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Interpreting the meaning of objectives of an accounting program
Pergamon
Journal of Accounting Education, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 177-183, 1995 Copyright © 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0748-5751/95 $9.50 + .00
0748-5751(95 )00007-0
INTERPRETING THE MEANING OF OBJECTIVES OF AN ACCOUNTING
PROGRAM
Edmund Scribner NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY Abstract: AACSB mission-linked accreditation gives business schools and accounting pro-
grams an incentive to review their mission statements. Faculty and administrators are responsible for developing mission statements supported by specific objectives. Although the individuals participating in and affected by accounting education programs have objectives, the literature is not precise in defining what it means for the programs themselves to have objectives. Educational programs are social (multiperson) activities involving heterogeneous constituencies. Previous accounting literature outside the education context identifies three interpretations o f the objectives of a social activity. An examination of these interpretations sheds light on the difficulty of identifying a manageable, specific, internally consistent, meaningful, and broadly accepted set of objectives to support a general statement of mission.
INTRODUCTION Whether because of a general interest in mission statements for organizations (e.g., see Fuchsberg, 1994) or because of revised American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) standards that link accreditation to mission, accounting programs are renewing their attention to their mission statements. Bailey and Bentz (1991) caution that writing an accounting program mission statement, supported by specific goals and objectives, is a challenge that should not be underestimated. The purpose of this article is to describe a logical framework for interpreting the meaning of objectives of an accounting program and, thereby, to furnish insight into the feasibility of developing a statement of mission and supporting objectives. AACSB MISSION REQUIREMENT The AACSB (1993, pp. 9-10, 39-40) requires accredited business schools and accounting programs to articulate their missions. Included among the mission and objectives standards are requirements that each business school (1) have a clear and published mission statement that is consonant with that of the institution as a whole and that is periodically reviewed and revised as needed, (2) specify the educational objectives of each degree program and identify the characteristics of students and other constituents 177
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served, and (3) specify its relative emphasis on teaching, intellectual contributions, and service. In addition, the school must demonstrate that its mission is the outcome of a process that considers the viewpoints of various constituencies. In setting forth similar standards for accounting programs, the AACSB states that the mission and supporting objectives will provide a framework for the accreditation process. Thus it is appropriate to consider what it means for a school or program to have objectives. E D U C A T I O N AS A SOCIAL ACTIVITY Education, much like accounting, is a social (multiperson) activity that involves a variety of participants and stakeholders. Individuals and groups with interests in education programs include students, teachers, researchers, administrators, governing boards, employers, parents, accreditation agencies, donors, alumni, and society at large. Many educational institutions are also accountable to state administrative agencies and legislative bodies as well as to state taxpayers. The unique attitudes, preferences, and points of view of these individuals and groups potentially influence the objectives of an educational institution and its various programs, including the accounting program. Given the broad array of interests and activities associated with modern colleges and universities, the task of defining objectives for an educational institution and its programs transcends that of listing desirable attributes of students. The objectives of an accounting program should be consistent with those of the entity of which it is a part (Bailey & Bentz, 1991). This is an important observation because it implies that an accounting program must be responsive to constituencies of its parent institution as well as to those interested specifically in accounting education. In addition to being consistent with the objectives of larger entities, the accounting goals must be specific enough to permit measurement of achievement and to affect decisions regarding operation of the accounting program. M E A N I N G OF OBJECTIVES Dopuch and Sunder (1980) analyze the meaning of objectives of a social activity. They observe that individuals engage in a social activity when motivated by their own goals and objectives. Homogeneous groups of individuals may also be said to have objectives. As Dopuch and Sunder suggest, however, the meaning of the term "objective" becomes less clear when applied to the social activity itself. They analyze this concept by identifying three possible interpretations of the objectives of a social activity: functional objectives, common objectives, and dominant group objectives. Because formal accounting education is a social or multiperson activity, these interpretations may apply to the objectives of an accounting education program.
Objectives of an Accounting Program
179
Functional Objectives One way to interpret the objectives of an educational activity is as the union of the sets of objectives of its participants and other stakeholders. Dopuch and Sunder (1980) refer to this as a functional explanation of the activity. Individuals engage in the activity on a continuing basis because the outcomes of the activity correspond to the objectives of the individuals. Thus the union of all outcomes or consequences of the educational activity can be regarded as objectives of the activity. In effect, the functional approach amounts to listing all observable consequences of the activity. In the context of an accounting program, for instance, each of the following could be viewed by one constituent or another as an objective of an accounting program and would thus qualify as part of the union of all objectives: 1. Prepare students for the CPA exam. 2. Prepare students for entry-level positions in large public accounting firms, small tax practices, industry, and government. 3. Provide students with a general, rigorous college education with little emphasis on perishable technical facts. 4. Minimize the initial training costs borne by employers. 5. Minimize (or maximize) educational barriers to entry into the accounting profession. 6. Conduct basic and applied research. 7. Maximize the prestige of the institution. 8. Maximize the wealth, security, mobility, and prestige of individual faculty members or administrators. 9. Minimize the cost of operating the institution. 10. Provide off-campus courses and extension services to outlying areas. 11. Furnish inexpensive continuing professional education programs to practitioners. 12. Promote economic development of the region in which the institution is located. This list is only a sample of possible objectives. A complete set could be so large as to make the objectives statement unwieldy. In addition, because the functional interpretation implies acceptance of the union o f all existing outcomes as the set of objectives, it would not necessarily furnish direction for the program or lead to the improvement of outcomes. Finally, as a reading of the partial list above suggests, it is likely that the union of all objectives of all important stakeholders would include contradictory or incompatible objectives. For example, the objective of an administrator to enhance the prestige of an accounting program through research and publication might conflict with the objective of a state legislature to minimize cost through assignment of heavy teaching loads. Such a conflict would complicate the AACSB-required specification of the relative empha-
180
E. Scribner
sis on teaching and intellectual contributions. The objective of a student to pass the C P A exam upon graduation might conflict with the objective of faculty, perhaps based on a different perception of what is best for the student, to use the available time to emphasize skills tailored more toward a long-term career. There is probably heterogeneity within the general group of students; the objective of a gifted student to obtain a rigorous education might conflict with the objective of a weaker student to obtain easy entry into the profession. Different sizes and types of employers might hold different beliefs about desirable student skills and attributes. Complicating the problem is the reasonable assumption that individuals' objectives change over time, making the process dynamic rather than static. By allowing each institution to limit its mission, the AACSB's missionlinked approach to accreditation should reduce the set of conflicting objectives faced by a given school. Nevertheless, the feasibility of a functional objectives interpretation, even with the limited array of stakeholders involved in a single school, remains unclear.
Common Objectives A second possibility offered by Dopuch and Sunder (1980) is to define the objectives of the social activity as the i n t e r s e c t i o n of individual objectives. The intersection consists of the set of objectives c o m m o n to all participants and constituents. If all individuals have identical objectives, the intersection is the same as the union. At the other extreme, if each individual's objectives are unique, the intersection is null. The statement by Bailey and Bentz (1991) that mission-linked accreditation presumes the existence of well-developed objectives that are "both widely understood and accepted" (p. 172) suggests a c o m m o n objectives interpretation. Ireland and Hitt (1992) observe that both the number and types of stakeholders interested in modern organizations have increased. They believe also that stakeholders have become more vocal. Nevertheless, Ireland and Hitt contend that it is feasible to obtain a reasonable level of consensus on a general statement of mission for the organization as a whole if all stakeholders are at least given an opportunity to furnish input. The main difficulty, however, should arise when developing specific objectives. Dopuch and Sunder (1980) discuss a tradeoff between consensus building and specificity. In general, broader acceptance requires less specificity as individuals seek r o o m to interpret the objectives in such a way as to protect their own interests. The existence of vague mission statements with inexplicit supporting objectives is evidence of this tradeoff. The AACSB's abandonment of centralized, standardized accreditation guidelines in favor of a more flexible, decentralized, institution-specific approach may itself be further evidence of the difficulty of obtaining consensus on the mission and goals o f business programs, not to mention higher educa-
Objectives of an AccountingProgram
181
tion in general. (Banta [1993] reports that the possibility of obtaining consensus even on an issue as narrow as goals and objectives for promoting students' critical thinking seems virtually impossible. ) The new AACSB approach at least reduces the number and heterogeneity of stakeholders to be considered. That it reduces the problem sufficiently to make a major difference is not clear. It seems likely that obtaining wide acceptance of a significant set of objectives will lead to an undesirable level of vagueness.
Dominant Group Objectives The third interpretation given by Dopuch and Sunder is that the objectives of the social activity consist of the objectives of a certain dominant individual or homogeneous group. The objectives of all others become irrelevant. For example, if students are the dominant group, the objectives of accounting education consist of the objectives o f the students. Dopuch and Sunder point out that the dominant group interpretation requires the actual existence of a group that has the power to impose its will. Otherwise, other interests will be considered, and one of the preceding two interpretations will occur. Gaa (1986) distinguishes between (1) the positive question of what, if any, particular group has the power to impose its will on all others and (2) the normative question of what group should have priority. In the context of education, both questions are unanswered. The consequences of not knowing the answers to these questions are significant because they cast doubt on the feasibility of the dominant group interpretation of the objectives of an accounting program. With regard to the positive question in the educational setting, it is not clear which group has the power to impose its will on the others and therefore qualifies as the dominant group. For a state-supported institution, the state legislature presumably qualifies; but legislatures and governing boards, by necessity as absentee principals, leave specifics to the school's administration. Moreover, the legislature has its own internal heterogeneity and external constituencies and lacks a clear definition of its goals for education. An aggressive administrator within a business school might succeed for a time in imposing his or her will on an accounting program but is constrained by higher administration and, at some point, by the faculty and students. Similarly, accounting faculty must meet certain norms mandated by the institution as a whole and cannot impose their will on the program. Beaver (1992) notes that business schools and accounting programs must conform to the standards of their universities and are not immune from competitive pressures. Finally, it is questionable whether students have the power to impose their will on accounting programs or that they even constitute a group with homogeneous objectives. Similar observations can be made about any of the many constituencies of accounting education.
182
E. Scribner
With regard to the normative question of whose interests should receive priority, students as a group are most often mentioned as the focal point of higher education. Choi (1993) redirects this somewhat by stating that students should increasingly be thought of not as end-users of accounting education but as products trained to meet the needs of employers, who are the ultimate users of the services of accounting programs. This concept of employer as customer underlies such studies as Novin and Tucker (1993) that advocate minimizing coursework not perceived by employers to be highly relevant to practice. Although meeting the objectives of employers indirectly meets the objectives of students to obtain employment, this view downplays any non-employment aspects of a college education. Moreover, employers, like students, are unlikely to be homogeneous in their expectations of an accounting program. Someone must decide whether to attempt to design the program to appeal to all types of accounting employers or to some particular subset. Although a business may find that identifying its customers is straightforward, educators struggle with the problem of identifying "customers." The exclusion of the interests of any major group is difficult to justify on either positive or normative grounds. CONCLUSIONS Typical discussions of missions, goals, and objectives of an accounting education program fail to specify what it means for multiperson activities to have objectives. Borrowing from previous work by Dopuch and Sunder (1980), this article offers a logical way to interpret the objectives of an accounting program in terms of the objectives of interested groups and individuals. Organizing one's thinking in this more systematic way points out potential difficulties that could arise during the process of developing a workable, meaningful, measurable mission statement (with specific objectives) for an accounting program. Administrators and faculty who establish missions committees can thus obtain a clearer idea of what problems to anticipate. Forging a general statement of mission, though challenging, should be easier than obtaining agreement on meaningful, specific, supporting objectives. The AACSB's decision to decentralize the development of mission statements reduces the complexity to some extent and should enable institutions to avoid being evaluated on national criteria inconsistent with their resources and normal activities. Moreover, the mission requirement (AACSB, 1993, p. 39) states only that "consideration" has been given to the constituents. Still, the set of possibly conflicting objectives of the various constituents of an accounting program remains sizeable. If, as is usually assumed in the social choice literature, individuals act out of self interest, the task of consensus building will be formidable for the reasons described in this article. If this assumption is invalid, a sufficient number of individu-
Objectives of an Accounting Program
183
als m a y b e w i l l i n g to s a c r i f i c e t h e i r g o a l s to a c h i e v e a w o r k a b l e d o c u m e n t . At worst, the process of formal planning should stimulate communication and beneficial discussion among stakeholders and should improve the educational process.
REFERENCES American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business [AACSB]. (1993). Achieving quality and continuous improvement through self-evaluation and peer review: Standards f o r accreditation o f business administration and accounting (Rev. ed. ). St. Louis: Author. Bailey, A., & Bentz, W. (1991). Accounting accreditation: Change and transition. Issues in Accounting Education, 6, 168-177. Banta, T. (1993 ). Toward a plan for using national assessment to ensure continuous improvement of higher education. The Journal o f General Education, 1, 33-58. Beaver, W. (1992). Challenges in accounting education. Issues in Accounting Education, 7, 135-144. Choi, F. (1993). Accounting education for the 21st century: Meeting the challenges. Issues in Accounting Education, 8, 423-430. Dopuch, N., & Sunder, S. (1980). FASB's statements on objectives and elements of financial accounting: A review. The Accounting Review, 55, 1-21. Fuchsberg, G. (1994, January 7). 'Visioning' missions becomes its own mission. The Wall Street Journal, pp. B1, B4. Gaa, J. (1986). User primary in corporate financial reporting: A social contract approach. The Accounting Review, 61,435-454. Ireland, R. D., & Hitt, M. (1992). Mission statements: Importance, challenge, and recommendations for development. Business Horizons, 35, 34-42. Novin, A., & Tucker, J. (1993). The composition of 150-hour accounting programs: The public accountants' point of view. Issues in Accounting Education, 8, 273-291.
Journal of Accounting Education, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 177-183, 1995 Copyright © 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0748-5751/95 $9.50 + .00
0748-5751(95 )00007-0
INTERPRETING THE MEANING OF OBJECTIVES OF AN ACCOUNTING
PROGRAM
Edmund Scribner NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY Abstract: AACSB mission-linked accreditation gives business schools and accounting pro-
grams an incentive to review their mission statements. Faculty and administrators are responsible for developing mission statements supported by specific objectives. Although the individuals participating in and affected by accounting education programs have objectives, the literature is not precise in defining what it means for the programs themselves to have objectives. Educational programs are social (multiperson) activities involving heterogeneous constituencies. Previous accounting literature outside the education context identifies three interpretations o f the objectives of a social activity. An examination of these interpretations sheds light on the difficulty of identifying a manageable, specific, internally consistent, meaningful, and broadly accepted set of objectives to support a general statement of mission.
INTRODUCTION Whether because of a general interest in mission statements for organizations (e.g., see Fuchsberg, 1994) or because of revised American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) standards that link accreditation to mission, accounting programs are renewing their attention to their mission statements. Bailey and Bentz (1991) caution that writing an accounting program mission statement, supported by specific goals and objectives, is a challenge that should not be underestimated. The purpose of this article is to describe a logical framework for interpreting the meaning of objectives of an accounting program and, thereby, to furnish insight into the feasibility of developing a statement of mission and supporting objectives. AACSB MISSION REQUIREMENT The AACSB (1993, pp. 9-10, 39-40) requires accredited business schools and accounting programs to articulate their missions. Included among the mission and objectives standards are requirements that each business school (1) have a clear and published mission statement that is consonant with that of the institution as a whole and that is periodically reviewed and revised as needed, (2) specify the educational objectives of each degree program and identify the characteristics of students and other constituents 177
178
E. Scribner
served, and (3) specify its relative emphasis on teaching, intellectual contributions, and service. In addition, the school must demonstrate that its mission is the outcome of a process that considers the viewpoints of various constituencies. In setting forth similar standards for accounting programs, the AACSB states that the mission and supporting objectives will provide a framework for the accreditation process. Thus it is appropriate to consider what it means for a school or program to have objectives. E D U C A T I O N AS A SOCIAL ACTIVITY Education, much like accounting, is a social (multiperson) activity that involves a variety of participants and stakeholders. Individuals and groups with interests in education programs include students, teachers, researchers, administrators, governing boards, employers, parents, accreditation agencies, donors, alumni, and society at large. Many educational institutions are also accountable to state administrative agencies and legislative bodies as well as to state taxpayers. The unique attitudes, preferences, and points of view of these individuals and groups potentially influence the objectives of an educational institution and its various programs, including the accounting program. Given the broad array of interests and activities associated with modern colleges and universities, the task of defining objectives for an educational institution and its programs transcends that of listing desirable attributes of students. The objectives of an accounting program should be consistent with those of the entity of which it is a part (Bailey & Bentz, 1991). This is an important observation because it implies that an accounting program must be responsive to constituencies of its parent institution as well as to those interested specifically in accounting education. In addition to being consistent with the objectives of larger entities, the accounting goals must be specific enough to permit measurement of achievement and to affect decisions regarding operation of the accounting program. M E A N I N G OF OBJECTIVES Dopuch and Sunder (1980) analyze the meaning of objectives of a social activity. They observe that individuals engage in a social activity when motivated by their own goals and objectives. Homogeneous groups of individuals may also be said to have objectives. As Dopuch and Sunder suggest, however, the meaning of the term "objective" becomes less clear when applied to the social activity itself. They analyze this concept by identifying three possible interpretations of the objectives of a social activity: functional objectives, common objectives, and dominant group objectives. Because formal accounting education is a social or multiperson activity, these interpretations may apply to the objectives of an accounting education program.
Objectives of an Accounting Program
179
Functional Objectives One way to interpret the objectives of an educational activity is as the union of the sets of objectives of its participants and other stakeholders. Dopuch and Sunder (1980) refer to this as a functional explanation of the activity. Individuals engage in the activity on a continuing basis because the outcomes of the activity correspond to the objectives of the individuals. Thus the union of all outcomes or consequences of the educational activity can be regarded as objectives of the activity. In effect, the functional approach amounts to listing all observable consequences of the activity. In the context of an accounting program, for instance, each of the following could be viewed by one constituent or another as an objective of an accounting program and would thus qualify as part of the union of all objectives: 1. Prepare students for the CPA exam. 2. Prepare students for entry-level positions in large public accounting firms, small tax practices, industry, and government. 3. Provide students with a general, rigorous college education with little emphasis on perishable technical facts. 4. Minimize the initial training costs borne by employers. 5. Minimize (or maximize) educational barriers to entry into the accounting profession. 6. Conduct basic and applied research. 7. Maximize the prestige of the institution. 8. Maximize the wealth, security, mobility, and prestige of individual faculty members or administrators. 9. Minimize the cost of operating the institution. 10. Provide off-campus courses and extension services to outlying areas. 11. Furnish inexpensive continuing professional education programs to practitioners. 12. Promote economic development of the region in which the institution is located. This list is only a sample of possible objectives. A complete set could be so large as to make the objectives statement unwieldy. In addition, because the functional interpretation implies acceptance of the union o f all existing outcomes as the set of objectives, it would not necessarily furnish direction for the program or lead to the improvement of outcomes. Finally, as a reading of the partial list above suggests, it is likely that the union of all objectives of all important stakeholders would include contradictory or incompatible objectives. For example, the objective of an administrator to enhance the prestige of an accounting program through research and publication might conflict with the objective of a state legislature to minimize cost through assignment of heavy teaching loads. Such a conflict would complicate the AACSB-required specification of the relative empha-
180
E. Scribner
sis on teaching and intellectual contributions. The objective of a student to pass the C P A exam upon graduation might conflict with the objective of faculty, perhaps based on a different perception of what is best for the student, to use the available time to emphasize skills tailored more toward a long-term career. There is probably heterogeneity within the general group of students; the objective of a gifted student to obtain a rigorous education might conflict with the objective of a weaker student to obtain easy entry into the profession. Different sizes and types of employers might hold different beliefs about desirable student skills and attributes. Complicating the problem is the reasonable assumption that individuals' objectives change over time, making the process dynamic rather than static. By allowing each institution to limit its mission, the AACSB's missionlinked approach to accreditation should reduce the set of conflicting objectives faced by a given school. Nevertheless, the feasibility of a functional objectives interpretation, even with the limited array of stakeholders involved in a single school, remains unclear.
Common Objectives A second possibility offered by Dopuch and Sunder (1980) is to define the objectives of the social activity as the i n t e r s e c t i o n of individual objectives. The intersection consists of the set of objectives c o m m o n to all participants and constituents. If all individuals have identical objectives, the intersection is the same as the union. At the other extreme, if each individual's objectives are unique, the intersection is null. The statement by Bailey and Bentz (1991) that mission-linked accreditation presumes the existence of well-developed objectives that are "both widely understood and accepted" (p. 172) suggests a c o m m o n objectives interpretation. Ireland and Hitt (1992) observe that both the number and types of stakeholders interested in modern organizations have increased. They believe also that stakeholders have become more vocal. Nevertheless, Ireland and Hitt contend that it is feasible to obtain a reasonable level of consensus on a general statement of mission for the organization as a whole if all stakeholders are at least given an opportunity to furnish input. The main difficulty, however, should arise when developing specific objectives. Dopuch and Sunder (1980) discuss a tradeoff between consensus building and specificity. In general, broader acceptance requires less specificity as individuals seek r o o m to interpret the objectives in such a way as to protect their own interests. The existence of vague mission statements with inexplicit supporting objectives is evidence of this tradeoff. The AACSB's abandonment of centralized, standardized accreditation guidelines in favor of a more flexible, decentralized, institution-specific approach may itself be further evidence of the difficulty of obtaining consensus on the mission and goals o f business programs, not to mention higher educa-
Objectives of an AccountingProgram
181
tion in general. (Banta [1993] reports that the possibility of obtaining consensus even on an issue as narrow as goals and objectives for promoting students' critical thinking seems virtually impossible. ) The new AACSB approach at least reduces the number and heterogeneity of stakeholders to be considered. That it reduces the problem sufficiently to make a major difference is not clear. It seems likely that obtaining wide acceptance of a significant set of objectives will lead to an undesirable level of vagueness.
Dominant Group Objectives The third interpretation given by Dopuch and Sunder is that the objectives of the social activity consist of the objectives of a certain dominant individual or homogeneous group. The objectives of all others become irrelevant. For example, if students are the dominant group, the objectives of accounting education consist of the objectives o f the students. Dopuch and Sunder point out that the dominant group interpretation requires the actual existence of a group that has the power to impose its will. Otherwise, other interests will be considered, and one of the preceding two interpretations will occur. Gaa (1986) distinguishes between (1) the positive question of what, if any, particular group has the power to impose its will on all others and (2) the normative question of what group should have priority. In the context of education, both questions are unanswered. The consequences of not knowing the answers to these questions are significant because they cast doubt on the feasibility of the dominant group interpretation of the objectives of an accounting program. With regard to the positive question in the educational setting, it is not clear which group has the power to impose its will on the others and therefore qualifies as the dominant group. For a state-supported institution, the state legislature presumably qualifies; but legislatures and governing boards, by necessity as absentee principals, leave specifics to the school's administration. Moreover, the legislature has its own internal heterogeneity and external constituencies and lacks a clear definition of its goals for education. An aggressive administrator within a business school might succeed for a time in imposing his or her will on an accounting program but is constrained by higher administration and, at some point, by the faculty and students. Similarly, accounting faculty must meet certain norms mandated by the institution as a whole and cannot impose their will on the program. Beaver (1992) notes that business schools and accounting programs must conform to the standards of their universities and are not immune from competitive pressures. Finally, it is questionable whether students have the power to impose their will on accounting programs or that they even constitute a group with homogeneous objectives. Similar observations can be made about any of the many constituencies of accounting education.
182
E. Scribner
With regard to the normative question of whose interests should receive priority, students as a group are most often mentioned as the focal point of higher education. Choi (1993) redirects this somewhat by stating that students should increasingly be thought of not as end-users of accounting education but as products trained to meet the needs of employers, who are the ultimate users of the services of accounting programs. This concept of employer as customer underlies such studies as Novin and Tucker (1993) that advocate minimizing coursework not perceived by employers to be highly relevant to practice. Although meeting the objectives of employers indirectly meets the objectives of students to obtain employment, this view downplays any non-employment aspects of a college education. Moreover, employers, like students, are unlikely to be homogeneous in their expectations of an accounting program. Someone must decide whether to attempt to design the program to appeal to all types of accounting employers or to some particular subset. Although a business may find that identifying its customers is straightforward, educators struggle with the problem of identifying "customers." The exclusion of the interests of any major group is difficult to justify on either positive or normative grounds. CONCLUSIONS Typical discussions of missions, goals, and objectives of an accounting education program fail to specify what it means for multiperson activities to have objectives. Borrowing from previous work by Dopuch and Sunder (1980), this article offers a logical way to interpret the objectives of an accounting program in terms of the objectives of interested groups and individuals. Organizing one's thinking in this more systematic way points out potential difficulties that could arise during the process of developing a workable, meaningful, measurable mission statement (with specific objectives) for an accounting program. Administrators and faculty who establish missions committees can thus obtain a clearer idea of what problems to anticipate. Forging a general statement of mission, though challenging, should be easier than obtaining agreement on meaningful, specific, supporting objectives. The AACSB's decision to decentralize the development of mission statements reduces the complexity to some extent and should enable institutions to avoid being evaluated on national criteria inconsistent with their resources and normal activities. Moreover, the mission requirement (AACSB, 1993, p. 39) states only that "consideration" has been given to the constituents. Still, the set of possibly conflicting objectives of the various constituents of an accounting program remains sizeable. If, as is usually assumed in the social choice literature, individuals act out of self interest, the task of consensus building will be formidable for the reasons described in this article. If this assumption is invalid, a sufficient number of individu-
Objectives of an Accounting Program
183
als m a y b e w i l l i n g to s a c r i f i c e t h e i r g o a l s to a c h i e v e a w o r k a b l e d o c u m e n t . At worst, the process of formal planning should stimulate communication and beneficial discussion among stakeholders and should improve the educational process.
REFERENCES American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business [AACSB]. (1993). Achieving quality and continuous improvement through self-evaluation and peer review: Standards f o r accreditation o f business administration and accounting (Rev. ed. ). St. Louis: Author. Bailey, A., & Bentz, W. (1991). Accounting accreditation: Change and transition. Issues in Accounting Education, 6, 168-177. Banta, T. (1993 ). Toward a plan for using national assessment to ensure continuous improvement of higher education. The Journal o f General Education, 1, 33-58. Beaver, W. (1992). Challenges in accounting education. Issues in Accounting Education, 7, 135-144. Choi, F. (1993). Accounting education for the 21st century: Meeting the challenges. Issues in Accounting Education, 8, 423-430. Dopuch, N., & Sunder, S. (1980). FASB's statements on objectives and elements of financial accounting: A review. The Accounting Review, 55, 1-21. Fuchsberg, G. (1994, January 7). 'Visioning' missions becomes its own mission. The Wall Street Journal, pp. B1, B4. Gaa, J. (1986). User primary in corporate financial reporting: A social contract approach. The Accounting Review, 61,435-454. Ireland, R. D., & Hitt, M. (1992). Mission statements: Importance, challenge, and recommendations for development. Business Horizons, 35, 34-42. Novin, A., & Tucker, J. (1993). The composition of 150-hour accounting programs: The public accountants' point of view. Issues in Accounting Education, 8, 273-291.