It was the heart of the college football Bowl Championship Series last month, when approximately 150 deans, faculty and administrators from prominent business schools gathered in New York for Ernst & Young's Campus Diversity and Inclusiveness Roundtable.

The younger generation was a popular talking point during the recent Winning Is Everything conference in Las Vegas.

Succession planning, recruiting, M&A and developing top talent and pricing pressures were among several front-burner issues that came to the forefront during a roundtable discussion by members of the Advisory Board.

CBIZ’s Small Business Employment Index increased sharply in December, the largest jump in two years.

The unemployment rate fell two-tenths of a percentage point to 8.5 percent, the lowest level since February 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, as employers added 200,000 jobs.

The private sector added 325,000 jobs in December, according to payroll giant ADP, the largest monthly gain since December 2010.

Small businesses added 55,000 new jobs in December and employees worked longer hours last month, according to figures from Intuit.

IMGCAP(1)]I travel quite a bit and have the luxury of seeing a lot of different accounting practices and management styles.

Optimism among small business owners grew significantly in December, according to the latest survey by SurePayroll.

This issue of Generational Viewpoints features two individuals from Kennedy and Coe llC (www.kcoe.com), a Salina, Kan.-based top 100 firm with over 200 professionals. Generation X member Jeff Wald, born in 1972, and Baby Boomer chief executive Kurt Siemers, born in 1948, shared their responses to the following question:

When Elizabeth Taylor died last year, she left a legacy of iconic movie performances, philanthropy, and lots and lots of diamonds. It was among these incredible baubles at Christie's auction house, where they have since been sold for astronomical sums, that members of global women's network 85 Broads convened to ask the popular question: Where are all the women?

In a bit of good news despite a still-uncertain economy, compensation for accounting professionals is expected to rise some 3.5 percent overall in 2012, continuing its upward momentum from the prior year.

IMGCAP(1)]A major financial reporting and accounting deficiency needs our long-overdue attention: the failure to reflect the value of human capital as an asset on a firm’s balance sheet.

Ninety-two percent of financial professionals believe that businesses will either maintain their current employee headcount or increase their employee count in 2012, according to a survey of U.S. accounting firms.

Career growth opportunities ranked as the number one inducement for staying at or joining an accounting firm, according to a new survey by the American Institute of CPAs.

Hiring of finance and accounting employees is expected to improve in the first quarter of next year, according to a survey of CFOs by staffing company Robert Half International.

Plante Moran has hired 135 accounting, tax and consulting interns and professionals and entry-level staff who are slated to start January 1.

The nation’s unemployment rate fell four-tenths of a percentage point to 8.6 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, marking the lowest unemployment rate since March 2009.

Accounting firms are going back to basics in their retention efforts, with renewed focus on establishing and building a quality culture.

Employees at small businesses made less money in November than in October and were working fewer hours, even though 55,000 new jobs were added at small businesses in November, according to Intuit.