Search

We report on a case study of high Japanese student failure rates in an online MBA programme. Drawing on interviews, and reviews of exam and assignment scripts we frame the problems faced by these students in terms of a "language as social practice" approach and highlight the students' failure to understand the specific language games that underpin the course assessment approach. We note the way in which the distance learning and online context can make the challenges faced by international students less immediately visible to both students and institution.

This paper illustrates that, despite their general agreement on the decisionusefulness objective of general purpose financial reporting, the Accounting Standard Board of Japan (ASBJ) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB)'s conceptual frameworks are based on two different concepts of financial performance. By identifying and contrasting the two financial performance concepts and their impact on the rest of the frameworks and by explaining the thinking that underpins the ASBJ's chosen financial performance concept, it contributes to a debate about the role of financial performance concepts in fulfilling the decision-usefulness objective. Such a debate is pertinent to the revision of the IASB's Conceptual Framework, which is scheduled for completion in 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]