Julie M. Mercado’s research while affiliated with Boise State University and other places

We review factors that contribute to good governance in not-for-profit (NFP) organizations, specifically the performance and effectiveness of Boards of Directors. Assessing Board performance is a difficult task because of the variety of missions that NFPs strive to achieve and the assortment of stakeholders that they aim to appease. It is further complicated by the limited amount of data that are available and relevant to NFP Boards. Researchers often control for good governance by using an organization’s self-reported information about basic policies and procedures as a proxy for performance, but assessing a Board directly often involves more nuanced information. This review provides background information about NFP Boards, discusses relevant governance theories and the related Board roles commonly examined in NFP research, examines what is known about the performance and effectiveness of Boards in those roles, and suggests ideas for future NFP Board governance research. JEL Classifications: M40; M41.

ChatGPT, a language-learning model chatbot, has garnered considerable attention for its ability to respond to users’ questions. Using data from 14 countries and 186 institutions, we compare ChatGPT and student performance for 28,085 questions from accounting assessments and textbook test banks. As of January 2023, ChatGPT provides correct answers for 56.5 percent of questions and partially correct answers for an additional 9.4 percent of questions. When considering point values for questions, students significantly outperform ChatGPT with a 76.7 percent average on assessments compared to 47.5 percent for ChatGPT if no partial credit is awarded and 56.5 percent if partial credit is awarded. Still, ChatGPT performs better than the student average for 15.8 percent of assessments when we include partial credit. We provide evidence of how ChatGPT performs on different question types, accounting topics, class levels, open/closed assessments, and test bank questions. We also discuss implications for accounting education and research.