Why learners found transfer pricing difficult? Implications for directors

Abstract

A recent survey of Australian directors conducted by the Financial Reporting Council found that directors require a detailed understanding of technical accounting issues. With the aim of understanding learner difficulties in learning and applying higher learning material relevant to directors, this study explores the transfer pricing topic taught as a case presentation in an undergraduate accounting program at an Australian university. Before intervention with improvements, this study invited 25 students to take part in the study after they had learned the topic and been given one week to understand it. By adopting a transfer pricing problem presented in their essential reading and interviewing those students to gain further insights, the study found that learners experienced conceptual difficulties at various stages in attempting to learn. Intervention to ease learning difficulties was addressed through instructor training. The intervention improvements included using guided workbooks to develop a better understanding of concepts among learners, and representing the problem at hand with diagrams. After intervention with improvements, this study repeated the same procedures with 25 students who had not taken part in the previous study and found that interventions increased the learning. Results have implications for most directors, who are novices to the detailed technical accounting issues of transfer pricing.