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.     

Ultimate confusion: The economics of Julian Simon

This article argues that there are profound mistakes and exaggerations in Simon's influential and popular ideas. It discusses Simon's denial of resource finitude and his views that neither ecology nor entropy exists. Finally it looks at Simon's The Resourceful Earth as an attack on Global 2000.     

Some aspects of the monetary economics of Richard Cantillon

This article examines several key aspects of the monetary economics in Richard Cantillon's Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en Général (1755 viewed from a modern monetarist perspective with special focus on monetary dynamics. After establishing the quantity theory framework of Cantillon's analysis, the article reviews the following aspects of his work: his theory of monetary disequilibrium; his analysis of the open economy; his treatment of the interest rate; his treatment of expectations and information; and his analysis of monetary induced business fluctuations and the use of monetary policy.     

Panglossian accounting theories: The science of apologising in style

Dr. Pangloss's comment about, “the best of all possible worlds”, is widely remembered, but what we tend to forget is how unpleasant his world really is. Candide's life is marred by pillage, murder, rape, war, torture and natural disasters. The only relief Voltaire provides Candide after each disaster is a bizzare re-iteration of Pangloss's absurd refrain that, “this must be the best of all possible worlds”. Voltaire's Candide warns us about scholarly self-deception and wishful thinking. This warning extends to theorizing about large organizations and corporate accountability: that monopolistic and oligopolistic elements may be underplayed: that the disciplining effect of market competition may be overrated; that managerial self-aggrandizement may be idealized as entrepreneurial heroics, and that research may be trivialized in the quest for objective results and tractable theories. This paper uses Agency Theory and Transaction Cost Theory to spell out the dangers of Panglossian theorizing. It rejects the notion that theories are dispassionate reflections of reality; instead, it views them as materialistically grounded in social conflict — as intellectual terrains on which social interests struggle to re-present and control their realities. In focussing on Agency and Transactional Cost Theory, three types of re-presentational distortion are considered here: those emanating from failing to acknowledge the constituitive potential of theorizing (stressing instead its natural and law-like character); those arising from overstating the empirical validity of theories, and those emerging from neglecting the interests that benefit from research. The implications of the paper are analogous to lessons that Voltaire teaches us through Dr. Pangloss: we may pay a high price if we listen to “simplifying assumptions” and “analytic approaches” of the Pangloss's of accounting thought. Their intellectual pollyannaism frequently promotes social causes that, after some reflection, we might prefer to dissociate ourselves from. Only by explicating the social underpinnings of accounting practices — contemporaneously and historically — and by investigating the social allegiances of different forms of theorizing, do we give ourselves the opportunity of such social self-awareness.     

Environmental disturbances,organizational transitions and transformations: A view from the dark side

Published over two decades ago, “Environmental Disturbances and Organizational Transitions and Transformations: Some Alternative Models” (Laughlin, 1991), presents a comprehensive view of what choices may be available to organizations in navigating the change process. Laughlin's discussion also provides some rationale for why organizations may pursue particular pathways in response to environmental disturbances. Responding to his call to future researchers, the current paper builds upon Laughlin's work by drawing on Social Network Theory (SNT) as offering an explanation about how the dynamic processes implicit in his framework may operate in effecting change within organizations and as a consequence, why particular pathways may be adopted. While Laughlin's initial premise and consequent contentions are grounded largely in critical theory, in augmenting his framework with insights derived from SNT, this paper contends that the dynamic processes invoked in response to environmental disturbances are capable of being operationalized, generalized and tested. Laughlin's framework therefore offers a foundation for a positivist frame of reference, pointing to the amenability of the framework to further investigation from researchers from a diverse range of research traditions.     

Is financial reporting shaped by equity markets or by debt markets? An international study of timeliness and conservatism

We hypothesize debt markets—not equity markets—are the primary influence on “association” metrics studied since Ball and Brown (1968 J Account Res 6:159–178). Debt markets demand high scores on timeliness, conservatism and Lev’s (1989 J Account Res 27(supplement):153–192) R ², because debt covenants utilize reported numbers. Equity markets do not rate financial reporting consistently with these metrics, because (among other things) they control for the total information incorporated in prices. Single-country studies shed little light on debt versus equity influences, in part because within-country firms operate under a homogeneous reporting regime. International data are consistent with our hypothesis. This is a fundamental issue in accounting.     

Are the best of the best better than the rest? The effect of multiple rankings on company value

In this paper, we explore the cumulative and interactive effects from being listed on one or more of four popular annual surveys (Fortune’s “Most Admired Companies” and “100 Best Companies to Work For,” Business Ethics “Best Corporate Citizens,” and Working Mother’s “100 Best Companies for Working Mothers.”) We find portfolios constructed of firms selected across these surveys add value to a portfolio, initially and over longer-holding periods, but the overall results are driven by the performance of those firms selected from the Most Admired Companies and Best Corporate Citizens rankings. We also discover that being listed in two or three different surveys on a yearly basis produces incremental value.     

A corporate strategy for realizing equal employment opportunity

This paper examines the American corporation's societal environment and finds that an Equal Employment Index (EEI) can serve as a measurement tool to evaluate alternative hiring policies in light of corporate Equal Employment objectives. To help managers choose the “best” hiring policy, a manpower planning model is developed in conjunction with the EEI to solve for the employment policy that comes as close as possible, within manpower flow constraints, to realizing Equal Employment objectives. With this knowledge the manager executes the hiring policy he chooses. The resulting changes in the work force are then evaluated via the EEI and compared to the a priori outcome of the manpower planning model. The difference is used to guide and direct managerial behavior toward attainment of Equal Employment objectives.     

Leading the herd: evidence from mutual funds’ buy and sell decisions

This article investigates whether a mutual fund’s performance is related to its herding behavior. Using the methodology of Sias (Rev Finance Stud 17:165–206, 2004), we develop a measure to capture the magnitude that a fund’s buy (sell) decisions are leading other funds’ buys (sells), and find that a fund’s performance is positively (negatively) related to its “buy leading” (“sell leading”). We interpret these findings as evidence that “buy leaders” (“sell leaders”)’ performance benefits (suffers) from the positive (negative) price effect associated with buy (sell) herds. Additionally, we find a positive relationship between fund performance and valuation-motivated “buy leading”, while we find weak evidence on the relationship between performance and valuation-motivated “sell leading”. We interpret these results as evidence that leading funds’ outperformance is due, in part, to their ability to value stocks.     

Institutional legitimacy and the FASB

A spectre, Demski's Impossibility Theorem, has stalked the classrooms and seminars of accounting academia for over a decade. After noting the reasons that make Demski's Impossibility Theorem largely irrelevant to assessment of the legitimacy of a real world institutional process like the FASB, this paper assesses the legitimacy of the FASB in terms of “individualistic constitutional calculus,” an approach that has recently evolved in the economics/political science literature. In line with this “individualistic constitutional calculus,” the paper next suggests three conditions of criteria that are sufficient to establish the legitimacy of an institution like the FASB. Finally, the FASB's ability to satisfy those conditions is evaluated by examining the nature of the standard-setting process and the economic and political environment in which it operates. Although the complexity of the empirical domain being considered necessitates reliance upon evidence that is largely anecdotal, the authors find support for the assertion that the FASB possesses institutional legitimacy.     

Government accountability and performance measurement

This paper studies accountability structures and strategy in the Province of Alberta, Canada. The Alberta government has presented performance measurement and reporting as an accountability technology, but a theoretically informed analysis suggests that performance measurement could be understood otherwise. Argyris’s notion of “espoused theory" vs. “theory-in-use" is used to illuminate Latour’s analysis of Plato’s Gorgias Dialogues and the combination is applied to highlight possible unintended consequences of the use of scientific managerialist techniques in the public sector. By mapping elitism of knowledge and elitism of special position (Right and Might) onto the Alberta experience, we make visible techniques that distance Albertans from their government. Questionably designed survey instruments have produced data interpreted by government as meaning Albertans are satisfied with government’s heritage efforts. Publication of such results has the effect of telling voters that they are happy with what they have, instead of asking the people what they want.     

River stories: Genealogies of a threatened inland river system

Most people now living in Australia's “bread basket”, the much-degraded Murray Darling Basin, are like my family, descendants of convicts or free settlers who came to the inland in the 19th or early 20th centuries. Our legacy includes the dispossession of indigenous peoples, species extinction and the ongoing degradation of the ecological communities which now sustain us. My own family's river stories which “begin” with a pair of impoverished Gaels who migrated with their offspring from the Scottish Highlands, can be considered paradigmatic. I re-narrate it in this essay in response to philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre's challenge—I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’Some of these family stories I find myself part of, especially those that have been enacted within the catchment of the now-threatened Lachlan River, are very discomforting, but where do they “truly” begin? In seeking to understand my relationship with the river and its catchment, and with the indigenous peoples “my mob” displaced, I explore several possible “beginnings” and ask a further question: what stories do I want to be part of as co-author, co-narrator and protagonist. I then offer my own yet-to-be enacted “truth and reconciliation” stories about the future of the inland plains I love.     

On the discontinuity of the future by other means: Reviewing the foresight world of Richard Slaughter

Richard Slaughter has made pioneering contributions to futures research. These contributions have been both procedural and substantive. This review seeks to appreciate some of the progress that his work has brought to the field through a review of two of Slaughter’s most recent books The Biggest Wake-up Call in History (2010) and To See with Fresh Eyes (2012). This paper traces how Slaughter’s intellectual wake-up built up over time. It highlights a set of fundamental tools, ideas and ideals that spring from Slaughter’s work over decades and is synthesised in these two books. This appraisal becomes an “augmented review” by also taking into account his book blurb material and peer-reviewed journal work. This review draws on this evidence to analyse and profile the multi-disciplinary resonance of these references and to illustrate the broader intellectual impact. In addition a bibliometric analysis offers a way beyond the two books and performs an out-of-sample assessment of the way Slaughter has continued to develop the foresight agenda.     

Understanding social change: Some comments on “Prediction and social change”

Gordon Rattray Taylor argued, in the October 1977 issue of Futures,² that forecasting needs a fuller understanding of social change, and of the factors which influence it. In this response, Willis Harman discusses Taylor's view of the importance of individual and personal values in the process of change, and comments upon his analysis of those values.     

On the Stewardship and Valuation Implications of Accrual Accounting Systems

In this paper we explore the role of accruals in determining “earnings quality” from both a stewardship and a valuation perspective. We show that the valuation and stewardship qualities of accrual accounting are maximized by either an “aggressive” or a “conservative” accrual strategy. Furthermore, accrual strategy choices can be delegated to management as it does not benefit by implementing a strategy that is not in the best interests of the shareholders. We also investigate the implications of accrual strategies for standard empirical measures of “earnings quality”: regression coefficients and R²s from price‐earnings and market‐to‐book regressions. We show that such measures respond differently, and in some cases adversely, to the kind of strategies that make accounting constructs more correlated with the underlying economic activities of firms.     

Long-range forecasting within organisations

The article describes a method for testing and developing personal and organisational strategies. It suggests the establishment of a group which includes the organisation's partners and competitors (the author outlines why and how objections to the latter should be overcome) and which would progress through initial “unrealistic” games to more realistic scenarios. When combined with role playing, some “uncomfortable” scenarios can lead to members leaving the group and, where they pinpoint weaknesses, can either strengthen the organisation or hasten its decline. By including the organisations' decision makers, the exercise can lead to a rehearsal of the future.     

Specific knowledge and performance measurement

I examine optimal incentives and performance measurement in a model where an agent has specific knowledge (in the sense of Jensen and Meckling) about the consequences of his actions for the principal. Contracts can be based both on “input” measures related to the agent's actions and an “output” measure related to the principal's payoff. Whereas input‐based pay minimizes income risk, only output‐based pay encourages the agent to use his knowledge efficiently. In general, it is optimal to use both kinds of performance measures. The results help to explain some empirical puzzles and lead to several new predictions.     

Revolutionary change in our worldview?

Fritjof Capra has become internationally known through two pioneering books, both best sellers, titled The Tao of Physics and The Turning Point. His third book, Green Politics which he wrote with Charlene Spretnak, was published in May 1984. The central theme which runs through all his work is the paradigmatic change in the Western view of the world. This article is taken from several conversations which Bart van Steenbergen had with Fritjof Capra. It begins with some background information and then looks at Fritjof Capra's work over the past 15 years.     

The role of annual reports in gender and class contradictions at general motors: 1917–1976

This paper argues that studies of female exploitation frequently pay too little attention to the broader social context; particularly alienation and crises in the development of late capitalism. This criticism applies with equal force to the domestic labor/housework studies and labor process studies and labor process studies where male domination is often advanced as the primary explanatory variable in accounting for female oppression. Even where labor process researchers have emphasized mediating affects on partiarchial influences (technology and control processes for instance; c.f. Milkman, Politics and Society, pp. 159–203, 1983), we argue that the broader context of alienated capitalist social relations is frequently understated.Female subordination under capitalism is traced to two primary sources in this study: First, that part of the labor process where the existence of female labor facilitates surplus value appropriation by playing the part of an “industrial reserve army” (sometimes “latent”, at other times “floating”). Second, in times of overproduction and underconsumption, capital has invented a consumerist ideology about women to help resolve its crisis of realizing surplus value. Only by seeing these different instances of female oppression as part of a larger, mutually reinforcing configuration of “instances” — emanating from capitalist social relations — are we likely to begin to adequately comprehend the resilience of social ideology concerning women and develop effective political and social counter-strategies.In this research, the above considerations are explored using evidence from a longitudinal study of General Motors where the annual reports are used to monitor the evolution of managerial ideology vis-a-vis women over some sixty years. We see in this study how the manner of women's exploitation changes with changes in the crises facing capitalism.The implications of the study are severalfold: Firwt, we see how a socially “unreflective” view of “management” and “management control systems” may lead to practices that are oppressive and exploitative. Second, we find “the labor process” to be an important but insufficient conceptual terrain for understanding women's oppression; instead we propose that the starting point of any analysis should be capitalist alienation. Third, this work has implications for the various controversies about class essentialism and the primacy of class. (Wright, New Left Review, pp. 11–36, 1983; Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis, 1979; Miliband, New Left Review, pp. 57–68, 1983; Tinker, Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, pp. 1–20, 1984). as well as the relation between male domination and class oppression (Fox-Genovese, New Left Review, pp. 5–29, 1982, Goldelier, New Left Review, pp. 3–17, 1981) in that it examines the interplay between class and other forms of domination. Lastly, we see how annual reports may contribute to a general “world view” that aids social appropriation and domination.