The (potential) demise of HRM?

This article seeks to provoke that human resource management (HRM), both as an academic field of study and as a form of professional practice, is at risk of impoverishment. The main reasoning for this is because of ideological individualism and marketisation with an attendant neglect on wider organisational, employee, and societal concerns. Following a review of the context of financialised capitalism, three contemporary developments in HRM are used to illustrate the argument: reward strategies, talent management, and high performance work systems. Implications for the practice of HRM and the way the subject area is taught in mainstream business schools are considered.     

Perceptions of the benefits of the A3 planner in facilitating project-based learning in accounting education

This paper evaluates ways of instilling project management skills into accounting-based learning by the use of an iterative A3 planner to plan, monitor and review assignment progress. The application of an A3 planner to facilitate a project-based learning (PBL) group assignment in undergraduate accounting education has been critically evaluated in terms of both the student and tutor experience. The study uses a mix of qualitative and quantitative data. Quantitative data assisting exploration of perceptions were collected through 100 undergraduate students. A series of focus group discussions were carried out to investigate students’ engagement and tutors’ teaching experiences regarding the adoption of the A3 planner. The results suggest that the A3 planner promotes active planning and effective management of a PBL group assignment. It makes students’ thought processes more visible thereby facilitating and enhancing the tutoring/mentoring process. Moreover a more interactive and transparent approach by doing assignment via the use of an iterative A3 planner has ensured more feedback points and action based efficiency in the doing approach for learners.     

Can professional skepticism be learned? Evidence from China

The purpose of the present study was to explore whether professional skepticism can be learned in a classroom setting, an issue that has received scant attention in the prior literature. A questionnaire was administered to students enrolled either in the accounting program or in the business administration program of a large college in China. The author finds that participation in ethics education is positively related to students’ professional skepticism, whereas participation in auditing education is not related to accounting students’ professional skepticism. The author also finds that accounting and nonaccounting business students exhibit no significant difference in their scores of professional skepticism.     

金融素养、家庭财富与家庭创业决策

本文利用2015年中国家庭金融调查(CHFS)数据,分析了金融素养、家庭财富与家庭创业决策三者之间的关系。整体上,金融素养的提高显著增加了家庭参与创业的可能性,但家庭参与创业面临着"财富约束效应";而金融素养对家庭财富具有替代作用,提高金融素养有效缓解了家庭的"财富约束效应",促进家庭参与创业。同时,研究发现家庭财富对家庭创业决策的影响并不存在明显的城乡差异,但金融素养更能缓解农村家庭创业所面临的"财富约束效应"。另外,提高金融素养能有效缓解家庭的信贷约束,增加其风险偏好,间接地促进创业。     

COMPARING PPP WITH TRADITIONAL PROCUREMENT: THE CASE OF SCHOOLS PROCUREMENT IN IRELAND

Advocates of public‐private partnerships (PPPs) argue that they can deliver public infrastructure more efficiently than traditional procurement through timelier completion and superior value for money. Despite these claims comparative analysis of the performance of both procurement methods has received scant attention in the PPP literature to date. This paper addresses this issue by providing an in‐depth, case‐based comparison of PPP versus traditional procurement in the schools sector in Ireland. Through detailed semi‐structured interviews with key stakeholders and an examination of the available documentation, we assess whether the key objectives of using PPP have been achieved. Overall, we find no evidence that PPP leads to faster delivery of infrastructure when the overall procurement process from contract notice to delivery is accounted for. In addition, we find only limited evidence to suggest that PPP results in better value for money.     

基于县统筹财政分权视角下的地方义务教育公平研究 ——来自山东省的实例

由于基层政府长期存在财力事权上的不均衡,我国基层地区义务教育供给存在着差距。2001年的"以县为主"的县统筹财政制度开始实行,义务教育的负责主体变成了县级政府。借助2002年到2016年的山东省县级数据,运用泰尔指数作为分析工具,结合此期间山东省出台的教育改革措施,分析其对于缩小义务教育差异的影响。研究发现,政策制度仅仅改善了中等收入县级地区之间的差距,对于高收入和低收入地区并没有太好的效果,就目标而言,由于县级各地区上经济实力和义务教育规模的固有差距,导致无法取得理想中的效果。     

Lock‐In Effects in Relationship Lending: Evidence from DIP Loans

Do prior lending relationships result in pass‐through savings (lower interest rates) for borrowers, or do they lock in higher costs for borrowers? Theoretical models suggest that when borrowers experience greater information asymmetry, higher switching costs, and limited access to capital markets, they become locked into higher costs from their existing lenders. Firms in Chapter 11 seeking debtor‐in‐possession (DIP) financing often fit this profile. We investigate the presence of lock‐in effects using a sample of 348 DIP loans. We account for endogeneity using the instrument variable (IV) approach and the Heckman selection model and find consistent evidence that prior lending relationship is associated with higher interest costs and the effect is more severe for stronger existing relationships. Our study provides direct evidence that prior lending relationships do create a lock‐in effect under certain circumstances, such as DIP financing.     

From First Canoe to Statehood: Eight Hundred Years of Economic and Political Change in Hawaii

The Hawaiian archipelago was the last major land area on the planet to be settled, with Polynesians making the long voyage just under a millennium ago. Building on new archaeological and historical research, the lecture provides an overview of the economic and political history of Hawai‘i from the first Polynesian settlements in the thirteen century through U.S. colonisation and statehood. The analysis considers how the political and economic institutions that emerged and evolved in Hawai‘i during its centuries of global isolation changed in response to Hawai‘i's post-1778 integration into a new world of global markets and colonial politics.     

Determinants of China's bilateral trade balance in global value chains

This paper identifies the determinants of China's bilateral trade balance using a new measure based on international input–output data, the so-called ‘trade in value-added’ (TiVA), which can prevent double counting in the estimation of bilateral trade balance. Our results show that using a measure based on gross exports, rather than TiVA, causes relatively large overestimation of the impact of the RMB exchange rate on China's bilateral trade balance. This overestimation is mainly because that the increasing production of exports may require increasing intermediate imports as a consequence of international fragmentation of production in global value chains. In addition, our results also show that the impact of FDI inflows on China's bilateral trade balances depends on the position and role of China and its trading partners in GVCs.     

Mandatory IFRS adoption and management forecasts: The impact of enforcement changes

We examine how concurrent enforcement changes affect the positive relationship between mandatory IFRS adoption and firms’ voluntary disclosure. We show that the increase in the issuance of management forecasts after IFRS adoption is smaller for firms from IFRS-mandating countries with concurrent enforcement changes than for those from countries without such changes. We find no difference in the increase of forecast informativeness between firms from IFRS-mandating countries without concurrent enforcement changes and firms from non-IFRS-mandating countries; however, firms domiciled in IFRS-mandating countries with concurrent enforcement changes exhibit a significantly smaller increase in forecast informativeness. Our findings suggest that better IFRS enforcement distinctly weakens (strengthens) the positive effect of IFRS adoption on voluntary (mandatory) disclosure.