Financial Accounting: In an Economic Context

CONTINUING THE APPROACH

The eighth edition has retained and improved upon many of the popular features used in previous editions, such as ethics cases, Internet exercises, brief end-of-chapter real-world exercises and issues for discussion, and a set of interesting and challenging “quality of earnings” cases. This edition also includes an updated glossary considered by many to be the very best of its kind. But perhaps most important, this edition has maintained and improved upon its most distinctive feature—the economic decision-making approach and the balanced coverage of three important themes: economic factors. measurement issues, and mechanics.

Economic Factors

Financial accounting is meaningless without an understanding of the economic environment in which it exists. Each chapter in the eighth edition, therefore, includes frequent references to actual events and companies; quotes from well-known business publications and corporate annual reports—information about industry practices, debt covenants, compensation arrangements, and debt and equity markets; and in-depth discussions of legal liability, ethical issues, and management's incentives and influence on financial reports. The annual report of NIKE, which is the subject of short case questions at the end of each chapter, is also provided at the end of the text. Further-more, ratio analysis and international issues are introduced early and integrated throughout the text, and the coverage still reflects a strong user orientation ...