Evaluation of Several Phases in the Development of Management Accounting

This paper discusses three issues, raised by Relevance Lost （Johnson ＆ Kaplan, 1987）, about historical evaluation of the development of management accounting. The first issue is when management accounting system was formed; the second is how to evaluate its development in subsequent decades; the third is how to evaluate the development of practice and research of management accounting in almost twenty years after Relevance Lost was published. The role of Relevance Lost in practice and theoretical research of management accounting is widely recognized, and the disagreement with it in this paper is in the specific area of the development history of management accounting. The authors of this paper believe that the development, through having its ups and downs over time, is generally speaking a continuous process, not separated by disconnected phases, leaping from one to another. Along with the progress in practice and research, researchers and practitioners are deepening their understanding about the theoretical foundation and practical development of management accounting. The history of development of management accounting is consistent with the process people gradually understand it.     

The role of the public sector in the provision of housing supply in Turkey, 1950–2009

This study examines the changing role of the public sector in Turkey with regard to housing provision since 1950, and particularly since 2000, and seeks to clarify how public intervention has affected housing provision and urban development dynamics in major cities. Three periods may be identified, with central government acting as a regulator in a first period characterized by a ‘housing boom’. During the second period, from 1980 to 2000, a new mass housing law spurred construction activity, although the main beneficiaries of the housing fund tended to be the middle classes. After 2000, contrary to emerging trends in both Northern and Southern European countries, the public sector in Turkey became actively involved in housing provision. During this process, new housing estates were created on greenfield sites on the outskirts of cities, instead of efforts being made to rehabilitate, restore or renew existing housing stock in the cities. Meanwhile, the concept of ‘urban regeneration’ has been opportunistically incorporated into the planning agenda of the public sector, and — under the pretext of regenerating squatter housing areas — existing residents have been moved out, while channels for community participation have been bypassed.     

About the determinants of the degree of novelty in small businesses’ product innovations

This paper explores the nature and determinants of product innovation in small businesses from a survey of more than 1,500 small firms in Spain. Two levels of factors affecting innovation are considered: (1) The personal characteristics of the entrepreneurs -their age, motivations, educational background and degree of interpersonal trust. (2) The characteristics of the organizations’ management—cooperation, risk taking, proactivity and specific innovation and growth policies. The paper shows that the factors explaining the firms’ decisions to introduce small incremental innovations -and the strength of these influences- are different, to a large extent, from those favoring substantial product innovations.     

Reform of the Foreign Trade System in 1995

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Regulating Audit in Europe: The Case of the Implementation of the EU Eighth Directive in Denmark 1984–2006

This paper examines the extent of financial information disclosure on the Internet by the largest companies in the UK in 1998. Companies were surveyed to establish whether they had a website and if so whether financial information was available. We also investigated whether that information was in summary form or whether the full annual report was available. This study finds a statistically significant positive relationship between the size of a company and the use and extent of disclosure on the Internet. There was no significant association between industry type and disclosure.     

Breakthrough of the Bottleneck in the Application of Management Accounting——Insights from Events Accounting

The purpose of management accounting information system is to serve for management. Since 1980＇s, innovations in management-have seen the application of several accounting techniques such as activity-based costing, balanced scorecard and target costing. However, subsequent surveys have shown that the application of these innovative management accounting techniques is not widespread. Indeed, the application of many techniques has been decidedly ephemeral. The authors suggest two important and interrelated reasons for the apparent failure to adopt such techniques. First, the absence of a conceptual framework needed to envision the collection and integration of multi-dimensional data needed in the modern organization. The second reason is the failure to exploit the data handling potentialities offered by modem computer systems. Reconstruction of contemporary management accounting system using insights from principles of events based accounting is offered as possible solution.     

Cultural analysis of the management accounting application in China

Management accounting is an applied subject. As YU Xu-ying said, it not only embodies the concept of technology, also reflects the fixed concept of social culture. Viewing from the cultural point, this paper analyses the applying status quo of management accounting in China. Its main viewpoints are as follows： management accounting is originated from the West, and its appearance is built on the basis of the West thought of management, so, to a certain degree, it is influenced by the West culture. In fact, its application in China is in a new cultural circumstance so that it is certainly influenced by the Chinese culture, especially the Chinese traditional culture; thus one of the important reasons for the undesirable application of management accounting in China is the difference between the East culture and the West culture. Therefore, the special cultural factor of China should be considered in order to promote what is beneficial and to abolish what is harmful if management accounting is widely applied in China.     

A Review of the Reform of China's Investment Planning System in 1995

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Why H does not measure information: the role of the “special case” legerdemain solution in the maintenance of anomalies in normal science

Anomalies or contradictions threaten a paradigm, and if they cannot be ignored, they must be either shown to be false, or must be resolved. Two common anomalies in the systems literature are examined: the contention that H measures information; and the contention that heat increase leads to entropy increase. It is shown that when faced with such anomalies, paradigm adherents often resort to legerdemain solutions, which appear to resolve the anomaly, either verbally or mathematically. Legerdemain solutions generally utilize special cases such as maximum or minimum values or equilibrium conditions, and will not hold for the general case. Thus they do not resolve the anomaly, but only appear to (hence the name legerdemain). It is shown further that legerdemain solutions are often responses to anomalies which are not major contradictions, but are rather the result of confusion in second-order or meta-paradigms. The satisfactory solution lies not in an appeal to a legerdemain solution, but in adherence to the consistent general principles of the primary paradigm, even if this necessitates some revision of terminology or principles in the secondary paradigm.     

Implications of the EU Information and Consultation Directive and the Regulations in the UK – prospects for the future of employee representation

The EU Directive on informing and consulting employees (I&C Directive) is now established on the employment relations agenda with the provisions coming into force in the UK in April 2005. The I&C Directive potentially has far reaching consequences for the way UK employers inform and consult employees over a wide range of organizational issues, with the potential to transform the UK industrial relations environment. The initiatives contained in the I&C Directive and the subsequent introduction of the Information and Consultation of Employees (ICE) Regulations will take place in an employment relations environment in a period of significant change. Pressures of globalization have intensified competition in product and labour markets, emphasizing the need for greater efficiency and productivity. This has led to a greater focus on the link between employee participation practices and business strategy and organizational performance in search of an elusive (or illusory) fit? This paper is a commentary on the origins and rationale of this new legislation in the UK context, drawing on existing knowledge and academic debates in the area. In addition, the paper discusses the potential implications of the I&C Directive and the likely impact of the ICE Regulations on UK representative voice arrangements.     

Historicizing the ‘ethnic’ in ethnic entrepreneurship: The case of the ethnic Chinese in Bangkok

This paper aims to come to a better understanding of the meaning of ‘ethnic’ in ethnic entrepreneurship for second- and third-generation ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs in Bangkok, Thailand. Research on ethnic Chinese entrepreneurship in Southeast Asia typically investigates the dominance, attributed to specific ‘Chinese’ cultural values and strong intra-ethnic networks, of the ethnic Chinese in business and entrepreneurship. Our research among second- and third-generations shows an inclination of the interviewees to emphasize the irrelevance of their ‘ethnic’ Chinese background in entrepreneurship. To understand the meanings of the expressed irrelevance, we argue that it is constructive to incorporate a historical/generational approach of the ethnic group (migration history, nationalism) and of the business (social organization) into the study of ethnic entrepreneurship. The contribution to ethnic entrepreneurship research is threefold. Firstly, we show how a generational lens provides a more nuanced understanding of the ‘ethnic’ in ethnic entrepreneurship. Secondly, we show how incorporating the historical context helps to position business conduct in the social/societal experiences of entrepreneurs. Finally, our case study of ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs in Thailand brings an Asian perspective to ethnic entrepreneurship debates that generally concern European and North American research studies and thus hopes to inspire future comparative research.     

On the informationization of accounting information in China： The perspective of accounting information systems and its regulatory framework in the USA

The informationization of accounting information systems has brought many improvements to those systems. This paper highlights some of those significant advances in the informationization of accounting information systems in China. As China has become a major industrial power in the international economy, further improvements for these information systems are critical to the continued successes of China. To additionally improve these systems, China can draw upon the systems from other world economic leaders. With its fully developed capital markets, the United States offers development experience for the external reporting components of a fully integrated information system. This paper discusses a typical integrated information system in the United States and addresses the regulatory milestones that were instrumental in the development of those external components of accounting information systems. Recommendations are presented for improving informationization of systems in China based on U.S. systems＇ responses to those milestones.     

Narrating strategy in the flow of events – Illusion and disillusion in strategy-making

Narrative strategy-making is useful in the mobilization of strategies because narratives impart coherence and linearity to our understanding of organizational events. Our paper examines the relation between narrative strategy-making and the flow of events. We present a longitudinal, participatory study of a software company seeking global growth. Specifically, we followed events preceding and succeeding construction of the strategic ‘success stories’ used by the software company’s managers in investor negotiations. We conceptualize the point of illusion and disillusion underlying the temporal construction and use of strategy narratives and show how the former enables strategy-making, while the latter constrains it. We add to narrative strategy research by elaborating the relation between the construction of strategy narratives and the flow of organizational events.     

The Impact of the Environment Management Act （EMA） on the Accountability of Companies in Fiji

This study seeks to explore the impact of the Environment Management Act （EMA） （2005） on the accountability of three companies in Fiji. The study uses a multi-case study approach based on three subsidiaries of a conglomerate. Data collection methods include semi-structured interviews with accountants, internal auditors, and environmental officers, document reviews, and content analysis of annual reports and websites of the respective companies. The findings suggest that the EMA （2005） had some effects in terms of engendering accountability on the companies studied. Further evidence suggests that while this increased accountability has led to disclosures in annual reports and websites, these disclosures are minimal at best; furthermore, they primarily address that the stakeholder group comprised government regulatory authorities. The study provides policy implications on how environmental legislations could be designed to improve the accountability of commercial entities in developing economies. The experience and issues highlighted are also useful to other developing economies who are contemplating in developing their own environmental legislations. This paper is one of the few papers that explore the impact of environmental legislations on accountability in a developing economy context.     

A re-examination of the “zero is enough” hypothesis in the emergence of financial stylized facts

In recent years, a growing literature has claimed that the market microstructure is sufficient to generate the so-called stylized facts without any reference to the behaviour of market players. Indeed, qualitative stylized-facts can be generated with zero-intelligence traders (ZITs) but we stress that they are without any quantitative predictive power. In this paper we show that in most of the cases, such qualitative stylized facts hide unrealistic price motions at the intraday level and ill-calibrated return processes as well. To generate realistic price motions and return series with adequate quantitative values is out-of-reach using pure ZIT populations. To do so, one must increasingly constrain agents?? choices to a point where it is hard to claim that their behaviour is completely random. In addition we show that even with highly constrained ZIT agents, one cannot reproduce real time series from these. Except in a few cases, first order moments of ZITs never equal real data ones. We therefore claim that stylized facts produced by means of ZIT agents are useless for financial engineering.     

Study on the degree of satisfaction on the functions of the financial system used in E-commerce enterprises based on Fuzzy AHP

In this paper, a comparison analysis is made on the functions of three generally used financial software, R/3 by SAP, a German company, U8 by Ufida Software Co. Ltd and K/3 by Kingdee. Then, a questionnaire survey has been conducted to financial staffs in the E-commerce enterprises to find out the degree of satisfaction on the functions of the above systems. The result indicates that most financial staffs are moderately satisfied. Furthermore, to judge the correction of the above questionnaire conclusion, Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process is employed to firstly establish an integral financial appraisal index system and then put forward a comprehensive evaluation model for the functions of financial system used in E-commerce enterprises.     

The conflict potential of the entrepreneur’s decision-making style in the entrepreneur-investor relationship

While prior research has indicated the importance of conflicts between investors and entrepreneurs, little is known about their causes. We use theory on entrepreneurial decision-making to examine the impact of a founding team’s causal versus effectual decision style on the level of perceived task conflict that founders experience with their venture capitalists. Based on a sample of 141 German ventures, we find that a founding team perceives fewer conflicts when following the causal principle of overcoming the unexpected and the effectual principle of affordable loss.     

Analysis of the Critical Aspects of the Generational Turnover in Family Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises （SMEs）

Family businesses, which aim at surviving today, have to deal with a precise modality： To ensure their continuity, entrepreneurs have to ensure the transfer of leadership from one generation to another inside of them. We do believe that this matter is worth being analyzed, since the succession, from one generation to another, can be considered as a crucial variable in maintaining family small- and medium-sized enterprises （SMEs） over time. Therefore, after investigating the main features, problems, and factors leading to the succession processes, in the second part of this article, an empirical analysis will be carried out, by comparing several European countries on the basis of data from the European Commission. This article contributes to enriching, from a theoretical point of view, the conceptual framework used for investigating the dynamics in the continuity of SMEs. Moreover, empirically, it contributes to the increasing literature on family businesses by comparing several European countries in order to understand what originates the longevity of family SMEs.