Negotiating the credibility of performance auditing

This paper reports the results of a longitudinal field study of a performance audit which used in-depth interviews and observation to examine the process by which auditees and auditors in the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) negotiated their relationship. The findings enhance understanding of auditee reactions to both the practice of performance auditing and the auditors themselves and the impact that these have on the credibility of performance auditing. Using the lens of Oliver's typology of strategic responses, the study confirmed the prevalence of auditee responses to performance auditing by the ANAO which ranged from co-operative acquiescence and co-operation to confrontational defiance. The paper addresses recent and ongoing calls for more studies of public sector auditing in action to deepen our understanding of the responses or manoeuvring of auditors and auditees during the process of performance auditing. A key contribution of the paper is confirmation that performance auditing continues to be a contested activity and its credibility in practice remains uncertain. The empirical (and historical) evidence suggests that audits that are perceived as especially politically sensitive can provoke active forms of resistance, including avoidance and defiance.     

Communicating the new benefits deal

Communication is critical to changing employees' attitudes toward increased responsibility for benefit decisions and health and wellness. As employers shift responsibility, they not only must provide the right decision-making tools; employers must also maintain a safety net for those who don't want the responsibility. This article discusses the experience of four organizations that implemented the "new deal" of increased employee responsibility while also balancing employee needs.     

雷锋式的激情奉献是工行企业文化的灵魂

优秀的企业文化是企业发展的灵魂,居于企业文化核心地位的价值观念的形成需要长时间的打造,需要先进人物的楷模作用,需要领导者的大力倡导和精心培育。我行公开评选出的“感动工行”十大杰出员工是时代的精英,他们勤奋好学、用心钻研的“钉子”精神,乐于敬业、甘于奉献的“螺丝钉”精神,是感动中国近半个世纪的雷锋精神的发扬光大,是工行企业文化的核心内容。     

The new deal at the top

What makes a company strategically agile--able to alter its strategies and business models rapidly in response to major changes in its market space, and to do so repeatedly without major trauma? Three years of in-depth case research on a dozen large companies worldwide showed the authors that one key factor is a new leadership model at the top. Senior executives at agile companies assume collective rather than individual responsibility for results. They build interdependencies among units and divisions, motivating themselves to engage with one another, and carefully manage their dealings to promote collaboration that is frequent, intense, informal, open, and focused on shared issues and the long term. Challenges to conventional thinking are encouraged. This is the new deal, and it's not easy to strike, because it requires executives to act in ways that are far from comfortable. After all, the corporate ladder at most firms favors independent types with a deep need for power and autonomy. At executive meetings, disagreement is suppressed or expressed passive-aggressively, eroding any real sense of belonging to a team. Switching to the new deal almost always requires a huge shift in the company's culture, values, and norms of interaction. The authors describe three approaches to making the shift: Executives can be given formal responsibility not for a business unit but for different stages in the company's value chain. This worked well for SAP, which has a relatively focused business portfolio. When a company's portfolio is less uniform, like Nokia's, business and functional units can be organized to crisscross on a matrix. And when a company is widely diverse, like easyGroup, it can emphasize the learning opportunities that units with common business models may share.     

新金融需要银行家精神

银行风险问题应归咎于商业模式而不是银行家 对于新金融,人们可能会有一种误解,觉得新金融就是互联网金融或者P2P以及众筹.实际上,中国人民银行牵头十部委发布的《关于互联网金融指导意见》中已经给了这个问题一个明确解答,《意见》中指出:“互联网金融是传统金融机构与互联网技术、信息通信技术实现资金融通、支付、投资和信息中介服务的新型服务模式.”互联网与金融深度融合是大势所趋,所以已经把银行部门,也就是传统的金融机构定义为互联网金融的一部分,也算新金融的一部分.     

重构产业链需要匠人精神

在融资中国举办的2016融资中国产业链投资峰会上,上海证券交易所前首席经济学家、国家制造强国战略咨询委员会委员胡汝银发表了主题演讲,“供应链、价值链、产业链的重构就是要回归到企业的根本、生产的根本、经济学的根本和国家发展的根本。回归到传统领域,把东西做好,不是浮躁、投机、没有道德底线地去经营,这方面需要工匠精神。”他这样说。     

The spirit of capitalism among the income classes

This paper tests the consumption-based capital asset model within the context of the spirit of capitalism. The spirit of capitalism asserts that consumers gain utility not just from consumption of goods and services, but also from the social status obtained from wealth. We examine two asset pricing models developed by Bakshi and Chen (1996) that employ wealth in the utility function, for households sorted by income quintiles. In the first model, households obtain utility from both consumption and the social status that comes from their own wealth. In the second model, households gain utility from both consumption and the social status obtained from their own wealth relative to the wealth of other peer households. Our results indicate that both models are inconsistent with the data regardless of income. However, using cointegration methods as a diagnostic tool, we find that the data are “loosely” consistent with the spirit of capitalism, at least for the upper income quintiles.     

论PPP特许经营权收回的协商型法律规制

在PPP特许经营领域,当公用事业遭受或面临重大损害之虞时,政府基于行政监管权和行政优益权而提前收回特许经营权有其正当性,与此同时因行政控权及保障合理私益需要,该收回权的行使也应受到合理规制.与PPP特许经营模式发展阶段相对应,对特许经营权收回的规制呈现出由命令型向协商型过渡的基本轨迹.作为规制PPP特许经营权收回的一种包容性模式,协商型规制应明确其基本构造,具体而言则是从原则遵循、启动要件、主体要件、程序要件等方面进行细化和完善,从而最大程度保障公用事业运营秩序的稳定及各方主体的合法权益.     

学会与资本斡旋

企业金融力,正在成为中国企业的核心竞争力。如果说我们依靠强大的生产能力、研发能力、营销能力、管理能力赢得了过去30年竞争的话,那么我们将依靠企业金融力引领未来30年     

Negotiating ecology: Marine bioregions and the destruction of the Southern California Bight

Bioregional studies tend to focus on landscapes and associated cultural and biological diversity. This essay provides a general overview of the ecology of the Southern California Bight (SCB), which is the coastal marine bioregion of southern California. The bioregion is considered one of the most threatened ‘hot spots’ for biodiversity in the world. The SCB includes the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, the Channel Islands National Park, and a designated ‘biosphere reserve’ of the United Nations Man and the Biosphere Program. The essay describes the destruction of southern California's coastal watersheds and wetlands, and provides a summary of the significant decline in ecological productivity of the marine bioregion. Despite the decline in general marine ecosystem integrity, there has been no large-scale planning effort that focuses on the entire coastal marine bioregion. With this in mind, the essay provides an overview of recent policy initiatives that call for the establishment of Marine Protected Areas or MPAs to protect marine ecosystems. Without a new institutional approach to the entire bioregion the future of the coastal marine ecosystems of the system is rather dim. With this in mind, the author recommends a number of institutional changes that support large-scale bioregional planning.     

克服经济失衡引起的宏观波动

如何透过这些纷繁复杂的现象理解中国经济当前的问题,尤其是宏观经济问题?刚刚公布的7月份物价指数引发了新一轮关于中国宏观经济的讨论。在一系列令人眼花缭乱的数据和名词中,我们可以看到中国的宏观经济出现了许多似乎是"问题"的现象:比如投资增长速度仍然比消费增长速度快;CPI达到了5.6%这样的高水平;房价和股价不断上涨;贸易顺     

如何应对汇率波动风险

中国信保专家指出:人民币升值对出口导向型行业是一个重新洗牌的过程.随着人民币汇率浮动范围的加大和升值趋势的延续,汇率风险将长期性存在,企业需要树立外汇风险防范意识     

应对拖欠余款的方案与启示

中国国内A公司向买方出运五票摩托车散件,买方承兑后仅支付第一笔货款,余款拖欠。A公司随后向中国信保通报可损,同时委托中国信保进行海外追讨,这场拖欠风波源于环保标准.     

Negotiating for survival: Balancing mission and money

The impetus for prioritising money over mission in charities is increasingly pertinent as public sector austerity progresses in the UK. Mid size charities – who are heavily reliant on grant funding - have experienced proportionately greater challenges to austerity than larger entities. A substantial part of accountability efforts in mid size charities are directed towards funders, where funder imposed frameworks and measures may direct charity attention away from social mission towards funder needs, causing mission drift. Four charity case studies and grant funder interviews were conducted to investigate how charities can pursue social mission in a challenging funding environment. This paper shows that charities can protect social mission despite high dependence on grant funding, but also provides evidence of susceptibility to mission drift in cases where the balance between money and mission changes. Charity accounting systems display notable funder influence. A resource dependence perspective is utilised to highlight the complexity in assessing dependence of charities in a challenging environment and demonstrates the extent of funder influence in accounting and performance systems in these charities. However, charities employ strategies to cope with external requirements, enabling them to retain mission focus.     

如何看地方政府融资平台告急？

2009年11月以来,地方政府融资平台呈现收紧的趋势。目前,全球经济并没有表现出强劲的复苏态势,中国经济虽然已经率先复苏,但仍面临着巨大的不确定性,于是,如何正确对待地方政府融资平台变得很重要