1948 and not nineteen eighty-four

This article marks the return of I.F. Clarke to the pages of Futures. Those readers who have followed Futures since our first number in September 1968 will recall his long-running series on the development of futuristic fiction and the coming of modern forecasting techniques. He likes to be known as the oldest inhabitant of Futures so far. Professor Clarke was once described, with some accuracy, as ‘Mr Future’ by a Glasgow newspaper. The style recognized the work he has done in the investigation of the many ways in which our ideas about the future have evolved and have found expression in science fiction, imaginary wars, ideal states, Orwellian nightmares and in the proliferation of futurological studies that have swept the world since Ossip K. Flechtheim coined the term futurologist in 1943. This specially commissioned article on Orwell's true place in futures studies serves as an hors d'oeuvre to a new series in Futures by Professor Clarke: “An almanac of anticipations” will begin in the next issue.     

Limited imagination: Depictions of computers in science fiction film

Are speculations about the future ever truly inventive, or are they overly limited by today's reality? Many scholars suggest the latter, and have so for millennia. If this is true, speculations about the future in science fiction film should be closely constrained by today's reality, and truly novel and accurate visions of the future in science fiction must be rare. This paper presents a comparison of how computer technologies have been depicted in popular science fiction films with actual computer technologies that existed when the films were made. The investigation included charting the occurrence of 11 trends in real-world computer technologies and types of computer interaction (e.g., mainframe computers, textual and vector graphic-based interfaces, keyboard and mice) in 10 popular science fiction films spanning four decades (e.g., 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, and Minority Report). The investigation revealed that depictions of computers in science fiction films mirror, for the most part, real world trends in computer technology development. The article concludes with a brief discussion of some implications of this finding.     

Futures dreaming outside and on the margins of the western world

In this article, we challenge the hegemony of western science fiction, arguing that western science fiction is particular even as it claims universality. Its view remains based on ideas of the future as forward time. In contrast, in non-western science fiction the future is seen outside linear terms: as cyclical or spiral, or in terms of ancestors. In addition, western science fiction has focused on the good society as created by technological progress, while non-western science fiction and futures thinking has focused on the fantastic, on the spiritual, on the realization of eupsychia—the perfect self.However, most theorists assert that the non-west has no science fiction, ignoring Asian and Chinese science fiction history, and western science fiction continues to ‘other’ the non-west as well as those on the margins of the west (African–American woman, for example).Nonetheless, while most western science fiction remains trapped in binary opposites—alien/non-alien; masculine/feminine; insider/outsider—writers from the west’s margins are creating texts that contradict tradition and modernity, seeking new ways to transcend difference. Given that the imagination of the future creates the reality of tomorrow, creating new science fictions is not just an issue of textual critique but of opening up possibilities for all our futures.

Science fiction has always been nearly all white, just as until recently, it’s been nearly all male

(Butler as quoted in [1]).

Science fiction has long treated people who might or might not exist—extra-terrestrials. Unfortunately, however, many of the same science fiction writers who started us thinking about the possibility of extra-terrestrial life did nothing to make us think about here-at home variation—women, blacks, Indians, Asians, Hispanics, etc [1].

Is all science fiction western? Is there non-western science fiction? If so, what is its nature? Does it follow the form and content of western science fiction, or is it rendered different by its own local civilizational historical processes and considerations? Has western science fiction moulded the development of the science fiction of the ‘other’, including feminist science fiction, in such a way that anything coming from outside the west is a mere imitation of the real thing? Perhaps non-western science fiction is a contradiction in terms. Or is there authentic non-western fiction which offers alternative visions of the future, of the ‘other’?     

Aggregate accounting research and development expenditures and the prediction of real gross domestic product

The role of accounting information for public policy making has received increased attention in recent years. Konchitchki and Patatoukas, 2014a, Konchitchki and Patatoukas, 2014b demonstrate that growth in aggregate accounting earnings can predict future growth in nominal and real Gross Domestic Product (GDP). We extend the micro to macro literature by decomposing earnings into the R&D and pre-R&D components. Using the Almon (1965) finite distributed lag model, we find that both components can predict future real GDP growth with different lead-lag structures. Importantly, this decomposition significantly increases the explanatory power of the predictive model using accounting information. Aggregate accounting R&D can predict real GDP through the personal consumption, business investment, and net export channels of GDP. Our study extends prior research on the forecasting usefulness of accounting information at the aggregate level and has practical implications for macro forecasting and for public policy making regarding innovative activities of publicly listed firms.     

Attitudes towards the future and their influence on the present

Within the last 15 years a radically different orientation towards the future and its planning has evolved in France. This orientation and its associated attitudes and techniques, collectively termed prospective, have had strong effects on French intellectual and governmental life, most impressively in relation to the fourth and fifth national plans. In England and the USA, virtually nothing is known of prospective or of its founder, Gaston Berger. This article is one of a collection of the principal writings which are to be published in English late this year¹. Writing in 1966 the author compares forecasting and prospective in the light of several years' experience with prospective, and he isolates the effect of “tomorrow's image on today's acts” as a central phenomenon underlying prospective thinking.     

Semi-rational expectations and exchange-rate dynamics

The Rational Expectations Hypothesis (REH) asserts that, on average, the economic agents are accurate in predicting future economic developments. The paper demonstrates, however, that in a world of costly information, individual rationality may result in consistent and persistent forecasting biases. A distinction is drawn between perfect foresight or efficient forecasting—which is consistent with the REH—and myopic perfect foresight—which is the profit maximizing, and thus the rational one from an individualistic point of view, even though the latter may result in persistently biased forecasting. These concepts are illustrated in a model of exchange rate dynamics which introduces myopic or ‘semi’ rationality into Dornbusch's familiar model.     

The future imagined: Exploring fiction as a means of reflecting on today’s Grand Societal Challenges and tomorrow’s options

European science policy (so-called Horizon 2020) is guided by Grand Societal Challenges (GSCs) with the explicit aim of shaping the future. In this paper we propose an innovative approach to the analysis and critique of Europe’s GSCs. The aim is to explore how speculative and creative fiction offer ways of embodying, telling, imagining, and symbolising ‘futures’, that can provide alternative frames and understandings to enrich the grand challenges of the 21st century, and the related rationale and agendas for ERA and H2020. We identify six ways in which filmic and literary representations can be considered creative foresight methods (i.e. through: creative input, detail, warning, reflection, critique, involvement) and can provide alternative perspectives on these central challenges, and warning signals for the science policy they inform. The inquiry involved the selection of 64 novels and movies engaging with notions of the future, produced over the last 150 years. Content analysis based on a standardised matrix of major themes and sub-domains, allows to build a hierarchy of themes and to identify major patterns of long-lasting concerns about humanity’s future. The study highlights how fiction sees oppression, inequality and a range of ethical issues linked to human and nature’s dignity as central to, and inseparable from innovation, technology and science. It concludes identifying warning signals in four major domains, arguing that these signals are compelling, and ought to be heard, not least because elements of such future have already escaped the imaginary world to make part of today’s experience. It identifies areas poorly defined or absent from Europe's science agenda, and argues for the need to increase research into human, social, political and cultural processes involved in techno-science endeavours.     

Exchange rates,innovations and forecasting

In this paper an ex-post forecasting experiment is performed on the basis of a version of the ‘news’ model of exchange rate determination. For several exchange rates the ‘news’ formulation of monetary exchange rate models leads to relatively accurate ex-post exchange rate forecasts at a number of forecasting horizons. For a majority of the exchange rates studied, however, the results do not compare favorably with those obtained from the naive random walk forecasting rule. Thus, the findings in this article provide mixed evidence with regard to a suggestion in the literature that the finding by Meese and Rogoff that structural models do not even outperform the random walk in an ex-post forecasting experiment, may be due to the fact that these models were not properly tested in a ‘news’ framework.     

Forecasting and planning in the USSR: Part I: 1976–1980

This article considers the development of Soviet Social forecasting in the 1976–1980 period, and begins an updating of Dr Bestuzhev-Lada's report on futures research in the USSR, published in the April 1976 issue of Futures. Particularly significant is the development in the methodological bases of Soviet forecasting activities.     

Robots,men and sex tourism

In 2050, Amsterdam's red light district will all be about android prostitutes who are clean of sexual transmitted infections (STIs), not smuggled in from Eastern Europe and forced into slavery, the city council will have direct control over android sex workers controlling prices, hours of operations and sexual services. This paper presents a futuristic scenario about sex tourism, discusses the drivers of change and the implications for the future. The paper pushes plausibility to the limit as boundaries of science fiction and fact become blurred in the ever increasing world of technology, consumption and humanity, a paradigm known as liminality.     

When governments forecast

This article looks at the forecasting industry as turning out products of more interest to museum curators than corporate executives, policymakers etc. It is generally skeptical of most attempts to divine the future —skepticism turning to deep concern when a particular forecast is used to justify government in making a decision better left to the discretion of free, rational citizens. The article looks at the problems of forecasting, the risks involved and, remarkably, how little the reputations of global forecasters seem to be affected by past statements. Finally, it discusses the effectiveness of a separate forecasting body, apart from government which would have power without responsibility. It considers The Resourceful Earth as a sound and cautious analysis, representing itself as a private effort by private individuals, which does not encourage unwarranted emphasis to its conclusions.     

The role of cognitive learning styles in accounting education: developing learning competencies

The potential for cognitive learning style (CLS) to develop students' learning competencies is limited by the variety of conceptualizations, constructs and instruments. This paper contrasts two models for operationalizing CLS: Furnham's [Furnham, A. (1995). The relationship between personality and intelligence to cognitive style and achievement. In D. H. Saklofske, M. Zeidner (Eds.), International handbook of personality and intelligence (pp. 397–413). New York: Plenum Press.] conceptualization of the roles of CLS, and Ramsden's [Ramsden, P. (1992). Learning to teach in higher education. London: Routledge.] contextual model of student learning. The origins of CLS, its fundamental dimensions, and methods of assessment are also reviewed. Five propositions suggesting ways accounting educators can make use of CLS and associated measures to help students ‘learn how to learn' are developed and recommendations for future research are offered.     

‘Knowledge Preservation in Accounting’: Does It Deserve to Be Preserved?

This is my third in a series of critical pieces on the accounting education field. The first, ‘What Accounting Can Learn from Legal Education’, was published in Issues in Accounting Education (Fall 1987) and dealt with the problems resulting from teaching accounting as a science. The second, ‘Wisdom or Widgets: Whither the School of Business?’ (Abacus, September 1988) dealt with the price we pay in our research for our obsession with quantitative methods. The current piece evaluates Robert Bricker's 1988 article in this journal.     

Green accounting: Reflections from a CSR and environmental disclosure perspective

In this commentary, we reflect on Thornton's (2013) extension to his original CA Magazine article on environmental accounting (Thornton, 1993) as well as the original contribution. Given our background in social and environmental disclosure research, we question Thornton's narrow focus on environmental accounting as it relates to the debits and credits of financial reporting, and we attempt to illustrate the problems that voluntary environmental disclosure creates with respect to reduced incentives for companies to improve environmental performance. We conclude by identifying our concerns with the future of environmental accounting given the recent ‘rediscovery’ of the topic by mainstream accounting researchers.     

Long waves,inventions, and innovations

It is argued that aggregate R and D and patenting activity, while generally less volatile than short term economic activity, is more closely related to the latter in the longer term. Second, ‘fundamental’ or ‘basic’ inventions exhibit a clustering behaviour, although there appears to be no clear-cut relationship with the overall level of economic activity. Third, we find no support for Mensch's argument that lead times between invention and innovation contracted in the 1930s. Fourth, we find some evidence for a bunching of innovations in the 1930s, but this does not appear due to depression-induced acceleration. Fifth, in the particular case of plastics, where the 1930s clustering is particularly clear, the forces at work were primarily related to ‘science push’ and the particular requirements of the German economy.     

“This is England”: Punk rock's realist/idealist dialectic and its implications for critical accounting education

This paper studies the lyrics of two songs from the Clash, one of the two most important bands from the U.K.'s ‘first wave of punk’ scene. The paper interprets the songs within their institutional, social, economic and political context, i.e. pre-Thatcher and Thatcher Britain. I then draw out the implications of the Clash's punk ideology for critical accounting educators today, and especially the implications for ethics education. The Clash's message and moral compass are especially relevant today as (like the Clash's England) both Bush's America and an immediately post-Howard Australia have been vastly altered by a harsh neo-liberalism under which alternative (and especially collectivist) voices have been frequently mocked and suppressed. The Clash was able to simultaneously be both realist and idealist and, whilst this contradiction captured the hearts of many, the classic line-up of the band was to disintegrate under the weight of its own contradictions. The critical accounting community is reminded to continue to aspire to both aspects of the realist/idealist dialectic that is so vividly apparent in the Clash's powerful and poignant early work and especially from the self-titled debut album up to Sandinista!     

Science,civilization and democracy: Values,systems, structures and affinities

It is argued here that mankind is in an age of transition. Professor Prigogine presents a penetrating perspective on the nature of science and technology, observing that science is complex and probabilistic where the notions of irreversibility randomness and bifurcation are profoundly altering hitherto unchallenged concepts. This new reconceptualization of science has implications for the human sciences and for planning—it is leading to new dialogues of man with man, and of man with nature. The leitmotiv of this article is that the future is not given: time is a construction, and this implies ethical responsibilities.     

The Resourceful Earth: optimism and confrontation

The Resourceful Earth: A Response to Global 2000, edited by Julian Simon and the late Herman Kahn, is a recent contribution to the continuing debate over ‘optimistic’ v ‘pessimistic’ futures and how projections about the future should be made. This article is concerned more with issues of methodology, fact and philosophy raised by The Resourceful Earth than with assessing its Tightness or wrongness. The intention of the article is to move beyond the debate not to perpetuate it.     

Asset price prediction using seasonal decomposition

We propose a new forecasting procedure for asset prices using seasonal decomposition methods (SD hereafter), e.g., SABL and X-11. Such SD's are based on moving average methods, and they are thus easy to use and are capable of computing the seasonal pattern that changes over time. A SD typically decomposes a series intoT (trend),S (seasonal component), andR (residual or sometimes referred to as the irregular component). We use an ARIMA model onR to obtain its forecast. TheS component is forecasted by an extrapolation taking into account its changing pattern within the sample period. We propose to set up some scenarios on theT component by examining its possibly nonlinear and nonstationary behavior, and in the paper we suggest one possible way for this. Suppose that the forecasting horizon is relatively short compared toT's several cycles just before the end of the sample. Then we may safely extrapolateT linearly into the forecasting period. LinearizingT in such a case, makes sense. As to the slope of the linear line, we suggest the average rate of change of the most recent upward phase of a cycle to be used if we needed an optimistic scenario. Obviously, that of the downward phase may be used for constructing a pessimistic scenario, and that of one entire cycle is suitable for ‘average’ scenario. Once the forecasted values of the three components are obtained, we may put them back to make predictions on the original series based upon various different scenarios. In addition to proposing a new prediction method, we looked into the following issues, among others, in the paper: (1) on what sort of asset prices would our forecasting method work well? (2) Any significant differences if we used X-11 instead of SABL?