Editor's Letter
By Kathy Williams

Audit Committee Effectiveness in the Banking Industry
By Thomas G. Noland, Ph.D., CMA, CPA; Dave L. Nichols, Ph.D., CPA; and Dale L. Flesher, Ph.D., CMA, CFM, CPA
The authors analyzed the impact of audit committees in small commercial banks and found that institutions with audit committee members who had banking or financial experience reported significantly more effective internal controls than institutions without this expertise.

Cost Terminology in the 21st Century: Using Direct Labor Costs in a Costs vs. Resources Framework
By Parvez R. Sopariwala
Some cost/management accounting textbooks have attempted to update the traditional treatment of cost terms to bring them more in line with today’s business environment. They need to do more, the author says, and he offers a comprehensive framework of cost terminology that should help management accounting professionals in their effort to keep up with new developments in cost/management accounting theory.

Calculating a Firm's Cost of Capital
By Michael S. Pagano, Ph.D., CFA, and David E. Stout, Ph.D.
Here is an overview of theoretical and empirical issues involved in estimating a company’s weighted average cost of capital (WACC). The authors compute and compare WACC estimates for GE and Microsoft using three methods commonly employed by financial analysts.

Are Accounting Graduates Favorably Recruited for Entry-Level Management Positions?
By W. Mark Wilder, Ph.D., CPA, and Morris H. Stocks, Ph.D., CPA
The authors conducted a study to see whether students majoring in accounting are being recruited for general entry-level business positions. They found that recruiters preferred accounting majors over general business majors but that they didn’t significantly prefer students with an MBA degree over those with a BBA degree. They also found that students who select accounting as an undergraduate major have a variety of career alternatives available to them.

The Emergence of Accounting Information Systems Programs
By Thomas W. Dillon, Ph.D., and S.E. Kruck, Ph.D.
Universities are meeting the information technology needs of accounting professionals by offering a major in accounting information systems. Here’s a look at these AIS programs, which contain a mixture of traditional accounting and information systems courses along with a few new hybrid courses that stress the integration of topics from accounting and information systems.