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MAA725 – Advanced Accounting Principles and Practice
Trimester T1, 2020
Assessment 1
DUE DATE AND TIME: 24 April 2020, 11:59 PM
PERCENTAGE OF FINAL GRADE: 30%
HURDLE DETAILS: N/A
Learning Outcome Details
Unit Learning Outcome (ULO) Graduate Learning Outcome
(GLO)
ULO 1: Explain, evaluate and apply a range of advanced
accounting theories and standards.
GLO 1
ULO 2: Identify, define and integrate to construct
explanations that can inform solutions to relevant
accounting issues.
GLO 2
ULO3: Reflect and critically examine personal actions and
esponsibilities for applying and learning theories and
standards in accounting principles and practice.
GLO 6
ULO4: Work with others effectively and provide
constructive feedback that is supportive and promotes
improvement in understanding of advanced accounting
principles and practice.
GLO 7
ULO5: Critically analyse and discuss concepts su
ounding
corporate ethical and social responsibilities within the
global.
GLO 8
Assessment Feedback:
Feedback on assignments will be provided via CloudDeakin by 15 Deakin University
usiness days from the due date or the approved extension date, whichever is later.
Failure to submit your work on time will affect the assessment process for your assessment
and your final result for the unit. Late submission will incur a late penalty in assessment.
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Description / Requirements
This assignment consists of three tasks. Please complete each task by following the
equirements as below.
Task 1 (GLO 1, GLO 2 and GLO8)
According to a survey by Equilar (2016), in 2014, 87.6 percent of Fortune 100 firms have
stock ownership guidelines (ESO) in place. Under a typical ESO policy, the executives are
equired to obtain a specified number of shares within a given timeframe, generally
anging from three to five years, and ownership targets are set as a multiple of the base
salary. The Survey shows 84 percent of Fortune 100 mandate their executives to obtain a
minimum of equity ownership target as a multiple of the base salary, with a median
target CEO share ownership of $9 million. See:
https:
www.equilar.com
eports/34-executive-stock-ownership-guidelines.html
Scholars have argued that ESO reduces the manager-shareholder agency conflict.
However, in terms of the agency cost of debts, some think that the adoption of ESO
decrease agency costs of debts, while others argue that ESO exaggerates agency costs of
debts.
Requirement
Discuss and analyse two competing views on whether the adoption of ESO decreases or
increases agency costs of debts by applying Positive accounting theory, and then
propose your own opinions. Your opinions should be built on your analyses of the two
competing views.
Task 1 is to be completed as a Group assignment (maximum 3 people per group, minimum
2 people). The number of words is 2,500 excluding the reference list, appendices and the
cover page. The actual word count must be stated on the cover page of the assignment.
A deduction of 1 mark from marks allocated to this task will apply if the number of words
is under by more than 10% of 2,500 words or over by more than 20% of 2,500 words.
Word limits allow the student to structure the assignment to allow for the preparation of
an informative yet succinct report. This task will ca
y 80% of the total assignment marks.
The formation of a group must be achieved by students self-enrolling into a group on
CloudDeakin. Students must be careful to choose their group members. Changing to
another group is not allowed after 17th April 2020.
You will need to do some personal research in order to complete Task1. Therefore, it is
strongly recommended students start to form the assignment group and prepare for the
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assignment as early as possible. You must use a minimum of 6 (six) academic referenced
articles in the Literature Review section of your assignment.
The assignment documents MUST be typed using arial 12 font, properly referenced and
ideally 1.5 line spacing (refer to ‘Guide to assignment writing and referencing booklet) and
include a REFERENCE LIST (in alphabetical order) outlining the book(s) and any journal
articles, electronic sources etc. used. It is recommended to use the Harvard citation format.
Each page must be numbered.
Title page for Task 1:
This should be the first page (cover page) of your assignment and it must include the
following information:
• Unit code and unit name
• Name of the Unit Chair
• Group number
• Each group member’s full name, Deakin student ID number
• Number of words
• Due date. If granted a time extension, then insert the following:
‘Revised date approved by the unit-chair (show approved date)’.
Recommended Task 1 Structure
# SECTION
1 Title page
2 Introduction
3 Literature review on the two competing views (At least 6 academic articles)
4 Analysis and your own opinions
5 Conclusion
6 References
Task 2 (GLO 7)
All team members must complete Peer assessment forms and submit this document in the
individual dropbox (NOT IN THE GROUP ASSIGNMENT DROPBOX) before the deadline of
assignment submission. As a team member you will evaluate your other team members’
contribution to complete this assignment. The Peer assessment form can be accessed from
CloudDeakin under the “Assessment 1’ resource folder. In a very rare case where a student
completes Task 1 as an individual assignment, the student will automatically get zero for
Task 2. In some cases where not all team members submit the Peer assessment form, the
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team member who has not submitted the assessment form will attract zero for this task.
This task will ca
y 10% of the total assignment marks. Please note it is an individual task.
Task 3 (GLO 6)
Write around 500 words reflecting on what you have learnt about yourself as a team
member. Reflect on your strengths and your weaknesses as a member of your team. Also
provide list of actions that you will take next time to improve your team work skill. All team
members should submit separate documents in the individual dropbox (NOT IN THE GROUP
ASSIGNMENT DROPBOX). Self- assessment forms can be accessed from CloudDeakin under
the “Assessment 1’ resource folder. Copying your own self-management statement from
other units or from the same unit at other trimesters is considered as plagiarisms. Such
ehaviour will automatically make the assignment be refe
ed to the Faculty Academic
Progress and Discipline Committee (FAPDC) at Deakin University. This task will ca
y 10% of
the total assignment marks. Please note it is an individual task.
Submission Instructions
This assignment must be submitted electronically by the due date as a Microsoft Word
document by uploading all documents to the respective assignment dropboxes, via the
MAA725 site on CloudDeakin. Specifically, when uploading your task1 assignment, the
document must be given a name using the following syntax:
_
your group member’s Deakin student ID numbe
_MAA725.doc (or ‘.docx’) (for example,
group001_123456789_MAA725.doc). Only one copy of the assignment per group is required
to be submitted online. All group members should separately submit Task2 and Task3
assignments to individual dropboxes. Submitting a hard copy of this assignment is not
equired.
Students who anticipate possible difficulty in lodging this assignment online (for example,
eing in a remote place on the due date with no computer access) must contact the Unit
Chair at least one week prior to the due date in order to make alternative a
angements for
submission.
Extensions can be granted for unexpected circumstances such as serious illness or for
compassionate reasons under special circumstances. Extensions can only be approved by
the Unit Chair. Requests for time extensions should be emailed to the Unit Chair AT LEAST
ONE BUSINESS DAY BEFORE (24 business hours before) the due date of submission. You
will need to provide evidence to support your request (for example, medical certificate) and
a draft of the work completed to date. No extension exists until such time as it is approved
in writing by the Unit Chair. For requests after the due date please submit your request to
Special Consideration
https:
www.deakin.edu.au/students/studying/assessment-and-results/special-onsideration
https:
www.deakin.edu.au/students/studying/assessment-and-results/special-onsideration
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Work or holidays or other assignments are NOT grounds for an extension – you are
expected to manage these issues as part of your studies. You are strongly encouraged to
start early and to continually backup your assignment as you progress. Computer crashes or
co
upted files will NOT be accepted as valid reasons for an extension of any length.
Turnitin
Please review the section on ‘Plagiarism’ in the Unit Guide for MAA725 and on the
CloudDeakin site for this unit. You need to check that your assignment does not contain
plagiarism. This is done automatically when submitting your assignment to the dropbox
which uses Turnitin, which checks your assignment for plagiarism and generates an
originality report that you can use to be confident that your assignment does not contain
plagiarism. For example, Turnitin will tell us (but tell you first) the extent to which your
work has copied material from others without appropriate recognition through
eferencing. If this is excessive you will lose marks or you may not receive any marks, or
you may have some form of disciplinary action taken if the issue is severe. So you have an
opportunity to submit an unmarked draft copy of your assignment to Turnitin and then
take appropriate action to amend your report before final submission.
Therefore it is advisable that you check your assignment for plagiarism by uploading it to
Turnitin at least more than 4 days prior to the due date. This is because it might take a few
days or longer before you receive your originality report. Then, you might need some time
to make adjustments to your assignment and upload it again to Turnitin if need be.
Note that uploading your