Accounting Information Systems 15th Global Edition by Marshall B. Romney Solution manual

Firm infrastructure includes the accounting, finance, legal, and general administration functions required to start and maintain a business. 
Human resource management includes recruiting, hiring, training, evaluating, compensating, and dismissing employees. 
Technology includes all investments in computer technology and various input/output devices, such as point-of-sale scanners.  It also includes all support activities for the technology.
Purchasing includes all processes involved in identifying and selecting vendors to supply goods and negotiating the best prices, terms, and support from those suppliers.
 
Information technology enables organizations to easily collect large amounts of information about employees. Discuss the following issues:
 
These questions involve traditional economic cost/benefit issues and less well-defined ethical issues.
 
To what extent should management monitor employees’ e-mail?
 
Generally, the courts have held that organizations have the right to monitor employees’ email.  Such monitoring can have disastrous effects on employee morale, however.  On the other hand, it might provide legitimate information about group members’ individual contributions and productivity.
 
To what extent should management monitor which Web sites employees visit?
 
Students are likely to argue whether or not this should be done.  One potential benefit that could be argued is the likelihood that if employees are aware that they will be monitored they will be less prone to surf the Web for non-work-related uses.
 
To what extent should management monitor employee performance by, for example, using software to track keystrokes per hour or some other unit of time? If such information is collected, how should it be used?
 
Arguments pro and con can be generated about the effects of such monitoring on performance and on morale.  Clearly, the specifics of any incentive schemes tied to such metrics are important.
 
Should companies use software to electronically “shred” all traces of e-mail?
 
Arguments can be raised on both sides of this issue.  Try to get students to go beyond the legal ramifications of recent news stories and to explore the ethical implications of destroying different kinds of email.
 
Under what circumstances and to whom is it appropriate for a company to distribute information it collects about the people who visit its Web site?
 
Direct students to the guidelines followed by organizations that certify how various web sites use the information they collect.  Students are likely to make the argument that personal information is inherently private and sacrosanct.  To challenge that view, ask them about the legitimacy of developing and maintaining a reputation.  Doesn’t that involve the divulgence and sharing of personal information among strangers?  Ask the class if it is feasible (or undesirable) to totally prevent or prohibit such sharing of information.
 
The instructor should also refer the students to GAPP, as one of its criteria concerns sharing information with 3rd parties. The instructor and the students could read the GAPP criterion about sharing data together, and then discuss what they think. Remind the students that GAPP is not regulatory law – just recommended best practice.

Suggested Answers to the Problems
 
1.1    IT is continually changing the nature of accounting and the role of accountants. Write a two-page report describing what you think the nature of the accounting function and the accounting information system in a large company will be like in the year 2030.
 
         Numerous answers are possible.  Several articles addressing this topic have appeared in Strategic Finance and the Journal of Accountancy.
 
1.2    The annual report is considered by some to be the single most important printed document that companies produce. In recent years, annual reports have become large documents. They now include such sections as letters to the stockholders, descriptions of the business, operating highlights, financial review, management discussion and analysis, a discussion of company internal controls, segment reporting, inflation data, and the basic financial statements. The expansion has been due in part to a general increase in the degree of sophistication and complexity in accounting standards and disclosure requirements for financial reporting.
 
The expansion also is reflective of the change in the composition and level of sophistication  of users. Current users include not only stockholders but also financial and securities analysts, potential investors, lending institutions, stockbrokers, customers, employees, and—whether the reporting company likes it or not—competitors. Thus, a report originally designed as a device for communicating basic financial information now attempts to meet the diverse needs of an ever-expanding audience.