E-Business: Principles and Strategies for Accountants - Softcover

Steven M Glover; Stephen W Liddle; Douglas F Prawitt

9780130191786: E-Business: Principles and Strategies for Accountants

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0130191787 ISBN 13: 9780130191786

Publisher: Prentice Hall, 2001

Highlights the disruptive effects of e-business on current business practices and presents a wide variety of e-business models using interesting real-world examples of e-businesses. Softcover.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From the Inside Flap:

Preface

The emergence of e-business has been both rapid and pervasive. To effectively add value in this new business environment, today's accounting professional must understand the fundamental issues associated with e-business, whether functioning as financial adviser, assurance provider, or broad-based business consultant. This book is intended to provide a relatively nontechnical introduction to the fundamental e-business issues that today's accounting professional needs to understand. While accountants' comparative advantage with respect to e-business generally lies at the upper end of the information value chain (closer to decisions than to raw data, as discussed in Chapter 1), accountants need a working knowledge of underlying technology, current applications of e-business and the various e-business models. The first three chapters of the book provide the necessary background on e-business, and while these chapters are somewhat tailored to accountants, much of the information is equally relevant to other business disciplines. In these early chapters, readers learn about the historical development of e-business as well as the disruptive effect e-business is having on traditional business. Coverage of the benefits and current usages of e-business make up a large part of Chapter 1 and the bulk of Chapter 3.

The speed with which "e" burst upon the business world has not permitted existing accounting, auditing, and information systems texts to address the important e-business issues accountants need to be aware of. The last two chapters and the technology appendices provide a good foundation of e-business terminology, strategic implications and important risks, threats, and opportunities, particularly with respect to the accounting profession. While the text covers fundamental information technology issues, this book is not intended to be an information technology "how-to" book.

In collegiate settings, this book is primarily intended as a supplement to be used in existing accounting courses. It is appropriate for use in intermediate or advanced financial accounting courses, introductory or advanced auditing courses, and introductory accounting information systems courses. This book could also be used as part of a larger set of materials in a stand-alone e-business course for accounting students. While the book is targeted to accounting students, many consultants, business advisers, and CPAs will also find that the book provides a useful introduction to important e-business issues.

We invite professionals, students, and faculty to visit our companion Web site, prenhall/glover, for additional resources such as links to the Web addresses referenced in this book, regularly updated references and links to current e-business articles, and more. Acknowledgments

This book has been made possible by the support of many people and organizations. We thank all who have contributed to its development. We have enjoyed working with the Prentice Hall team and all others associated with this work. We thank our Acquisitions Editor, Thomas Sigel, who orchestrated the publication of this book. We would also like to thank Sondra Greenfield, Managing Editor/Production; Lisa Babin, Manufacturing Buyer; Michael Fruhbeis, cover designer; Suzanne Grappi, Permissions Supervisor, and Susan Orttung, who were a great help in obtaining permissions. Thanks also to other members of the Prentice Hall book team, including P. J. Boardman, Editor-in-Chief; Beth Toland, Executive Marketing Manager; Kasey Sheehan, Associate Editor; and Fran Toepfer, Editorial Assistant. And finally, we thank Annie Todd who initiated and helped define this project; without her we would not have written this book.

The Rollins Center for eBusiness at Brigham Young University has been generous and supportive in cosponsoring this book. We are grateful to the Center's Director, Owen Cherrington, for his vision and support. We hope this will be the beginning of a long and successful collaboration with the Center.

We appreciate the contributions of the following reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions:

Mark Beasley, North Carolina State University Randy Coyner, Florida Atlantic University Paula Miller, Collin County Community College Scott Summers, Brigham Young University

We especially recognize Mark Beasley for providing extensive comments and going into great detail regarding ways to improve the manuscript, and Scott Summers for helping with end of chapter material.

We also acknowledge our research assistants, who were instrumental in collecting and organizing portions of the information presented in this book: Ryan Baxter, Brian Carini, David Mangelson, Ryan Oviatt, Kevin Smith, and Joseph Van Orden.

We gratefully acknowledge the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants for permission to use quotes and other materials from the accounting standards as well as from their Internet site, including adaptations of the WebTrust and SysTrust principles and criteria. We also acknowledge the other companies and organizations mentioned in this book for permission to use information and screen captures from their respective Internet sites.

We especially thank our wives, Tina, Melody, and Meryll, and our children for their support, love, and patience.

— S.M.G, SW.L, and D.F.P.

From the Back Cover:

Efficient module-sized coverage provides accounting students with relevant e-business strategies, challenges, and opportunities.
Adaptable technological content is presented at a basic level in the text, with more depth in the appendices.
Highlights the disruptive effects of e-business on current business practices.
Presents a wide variety of e-business models using interesting real-world examples of e-businesses.
Explains how e-business risks and controls differ from those in a traditional environment.
Emphasizes implications and opportunities of e-business for the accounting profession.
Includes a companion website with hotlinks, downloadable tools and resources.