ACC30008 Accounting Theory Sample Assignment

Context for the assignment

Use an aspect or aspects that relate to the context of the article Win at all costs: Cricket and banks caught tampering with ethics (Links to an external site.) (Bartholomeusz 2018) and choose five quality scholarly research journal articles that adopt at least one of the accounting theories covered in Chapters 3 or 5 of Rankin et al. (2018) to write a Report.

Assignment brief

In light of the article Win at all costs: Cricket and banks caught tampering with ethics (Links to an external site.) (Bartholomeusz 2018), the Chair of the Board of Commonwealth Bank has commissioned you to write a report explaining what insights you can contribute to the business culture and/or ethics. In your report, you must provide an explanation of at least five quality, scholarly journal articles that present research on this issue.

Important: These articles must be drawn from journal titles listed on the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) list, which represents a measure of quality.

*Refer to the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) journal rankings (Links to an external site.) (ABDC n.d.).

Scholarly journal articles

You will need to make sure that the title of the journal(s) in which the articles you want to use are published are on the ABDC list. It is suggested that you find relevant articles first, using the Library Database ‘Business source complete’, identify the journal title from which the article comes and then make sure this journal title appears on the ABDC list. This list is a way of ensuring that the articles you choose come from peer-reviewed, scholarly journal titles.

Format

A report format is required for this assignment. In a report, the Executive summary should provide an overview of the whole report, including any recommendations. This is a ‘thinking’ assignment and what is expected is your personal view based on research and the evidence that has been sourced. Further, an assignment which presents more quotes than constructive analysis and argument may be heavily penalised.

Suggested report structure

1. Title page.*
2. Contents page.*
3. Executive summary (which provides an overview of the whole report).*
4. Introduction and purpose (200–300 words).
5. Responses to specific task (1400–1600 words) using appropriate headings and sub-headings.
6. Conclusion (200–300 words).

* The word limit for this assignment excludes title page, references and executive summary, but includes footnotes, endnotes and appendices.

Note: Markers will only read the Conclusion (which is worth 10%) if the assignment overall is within the word limit.

Further instructions for assignment preparation

The assignment should also include the following:

• Be all your own (individual submission) work.
• 5 spacing for clarity and a high standard of presentation is expected.
• Unit name and code.
• Contain correct referencing, using the Swinburne Harvard style.
• Include a list of references (alphabetical by first author’s surname) adequately referencing your sources (in-text references should refer to the surname of the author/authors and the year of the publication).
• The assignment gives you autonomy in deciding how you want to relate the scholarly research articles of your choice to the task.
• In using research articles, your comments and insights are more important than just describing what the article is about.
• You need to do all this within the word count of 2000 words. Therefore, think about how you will weight your emphasis and how headings and sub-headings can help you remain succinct.
• Remember this is NOT a literature review. Please do NOT merely reproduce the contents of articles. Assignments that are excessive in their use of ‘quotes’ (even when appropriately referenced) are in danger of demonstrating inadequate original thought.
• It is a good idea to prepare a plan or a skeleton of the report and include brief points, before you start writing. This will help you to keep the report organised.
• Keep it simple. It is much better to discuss a few points in detail rather than discussing many points at a surface level.
• Please make sure that you do a good job of proofreading and editing. Poor grammar, spelling or expression will cost you marks and these marks are lost quickly.

Assignment criteria

1. Presentation: editing, grammar, punctuation, role-playing, structure.
2. Quality of Executive summary.
3. Quality of response to assignment task: research, logic and coherence of argument.
4. Quality of conclusion.
5. Quality of referencing.

Your work will be assessed using the following marking guide: