Learning about the future: From the learner's perspective

The path for a hopeful future depends on learning, a process that is a complex symphony of human experience. It is a process that demands deep questioning and critique of our world-views. It is a process that requires that we open ourselves to and effectively cope with a myriad of emotions. It is a process that compels us to engage in soul-searching as we explore our human responsibilities and commitments, connect with the meaning and purpose of our very existence and choose paths of action based on those reflections. Learning to care for future generations and the world they will inherit is a unique and holistic process. Our ability to support this form of learning begins with an understanding of the human experience of learning, from the perspective of learners.     

Do commodities make effective hedges for equity investors?

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate whether commodities are effective hedges for equity holders. We employ three different methodologies to calculate time varying hedge ratios. First, we examine time-varying hedge ratios and how much portfolio risk can be reduced relative to a long position in the S&P 500. We calculate hedge ratios from realized variances and covariances; second, we estimate a recursive multivariate GARCH (BEKK) model and calculate the hedge ratios from the estimated covariances; and thirdly, we calculate the hedge ratios by estimating recursive OLS regressions. The results of our paper are very clear. First, commodities are not effective hedges for the S&P 500. Equity market investors and asset managers looking for a way to manage and reduce portfolio risk will be well advised to search for alternative hedges for the S&P 500 than commodities. Second, our results do not support the claim that commodities were a good hedge for the equity market during the financial crisis.     

Accounting practices and professional power dynamics during a crisis

This paper examines how changes in accounting practices during a crisis can affect organisational dynamics between hospital managers and clinicians. Our theoretical framework applies a multi-dimensional concept of power (Hardy, 1996) – which distinguishes power over resources, processes and meaning – to a longitudinal case study of a public university hospital during a budgetary crisis. Based on interviews with managers and clinicians, three successive time intervals with distinct power constellations are identified. Initially, we identify a pre-crisis phase where management formally controls resources, which seems to have limited effects on clinician dominance because managers lack ‘processual power’ and ‘power of meaning’. Next, an implantation phase emerges whereby the introduction of mandated budget cuts triggers shifts in the distribution of power, such that managers acquire power by securing the collaboration of clinicians – a phenomenon which has tangible benefits in terms of enabling budget compliance and increased service provision. Finally, the third phase may be conceptualized as a fiscal pressure regimen whereby, when budgetary pressures intensify further, management's newly gained ‘power of meaning’ is eroded because management are now seen to pursue unrealistic demands. Drawing on research insights gleaned during each phase, our analysis contributes to extant literature in at least three ways. First, we present novel findings regarding the impact of crises-related applications of accounting practices on intra-organisational power constellations. Second, our work highlights how accounting practices help shape the understanding of crisis, which, in turn, impacts the distribution of organizational power and influences intra-organizational patterns of collaboration. Third, we find that awareness of the meaning power of accounting practices can help shape strategic action in crisis situations.     

Economic resiliency and recovery,lessons from the financial crisis for the COVID-19 pandemic: A regional perspective from Central and Eastern Europe

In this paper we examine resiliency, the ability to absorb and recover from economic shocks, in 199 Nuts-3 regions in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) following the 2008 global financial crisis. We find evidence of strong positive regional spillovers, meaning that regions tend to form clusters of high-performing and low-performing areas, a process that exacerbates regional income disparities. Using the experience of the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis, we simulate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the ability of these, and, by extension, other upper-middle-income countries to recover from a shock to employment caused by the incidence of COVID-19. Using our recoverability equation estimates, we find that employment in no more than 31 of the 199 regions will have fully recovered in 2 years after the onset of the recovery from the crisis. Policy implications of the findings are discussed.     

Time-varying rare disaster risk and stock returns

This study provides empirical support for theoretical models that allow for time-varying rare disaster risk. Using a database of 447 international political crises during the period 1918-2006, we create a crisis index that shows substantial variation over time. Changes in this crisis index, our proxy for changes in perceived disaster probability, have a large impact on both the mean and volatility of world stock market returns. Crisis risk is positively correlated with the earnings-price ratio and the dividend yield. Cross-sectional tests also show that crisis risk is priced: Industries that are more crisis risk sensitive yield higher returns.     

How did a domestic housing slump turn into a global financial crisis?

The global financial crisis clearly started with problems in the U.S. sub-prime sector and spread across the world from there. But was the direct exposure of foreigners to the U.S. financial system a key driver of the crisis, or did other factors account for its rapid contagion across the world? To answer this question, we assessed whether countries that held large amounts of U.S. mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and were highly dependent on dollar funding experienced a greater degree of financial distress during the crisis. We found little evidence of such direct spillovers from the United States to abroad. Although CDS spreads generally rose higher and bank stocks generally fell lower in countries with more exposure to U.S. MBS and greater dollar funding needs, these correlations were not robust, and they fail to explain the lion’s share of the deterioration in asset prices that took place during the crisis. Accordingly, less tangible channels of contagion may have played a more important role in the global spread of the crisis: a generalized run on global financial institutions, given the opacity of their balance sheets; excessive dependence on short-term funding; vicious cycles of mark-to-market losses driving fire sales of MBS; the realization that financial firms around the world were pursuing similar (flawed) business models; and global swings in risk aversion. The U.S. sub-prime crisis, rather than being a fundamental driver of the global crisis, may have been merely a trigger for a global bank run and for disillusionment with a risky business model that already had spread around the world.     

How futuring bush mechanics seek to transform the world

In today's complex and turbulent world it is vital to have futurists who can collaborate on collective projects, focus on action codified in exemplar projects and validate actions towards a better world. Unfortunately, current ‘education’ systems focus almost exclusively on the individual learner and have separated the learner from the praxis of the lived life. Furthermore, classrooms separate the learner from design, production and integration of learning into community life. The author argues that overcoming this separation of thinking and doing is one of the key challenges for modernity in future, in particular.This paper argues that a way in which we may be able to meet this challenge is known by the term ‘bush mechanics’ in Australia—innovative individuals who look forward wisely and solve collective problems today through applying their ingenuity with what is available, thus integrating thinking, doing and being in what in ancient times was called poiesis and in Medieval times ‘artificing’ and today can be seen in action learning and the bush mechanic. The four principles, as well as examples, of the bush mechanic approach are discussed including their exemplar projects. Finally, the importance of the bush mechanic approach to ‘futuring’ and creating living breathing examples today of a future our children can live with is emphasised and collaboration sought.     

The power of collective ambition

In the past few years, some companies have not just weathered the economic storm: They've emerged stronger than ever. How did such players as Four Seasons, Sephora, and Standard Chartered Bank defy conventional logic? Instead of pursuing a single ambition, such as profits, employees defined a collective ambition. As a result, those organizations deepened their engagement with employees and other stakeholders and became sustainably profitable. Purpose, a company's reason for existence, is the central element of collective ambition. The other elements--vision, targets and milestones, strategic and operational priorities, brand promise, core values, and leader behaviors--must be aligned to serve the company's purpose. Articulating the elements of collective ambition can give everyone in the organization a better sense of the company's purpose and how they can contribute to it. Purpose does not have to be about saving the world; providing excellent entertainment or banking services is just as meaningful a purpose as improving health care in emerging economies--as long as it is an authentic representation of why the company exists. To shape and then achieve a collective ambition, companies must strengthen their organizational glue (the collaborative engagement that creates a unified culture) and grease (the disciplined execution that enterprisewide change initiatives require).     

Are Competitive Banking Systems More Stable?

Using the Panzar and Rosse H-statistic as a measure of competition in 45 countries, we find that more competitive banking systems are less prone to experience a systemic crisis and exhibit increased time to crisis. This result holds even when we control for banking system concentration, which is associated with higher probability of a crisis and shorter time to crisis. Our results indicate that competition and concentration capture different characteristics of banking systems, meaning that concentration is an inappropriate proxy for competition. The findings suggest that policies promoting competition among banks, if well executed, have the potential to improve systemic stability.     

危机·中国·诺亚方舟？——金融危机中跨国公司的中国选择

中国以经济发展和社会进步成为世界经济的稳定器。相对于其他国家，中国应对危机有三个优势：一是中国具有庞大的外汇储备；二是中国存在资本管制，为中国筑起一道“防火墙”；三是中国货币政策稳健。过去4年都实现了财政盈余。在全球金融海啸中，有观点视中国为避风港，避难所。     

Failures to enact the future—A social practice perspective

To be successful, organisational foresight requires a multitude of perspectives and faculties. We have adopted a social practice perspective, which we base within an interpretative world view, to better understand how organisational foresight is enacted. This offers a reading of the phenomena, of which the essential contribution is that organisational foresight is more than an organisational property; it is something that reflective people do as they engage with various inputs from the outside and as a result of the continuous interaction between activity systems and their constituting elements. A longitudinal case study illustrates the importance of understanding the construction of collective and individual meaning in working with organisational foresight. The study shows how the inherent rigidity of the existing activity system and the weak ties between these diverse subsets of the organisation may block the interaction between emerging social practices and organisational intentions resulting in ongoing failures of understanding and enactment. A model is developed to include these parameters in an augmented activity systems model. Based on this we have identified the linking of organisational levels as one of the key dimensions to be considered for which the social practice perspective holds significant explanatory strength.     

Knowing the unknowable and contested terrains in accounting

Creating visibilities and breaking silences are powerful legacies of critical accounting research and education. This paper, promoting that we further develop our understandings of how ideas are created, reveals how language is nuanced, power is embed in accounting technology, and accounting education crafts and restricts meaning. Particular ways of knowing in accounting education are appraised as well as emerging approaches to critical and ethical accounting education in order to deliberate: how can we foster a truly critical framework by which educators and students can “think different” and what can be done to promote sustainable, principled, and nuanced business practices? Our views of the morality of our world, how social structures affect ways of knowing, and what disrupts and challenges the status quo are particularly of concern to promote social transformation and justice.     

The genesis of the 2008 global financial crisis and challenges to the neoclassical paradigm of finance

In the first step, this paper briefly discusses the macroeconomic background of the 2008 financial crisis. Next, we take a wider approach and we look at systemic changes that global economics, and financial markets in particular, had undergone. We wonder if these transformations, and their effects so dramatically demonstrated in 2008, give grounds to modify the theoretical background of finance. The neoclassical paradigm might be seen as an idealized normative benchmark. On the other hand, behavioral approach helps explain deviations from this benchmark, however itself it lacks the normative character. We conclude that in contemporary circumstances an interdisciplinary approach is needed in the search for an adequate theory, as the financial world is getting more and more complex and dynamic.     

Whither history? Encounters with historicism, postmodernism, postcolonialism

Postmodernist questioning of historians' claims to historical truth has created a sense of crisis in historical consciousness. The essay argues that the crisis is not a crisis in the writing of history, as most historians still continue with business as usual, but a crisis in the cultural meaning of history. While this crisis has been associated with the so-called “linguistic turn” which was to result in a paradigm shift in historiography in the 1970s, it has other important dimensions; including Third World questionings of EuroAmerican understandings of the past and, perhaps even more importantly, the intrusion into the representations of the past of the new media. The essay argues that new kinds of history that have appeared since the 1970s from women's history to the history of social movements to “microhistory” have themselves contributed to the complication of our understanding of the past, and what might be called postmodernity's histories. It suggests that historians have always assumed the tentativeness and contingency of claims to historical truth, and argues against a premature panic concerning the status of history. Constructivism is here to stay, but that does not necessarily point to the disappearance of history, only to more complicated ways of grasping the past.     

Perceived vs actual financial crisis and bank credit standards: Is there any indication of self-fulfilling prophecy?

We link senior banks loan officers’ responses regarding their decisions for bank credit standards, from successive surveys from the European Bank Lending Survey to investigate two important issues. First, we examine the relationship between bank credit standards (CS) and perceived and actual financial crisis. Second, we investigate whether the notion of the self-fulfilling prophecy is applicable in the case of the 2008 financial crisis. In particular, the second main research question that we try to answer is whether the perceived crisis (as implied by the Google search query “financial crisis”) contributed to the acceleration of the outburst of the actual crisis. We find that both perceived and actual financial crisis affect senior bank loan officers’ credit standards, with the actual crisis having the greatest impact. These results are consistent both in the short and in the long run. Finally, by putting forward a binary choice model we find sufficient evidence to support the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy notion.     

扩张内需下的中国银行业：业务拓展与风险控制

当前全球金融危机正在蔓延并对实体经济产生影响,全球普遍采取了救市政策,为了减轻其对中国的影响,中国启动了大规模扩大内需的政策,这对中国银行业意味着什么?给中国银行业带来了哪些机遇和挑战?     

The ecological footprint of New Zealand as a step towards sustainability

Three studies have derived ecological footprints for New Zealand. Two were done in NZ and are based on land area only. The third is part of an international study which includes marine resources. Absolute comparisons in physical parameters are difficult as they do not all have the same baseline. Relative comparisons, as a proportion of carrying capacity exclusive of marine resources, are comparable, viz. 86, 60 and 70%. Precaution and the maintenance of biodiversity imply that we should live well within our carrying capacity. New Zealand therefore could be considered as already over populated at our present life style and relative to the global carrying capacity. The international study of 52 nations (80% of the world's population) derives an average global footprint (2.8 ha/cap), inclusive of marine resources, that is greater than the global ecological capacity (2.1 ha/cap). NZ has a very large footprint at 7.6 ha/cap whilst being the most bounteous of all with an ecological capacity of 20.4 ha/cap. However the marine ecological capacity for NZ is proportionately very large (50% of our total capacity) but uncertain and so should be disregarded. Exclusive of the marine component, the NZ footprint and capacity are 7.4 and 10.5 ha/cap respectively—the 70% reported above. A significant minority in New Zealand would not feel they are enjoying the bounty expressed by these figures. There are several reasons—we undervalue nature's wealth; quantitative growth is unsustainable; we are losing control of our resources; our economic system is flawed. Even so, achieving greater equity within NZ and between nations within the global capacity will not in itself lead to sustainability—to biophysical sustainability perhaps, but that is only survival. Sustainability pertains to the interior, subjective dimensions in life which have no location and are not quantifiable but which provide purpose and meaning in life. Indeed we may even be unable to achieve biophysical sustainability without engaging in the evolution of human consciousness at a collective level.     

Persistent public management reform: an egregore of liberal authoritarianism?

This paper explores how we may better understand public administration and public sector management reform. We often interpret our world through stories and this allows us to mentally map where we have been and where we are going to. The paper explores developments in understanding public awareness and that of policy-makers and its impact on policy. It uses the financial crisis and reforms implemented 10 years on to illustrate the points and explore the use of the term ‘egregore’ as a tool for understanding change. A mature free economy requires a strong state to balance deregulation for economic growth with regulation for the public good, necessitating improved policy capacity and good governance. It also needs public administrations staffed with competent, honest officials skilled in the art of statehood. The story of the financial crisis, and how we got there, conveys how to avoid future dangers.     

Explaining bank stock performance with crisis sentiment

Using search volume data on crisis-related queries from Google Trends, we estimate three different measures of market-level and individual crisis sentiment. We find that the stock performance of international banks during the period Q1 2004 to Q4 2012 was significantly driven by investors’ irrational market-wide crisis sentiment. Our empirical analysis shows that irrational market-wide crisis sentiment leads investors to devalue bank stocks irrespective of idiosyncratic or macroeconomic fundamentals. Comparing this finding with results for a sample of non-financial companies, we find evidence in support of the notion that the effect of crisis sentiment on stock returns is strongest in the absence of implicit bailout guarantees.     

Waiting for Marxo: A short play in two acts

Samuel Beckett's play waiting for Godot recounts the story of two tramps, Estragon and Vladimir, awaiting the arrival of Godot. Within the boredom of the wait Estragon and Vladimir are forced to evaluate the purpose of their own life, their existence, the existence of God[ot] and the nature of the human condition. However, Godot never arrives and all that remains is the experience of waiting.In a similar way critical accounting is caught in an act of waiting. Waiting for Marx, for Habermas, for Foucault or for some other thinker to come and to rescue us from our predicament. In this lies some of the academic angst over the future of the critical project.Here we present an imaginative dialogue, substituting two accounting academics for Beckett's tramps. As such they do not represent real people but rather the struggle within the academic discourse for identity, self and meaning. While this dialogue might seem hopeless, reflecting the frustration present in the Beckett original, there is the possibility of emancipation as both of the characters agree to abandon the wait for Marxo and to proceed with their project, in effect fulfilling Marx[o]'s injunction that ‘the role of philosophy is not to describe the world but to change it’.