This course deals with advanced aspects of financial accounting. Topics covered include the financial reporting environment in Hong Kong, fair value accounting, intangible assets, contingent liabilities, deferred income taxes, accounting for post-retirement benefits, equity and cost methods of accounting for long-term investments, business combinations (purchase and pooling), consolidation of parent/subsidiary financial statements, and interpretation of financial statements. Students will be required to critically evaluate various accounting valuation, reporting and disclosure issues.

This course establishes a framework for evaluating accounting choices and categorizing the strength of authority for particular accounting treatments. This is accomplished by exposing the students to empirical accounting research and by creating an awareness of the endogenous factors affecting accounting decisions. Major themes are the integration of cash flow and accrual based measures of income from a theoretical perspective and the synthesis of accounting choice questions based on the asset valuation versus income measurement dichotomy. The end result will be a deeper understanding of both the structure and the process of accounting policy-making.

This course introduces the students to the basic concepts, techniques and application of cost and management accounting. Topics include cost concepts, cost behavior, costing systems, cost determination and allocation, standard costing and variance analysis, relevant costs, and budgetary planning and performance evaluation. Methods and techniques of cost management in the service sector and in the advanced manufacturing environment are discussed. Accounting implications for management planning, control, and decision making will be emphasized.

The course introduces a framework for business valuation analysis using corporate disclosure and financial statement data. The framework identifies four key components of valuation: business strategy analysis, accounting analysis, financial analysis, and prospective analysis. Employing a case methodology, applications of this framework in a variety of decision-making contexts including securities analysis, credit analysis, and merger and acquisition decisions are examined.

This course will provide an examination of the economic theory of auditing, the role and responsibilities of auditors, the concepts and techniques employed by auditors, and auditing procedures for balance sheet and profit and loss items. Other topics include auditing and the public accounting profession, internal control, audit planning, financial statement audits, reporting on auditing financial statements, professional ethics and auditor's legal liability, accepting and planning the audit, evidential matter/working papers, internal controls, and system auditing. Other topics of current interest available in the literature will also be discussed.

This course examines the evolution of accounting under different political and economic systems and explores current theory and research on the impact of local and international institutional features on financial reporting and disclosure practices. In so doing, it provides participants with a conceptual framework for analyzing the economic causes and consequences of differences in reporting and disclosure practices and their impact on international commerce, finance, and investment. The course includes discussion of recent and proposed changes in reporting standards with a focus on the local and international reporting environment.

This course introduces students to the institutions, doctrine and methodology of the law in the business and corporation contents. After a discussion of the legal system of Hong Kong SAR, the first part of the course examines selected subjects in contract, tort of negligence, employment, and sales of goods. The second part of the course will focus on company law, such as formation of companies, the effects of incorporations, the division of powers and obligations among various organs of the company, its relationship with outsiders, financing and dividend issues, and options available to companies in financial difficulties.

Designed properly, management control systems serve to influence and structure employee behavior in ways that increase the likelihood that organizational objectives are achieved or exceeded. This course provides an advanced- level examination of the alternative control mechanisms available to organizations, theories underlying their use, and their intended--and often unintended--effects on behavior. Particular attention is directed to the critical decisions underlying the design of effective accounting based control systems including decision support and intelligent system for accounting, choice of responsibility structure, performance measures, performance standards, and incentive systems, and to emerging issues in corporate governance.

This course covers the basic elements and statutes of Hong Kong taxation system, including salaries tax, property tax, profits tax, personal assessment, depreciation allowances, and tax administration. After this basic knowledge, the course will introduce advanced concepts of tax planning, problem solving with practical examples and the inter-relationships between different types of taxes. Local tax cases will be discussed extensively.

This course examines Hong Kong legal environment and discuss how it will affect audit risk, audit planning, internal controls, analytical procedures, and substantive tests. Building on this foundation, this course then focuses on information technology and examines its impacts on financial reporting systems. Specifically, we emphasize on how auditors can leverage information technology and use Computer-Assisted Audit Tools and Techniques (CAAT) to attest clients' financial statements.

This course identifies and provides a framework for analyzing the major financial decisions made by a firm. Issues addressed include asset valuation models, investment decision making, analysis of risk, financial planning, dividend policy, working capital management, sources of long-term finances and the cost of capital, and the financial mix for the firm.

This course examines and discusses the relationship between accounting information systems and internal controls. This course also offers an in-depth analysis on how to take advantages of information technology to enhance an organization’s internal controls. By improving internal controls, this course will discuss how accounting information systems assist an organization to produce a set of reliable and accurate financial statements, address regulatory requirements, meet managerial decision needs, and improve the operational effectiveness and efficiency.

This course is designed to familiarize students with the Chinese tax system and practice. After an introduction to the normative and institutional backgrounds of tax administration, it will examine the country’s major state and local tax regimes. The course will also touch on administrative and professional aspects of tax practice in this emerging market economy.

The OECD Guidelines for Corporate Governance identify four elements namely objectives, transparency, benchmarks and accountability as key factors that transcend both legal and national boundaries. As a concept it delineates the rights and responsibilities of each group of stakeholders in the company by providing for appropriate checks and balance to be incorporated into the process of performance, decision making and monitoring. This course will address issues within the rubric of corporate governance from an accounting and legal perspective.

This course equips the student with a deeper understanding of the current state of play as regards Corporate Governance principles & rules, and the institutions through which Corporate Governance rules are applied to capital market participants, with a special focus on the Hong Kong and mainland China capital markets, but also addresses the challenges and trends in the real-life market place and how the linkages between effective Enterprise Governance, Risk Management and Compliance can contribute to superior business performance and thereby to enhanced investor confidence in the capital markets.

Entrepreneurial activities have become a potent source of economic power that generates enormous job opportunities and business innovation globally. This is particularly spectacular in the context of China where there are numerous cases of successful and failure cases of privately owned enterprises and collectively owned township and village enterprises growing from an embryonic stage into a larger firm. The course adopts a “life-cycle” approach and develops a set of accounting and managerial skills to analyze companies from the start-up stage to eventually cashing out.

Independent study gives students added flexibility to design study programs suited to a particular area of interest or to delve more deeply into a specific topic. Students need to find a faculty member willing to serve as your supervisor, and together, devise a format. There are a wide range of possibilities under independent study. The more common alternatives are: (a) Selection of a topic not normally covered in our curriculum in which the student has an interest. Normally the student would prepare a literature review on the selected topic. It would then be common for the student to perform some application or extension of this body of knowledge by extending or substantiating that knowledge by some data collection. (b) Preparation of a case and accompanying teacher's note. The case must be based on real organizations and substantial data collection would be expected. The student would be expected to demonstrate application of theory in preparation of the teacher's note.

Financial markets play a pivotal and central role in the formation of investment capital and, therefore, societal wealth. This function, in addition to many others, is explored in this course. Attention will also focus on the forms and structures of financial markets (i.e. equity, debt, derivatives, gold and foreign exchange markets) both locally and internationally. Within this brief, detailed consideration is also given to the various institutions participating in the markets and to the form and functions of instruments quoted.