The benefits of a partnership approach to disability management

Taking a partnership approach to disability management and fostering a return-to-work culture can significantly reduce disability costs for employers and help disabled employees successfully return to work. Two rehabilitation case managers from ReliaStar Life Insurance Company share their perspective and experience, including three case studies that illustrate successful case management intervention and return-to-work strategies.     

The future of fire in environmental management

Fire has been a significant force in the evolution of ecosystems since the beginning of life on earth, and has occupied a powerful role in shaping the physical and natural world as we experience it today. Historically, human societies have both feared fire as a natural, destructive force, and used fire to social and technological ends. Indeed, the harnessing of fire by human societies represents one of the most profound changes in the ability of humans to achieve mastery and dominance over the natural world, increasing their safety and well-being. However, the future of fire is uncertain. The great landscape-scale fires that have shaped the natural environment can no longer be allowed to exist. Once thriving on vast uninhabited tracts of forests and grasslands, their existence is now an anathema to the communities that checkerboard most of our national forests. Like threatened and endangered species in the ecological realm, large-scale fire itself is becoming extinct due to intrusions of human habitation into the very forests that provide the fuel for its existence. Modern fire rarely exhibits the qualities of historical fire with its enormous releases of energy, rapid spread, and long duration. When it does, the results are deemed catastrophic and sociopolitical forces intervene to prevent its reoccurrence. Yet, ecosystems are dependent on fire for their vitality and sustainability, creating a conflict between the needs of nature and the fears of human societies. What is the future of a purposive role for fire in ecosystems? How can fire as a historical force continue to play a similar role in the future? This paper examines the relationship between humans and fire, and explores its meaning for how we will make decisions about fire's future as both a property of nature and as a tool for human development.     

A little learning is a dangerous thing...

Scientists can make a valuable contribution to the world of finance. But, writes Jessica James, the models do not always predict the realities of market movements and behaviour of data.     

企业信息安全状况堪忧,管理不当成首要问题

近年来，经历了“冲击波”、“震荡波”等恶性网络病毒的冲击后，多数政府单位和企业都已经意识到信息安全的重要性，安装了防毒反黑产品。但是根据国家计算机病毒应急处理中心的统计报告显示，2005年我国仍然有80％的企业、政府机关的网络系统曾经遭受过病毒和黑客的攻击。     

Assessing the future of futures studies in management

It can be observed that a growing number of German corporations are using futures studies and its methods in various ways. This evidence suggests that there is a strong ongoing interest in the field of management in futures studies. To assess how the future of futures studies might look like a Delphi study was carried out. The experts in this Delphi study were asked not only to state how futures studies are used in corporations but also what futures studies need to accomplish in order to find more acceptance.The Delphi study suggests that futures studies will become more important in German corporations. In particular, the improvement of methods like environmental scanning, trend research, trend monitoring, strategic early warning and the scenario technique were suggested. While the results of the Delphi study do not suggest that new methods are needed, implementation remains a major concern.     

The EEOC's new ADA mental disability guidelines: an EAP is a pretty reasonable accommodation

The EEOC's enforcement guidelines for psychiatric disabilities may present a significant challenge for the small employer. The authors discuss the parameters of this challenge and consider the ADA mental disability guidelines in the context of an operational framework to assist employers. It is pointed out that an EAP or a managed behavioral health firm with knowledge of ADA can be useful in identifying cost-effective accommodations for employees claiming mental disabilities.     

财务管理信息系统信息集成模式研究

一、引言财务管理信息系统(FMIS,Financing Management Information System)是商业银行对数据质量要求最高、涉及数据范围最为广泛的管理信息系统之一,它不仅关系到外围客户数据、前台交易数据、后台财务数据、内部风险控制数据、跨行资金交易清算数据等大型数据库之间的采集,而且还涉及数据在网点、支行、分行、总行等多层次的无缝传递。但是,目前商业银行普遍存在着基于FoxPro的小型数据库系统、Novell网络系统的会计信息系统和基于C/S体系结构、Sybase分布式数据库管理系统、Unix网络系统的账务处理系统的多网络平台(Novell、Unix…     

The digital future of internal staffing: A vision for transformational electronic human resource management

Through an international Delphi study, this article explores the new electronic human resource management regimes that are expected to transform internal staffing. Our focus is on three types of information systems: human resource management systems, job portals, and talent marketplaces. We explore the future potential of these new systems and identify the key challenges for their implementation in governments, such as inadequate regulations and funding priorities, a lack of leadership and strategic vision, together with rigid work policies and practices and a change-resistant culture. Tied to this vision, we identify several areas of future inquiry that bridge the divide between theory and practice.     

The impact of abnormal real earnings management to meet earnings benchmarks on future operating performance

Motivated by agency conflicts of real earnings management (e.g., opportunistic and signalling perspectives), this study investigates the association between firms that manipulate their business operations to meet earnings benchmarks (i.e., zero earnings, last year's earnings) and subsequent operating performance. We examine the effects of the magnitude of real earnings management on firms' future performance for the period 2009 to 2015 for UK firms. Our analysis shows that the manipulation of operating activities such as sales, discretionary expenditures, and production costs to meet earnings benchmarks has a significantly positive consequence for firms' subsequent operating performance and signals firms' good future performance. We also find that firms that manipulate their operating activities in the absence of meeting earnings benchmarks experience a decline in their subsequent operating performance. The findings of this research lend support to our understanding of the process that management follows to evaluate costs and benefits of real earnings management.     

国有资产的第三轮整合

从长远发展来看,配合本轮国有资产的整合趋势,进一步放松商品价格管制,促进税收征管制度创新,已经刻不容缓。     

Business and financial information integration and voluntary management earnings forecasts

In this study, the impact of business and financial information integration (BFII) on the voluntary management earnings forecasts (VMEFs) of listed firms in China between 2008 and 2018 is investigated. Drawing on litigation cost and ability signaling theories, we find that the adoption of BFII encourages top managers to disclose VMEFs. BFII firms are identified through the textual analysis of management discussion and analysis (MD&A) reports, and the empirical results indicate that BFII firms have a higher probability and frequency of issuing VMEFs than non-BFII firms. The results remain robust after we identify causality by applying a propensity score matching and difference-in-differences (PSM-DID) test and use an alternate measure of BFII. Further tests show that BFII firms issue more accurate VMEFs and are able to issue them at an earlier stage. We also find that the positive relationship between BFII and VMEFs is weakened if the media expresses concern about the uncertainty of BFII adoption.     

Consumer-driven health care: the future is now

Given that managed care seems to have run its course, employers are forced to deal with escalating health care costs by reducing benefits and lowering pay--or are they? Why not bring the power of the responsible, informed consumer to health care? Consumer-driven health care offers a new, economically rational direction that can simultaneously address the needs of both employers and employees. This article reviews the factors leading to the need for consumer-driven health care and describes the characteristics and benefits of its current and next generations of development.     

The future of fintech

This article describes the growing field of financial technology (fintech) and the different financial paradigms and technologies that support it. Fintech is primarily a disintermediation force where disruptive technologies are the drivers. This framework discusses 10 primary areas in fintech comprising a taxonomy, which categorizes research in the field and also proposes a pedagogical structure. Pitfalls of fintech are also analyzed. Overall, the great strides made in computing technology, mathematics, statistics, psychology, econometrics, linguistics, cryptography, big data, and computer interfaces have combined to create an explosion of fintechs.     

The future of morality

Moral criticism of human institutions is frequent : the acceptance of social constraints by the free individual is rare. This moral inversion is inconsistent with the survival of an increasingly interdependent society. Statements of human rights must be replaced by statements of human responsibility if we are to make the world viable.