The Selection Process for Accounting Textbooks: General Criteria and Publisher Incentives--A Survey.

This study examines the protocol observed for selecting accounting textbooks and the criteria used to evaluate text suitability at various academic institutions by means of a survey of 237 individuals randomly selected from Hasselback's 1995 Accounting Faculty Directory. In addition, it investigates a controversial practice, that of publishers offering faculty members incentives in return for textbook adoptions that appear to violate guidelines established by the Higher Education Division of the Association of American Publishers, Inc. Results indicate that group decisions dominate individual decisions in the selection of texts for accounting principles, intermediate accounting, and managerial accounting courses; whereas, texts for advanced accounting, tax, systems and other specialized and graduate courses are predominantly individual decisions. With respect to textbook selection criteria, respondents attach the most significance to comprehensibility to students, timeliness of text material, compatibility between text and homework problems, and exposition quality of text, respectively. Respondents reported ancillary support materials to be of lower significance. The gap in perceived importance of text-related qualities versus ancillary materials was significantly wider among faculty from the more prestigious institutions, as determined by AACSB accreditation and top 50 business school status. Fifty-seven respondents report that they have actually received a publisher incentive that would appear to be questionable, if not proscribed, under AAP guidelines. These include expenses-paid seminar trips, cash payments to one's department, CD ROM drives and other computer hardware. These findings are also disaggregated and noteworthy demographic differences in the receipt of these incentives are discussed. Based on this study's findings, we discuss the implications for future textbook selection decisions and future research opportunities. With respect to incentives, we offer suggestions aimed at stemming the flow of proscribed and/or questionable incentives from publishers to faculty members in return for text-book adoptions, noting the costs of this practice to publishers and students.