Futures studies’ backcasting method used for strategic sustainable city planning

Achieving a sustainable city requires long-term visions, integration and a system-oriented approach to addressing economic, environmental and social issues. This paper case studies a sustainable city planning project, Göteborg 2050, that uses the backcasting method. Visionary images of a long-term sustainable future can stimulate an accelerated movement towards sustainability. The paper describes a special kind of scenario methodology to build a future model for city development as a planning tool in facilitating a sustainable society. Backcasting in futures studies is widely discussed together with the comparison of three selected backcasting approaches, including Robinson's approach, The Natural Step Framework, and the Sustainable Technology Development approach. The purposes of this paper are to examine and discuss the use of the backcasting method within the Project Göteborg 2050, lessons learned and findings drawn from the experience. The case study shows that backcasting is an appropriate method in developing action plans for achieving urban sustainability. This work can be served as a model for sustainable city planning in Thailand as well as other countries.     

Accounting and sustainable development: An exploration

As the social and environmental impacts of human activity have become more evident, the role of sustainable development as an organising principle in a variety of policy contexts and over multiple scales has become central. There are, at least, two implications that emerge from this observation. First, morally infused problems that need to be addressed have become more intractable, requiring innovation in our modes of thinking. Second, new spaces have emerged where the academy might explore how knowledge is created, validated and translated (or not) alongside policy and practice settings. One outcome of these trends has been the emergence of a stream of work (sustainability science) which investigates how disciplines might develop knowledge that progresses sustainable development. The aim of this paper, in line with the focus of the special issue, is to explore what possibilities emerge for accounting in light of a sustainability science approach. To achieve this end the paper starts with an exploration of the frustrations expressed in the literature over the perceived lack of progress made by social and environmental accounting towards addressing sustainable development. The paper then introduces sustainability science with the aim of imagining how an accounting for sustainable development might emerge. The paper closes with two illustrations of how a sustainability science approach to accounting could develop.     

Economic benefits of enterprise resource planning systems: some empirical evidence

The present study provides empirical evidence on the economic benefits of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. We use a modified value chain approach and identify several ratios for each component of the value chain to reflect improvements as a result of the adoption of ERP systems. These financial ratios are tracked for 2 years for a group of companies that adopted ERP systems versus a group of companies that did not adopt ERP. Both univariate and multivariate statistics are used to test for differences. The key result of the present study is that the adoption of ERP systems leads to sustained operational efficiencies and improved overall liquidity. In addition, some support is found for increased profitability 2 years after the adoption of ERP and for improvements in accounts receivable management.     

A GIS-based tool for the management of industrial accidents triggered by volcanic ash fallouts

In this last decade, worldwide attention has been focused on the hazards derived from the interaction between extreme natural phenomena and critical infrastructures and/or chemical and process industry (natural–technological hazards or Na-Tech). Due to the recent occurrence of significant events, great attention has also been given to Na-Tech hazards triggered by volcanic eruptions; in particular, the eruption of the Icelandic volcano alarmed the European community due to the ash fallout over the continent, which caused significant problems for the population, road, rail and air traffic and production activities. This study aims at defining a procedure for the representation of the vulnerability of industrial facilities to potential volcanic ash fallouts. Its implementation on a Geographical Information System has also been executed and a semi-automatic procedure for the vulnerability mapping has been constructed.     

The behavioral sciences and concepts and standards for management planning and control

This article reviews behavioral research on the individual, small groups and organizations and the implications of this research for management accounting. Also, opportunities for accounting research are identified and, where appropriate, extant accounting research is discussed. The conclusion is that studies of individual and group behavior are inseparable from studies of complex organizations and vice versa. Furthermore, fundamental research into personal, oragnizational, and environmental variables and their impact on effective management planning and control systems is urgently needed.     

银行内部营销:人力资源管理的新思维

所谓内部营销，是指组织（银行）成功地雇佣、训练并尽可能激励员工，很好地为“顾客”（员工）服务的工作。对银行而言，员工也是其面对的一个市场。因此，就有如何为这一人才市场中这些特殊顾客提供满意的价值的问题。引入内部营销观念，要求人力资源部门遵循“细分市场，满足客户需求”的市场营销原则，承担起人力资源管理产品与服务的营销职能。“细分市场”指人力资源部门将自己的业务对象进行区分，并有针对性地提供不同的产品与服务。对人力资源部门而言，CEO、直线经理以及普通员工都是其人力资源营销的目标对象。“满足客户需求”就是要求人力资源部门通过分析银行中不同层次成员的需求，使之接受这些产品与服务。     

Risk management and sustainable development: mutual lessons from approaches to the use of indicators

Risk management and sustainable development are frameworks for studying and managing the environmental impacts of human actions; as such each requires indicators for monitoring, decision-making and communication. This paper compares the two frameworks as used in practice, and their experience of using indicators. Sustainable development is a systems-based concept with a long time horizon, a tendency to apply precaution in decisions, and a positive normative 'mission' (development). Risk management focuses on specific, linear chains of cause and effect over short time periods, is typically associated with cost-benefit decision-making, and concentrates on avoiding negative outcomes. However risk management is also potentially a tool for informing and implementing sustainability. Both risk and sustainability are multidimensional constructs which can be indicated in varied ways. The selection of indicators in both fields depends on technical (e.g. robustness, problem-orientation) and communicative criteria (e.g. truthfulness, informativeness, relevance, clarity and resonance). Lessons from risk indicators include a better understanding of communicative criteria such as resonance, and greater awareness of communication pitfalls. Sustainability indicators demonstrate the advantages of a participatory approach to selection for incorporating different values, echoing the experience of the US states' comparative risk assessment approach, as well as the need for a systematic perspective on problems leading to the use of multiple indicators. Risk management and sustainable development have much mutual relevance and could each benefit from more intensive exchange both generally, and regarding the use of indicators.     

Evaluation of infrastructure planning approaches: An analogy with medicine

This paper discusses the evaluation of new infrastructure planning approaches. These new planning approaches have been put forward in response to the challenges of deep uncertainty about the future. These approaches emphasize the need for flexibility of the system in order to enable the plan to adapt to changing conditions. However, these adaptive approaches up till now have seen little real word applications. One important reason for this lack of application is that the efficacy of these approaches has not been established yet. In turn, this is largely due to the problem that there is no agreed upon method for proving the efficacy of a new planning approach. In this paper, we will draw an analogy to medical research and development in order to outline a methodology for establishing the efficacy of new planning approaches. We discuss how the well-established methodology for evaluation new medical treatments can be adapted to evaluating new planning approaches. We illustrate the resulting evaluation methodology by outlining an evaluation strategy for a specific new planning approach. It is concluded that the well-established methodology from medicine can successfully be used to inform the evaluation of infrastructure planning approaches.     

世界银行建言中国改革和加强水资源管理框架

世界银行在北京发布新报告《解决中国的水稀缺：关于水资源管理若干问题的建议》,建议中国改革和加强水资源管理的机构设置、法律法规、信息和公众参与,重点放在明晰政府、市场、社会三者各自的作用及其相互关系;提高水资源管理部门的效率,充分利用市场手段,如水权、水价和生态补偿机制;强化水污染控制措施的执行以及对污染突发事件的准备。     

加快自助服务创新发展 提升银行应用管理水平——2010年商业银行全功能自助服务体系高级研讨会在杭州召开

随着中国金融电子化的迅猛发展,商业银行提高自助服务应用水平也日益重要,这已经成为商业银行提升业务能力、扩大业务规模的首选方式。2010年5月18日～22日,由中国金融电脑杂志社主办,东方通信股份有限公司（以下简称＂东信公司＂）协办的2010年商业银行全功能自助服务体系高级研讨会在浙江省杭州市召开。     

Risk and return in residential spatial markets: An empiric and theoretic model

The paper is concerned with price and rent fluctuations in predominantly owner-occupied residental real estate. It presents the owner-occupier household as a housing consumer as well as an investor. It conjectures that since risk and return are known to be positively related in financial markets, they might also be thus related in residential real estate markets. If that is so, neighborhoods that are known to yield high returns will be the ones less price and rent stable than low yielding ones.The Capital Asset Pricing Model is not helpful in explaining a possible risk/return relationship in housing markets. Its major assumption about portfolio diversification is contrary to the nature of owner-occupied residential real estate. An owner occupier household, by definition, holds one unit of the asset and acts simultaneously as an investor and consumer of housing. For the capital market investor, investment and consumption decisions are separable. Therefore, a new theoretical model of consumer choice is proposed. Tel-Aviv price and rent data during a volatile market period are used for testing the main risk/return conjecture as well as other related hypotheses stemming from the model. The findings lend support to the conjecture and shed light on possible spatial determinants of owners' risk.     

The design and use of performance management systems: An extended framework for analysis

Issues in the area of performance management and management control systems are typically complex and intertwined, but research tends to be based on simplified and partial settings. Simplification has made the work easier to carry out, but it has come at the price of increased ambiguity and conflicting findings from different studies. To help mitigate these issues, this paper puts forward the performance management systems framework as a research tool for describing the structure and operation of performance management systems (PMSs) in a more holistic manner. The framework was developed from the relevant literature and from our observations and experience. In particular, it elaborates the 5 questions of Otley's [Otley, D., 1999. Performance management: a framework for management control systems research. Management Accounting Research 10, 363–382] performance management framework into 12 questions and integrates aspects of Simons’ levers of control framework.Anecdotal evidence suggests that the extended framework provides a useful research tool for those wishing to study the design and operation of performance management systems by providing a template to help describe the key aspects of such systems. It allows an holistic overview to be taken while making this a feasible task. The paper uses material from two field studies to illustrate how the framework can be used to provide an overview of the major performance management issues within an organization.     

Earnings management induced by tax planning: The case of Portuguese private firms

In Portugal, a concept of taxable income associated closely with reported accounting income is used to determine the tax liability of firms. Recently, the Portuguese government legislated to introduce a system of “special payment on account” (SPA). Firms were required to pay an amount of income tax in advance that varied between a promulgated minimum and maximum. Although such a tax is unique to Portugal, other countries have tax arrangements that are similar in intent. Thus, Portugal's experience with the introduction of a SPA regime is likely to be instructive in fiscal policy deliberations in other settings.We assess the extent to which the SPA tax policy measure encouraged private Portuguese companies to manipulate earnings. We find that earnings manipulation appears to have been motivated by desire to minimize SPA. Firms whose estimate of SPA liability fell within the range of minimum and maximum limits of the SPA had higher levels of discretionary accruals than firms whose estimate was (equal to or) above the ceiling imposed by the new legislation. Firms with higher rates of income tax were found to reduce earnings to near zero. Firms with higher average income tax rates were more likely to manipulate their earnings than other firms.Our results reinforce the importance for auditors, stakeholders, and tax policy advisors to be alert to the close association between tax planning considerations and reported earnings in their monitoring, analysis, and policy advising activities.     

Custom fabric ventures: An instructional resource in job costing for the introductory managerial accounting course

Job costing is a core foundational concept in the introductory managerial accounting course. The purpose of this instructional resource (IR) is to provide a thorough hands-on, active learning resource that will allow introductory students to experience a full set of accounting and management activities necessary to produce a job and assign production costs to it. For example, the IR requires students to analyze overhead costs, determine the optimal job size, schedule production, calculate the amount of materials to purchase, complete material requisitions, update raw materials records, analyze labor time records, complete a job cost record and address critical thinking questions. The IR was developed for use in a “flipped classroom” in which students work under the guidance of the instructor, but could alternatively be assigned as an unsupervised out-of-class assignment or on-line project. Since the IR was specifically developed as a learning tool for novice introductory managerial accounting students, adequate guidance is provided throughout the activity. However, to add realism and challenge students to think beyond the confines of simple mechanics, management and accounting issues are seeded throughout. Student feedback indicates that the IR not only helps students learn how a job costing system operates, but also helps students become aware of management decisions and accounting issues that impact the costs assigned to a job.     

商业银行开发中心的系统资源管理方法

IT基础设施是商业银行开发中心开展各项工作的基石,而基础设施资源又极其有限。如何结合开发中心自身发展需要、项目开发测试及运维等特点综合考虑管理资源,提高资源的整体处理能力和利用率成为摆在各家商业银行面前的重要课题。     

"适足经济理论":泰国可持续经济发展的新路线

适足经济理论是可应用于个人、家庭、社区、国家等各个层次的处世哲学和治国理念.它包含三项基本原则,即适度、合理和有内在的免疫力.该理论指导人们重视正直、诚实、勤奋、知识、智慧、敏锐等方面素质的培养.     

Scenario planning interventions in organizations: An analysis of the causes of success and failure

This paper presents a case analysis of a successful scenario intervention in an organization. This intervention is compared and contrasted with an unsuccessful one reported in Hodgkinson and Wright [Confronting strategic inertia in a top management team: learning from failure, Organization Studies 23 (2002)949-977]. We demonstrate that analysis of the answers given by workshop participants in a pre-intervention interview can be helpful in determining the receptiveness of an organization to a subsequent scenario intervention. We theorize that strategic inertia-characterized by coping patterns of bolstering failing strategy, procrastination (over a strategic dilemma) and buck-passing (the responsibility for the dilemma's resolution), can be caused by the psychological attenuation of the perceived level of environmental threat to the organization, culminating in unconflicted adherence to the currently followed strategy. We contend that the expression of such coping behaviour is antithetical to a subsequent successful scenario exercise since, if the exercise fails to identify an unconflicted strategic alternative, the sharp focus of the scenarios on futures unfavourable to business-as-usual strategy will re-activate the cognitive stress-reduction mechanisms. Strategic inertia will thus be reinforced. We conclude with a review of the implications of our diagnosis for reflective practitioners.Our paper is divided into four sections. In Section 1, we overview writings on inertia in strategic decision making. We pay especial attention to identifying potential causes of inertia. Next, we present Janis and Mann's [Decision Making, Free Press, New York, 1979] views of the psychological processes invoked by conflicted decisions and analyse the relevance of this laboratory-based theory to provide a psychological explanation of strategic inertia. Finally, we briefly describe the scenario intervention process and argue that it contains the potential to overcome strategic inertia. In Section 2, we review an already-published study of an unsuccessful scenario planning intervention, which illustrates the operation of components of Janis and Mann's model. Next, in Section 3, we focus on our own case investigation of a successful scenario planning intervention. The early part of this section documents the “success”, whilst the latter part analyses the causes of the success—again using the components of Janis and Mann's model. We conclude in Section 4, where we compare and contrast the application of Janis and Mann's model to both cases and we demonstrate that application of the model to pre-intervention interview data can aid the practitioner determine, at the outset, whether or not the organizational context will be receptive to the intervention.     

6W法在科技发展规划中的应用

2010年,中国光大银行（以下简称＂光大银行＂）制定了2010～2012年全行发展战略规划。在此基础上,科技信息部根据光大银行的整体发展战略制定了新三年科技发展战略,为光大银行的信息化建设指明了方向。     

职业道德与商业道德：一种行之有效的方法

道德是关于原则、价值观和信仰的问题,它会对人们的判断及行为产生影响。有道德的行为对于专业人士和商业尤为重要:(1)信任对于专业人士的重要性在于,由于专业人士所做工作的复杂性,用户必须信任他们的工作,否则专业人士便毫无意义。(2)信任