Genealogies of calculation

This paper calls firstly for genealogies of calculation, in contrast to traditional accounting history. The term genealogy conveys a focus on the outcomes of the past, rather than a quest for the origins of the present. It is intended to avoid an a priori limiting of the field of study to accounting as it currently exists, or to a particular accounting technique such as double-entry bookkeeping. And it entails an emphasis on the historical contingency of contemporary practices, a concern with the multiple and dispersed surfaces of emergence of disparate practices of economic calculation. Secondly, the paper emphasizes the discursive nature of calculation, the language and vocabularies in which a particular practice is articulated, the ideals attached to certain calculative technologies. Thirdly, the paper stresses the importance of attending to ensembles of practices and rationales that are assembled at various collective levels, rather than with isolated instances of this or that way of accounting. The delineation of the domain of traditional accounting history is illustrated by reference to three sets of issues: the links between double-entry bookkeeping and capitalism in the writings of Weber and Sombart; the links between bookkeeping practice and decision making in the writings of Yamey; and the quest for examples of “early management accounting” in the writings of those such as Edwards and Fleischman & Parker. In contrast to such concerns of accounting history, four genealogies are presented: the promotion of discounted cash-flow techniques for investment decisions in the U.K. in the 1960s; the emergence of costs in the late eighteenth century; the accounting for value added event in Britain in the late 1970s; and the construction of standard costing in the early decades of the twentieth century.     

Distance in organizations

There is perhaps no construct that is so fundamental to interpersonal interactions in organizations, yet so incompletely understood, than distance. Part of the difficulty in developing a comprehensive and informed understanding of the role distance plays in organizations is that theory and research in this area have been quite fragmented, focusing on narrow aspects of the construct and lacking the integration necessary to build a more general knowledge base. For example, Graen (1976) has contributed greatly to our understanding of one aspect of distance, presenting a model based on role theory whereby in-group and out-group members are hypothesized to enjoy different rewards, benefit from different leadership behaviors, and experience different levels of satisfaction and performance ratings based on relative closeness (or distance) in their working relationship with their supervisor. Other researchers have explored the phenomena of psychological distance (Rothaus, Morton, & Hanson 1965), spatial distance (Kerr & Jermier 1978; Ferris & Rowland 1985), and physical distance (Sundstrom, Burt, & Kamp 1980; Sundstrom 1986) in the supervisor-subordinate relationship. This research, although a good starting point, does not adequately define or integrate the various aspects of distance in organizations. This article represents an effort to develop a broader and more extensive understanding of the role distance plays in organizations by integrating the various types of distance into a theoretical model. A model of Dyadic Distance in the supervisor-subordinate relationship is presented which develops the new constructs of Dyadic, Psychological, Structural, and Functional Distance, examines their process dynamics and impact on Human Resource Management issues such as performance evaluations and turnover, and proposes needed directions for future research in this important area.     

Social reporting by islamic banks

The last thirty years have witnessed the appearance and rapid expansion of Islamic banking both inside and outside the Islamic world. Islamic banks provide financial products that do not violate Sharia , the Islamic law of human conduct. The Islamic principles upon which the banks claim to operate give an important role to social issues. Applying these principles, we develop a benchmark set of social disclosures appropriate to Islamic banks. These are then compared, using a disclosure index approach, the actual social disclosures contained in the annual reports of twenty-nine Islamic banks (located in sixteen countries) to this benchmark. In addition, content analysis is undertaken to measure the volume of social disclosures. Our analysis suggests that social reporting by Islamic banks falls significantly short of our expectations. The results of the analysis also suggest that banks required to pay the Islamic religious tax Zakah provide more social disclosures than banks not subject to Zakah .     

R. J. Chambers on Securities and Obscurities: Making a Case for the Reform of the Law of Company Accounts in the 1970s

This study examines the contribution of Raymond J. Chambers to the British inflation accounting debate in the early‐to‐mid 1970s, from the perspective of the reception of his book, Securities and Obscurities: A Case for Reform of the Law of Company Accounts, published in 1973. To structure the empirical narrative, drawing on previously unpublished documents from the R. J. Chambers Archives, we employ Czarniawska and Joerges’ ( 1996 ) notion of the ‘travel of ideas’, and Mumford’s ( 1979 ) observation of the existence of ‘inflation accounting debate cycles’. The result is a narrative that traces the environmental and material circumstances that led to Chambers’ book having a lesser impact on the British inflation debate than one would expect based on the international exposure of his ideas, his influence at the time, and the empirical rigour of his proposal. The purpose of this exercise is to assess how contextual factors, such as the choice of publisher, use of promotional material, and distribution methods, can be as (or more) important than the substance of the proposed ideas, arguments, and solutions.     

Asset pricing and energy consumption risk

This paper proposes energy consumption in the US as a new measure for the consumption capital asset pricing model. We find that (i) industrial energy growth produces reasonable values for the relative risk aversion coefficient and the implied risk-free rate; (ii) compared to alternative consumption measures, industrial energy performs well in explaining the cross-sectional variation in stock returns with the lowest implied risk aversion and pricing errors; (iii) the industrial energy consumption risk model performs equally well as the Fama–French three-factor model in the cross-sectional asset pricing tests; and (iv) total energy consumption risk is priced in the presence of the Fama–French factor risks.     

Author Index

In 1998, in response to the escalating problem of violence and its impact on all sectors of the society, the Ministry of Health (MOH), Jamaica, established a pilot violence-related injury surveillance system (VRISS) in the country's leading public hospital, the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) situated in the nation's capital. After six months' operation, VRISS was extended to include all injuries. Nine months later, the Jamaican Injury Surveillance System (JISS) was successfully introduced to four other hospitals and has been in operation since. Extension to an additional six institutions was implemented at the end of 2001. What were the challenges faced in introducing an injury surveillance system into the Accident &; Emergency Department (A&;E) of a general hospital, how they were overcome and what were the lessons learnt in the process?     

Accounting and the absence of a business economics tradition in the United Kingdom

Economics was slow to emerge as a distinct academic and professional discipline in the United Kingdom. In the years around 1900, some British universities began to offer degrees in commerce, including accounting. These degrees were influenced by the contemporary emergence of business economics (betriebswirtschaftslehre) in Germany. However, there was no substantive emergence of a body of economic theory relating specifically to the business organization. Later attempts in the 1930s to apply economic argumentation to the problems of business and accounting, in the context of both profit determination and costing, centred around the Department of Business Administration and the Accounting Research Association, based at the London School of Economics. Although the activities of these groups are often viewed in terms of the influence of economics on accounting, there were reverse currents in that accounting notions helped in the formalization of macroeconomic notions such as national income and in the development of social accounting by Richard Stone and others. However, the intervention of the Second World War curtailed this interchange of ideas. In the post-war period, the rapid expansion of accounting as both an academic discipline and a professional practice was accompanied by a greater awareness of economic ideas and concepts. In financial reporting, these had an important influence on the inflation accounting debate of the 1970s and 1980s. In management accounting, economic ideas often operated as criticisms of existing practices. However, both the comparatively underdeveloped application by economists of their theories to business problems and the continuing intellectual barriers between academic and professional accountants made the practical interaction of accounting and economics a sporadic phenomenon.     

Making tourism work for the poor: Strategies and challenges in southern Africa

This article analyses strategies for 'pro-poor tourism' (PPT), ie strategies that increase the benefits to poor people from tourism development. Based on an international review of six pro-poor tourism case studies, it outlines the wide range of pro-poor tourism strategies used and their impacts to date, with particular focus on southern African case studies. By analysing their progress, problems and the critical factors influencing them, the article identifies implications for the way forward. This review underpins four propositions. First, despite commercial constraints, much can be done to enhance the contribution of tourism to poverty reduction, and a 'PPT' perspective assists in this endeavour. Secondly, PPT strategies can, and should be, incorporated by all actors in tourism, whether in government or business, at local or policy level. Thirdly, a wide range of impacts on poor people, going well beyond jobs, need to be recognised and enhanced. Finally, PPT strategies are difficult, but particularly relevant in southern Africa given the challenges of economic and political transformation, as well as the opportunity to influence international discussions on 'sustainable tourism' at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002.     

Exercise test on the older patient: is it still as predictive as for the younger patient?

Exercise testing predicts both cardiac events and mortality after age 65, just as it does for younger patients. In both age groups, functional aerobic capacity itself is a potent indicator of mortality risk. In the elderly, achievement of predicted functional aerobic capacity identifies favorable mortality even in the presence of CAD and CAD risk factors.