR–ERC relation, and the inclusion of a firm in a business group weakens the CSR–ERC relation. Research limitations/implications The paper derives theoretical implications on the quality of earnings reflecting CSR activities, provides practical implications to the investors who target international capital markets and is expected to help broaden the understanding of CSR–ERC relations in international capital markets. Practical implications The paper provides practical implications to the investors who target international capital markets. Regarding the interpretation of accounting earnings that contain information on CSR activities, the legal origin and the CSR development stages are considered as key factors. Specifically, in the code-law and the early CSR environment, the potential benefits of CSR activities tend to be evaluated optimistically and reflected aggressively in reported earnings. Thus, if investors are in a similar international investment environment, they may need to recalibrate estimates in their decision model with additional CSR information from non-financial sources (e.g. sustainability reports). Originality/value The paper is based on the international institutional theory and the discussion of CSR development stages. The international institutional theory states that the legal origin is one of the factors that can help explain the differential aggressiveness of reported earnings by country. In addition, the discussion of CSR stages argues that the CSR practices can be differentially implemented by CSR stages. The authors try to fill the gap in the existing literature by conducting an empirical study based on data from Korea Stock Exchange.

Most states now require students who sit for the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) examination to have 150 semester hours of college education. The 150-hour requirement is intended to, among other benefits, improve the preparation of students for the profession, increase their chances of success on the CPA exam, ensure a more wellrounded education for new entrants to the profession, and attract better students to the field of accounting. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether accounting majors' perceptions regarding this requirement match the anticipated benefits of the 150-hour rule, and whether they match the realities of what has occurred in localities where the rule has been in effect. Data were collected from 247 accounting majors via a questionnaire. The results indicate that, in most respects, students' perceptions align fairly well with the intentions and the realities of the 150-hour requirement. For example, most students indicate an interest in obtaining a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree for their fifth year of education. This would be a more balanced education envisioned by the framers of the requirement. Most students feel that they should receive additional compensation for the added education. In contrast to the reality in most locations, they do not expect accounting firms to increase compensation for those with 150 hours of education. Although students generally were not in favor of the 150-hour rule, a majority indicated they would continue to pursue becoming a CPA despite the 150-hour requirement. Still, a substantial number of students indicated they would pursue the Certified Management Accountant (CMA) designation rather than pursuing the CPA.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of the paper is to help organizations more effectively select and evaluate internal auditors by introducing a multi-criteria decision model, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) that has been applied to many areas of managerial decision-making. Design/methodology/approach -The paper structures the decision hierarchy in entering level internal auditor selection based on the competency framework for internal auditing (CFIA) and provides an illustrative application example as part of a decision support system. Findings -Recruiting and hiring qualified employees is one of the critical issues facing any organization. The selection of internal auditors is not an exception. Making the wrong choice can prove to be very costly as organizations try to uncover candidates' potential for success. Recently, there have been increasing numbers of research papers regarding the employee selection process. Originality/value -Investigates an area that has not seen much progress in the auditing and auditor management field. Contributes to internal auditing research and practice.

Recently, the Institute of Internal Auditors published a framework that summarized a listing of competency standards, the Competency Framework for Internal Auditing (CFIA), outlining the attributes required by all internal auditors to achieve a high level of professional competence. One of the biggest concerns in the application of this framework is the onerous number of potential factors to be considered. In this paper, using factor analysis, we attempted to reduce the number of skills while maintaining the overall significance of the original framework. The study also sought to obtain the opinions of peer internal auditors on the perceived importance of these various skills. Our findings are important to researchers who can revisit the current internal auditor selection models and reformulate, if necessary, and apply those models to more empirical research using the reduced number of factors introduced in this paper. For organizations and practitioners, these results aid in streamlining their internal auditor selection processes by utilizing a more focused set of factors. SUMMARYPublic scrutiny of corporate practices is now at its highest level in decades, following, for example, Barings, Enron, WorldCom and other global corporate scandals. As a result, the strengths of an organization's internal auditing function have become even more critical. One of the critical dimensions of an organization's internal audit function is the quality of its internal auditing staff. Important issues in helping to guarantee high-quality staffing levels are the criteria used for internal auditor selection, appointments, and promotions. Recently, the Institute