Assurance services firms have attempted to mitigate turnover and personnel shortages by offering flexible work arrangements (FWAs) to their professional staff. Little is known however, about what factors affect whether these professionals choose to adopt a FWA. This study examines factors potentially associated with both intentions to adopt and ultimate adoption of a FWA for a sample of seniors, managers, and partners at two national and one regional assurance services firms. Results indicate that intentions to adopt a FWA are significantly affected by the importance of opinions of workplace referents, family considerations, and gender. A marginally significant effect was also found for likelihood of organizational support and work consequences. A subset of these factors was found to affect actual adoption of a FWA. The results are discussed in terms of implications for the human resources department of assurance services firms striving to create an appropriate work/family balance for their professionals as well as suggesting avenues for future research.

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Tax provisions that reduce deductions and credits by imposing floors and phase-outs have become an increasingly popular tool used by Congress. However, these provisions also obscure the marginal tax rate, thereby potentially impairing the ability of taxpayers to make optimal decisions. We investigate the effects of floors and phase-outs on taxpayers' ability to determine their correct marginal tax rates and how this may affect tax-rate-dependent investment decisions. To investigate these potential effects we created an experimental setting in which taxpayers (89 M.B.A. students) were asked to maximize their after-tax income by choosing between a taxable and nontaxable bond. Each participant was assigned to one of three experimental tax systems: low complexity with no floors or phase-outs, medium complexity with one floor, and high complexity with both a floor and phase-out. The effective marginal tax rate was the same in each condition. The results indicate that decision performance was significantly better for participants facing the low complexity system than those in the medium or high complexity systems.

This research addresses the importance of tax holidays in the subsidiary location decisions of U.S.-based multinationals. The study uses the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) as a basis for the development and analysis of the importance of location and firm-specific factors in multinationals' plant location decisions. Sixty-six experienced tax executives of major U.S.-based multinationals were asked to review a case study involving a subsidiary plant location scenario and to evaluate the relative importance of all of the relevant location-specific factors using the AHP method of pairwise comparisons. The results indicate that tax holidays are rated among the lower half of a set of 29 factors that firms consider. However, when tax holidays are relevant they act as an incentive to investment rather than discouraging it. The availability of tax-sparing credits and the firm's foreign tax credit status have little impact in making tax holidays more influential relative to other decision factors.

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