MULTIPRODUCT C-V-P ANALYSIS AND UNCERTAINTY: A LINEAR PROGRAMMING APPROACH

The most general extension of the traditional one product C-V-P model incor- porates a multiproduct setting under uncertainty. This study utilizes LP to address both components (product mix and uncertainty of resource prices) to obtain the best product mix available in an ex ante sense. The results provide a benchmark for the evaluation of future operations and enable one to calculate the probability of any level of contribution margin. The study also serves as a useful educational tool by providing a mathematical and graphical depiction of the complexity of the problem, and by explicitly demonstrating the role of uncertain resource costs and uncertain selling prices in a simple LP formulation.     

AN ALTERNATIVE TO HEDGING FOR THE CORPORATION: MANAGING A PORTFOLIO OF RISKS

Financial Risk Management for most corporations has now become a topic of discussion, if not an issue for active implementation. The issues of “Should One Hedge” and “How Should One Hedge” are often segregated and have tended to be so in the literature. Articles dealing with the hedge decision often ignore the implementation issues and vice versa. This article explores the use of Mean Variance portfolio optimization techniques in hedging corporate risks. It links the various sets of literature together to argue that for some firms using modern portfolio management techniques to manage corporate risks can prove advantageous. The article concludes with an analysis of a synthetic European firm exhibiting many of the risks and other qualities apropos a firm deciding to utilize MEAN-VARIANCE techniques to manage financial risks.     

ACCOUNTING REGULATION: AN ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVE: A COMMENT

This paper presents a critique and development of a previous paper by Laughlin and Puxty. It argues that their worldview perspective is an advance on the established self-interest perspective, but is critical of its abstraction of worldviews from their formation within institutional contexts. An alternative interpretation of accounting regulation is offered which relates accounting regulations and standards to the location and investment of the providers and users of accounting information within existing politico-economic institutional arrangements.     

ACCOUNTING REGULATION: AN ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVE: A REPLY

The comments by Willmott on the desirability of extending the argument of Laughlin and Puxty (1983) are welcomed. The roles of class and the State in accounting regulation are discussed, and Habermas's theory of communicative competence briefly alluded to as a means of dissolving conflict as an extension of the earlier paper.