Strategic interventions of management accountants: everyday practice of British and German brewers

A popular stereotype has it that German firms are somehow ‘long-term strategically oriented’ and British firms focus on short-term financial gain. Analysing ethnographic material from British and German brewers, this paper explores how management accountants in the two countries conceive of their relationship with processes of strategic formulation and how they seek to mobilize strategic arguments in their day-to-day contacts with operational management. The focus of this study is not on the strategy debates which one might expect among senior management, but on routine interaction between management accountants and managers in which the mundane events of organizational life are made to happen in the name of loftier ‘strategic’ priorities. From observations of such interaction and management accountants' reflections on them, contrasting ways of integrating management accounting expertise with operational knowledge of the firm are suggested for the British and German brewers studied. Those contrasts are developed by drawing on the relationship between time and the possibility for strategic intervention more generally.     

The negative impact of R&D capitalization: A value relevance approach

Abstract

Accounting for R&D costs is an open issue. SFAS N°2 mandates that all R&D costs must be immediately expensed. IAS 38 requires capitalization of R&D costs if they meet certain criteria. Recent research papers show the value relevance of capitalized R&D. We test the value relevance of R&D reporting in a sample of 197 French firms between 1993 and 2002. The French context provides an interesting field for R&D value relevance studies because both accounting treatments of R&D costs (expensing and capitalization) are allowed. Unlike previous studies, we find that capitalized R&D is negatively associated with stock prices and returns. This negative coefficient on capitalized R&D implies that investors are concerned with and react negatively to capitalization of R&D. We also find that the firms choosing to capitalize (successful) R&D are smaller, more highly leveraged, less profitable and have less growth opportunities. Taking into account these characteristics, our robustness checks confirm that capitalized R&D is not associated with higher prices and is related to lower returns.     

Information management with specific investments and cost-based transfer prices

Abstract

We analyse information flows in a profit-centre organisation with internal trade between two risk-neutral divisions. Prior to production, the divisions make unverifiable investments in intrafirm synergies. After investments are made, the selling division announces a cost-based transfer price which includes a mark-up on variable costs. The buying division then decides what quantity to purchase at that unit cost. From the head office's perspective, the key issues are to influence both, divisional investments and the seller's manipulation of the mark-up. To do so, the head office can fund a pre-decision information system before divisional investments are made. The system produces forward-looking information that can be used to improve the divisions' investment decisions, but which cannot be used in evaluating their performance. Our analytical framework allows us to identify cost and revenue structures for which pre-decision information either supports or destroys intrafirm synergies by motivating or discouraging divisional investments, thereby resulting in an increase in, decrease in or in no impact whatsoever on, firm profit. Among our most interesting findings is the counterintuitive result that pre-decision information can undermine the incentives of risk-neutral agents to invest specifically. Our results add to earlier agency models that found different, albeit equally dysfunctional effects of pre-decision information. Contrary to these studies, our findings are not driven by either risk aversion or rent extraction.     

One-step R-estimation in linear models with stable errors

Classical estimation techniques for linear models either are inconsistent, or perform rather poorly, under α$\alpha$-stable error densities; most of them are not even rate-optimal. In this paper, we propose an original one-step R-estimation method and investigate its asymptotic performances under stable densities. Contrary to traditional least squares, the proposed R-estimators remain root-n$n$ consistent (the optimal rate) under the whole family of stable distributions, irrespective of their asymmetry and tail index. While parametric stable-likelihood estimation, due to the absence of a closed form for stable densities, is quite cumbersome, our method allows us to construct estimators reaching the parametric efficiency bounds associated with any prescribed values (_α0,_b0)$({\alpha }_0,b_0)$ of the tail index α$\alpha$ and skewness parameter b$b$, while preserving root-n$n$ consistency under any (α,b)$(\alpha ,b)$ as well as under usual light-tailed densities. The method furthermore avoids all forms of multidimensional argmin computation. Simulations confirm its excellent finite-sample performances.     

The iron cage exposed: Institutional pressures and heterogeneity across the healthcare supply chain

The healthcare industry has been known to operate in a strong institutional environment (i.e. government regulations), and the implementation of inter-organizational systems (IOS) has followed an institutional process. Extending this perspective across different tiers in the healthcare supply chain, we investigate how organizations in different tiers in the supply chain (i.e. hospitals, distributors and manufacturers) respond to institutional pressures when implementing IOS. How institutional dynamics unfold across multiple tiers of a supply chain is an uncharted area of research, and we take the theory-building case study approach using data collected from ten organizations. Because organizations are embedded in their respective tiers, our within-tier analyses are equivalent to cross-organization analyses. In this regard, the cross-case analyses occur at two different levels: at each tier level (i.e. across multiple hospitals, multiple distributors and multiple manufacturers) and across the supply chain (i.e. across all three tiers). The study shows how different institutional pressures such as coercive, mimetic, and normative manifest across the tiers. It also demonstrates how a differential mix of endogenous and institutional pressures lead to mixed organizational responses across the tiers. The propositions developed from the study enrich institutional theory arguments within the information systems and supply chain management disciplines. They highlight how the IOS implementation dynamics within and across different tiers in a supply chain result in heterogeneous rather than isomorphic consequences, thereby exposing the “iron cage” of institutionalization.     

Testing the Porter hypothesis: the effects of environmental investments on efficiency in Swedish industry

The main objective of this paper is to test the Porter hypothesis by assessing static and dynamic effects of environmental policy on productivity. According to the hypothesis, stringent environmental regulations have dynamic effects on firm performance, and these effects eventually generate profits that offset the adaptation costs. We extend previous analyses by using unique data on environmental protection investments in the Swedish manufacturing industry as a proxy for environmental stringency. These data enable us to separate environmental protection investments into pollution prevention and pollution control. This distinction is crucial since the hypothesis claims that it is investments in prevention that have positive dynamic effects on firm performance. To test the hypothesis, a stochastic production frontier model is estimated where firm inefficiency is a function of investments in environmental protection. In general, we find no support for the Porter hypothesis within the time frame of our study, indicating that environmental regulations lead to efficiency losses. This result is even stronger in the harshly regulated pulp and paper industry.     

Entrepreneurship and path dependency in regional development

This paper describes a case study of path-dependent industrial development in a specialized medium-sized region characterized by a specialized high-tech industry cluster, located near Norway's capital, Oslo. The case study examines the path-dependent process of new industry arising from technology-related industries through three main branching mechanisms: entrepreneurship, mobility, and social networks. More particularly, the study explores the extent to which regional branching mechanisms relate to different path-dependent processes of path extension, path renewal, or path creation. The case study of industrial development in a medium-sized region that critically examines the concepts of path dependence, and argues that specialized medium-sized regions follow different path processes from core regions due to regional branching that does not happen automatically but instead may require policy action and external investment to avoid stagnation or negative lock-in.     

An examination of ex-ante factors and their influence on equity carve-out long-term performance

This study examines the influence of several ex-ante factors on three-year market-adjusted returns of two-stage carve-out combinations from 1988 to 2006. We observe that several factors maintain their significance over a three-year period after equity carve-out ex-dates. Also, we report that, contrary to Vijh (J Bus 75(1):153–190, 1999), negative three-year carve-out returns are statistically significant. In addition, we note that negative combination carve-out/spin-off three-year returns are higher than those of carve-outs acquired by third parties or reacquired by their parents. Moreover, we observe that our independent variables explain 14.56% of the multiple regression three-year returns for carve-outs. Also, our negative correlation of three-year returns with initial period returns supports the “leaning against the wind” hypothesis of Loughran and Ritter (Rev Financ Stud 15(2):413–443, 2002). In addition, our results for the post-bubble period (2001–2006) provide an extension of the changing issuer objective function noted by Loughran and Ritter (Financ Manage 35(3):23–51, 2004) for IPOs and Hogan and Olson (J Financ Res 27(4):521–537, 2004) for equity carve-outs.     

Social Marketing as Transformational Marketing in Public Services

Abstract

This article presents a case study of a social marketing intervention, developed as an innovative action research project for a Fire Service, to tackle the public service challenge of reducing the incidence of deliberate countryside fire-setting in certain communities. The case demonstrates the effectiveness of a social marketing approach to tackling an anti-social behaviour that had become a local social norm which conventional education-based campaigns had failed to change. The case also explores unexpected impacts that applying a social marketing approach had on the sponsoring Fire Service, acting to transform certain aspects of its operations and culture.