Political Campaign Donation Assignment : US Lawmaking Case Study for Donor Benefit Analysis, Singapore

Topic

Political campaign donations in the US and whether they are linked to benefits in lawmaking. I have a draft, and my supervisor has commented on it.

Suggested structure

Title: Similar to a book’s title

Organise your essay in sections as follows:

Section 1- Introduction

Here, you need to broadly describe the area in which you will do your research (e.g., accounting rules, accounting profession, tax, management accounting, strategy, etc.).

You need to describe a problem first, followed by the explicit formulation of a research question (e.g., how do tax authorities implement tax rules?). This must have a question mark.

The final paragraph should describe the structure of the remainder of the essay.

Section 2- Literature review

Here, you should situate the reader in your context.

Use academic references (journal articles, books, book chapters, specialised websites such as the OECD and others when relevant). Avoid Wikipedia, Investopedia and other sites that are not academically reviewed.

Include in your article search in the following accounting journals:

• Accounting, Organizations and Society
• Critical Perspectives on Accounting
• The British Accounting Review
• Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal
• Contemporary Accounting Research
• The accounting Review
• Journal of Accounting Research
• Journal of Political Economy
• American Economic Review
• Meditari Accountancy Research
• Journal of Tax Administration (JOTA)
• British tax review and other tax journals
• Include others included in the ABS ranking list
• Also use Google scholar

Organise your readings by concepts.

Avoid presenting the literature as a list of bulletpoints. The discussion should be organised in themes (e.g., behaviour of companies impacting on tax avoidance, followed by tax avoidance consequences, followed by statistics if available). These themes should be presented as a narrative with a clear argument. Remember that these readings should help you to answer the research question described in section 1.

Don’t write like this:

John (2008) found that tax havens are relevant to the economy
Peter (2007) argues that this is relevant.
Michael (2020) contends that tax havens are damaging for the economy.

Aspire to write coherently like in here:- organise your ideas into themes.

Relationship between tax havens and the economy
Some authors have argued about the relevance of tax havens and its impact on the economy (e.g., John, 2008; Peter, 2007; Michael, 2020). Patricia (2022), for instance states that “tax havens are the engine of multinational companies to engage in tax avoidance” (2024, p. 34).

Section 3 (Optional)- Theory

Here, you need to rely on social, economic or behavioural theories. These are normally found in sociology, economics, political sciences and psychology. Since the 1980s, these theories have been incorporated into accounting research, so you will find traces of them in the academic articles you read. These theories could further help you to answer your research question.

Some examples are: Foucault, Bourdieu, Giddens, Institutional Theory, Actor Network Theory, economic theories, agency theory, behavioural theories

Section 4 (Optional)- Case study

You may select a case study or two case studies that empirically inform your research question. There must be a relationship between the aspects of the case with your research area- if you research on technologies, use a scandal, an example of how a company has adopted technology and the like to illustrate your points.

Transformation of multinational corporation to limited liability partnership of the company Water Co. read newspapers, information on the media, judiciary reports, corruption

This case should be analysed in the light of the concepts written in section 2 and section 3 (if you use it- recall that it is optional).

Section 5- Conclusions

Avoid a summary of the findings but analyse them conceptually.

Make sure you pull your arguments together that answer your research question. This is key for a good essay.

References

Use the style and format explained in the extended essay handbook. Also about the footnotes and word count.