Accounting transactions are becoming more complex, and more extensive accounting guidance is provided on a continuous basis in the accounting standards. In addition, accounting guidance changes often and additional guidance is added to the standards regularly. In view of this immense amount of accounting knowledge that an accountant can be expected to have, exacerbated by often multifaceted structures in accounting problems, it can be challenging and onerous to solve certain accounting problems. The premise of this study is that accounting problems can also be solved in a less complex manner with reference to the foundational accounting concepts included in the Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting (CF). The solution to the accounting problem using the CF should result in a similar answer had the detailed, complex accounting guidance been consulted. This is based on the understanding that the detailed guidance is consistent with the CF and that the CF is not underdeveloped. In the experience of the author of this dissertation, however, the CF is rarely used to consider the accounting treatment of specific transactions and the first point of reference is usually the detailed, specific guidance. In order to impart a practice of incorporating the CF in problem-solving, the study in this dissertation is underpinned by educational philosophies rooted mainly in constructivism, and specifically in Ausubel’s subsumption theory. Applied to accounting education, this theory suggests a frameworkbased approach whereby educators first instil a detailed knowledge of the CF in an Accounting course and thereafter present details of specific accounting transactions by building and crossreferencing to the foundational concepts in the CF. In addition, the paradigm in Accounting courses should also incorporate problems and experiments through which students can construct their own knowledge, rather than being passive recipients of an educator’s teaching style. Recent literature on framework-based teaching suggests that such an approach is beneficial as it enhances lifelong learning. This study reported on a framework-based approach incorporated in an Accounting course and aimed to determine students’ ability to solve complex accounting problems by referring only to the CF, as well as to determine the factors that could influence their ability to solve the problems and the preferred problem-solving approach of students in facing future accounting problems. In order to address the broad aim of this study, it was divided into two sections, each to identify and analyse a different aspect of accounting problem-solving that incorporated the CF. The study in this dissertation focused mainly on an interpretive research paradigm. The first project had the primary objective of determining whether students have the ability to solve complex accounting problems by using only the CF and determining which factors could influence their ability. This was established by analysing the content and results of an assignment administered to third-year Accounting students at a South African university in which students were required to solve problems using only the CF. The second project had the objective of determining the preferred future approach students will take in solving accounting problems after they have been exposed to a framework-based assignment. This was established through qualitative measures and augmented by a questionnaire to analyse the students’ perceptions. The contributions of this dissertation are manifold and include, but are not limited to, the realisation that a conceptual approach to accounting education is beneficial in Accounting courses. The results in this study indicate that the ability of students to solve complex accounting problems by referring only to the CF may depend on the complexity of the scenario and the students’ familiarity with the problem. In addition, after being exposed to a framework-based assignment, students may tend to prefer a mixed approach in solving accounting problems, which entails a combination of the concepts in the CF and specific accounting guidance governing a particular transaction. The author also believes that this study makes a practical contribution by providing an actual framework-based assignment which can be used or adapted by other Accounting educators to use in similar courses, or to help them develop similar assignments or case studies or to replicate the study. From an educational perspective, it is recommended that Accounting educators incorporate an emphasis on the CF in their teaching approach. As students are exposed to opportunities to exercise their judgement using the concepts included in the CF, they will gain experience in this and be able to exercise better judgement in future. Each time a student is exposed to a problem requiring to be solved using the CF, or is required to make necessary judgements with regard to the CF, it will lead to the creation of new knowledge which the student can constantly link and cross-reference to existing knowledge and experiences. It also appears that, when students are exposed to problem-solving using the CF, it may lead to accountants adopting a more balanced approach by considering more CF constructs in solving future accounting problems. Although the study in this dissertation was conducted at only one university, its implications are by no means limited to this institution. Extrapolation of results cannot be attempted due to the nature of the research design, but the results in this study are valuable and enhance accounting education literature in better understanding students’ problem-solving abilities and their preferred problemsolving approach. The research is therefore valuable to any Accounting educator, as well as the institutional bodies guiding accounting education and its syllabi. It is hoped also that some of the findings will inspire other educational institutions to promote a framework-based approach in an innovative manner. / MCom (Accountancy), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

The profession of chartered accountancy (CA) is critical to the economic, social and cultural development of South Africa. It has the potential to play a broader leadership role in the development of the financial skills the country needs so desperately. Extensive research has shown that South Africa has far too few CAs to satisfy the needs of the economy. The profession itself is, however, facing numerous challenges especially given the high expectations of employers of newly qualified CAs and the image of the profession in South Africa in regard to transforming professional demographics, a vestige of the apartheid regime. Many commentators agree that the fundamental flaw in accounting education is that it has remained static while the profession has changed. There is growing consensus among accounting professionals that recent accounting graduates do not adequately meet the standards set by potential employers in the modern, globalised business environment. One university that offers an accredited CA programme is the North-West University (NWU) which is perfectly placed to draw students from rural and urban areas alike; it has the potential to make a significant contribution to the accountancy skills shortage of the country and, hence, contribute to the economy and broader society. However, being newly formed as a result of government‟s merger of various historic institutions, the NWU faces some tough challenges in its endeavours to contribute to the delivery of CAs. The NWU must identify and break down the barriers, limitations and weaknesses that prohibit its students from achieving optimal results, especially the barriers that can, at least partly, be controlled or influenced by the university. The various studies reported on in this thesis are all built around this pivotal theme, i.e. they all endeavour to reveal the hurdles the institution needs to overcome or the areas that require improvement to ensure that the NWU successfully delivers as many as possible CA graduates of the highest quality and to the optimal benefit of employers and broader society. Ultimately, this study wishes to provide the NWU with the information it needs to reform its CA programme in line with this goal. In broad terms, this study, therefore, aims to establish the extent of the barriers to success of the CA programme at the NWU and to make recommendations on appropriate interventions to address such issues. To address the broad aim of this thesis, it is divided into five subordinate research projects, each designed to identify areas in the NWU‟s CA programme that necessitate amelioration. The first project has the primary objective of comparing and critically analysing differences in curriculum, teaching and learning methods, and assessment between the NWU CA programme and the professional accountancy department of a comparable university in the United Kingdom (UK) (so as to identify possible interventions for the NWU programme). It would be imprudent for any organisation not to look first towards international best practice in search of interventions, and a comparable UK institution is an obvious choice given the similarities in degree structures, the South African higher education framework having originally developed from the UK framework. The method employed is a case study involving the comparison of the qualification frameworks of the two countries involved and of two specific accounting degrees in regard to curriculum, teaching and learning, and assessment, including the inspection of institutional documentation and an analysis of focus group transcripts involving academic staff from either institution. The remainder of the projects delve into more specific internal concerns regarding the NWU‟s CA programme. The second project has the objective of identifying and gauging the strength of possible barriers to student achievement (as identified in the literature) in the NWU‟s CA programme and, with a view to gaining insight into transformation constraints, the third project aims to assess whether there are differences in the perceptions of the NWU‟s CA students from different campuses and different ethnic backgrounds regarding the efficacy of various students achievement drivers. Both these projects involve a written survey on student perceptions on achievement barriers affecting the NWU. The participants to these projects were 790 CA students and the results are analysed statistically. The strength of achievement barriers and transformation constraints indicated in the accounting education literature might not reveal the complete picture of the reasons why students fail, especially at the first-year level where failure and dropout are often of great concern. To, therefore, determine the full range of barriers, the fourth research project has the objective of diagnosing any possible reasons for student failure (that are not necessarily addressed in the literature) and, more specifically, failure to complete the first year of CA studies at the NWU successfully. This project is approached in a wholly qualitative manner through a discursive analysis of four separate focus group interview transcripts involving a total of 29 randomly selected failed CA students. The first four research objectives reveal a number of weaknesses in the NWU‟s CA programme in need of amelioration, and various recommendations are made in this regard. A major theme arising is the lack of skills development and assessment opportunities afforded to students in the NWU CA programme. The thesis then explores the use of integrated case studies and business simulation assignments as educational tools to address this problem. Faithful to the fifth research objective of developing and evaluating a prototype of the most needed tool recommended as an educational intervention, an actual inter-disciplinary integrated case study and business simulation assignment is developed to enhance students‟ professional skills. The success of the assignment is evaluated by having 56 third-year CA students actually complete the assignment and then testing their experiences thereof utilising an adapted questionnaire designed for this purpose, followed by statistical analysis of the data. The contributions of this thesis are manifold including, but not limited to, the identification of a variety of areas for amelioration in accounting education practices, being one of very few comprehensive studies that investigates many achievement barriers holistically. This thesis sheds new light on some themes that have not yet been sufficiently researched in prior literature, including the value of career-oriented communication, transformation in accounting education, student failure in South African accounting education and the usage of inter-disciplinary integrated case studies or simulations in accounting. It further contributes a new empirical questionnaire, the reliability of which has been confirmed, making further research possible in various other settings. It benchmarks South African accounting education to that of at least one developed country; such international comparisons are scarce in the accounting education field, especially involving Africa. Moreover, it offers explanations for the drivers of pedagogical approaches in accounting education with reference to various forces rooted in institutional theory and education theory. The author, however, believes that the most practical contribution of this thesis is the actual inter-disciplinary case study and business simulation assignment which can be used or adapted by accounting educators to develop and assess professional skills and which provide some evidence of students‟ experiences of such an assignment that can inform the development of future assignments. Inter-disciplinary integrated tools are scarce in this field. The thesis is of managerial value for the NWU, but its findings are not confined to the domain of this institution, as they should provide useful insight for other institutions and accounting educators, as well as government(s) and professional bodies as the guardians of the profession. Delivering a higher quantity of better qualified CAs, especially from the designated population groups, are to the benefit of the whole country. Most of all, this thesis provides evidence of efforts to make a difference in the continuous quest to ameliorate accounting education one step at a time. / PhD (Accountancy), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Accounting transactions are becoming more complex, and more extensive accounting guidance is provided on a continuous basis in the accounting standards. In addition, accounting guidance changes often and additional guidance is added to the standards regularly. In view of this immense amount of accounting knowledge that an accountant can be expected to have, exacerbated by often multifaceted structures in accounting problems, it can be challenging and onerous to solve certain accounting problems. The premise of this study is that accounting problems can also be solved in a less complex manner with reference to the foundational accounting concepts included in the Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting (CF). The solution to the accounting problem using the CF should result in a similar answer had the detailed, complex accounting guidance been consulted. This is based on the understanding that the detailed guidance is consistent with the CF and that the CF is not underdeveloped. In the experience of the author of this dissertation, however, the CF is rarely used to consider the accounting treatment of specific transactions and the first point of reference is usually the detailed, specific guidance. In order to impart a practice of incorporating the CF in problem-solving, the study in this dissertation is underpinned by educational philosophies rooted mainly in constructivism, and specifically in Ausubel’s subsumption theory. Applied to accounting education, this theory suggests a frameworkbased approach whereby educators first instil a detailed knowledge of the CF in an Accounting course and thereafter present details of specific accounting transactions by building and crossreferencing to the foundational concepts in the CF. In addition, the paradigm in Accounting courses should also incorporate problems and experiments through which students can construct their own knowledge, rather than being passive recipients of an educator’s teaching style. Recent literature on framework-based teaching suggests that such an approach is beneficial as it enhances lifelong learning. This study reported on a framework-based approach incorporated in an Accounting course and aimed to determine students’ ability to solve complex accounting problems by referring only to the CF, as well as to determine the factors that could influence their ability to solve the problems and the preferred problem-solving approach of students in facing future accounting problems. In order to address the broad aim of this study, it was divided into two sections, each to identify and analyse a different aspect of accounting problem-solving that incorporated the CF. The study in this dissertation focused mainly on an interpretive research paradigm. The first project had the primary objective of determining whether students have the ability to solve complex accounting problems by using only the CF and determining which factors could influence their ability. This was established by analysing the content and results of an assignment administered to third-year Accounting students at a South African university in which students were required to solve problems using only the CF. The second project had the objective of determining the preferred future approach students will take in solving accounting problems after they have been exposed to a framework-based assignment. This was established through qualitative measures and augmented by a questionnaire to analyse the students’ perceptions. The contributions of this dissertation are manifold and include, but are not limited to, the realisation that a conceptual approach to accounting education is beneficial in Accounting courses. The results in this study indicate that the ability of students to solve complex accounting problems by referring only to the CF may depend on the complexity of the scenario and the students’ familiarity with the problem. In addition, after being exposed to a framework-based assignment, students may tend to prefer a mixed approach in solving accounting problems, which entails a combination of the concepts in the CF and specific accounting guidance governing a particular transaction. The author also believes that this study makes a practical contribution by providing an actual framework-based assignment which can be used or adapted by other Accounting educators to use in similar courses, or to help them develop similar assignments or case studies or to replicate the study. From an educational perspective, it is recommended that Accounting educators incorporate an emphasis on the CF in their teaching approach. As students are exposed to opportunities to exercise their judgement using the concepts included in the CF, they will gain experience in this and be able to exercise better judgement in future. Each time a student is exposed to a problem requiring to be solved using the CF, or is required to make necessary judgements with regard to the CF, it will lead to the creation of new knowledge which the student can constantly link and cross-reference to existing knowledge and experiences. It also appears that, when students are exposed to problem-solving using the CF, it may lead to accountants adopting a more balanced approach by considering more CF constructs in solving future accounting problems. Although the study in this dissertation was conducted at only one university, its implications are by no means limited to this institution. Extrapolation of results cannot be attempted due to the nature of the research design, but the results in this study are valuable and enhance accounting education literature in better understanding students’ problem-solving abilities and their preferred problemsolving approach. The research is therefore valuable to any Accounting educator, as well as the institutional bodies guiding accounting education and its syllabi. It is hoped also that some of the findings will inspire other educational institutions to promote a framework-based approach in an innovative manner. / MCom (Accountancy), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

The study was prompted mainly by the need for and possibility of collaboration or even mutual accreditation of practising chartered accountants and auditors in the countries of Southern Africa. In establishing common ground between these countries of Southern Africa it was found that the countries share not only geographical space but also strong and increasingly important trade links, movement of people between the countries and in some instances a common history, culture and language in the form of English. The current harmonisation process of accounting standards worldwide enhanced this process. A literature study was done emphasising South Africa as part of the Southern African region, with a special emphasis on accountancy education. An analysis of current international co-operation was done with special reference to the current international harmonisation process. As part ofthe background an analysis was done of the current status of the accountancy profession in each Southern African country. As this study was done from a South African perspective, the emphasis was on the views of members of the accounting profession in public practice with regard to greater cooperation in the region in the accountancy field. This was achieved by means of an empirical survey. It was found that the aforesaid professionals are overwhelmingly in support of greater cooperation in the region. They believe that it would enhance the status of individual accounting bodies worldwide~ that costs, information and infrastructure could be shared; and that it would enhance professionalism and improve service to clients. Specific areas were identified where co-operation could be improved, namely that academic training should be harmonised, practical tralning should be interchangeable and agreements should be reached with individual countries. Some concern was expressed that above all, control should be maintained over the standards of academic and practical education. It is recommended that the bodies governing the accountancy establishment in South Africa, especially the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Public Accountants' and Auditors' Board, should increase their current efforts to establish greater formal relations with other countries in the Southern African region. / Auditing / D. Compt. (Accounting Science)

Entre 1946 et 2016, ce sont plus de vingt cas de recours à des experts par les instances de représentation du personnel qui ont été créés, dont huit sur les trois dernières années. La possibilité sans cesse étendue de recourir à l’assistance d’experts pourrait laisser penser que le régime du recours à l’expertise est efficient. La facilité avec laquelle la loi associe désormais l’expert à chaque nouvelle mesure prise en faveur du dialogue social masque cependant mal l’incapacité croissante du législateur à préserver la fonction initiale de l’expertise : une fonction informative. Signe des dysfonctionnements qui grèvent le régime actuel du recours à l’expertise, le sujet est hautement polémique et fait l’objet d’un contentieux florissant. L’étude du périmètre ainsi que des modalités du recours à des experts exhorte à la construction d’un régime plus cohérent, de nature à assurer l’effet utile de l’expertise tout en préservant la compétence et la parole des représentants du personnel. / Between 1946 and 2016, this is more than twenty new cases in which the employee representatives were granted the right to resort to the services of experts, and only eight in the last three years. The ever-expanded possibility to be assisted by external experts might suggest that the expertise statutory regime is efficient. The ease with which the law associates experts to each new measures taken in favor of the social dialogue cannot hide the persistent difficulties encountered by the legislator to preserve the original function of expertise : an informative function. The controversial nature of the right to resort to the services of experts and the increasing amount of litigation in this area are manifestations of its failures. A study of the scope and the conditions under which the experts might be appointed urges to the construction of a more coherent system, that would ensure the effectiveness of the right to resort to experts while maintaining the employee representatives’ competence and voices.

The study was prompted mainly by the need for and possibility of collaboration or even mutual accreditation of practising chartered accountants and auditors in the countries of Southern Africa. In establishing common ground between these countries of Southern Africa it was found that the countries share not only geographical space but also strong and increasingly important trade links, movement of people between the countries and in some instances a common history, culture and language in the form of English. The current harmonisation process of accounting standards worldwide enhanced this process. A literature study was done emphasising South Africa as part of the Southern African region, with a special emphasis on accountancy education. An analysis of current international co-operation was done with special reference to the current international harmonisation process. As part ofthe background an analysis was done of the current status of the accountancy profession in each Southern African country. As this study was done from a South African perspective, the emphasis was on the views of members of the accounting profession in public practice with regard to greater cooperation in the region in the accountancy field. This was achieved by means of an empirical survey. It was found that the aforesaid professionals are overwhelmingly in support of greater cooperation in the region. They believe that it would enhance the status of individual accounting bodies worldwide~ that costs, information and infrastructure could be shared; and that it would enhance professionalism and improve service to clients. Specific areas were identified where co-operation could be improved, namely that academic training should be harmonised, practical tralning should be interchangeable and agreements should be reached with individual countries. Some concern was expressed that above all, control should be maintained over the standards of academic and practical education. It is recommended that the bodies governing the accountancy establishment in South Africa, especially the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Public Accountants' and Auditors' Board, should increase their current efforts to establish greater formal relations with other countries in the Southern African region. / Auditing / D. Compt. (Accounting Science)

Esta investigación ha identificado los instrumentos de contabilidad de gestión que los gestores de las organizaciones no lucrativas, y más concretamente de los colegios de economistas de España, utilizan y pueden utilizar como sistemas de información para el control de la gestión y para la mejora de su eficiencia, eficacia y economía. Se han realizado tres estudios empíricos: 1. A los gestores de los colegios de economistas, para conocer situación y nivel de implantación de instrumentos de control de gestión .2. Se ha centrado en el análisis de la situación a nivel también de instrumentos de contabilidad de gestión de determinadas asociaciones inglesas que están destinadas a profesionales que ejercen en especialidades que en España pueden realizar los economistas. 3. A usuarios de los colegios, par ver nivel de calidad de los servicios y actividades que los colegios realizan y los efectos de la profesionalidad múltiple que los caracteriza. / It presents the results of a study about management control in non-profit organizations, focusing on the particular case of the Associations of Economists in Spain. In order to do it, a revision of literature and empirical studies have taken place to find out the implementation and level development of the instruments of management accounting in non-profit organizations. The study has been completed with three empirical studies, first directed to Associations of Economists in Spain, the second to associations from the UK related to the economy and the company, and, third directed to users from an Economists'Professional Association. Moreover, interviews of managers of different Associations from the UK have been made.