Why do we need so many different theories in accounting Essay - 2

Why do we need so many different theories in accounting - Essay Example The purpose of this paper is to discuss how accounting theories differ from each other including real life examples that show contrasting accounting theories in the real world. Accounting is a simple, yet complex field due to fact that there hundreds of different principles that establish the foundation for its practice. The accounting profession as a whole is self-regulated. There different accounting bodies that set the principles and standards that guide the profession. Two of those governing bodies are the FASB and ICPA. The primary accounting framework that is used by accountants to guide their everyday daily activities are the generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). The GAAPs covered a wide variety of accounting subjects such as long lived assets, revenue recognition, and inventory topics (Accountingtools). An illustration of how the accounting profession has different treatments or accounting applications for the same economic event can be seen in the way accountants calculate depreciation of assets. Accountants can choose one among various depreciation methods to calculate the depreciation of an asset. Five of the techniques that accountants can use to calculate depreciation are FIFO, LIFO, age-life method, straight, declining balance, and sum-of-the years’ digits method (Weygandt & Kieso & Kimmel, 2002, p.409). The final depreciation calculated by each of these methods gives an output that is different. This might seem a little confusing for a person outside accounting circles, but there is a financial logic behind the existence of so many depreciation methods. The reason there is so many accounting depreciation method is that these methods are available so that accountants can select the method that most appropriate depending on the circumstance. For example an accountant that is auditing a company dedicated to selling

ROWE Program at Best Buy Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

ROWE Program at Best Buy - Term Paper Example Hellreigh and Slocum (2011) stated ‘ROWE is all about results. Â   No results, no job’ (p. 553). ROWE program displays a culture of more personal life friendly atmosphere. It was implemented and demonstrated at the Best Buy headquarters in Minneapolis. In the year 2009, Best Buy replicated this program to its retail stores. The ROWE program is aimed at building employees’ competencies so that they become better managers of their work and time. The program gave the employees a sense of power over their work and provided a paradigm shift from how work is completely to only the work results. The change made the employees more flexible in terms of work-life balance, which boosted employee morale. Managers now have a sense of accountability regarding the part they have played to create stress free environment for their employees. Discuss the resistance, both organization and individual, which the ROWE program had to overcome. Immediately after the ROWE program was lau nched, there was resistance from the employees in the program implementation. The management thought that too much flexibility was being given to the employees and they could not handle it. There was an issue of whether the program was fair to the employees regardless of the department they worked in. For the individuals, they were simply moving from known to unknown and they were not sure of what lay ahead. They felt that their way of work was being interfered with and they had to figure out another way to get ahead. Organizations in Best Buy had to change they was of production. The managers could no longer set up work without proper and adequate planning. They had to devise ways of assigning employees work. Then get the job done without having the workers working longer hours than was necessary.... ROWE Program at Best Buy The organizational development approach of Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) was adopted by Best Buy in 2003. A good organizational culture is a result of sharing core values among employees of an organization. Prior to ROWE program, there was minimum sharing of values among the Best Buy employees. The negative working environment prevalent in the organization hindered the work bond among employees. There was not much time available for employees to interact since each was busy trying to beat deadlines and working overtime. A survey conducted to verify the attitude of ROWE participants found out that the participants’ feeling of pressure and a sense of working hard had killed the creative ability to initiate and develop a participative culture. Stunted growth and insecurity had been created by the lack of interaction, brought about by lack of time and too much fixation with the individual work. It goes without saying that no organization can effectively achieve its mission and objective if the organizational culture is improperly balance. A source of stress that is evident in this case is the work-life balance by the employees of Best Buy. Initially, they were not able to balance work and their personal life. Thus, both of them were negatively affected, to the point that results produced were not optimal. The pressure of having to spend long hours working to get ahead created work stress which some employees could not cope with.