Glover, Steven M., Stephen W. Liddle, and Douglas F. Prawitt, E-Business: Principles and...

GLOVER, STEVEN M., STEPHEN W. LIDDLE, and DOUGLAS F. PRAWITT, E-Business: Principles and Strategies for Accountants (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001, 170 pp.)

This book is intended to provide a relatively nontechnical introduction to the world of e-business--a world that

accounting professionals in training must be exposed to. The authors do an outstanding job of presenting the material in a way that is accessible to a broad audience and is well suited as a supplement to most accounting courses at the undergraduate level. While the authors identify intermediate and advanced financial accounting courses, introductory or advanced auditing courses, and introductory systems courses as the likely market, I would also consider the inclusion of the material at the principles of accounting level as an ancillary source to provide an early overview of e-business and the accounting function to be appropriate.

The first three chapters are especially well suited to a broad audience. Chapter 1 defines e-business and provides a brief overview of benefits and risks introduced by e-business enabling technology. The chapter also identifies opportunities and challenges that e-business presents to the accounting profession. The second chapter presents a relatively brief explication of the development of the Internet and electronic data interchange and provides a useful glossary of e-business terminology (supplemented by several more technical appendices). Chapter 3 contains an excellent discussion of various business models associated with e-business (e.g., business-to-consumer, business-to-business) and follows up with several two-to-three page overviews of specific businesses that have successfully implemented e-business strategies. Four companies (Dell, Amazon, eBay, and Charles Schwab) are highlighted and should prove interesting to students.

Throughout the book, additional sidebars and highlighted text boxes provide additional richness to the presentation by providing brief vignettes or expanded discussions of points introduced in the main body of the text. Importantly, the text is supported by a well-designed web site (http://www.prenhall.com/glover) that will prove useful to adopting instructors as well as their students. The web site is also organized by chapter to correspond with the book and provides additional and updated sources of information to complement the material presented in each chapter. At the end of every chapter, questions and cases are provided to stimulate classroom discussion and to provide opportunities for instructors to evaluate student comprehension.

Chapters 4 and 5 are more narrowly focused and would, perhaps, prove challenging to an introductory class. Chapter 4, "Identifying and Managing the Risks of E-Business," expands significantly on the brief discussion in the first chapter. Specific audit risks central to a computerized environment are identified along with controls that may be implemented to mitigate such risks. Some knowledge of the computing environment is assumed, and thus this discussion is probably best targeted toward students in a junior-level accounting information systems course or as a component of a senior-level auditing course.

Chapter 5, "Implications and Opportunities of e-Business Assurance," focuses on specific features of e-business models that present risk exposures to the accounting and auditing function. For example, there is an insightful discussion of revenue recognition issues that are unique to the e-business setting. Given the level of attention that has been directed to this issue by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the recent past, this provides an excellent opportunity to expose students to the SEC's role in financial reporting. This chapter also includes an overview of assurance services that are being developed to specifically address e-business needs. CPA WebTrust, SysTrust, and Verisign are all presented as examples of e-assurance products that have been created to fill voids that have developed in response to emerging business models and practices.

As noted earlier, the book includes technical appendices (six in all) and also a useful index. I believe this text could be used to introduce business students in all concentrations to e-business concepts germane to their future professional careers. Accounting majors in particular would profit from an early exposure to these topics. The authors are to be commended for tackling a technical subject with grace and enthusiasm--the text reads easily and contains enough "real-world" examples to hold most readers attention.

BRUCE C. BRANSON
Associate Professor
North Carolina State University