The teaching of ethics in management accounting: progress and prospects

Recent research has shown that, although still on a limited scale, the teaching of business ethics in UK higher education has been increasing in recent years. This paper reports on a postal questionnaire survey conducted to investigate the extent to which ethical issues are covered in the teaching of management accounting in higher education. The principal findings are that the majority of management accounting lecturers in the British Isles do not incorporate ethics. About a third of the respondents to the survey do address ethical issues, although about half of those say they do so only implicitly. Various factors underlying the findings and prospects for the future are discussed.     

The Soviet Union after the failure of five years of economic reforms: Towards a new stage of transition?

Conclusion The measures taken by the Pavlov government, at the beginning of 1991, seem to initiate a new economic strategy where administrative power has regained its leading role.Regarding the whole approach of the government, there seem to be signals with very controversial meanings. First, there is the new stress on heavy industry, that could dangerously increase the already deep structural imbalance; the military industrial sector, in particular, could play a greater role since the better performing high technology industries (and services) belong to them. The loosening control over industrial management and discipline throughout the country, could justify the need for strong central control of the government: the heavy industry complex represents a powerful economic and political aggregation that could better defend the unified economic system.Secondly, the resistance to private ownership of enterprises is justified by the unrest engendered by the emergence of a sort of uncontrolled submerged privatisation. The fear of the State's capital assets being sold off cheaply, played an important part in the tightening of control over the process of destatalisation.Thirdly, the rejection of private ownership of land is also linked with the necessary alliance with the old economic structures of kolkhoz and sovkhoz, which represent the consolidated interests in the rural areas.From these different positions emerges the search for a very difficult compromise between the necessary political alliances around the Party, for the defence of central power, and the implementation of some economic reforms which, to become effective, need a substantial liberalisation of economic and political conditions. However, the fundamental limits to the implementation of this moderate programme has to be attributed to the disintegration of the economy by the republican claims. The confrontation on alternative economic programmes and the creation of different regional aggregations could become a very serious tendency towards the progressive disruption of the present Federation.     

What drives organic food consumption in Lebanon?

To increase the sparse knowledge about what drives organic food consumers in developing markets, Lebanese consumers' reasons and motives for buying organic food are studied in the framework of means‐end chain theory. A sample of N = 180 Lebanese consumers was interviewed in several retail outlets using a hard laddering questionnaire. The data were subjected to frequency analysis, cluster analysis, and structural equation modelling. Hierarchal value maps constructed from the laddering interviews revealed that “quality of life,” “pleasure,” and “peace of mind” are the main values driving organic food consumption in Lebanon. Frequent organic consumers displayed higher concern for their family's health and for the environment, whereas occasional organic consumers cared more about their own pleasure and were more likely to perceive organic food as a traditional and nostalgic product. Structural equation modelling revealed that “care for nature” and “care for children's health” significantly affect consumers' (self‐reported) purchasing behaviour. The found means‐end chains are a useful basis for marketing campaigns for organic food products in the Lebanese market. One focus of marketing campaigns should be raising consumers' awareness on the environmental benefits of organic production and the fact that it does not allow the use of harmful chemical products.     

Food waste,catering practices and public procurement: A case study of hospital food systems in Wales

This article aims to address the need for more comprehensive studies on sustainable food systems through a case study of hospital food waste in Wales, UK. Based on a mixed-method research approach that focused on the links between hospital food waste, catering practices and public procurement strategies, the article shows that the hospital meal system, in the case studied, is responsible for overall levels of food waste that greatly exceed the official percentages provided by the Health Board. In addition to showing the theoretical benefits of research that accounts for the complex interrelations between different stages of the food chain, the study raises the need for a more integrated political approach that mobilizes all actors in the food system around a shared vision for sustainable development.     

The dynamics of regional learning paradigms and trajectories

While the literature is rich with studies on the identification of alternative types of learning processes that might exist in the real world, the identification of the determinants of the structural changes in regional learning processes is still an underexplored research field in regional innovation theories. This paper proposes the concept of regional learning paradigms and trajectories to study how alternative and more advanced learning processes arise in a region, and highlights the evolutionary path-creation strategies enabling a paradigmatic jump. By taking into consideration also learning modes typical of peripheral or declining industrial areas, generally left aside in previous theories, this new conceptual approach allows us to understand how more complex learning and innovation processes can emerge in all types of regions. From these reflections, spontaneous processes or policy recommendations to catch-up in the innovation ladder are highlighted for each type of region.     

Are Liberated Companies a Concrete Application of Sen’s Capability Approach?

Journal of Business Ethics - The capability approach (CA) developed by Amartya Sen focuses on the enhancement of people’s capabilities, i.e. their real freedom to choose a life course they...     

Does access to credit improve productivity? Evidence from Bulgaria1

Although it is widely accepted that financial development is associated with higher growth, the evidence on the channels through which credit affects growth at the microeconomic level is scant. Using data from a cross‐section of Bulgarian firms, we estimate the impact of access to credit, as proxied by indicators of whether firms have access to a credit line or overdraft facility, on productivity. To overcome potential omitted variable bias of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) estimates, we use information on firms’ past growth to instrument for access to credit. We find credit to be positively and strongly associated with TFP. These results are robust to a wide range of robustness checks.     

Implicit Contracts, Managerial Incentives, and Financial Structure

This paper examines how managers may be given incentives to exert effort, and to implement efficient implicit contracts with workers. Under certain assumptions, this can be achieved by tying managerial compensation to shareholder value. However, if reputation effects are weak, it is more efficient to adopt an incentive scheme in which the manager is punished by outside investor intervention when performance falls below a critical level, and otherwise retains control, receiving a fixed reward. The required form of outside intervention can be implemented through a financial structure combining hard debt with a dispersed ownership structure.     

The determinants of firm start-up and entry in Italian producer services

In this paper the determinants of new firm formation in the producer services are studied by using National Security data on firms with at least one employee. Two ratios are computed and analysed for the 95 Italian provinces: an index of fertility represented by the share of new enterprises on employees, and a birth rate represented for each province by the ratio between new enterprises and resident population. On examination of the determinants of this process, we found that the average wage rates and the ratio of utilized credit to the total line of credit negatively affect both indexes, and that both indexes are affected positively by sector growth and by a measure of small firm presence. The index of fertility is also explained by a dummy variable which identifies for each province those policies which are aimed at fostering the process of new firm formation. The birth rate is instead affected by a dummy variable which is equal to one for the provinces in which the chief towns of each region are located and zero otherwise, and by the potential demand for new producer services arising from the industrial sector.