The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (GSB) accounting curriculum development project has completed phase 1 (development of new teaching materials and approaches) and is well into phase 2 (testing and refining the new materials, followed by dissemination).

The accounting curriculum takes a user orientation, as opposed to a preparer orientation, consistent with the focus of the rest of the GSB curriculum; there is a substantial emphasis on understanding the technical content of financial statements and other accounting disclosures and internal accounting reports. The goal is to prepare highly sophisticated users of financial information, who can infer the nature of underlying economic events and transactions from accounting reports and related information.

The accounting curriculum presumes that the uses of accounting information are inseparable from business decisions. Therefore, the curriculum emphasizes economic settings of business events and transactions, as well as the translation of those events and transactions into accounting reports. Within the context of this curriculum, the goals are to help students develop the tools for both research and lifelong, independent learning, to increase students’ problem formulation and problem solving skills, to enhance students’ oral and written communication skills, and to increase students’ awareness of international and global business issues.

The GSB accounting curriculum is organized into three modules: financial, managerial and strategic. In each module, the primary emphasis of curriculum development efforts falls into three categories. The first and most significant effort is the development of cases, problems and teaching notes. These original materials are necessary since most of the existing accounting materials adopt either a highly technical preparer orientation or a purely managerial orientation, with little emphasis on technical material.

Taken as a whole, the new accounting curriculum is intended to demonstrate how technical and abstract material applies to practical business problems. In addition to a high level of technical content, another goal is the continuous updating and improvement of all internally developed curriculum materials. Consistent with the overall emphasis on research at the Graduate School of Business, a strong research component is also included in these materials. Finally, the curriculum materials are intended to be transportable to other MBA programs and to advanced electives in undergraduate programs.

An overview of development efforts in the three modules of the accounting curriculum follows.

Managerial accounting module.
Extensive and detailed instructor notes have been developed for all topics, so the textbook provides only background reading and some problems. The teaching notes integrate managerial accounting topics and material with concepts and issues in corporation finance, financial accounting, marketing, organization behavior and production. Cases have been developed to cover activity based costing, international transfer pricing and the accounting for future contracts, and the relation between and among product costing, financial reporting and earnings management.

Financial accounting module.
In addition to the introductory financial accounting course, this module contains courses in Accounting for Financial Analysis I and II and International Accounting. Teaching materials for Accounting for Financial Analysis I include instructor-developed problems and lecture notes, discussion materials and several cases. Instructor-developed cases cover leveraged leases, pensions, other post-employment retirement benefits, pension settlements and curtailments, interperiod tax allocation, unusual items on the income statement, unrecorded assets and liabilities, quasi-reorganizations, accounting for compensatory stock options and accounting for regulated firms. Teaching materials for Accounting for Financial Analysis II include instructor-developed cases covering leveraged buyouts, business combinations (including both individual transactions and extensive acquisition programs), hedge accounting, interest-rate swaps, contingency disclosures, bankruptcy accounting and foreign currency translation.

The third course in the financial accounting module, International Accounting, uses the Global Vantage database as well as foreign firm financial statements and Form 20F filings to provide students with extensive experience analyzing international accounting disclosures. This course includes instructor-developed notes, with applications, on comparative accounting practices in Japan, the U.K., Germany and France. Instructor-developed cases cover international business combinations, brand valuation in the U.K. and comparisons of U. S. firms with similar foreign firms.

Strategy module.
This module includes four courses: Financial Statement Analysis, Consulting Applications in Accounting, Financial Reporting Strategy, and The Corporation in its Legal and Economic Environment. All four courses use instructor-developed cases and lecture notes. All are project-oriented and require both technical analysis of “real-world” data and written reports. Specific topics covered in the strategy-oriented courses include financial intermediation, the use of event studies in securities litigation, quality of earnings, fundamental analysis, evaluation of financial distress, valuation based on accounting data, and corporate restructurings (such as business combinations, spin-offs, liquidations, and equity carve-outs).