Opportunities and Challenges in Engaging Citizens in the Co-Production of Infrastructure-Based Public Services in Australia

Research and practice have observed a shift towards service-oriented approaches that depend on input from citizens as co-producers of services. Yet in the delivery of public infrastructure the focus is still on managing assets rather than services. Using a Policy Delphi approach, we found that although experts advocate service-centric approaches guidelines and policies lack a service-centric perspective. Findings revealed a range of impediments to effective stakeholder involvement. The paper contributes to co-production and new public governance literature and offers directions for public infrastructure decision-makers to support and reconnect disengaged government–citizen relations, and determine ways of understanding optimal service outcomes.     

Making sense of complex data using interactive data visualization

An important role for accountants today is to provide decision support to senior management by assisting them in the analysis of large, complex data sets. Interactive data visualization (IDV) facilitates this process by allowing users to navigate, select, and display data via an easy-to-use interface often used as a component of data analytics. Given the increasing popularity of IDV as a tool for making sense of complex data, it is important that accountants become familiar with and learn how to use this technology. This case provides a hands-on opportunity to organize complex accounting data to create IDVs for decision makers to use. Further, the case enables students to understand the potential impact of IDVs on preparers and users of accounting information. Students will assume the role of a division controller in a hypothetical company and create an IDV to assist the chief executive officer (CEO) in decision making.     

Gendering and Gender in Public Service Organizations: Changing Professional Identities Under New Public Management

This article examines the enactment of new public management (NPM) in public service professional organizations, the nature of professional/managerial subjectivities promoted within the NPM discourse, and the implications for male and female professionals/managers. The article has two aims. First, taking a gender ing organization perspective, it explores the gendered meanings of NPM and the promotion of new professional/managerial subjectivities. Second, focusing on gender in organizations, the article then considers the implications of the enactment of NPM for male and female professionals/managers. The article illustrates the complex, manifold and fluid nature of both the meanings ascribed to NPM and individual responses. It is argued that a gender lens offers a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of NPM enactment and the implications of this for public service professionals/managers are considered.     

Exchange rates and commodity prices: the case of Australian metal exports

Exporters of homogeneous commodities are usually regarded as ‘price takers’ who operate in perfectly competitive international markets, so that the pass-through of exchange rate changes to foreign-currency prices must be zero. However, many Australian commodities are subject to influences that may produce more complex pricing strategies, for example, markets in which Australia is a dominant exporter, or where there are few buyers and sellers due to the presence of large multi-national corporations. This study uses multivariate cointegration techniques to examine the pricing of Australian metal exports, with particular emphasis on the degree and timing of the pass-through of exchange rate and other changes.     

The association between audit committee effectiveness and audit risk

Audit committees (ACs) are expected to play a key role in improving financial statement integrity and as a consequence reduce audit risk. Companies reporting conformity with regulations can have an AC that appears effective but is not actually effective in substance. We surveyed audit partners and managers to identify their indicators of actual AC effectiveness (auditor‐chosen list). We hypothesize a negative association between AC effectiveness and audit risk, only when an auditor‐chosen list, rather than extent of conformity with regulations, is used to measure effectiveness. Results support our expectations.     

ADVERSE CONTRACT INCENTIVES AND INVESTMENT BANKER REPUTATION: TARGET FIRM TENDER OFFER FEES

I measure the potential economic importance of fee-contract incentives and investment banker reputation as factors that can mitigate conflicts of interest between investment bankers and their target firm clients in tender offers. I find that the fee contracts used between target firms and their investment bankers contain incentives that can create substantial conflicts of interest. Simulated losses from these adverse incentives can be large—up to 16.7 percent of target firm value. I also find, however, that when investment banker reputation capital is included in the simulation, losses are substantially reduced.     

The effect of inspections,rotations and client preferences on staffing decisions

With increased regulatory focus on audits and concerns about whether audit regulation is achieving its stated aims, it is timely to investigate how regulator inspection of audit files and partner rotations may be affecting staffing decisions. This is an important issue, which affects all audits, as the calibre of staff allocated across engagements impacts the quality of audit work delivered. This study reports the results of an experiment where auditor participants allocate staff across two audits, where regulation anticipated (none, inspection, rotation) and a client request for the best staff (absent, present) are manipulated between‐subjects. We find that auditors allocate lower calibre staff when neither an inspection nor rotation is anticipated than when either is anticipated. When an inspection is anticipated, auditors allocate staff with more knowledge and compliance skills. When a rotation is anticipated, auditors allocate staff with more people skills. A client request for the best staff only has an effect when a partner is due to be rotated, where auditors allocate staff with more people skills in response to the client request. Our findings provide greater understanding of staffing decisions, which may affect audit quality if concerns around audit inspections and partner rotations are perceived by auditors as more important than the underlying risk or complexity of an engagement when allocating staff.     

Healthcare and economic burden of adverse events among patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia treated with BCR-ABL1 tyrosine kinase inhibitors

Objectives: BCR-ABL1 tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are established treatments for chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML); however, they are associated with infrequent, but clinically serious adverse events (AEs). The objective of this analysis was to assess healthcare resource utilization and costs associated with AEs, previously identified using the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) in another study, among TKI-treated patients.

Methods: Adult patients with ≥1 inpatient or ≥2 outpatient ICD-9-CM diagnosis codes for CML and ≥1 claim for a TKI treatment between January 1, 2006 and September 30, 2012 were identified from the Commercial and Medicare MarketScan databases. The first claim for a TKI was designated as the index event. Patients were required to have no TKI treatment during a 12-month baseline period. Healthcare resource utilization and costs associated with select AEs having the strongest association with TKI treatment (femoral arterial stenosis [FAS], peripheral arterial occlusive disease [PAOD], intermittent claudication, coronary artery stenosis [CAS], pericardial effusion, pleural effusion, malignant pleural effusion, conjunctival hemorrhage) were evaluated during a 12-month follow-up period.

Results: The study sample included 2,005 CML patients receiving TKI therapy (mean age?=?56 years; 56% male). Among all evaluated AEs, the highest mean inpatient healthcare costs were observed for FAS ($16,800 per patient) and PAOD ($14,263 per patient), which had total mean medical costs (inpatient?+?outpatient) of $17,015 and $15,154 per patient, respectively. Mean outpatient healthcare costs were highest for CAS ($1,861 per patient), followed by intermittent claudication ($947 per patient), PAOD ($891 per patient), and pleural effusion ($890 per patient). Total mean medical costs for fluid retention-related AEs, including pericardial effusion and pleural effusion, were $2,797 and $1,908 per patient, respectively.

Conclusions: The healthcare costs of AEs identified in the FAERS as having the strongest association with TKI treatment are substantial. Vascular stenosis-related AEs, including FAS and PAOD, have the highest cost burden.     

Improving Ethical Attitudes or Simply Teaching Ethical Codes? The Reality of Accounting Ethics Education

ABSTRACT

Ethical instruction is critical in accounting education. However, does accounting ethics teaching actually instil core ethical values or simply catalogue how students should act when confronted with typical accounting ethical dilemmas? This study extends current literature by distinguishing between moral/ethical and legal/ethical matters and then re-evaluating the effectiveness of ethics training. A cohort of final-year accounting students with significant ethical training evaluated ethical scenarios. Half were moral (non-legal) and half contained legal as well as moral components. After further ethical instruction they re-evaluated the scenarios. Ethical attitudes towards legal/moral issues improved, but attitudes towards moral-only issues did not. This questions previous studies which purport to demonstrate the effectiveness of ethical instruction and queries the benefits of accounting ethics education. Are fundamental ethical principles being ignored in an effort to prevent more obvious accounting wrongdoings? Accounting ethics training needs to be reassessed if true ethical improvement is to be achieved.