Risk forecast as work practice: between codified and practical knowledge

If the use of meteorological data has progressively expanded in tackling different sources of risk, less developed is by contrast a reflection on how meteorological systems apply in local contexts and to what extent that locality may affect the use and the content of forecasting recipients. By focusing on a wildfire forecasting, I show how forecasting practice cannot be reduced to the implementation of meteorological devices; it rather takes shape in the articulation between the technical device and different sources of knowledge – tacit, practical and ‘profane’. This articulation work, this study gives account of, reveals some specific challenges in the introduction of forecasting systems in risk management.     

美联储推出QE3对新兴市场经济体将带来冲击

美联储麾下联邦公开市场委员会（FOMC）在结束两天会议后宣布推出进一步量化宽松政策,QE3或对新兴市场经济体产生巨大冲击,一方面,大宗商品价格反弹将进一步推升通胀,另一方面,汇率波动将使得出口型经济体雪上加霜。无论QE3还是QEn都是美国转嫁自身危机代价的政策工具     

When knowledge is power: Evidence from the municipal bond market

I investigate whether access to fundamental information enhances retail investors’ bargaining power, reducing the premium that small municipal bond investors pay over large investors. I find a reduction in this small trade premium after the introduction of an online disclosure repository that lowers retail investors’ information acquisition costs. This finding is limited to issuers whose disclosures are disseminated through the repository. The finding is pronounced for issuers that impose high information acquisition costs on investors ex-ante and those that exhibit high disclosure quality ex-post. These results suggest that as investors’ information sets align, so does their bargaining power with dealers.     

Elusive boundaries,power relations,and knowledge production: A systematic review of the literature on digitalization in accounting

A third wave of technological advancements, which is often referred to as “digitalization,” is affecting organizations across the board. This paper aims to present a comprehensive synthesis of the extant scholarly work on digitalization in the accounting literature. It does so through a systematic literature review that focuses on articles on digitalization published by the highest-ranked accounting journals in the period 2007–2017. By conducting a thorough review, we extend Rom and Rohde's (2007) literature review on integrated information systems (IIS) in management accounting. Furthermore, we utilize a modified version of the framework proposed by Rom and Rohde (2007) to classify and interpret the literature. This allows us to understand the differences between IIS and digitalization in accounting, and to illuminate avenues for future research. The paper concludes with an overview of three main differences in how IIS and digitalization have influenced accounting, and three concurrent avenues for future research on digitalization in accounting: the elusive boundaries of accounting, power relations, and knowledge production for decision making.     

International diversification for the individual: A review

This paper reviews aspects of the literature on international investing that should be of interest to individual investors. Three modern issues are covered: (1) the benefits of international diversification as the global markets continue to integrate; (2) the problem of currency exposure; and (3) effective means of achieving international diversification. Strategies are discussed which enable the individual to apply suggestions from the research. By restricting the scope of the review to issues of most interest to the individual, we do not review research on international asset pricing theory and international market efficiency and “anomalies.”     

The effects of power relationships: knowledge,practice and a new form of regulatory capture*

Abstract

In the wake of disasters, criticism tends to target regulatory failures and regulatory capture. In this status quo, the roles of regulators are black-boxed and criticism fails to explore what has been happening within and around regulatory institutions. This paper explores how relationships between regulators of hazardous industry and those who interact with them affect regulatory practice. Actor-network theory was utilised to generate findings drawn from a study of the Australian pipeline industry in order to reveal perspectives and the approaches of regulators in regulating pipeline risks. The findings indicate that pipeline regulators have a particular logic in practicing risk analysis. This paper argues that such a logic can be theorised as a new form of regulatory capture that limits the way regulators regulate risks and constrains the potential of regulatory outcomes. It is urged that a new form of logics of practice needs to be developed so as to improve the process of risk regulation in preventing catastrophic accidents.     

芬兰——创新的国度

<正>芬兰是一个神奇的国家。当外国人第一次踏上她的土地时,根据访问时间的不同,要么见到满目参翠的森林伴着阳光下波光磷磷的湖水;要么面对被冰雪覆盖着的一片白茫茫大地。芬兰自然四季分明,白天和黑夜长短的显著变化更突出了四季的区别。     

Accounting for the horizontal organization: A review essay

There have been many approaches that have sought to identify the principles of best practice organizational management. The Horizontal Organization (HO) has been proposed as a method that draws on ideas from marketing, production, organizational behaviour and human resource management. It identifies specific value propositions with a customer-oriented focus and then develops process efficiency and continuous improvements, flattened structures with a team-based focus, human resource policies concerned with empowerment and a supportive and committed culture to help institutionalize change. The key distinguishing feature is to move away from traditional vertical, functional structures to lateral structures, processes and information to support the HO. This essay reviews three approaches, which when taken together, distil the key elements of the HO. These are Ostroff (1999). The horizontal organization, New York, Oxford University Press; Schonberger (1996). World class manufacturing: The Next decade, New York, The Free Press; and Galbraith (2005). Designing the customer-centric organization, a guide to strategy, structure, and process, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass. Of particular interest is how these authors envisage a role for management accounting in the design and application of the HO. The essay will review the essence of HO and critically examine the extent to which there have been complementary developments in management accounting, and how effective practice and research have been in developing a horizontal dimension to management accounting. It is concluded that innovations in management accounting, such as activity-based accounting and holistic performance measurement like balanced scorecards, have not had any significant affects on those developing ideas related to HO. Reasons why this is so are canvassed and areas where accounting innovations may provide valuable input to implementing the HO are discussed. Recent developments in management practices that elaborate on HO and implications for a horizontal dimension to accounting are examined.     

Manual vs. computerized practice sets: A test for differences

This article reports the results of an experiment comparing the test performance, attitudes and time requirements of two groups of intermediate financial accounting students completing a practice set. The practice set was used at the beginning of the course as an accounting cycle review. One group of students completed a manual practice set; the other completed a nearly identical computerized practice set. Practice set formats were found to have no significant effect on students' test performance and little effect on their attitudes. However, students completing the computerized format did so in significantly less time than students completing the manual format.     

怎样的环保理念和实践才是体现和谐

国务院总理温家宝在第十一届全国人民代表大会第一次会议向大会作政府工作报告时说道，“今年要着重抓好九个方面的工作”。其中第四方面的工作“是加大节能减排和环境保护力度，做好产品质量安全工作”。     

Investment in gold: A bibliometric review and agenda for future research

Significant surge in gold prices has attracted speculators, investors and intellectuals alike. Factors driving gold prices, the effectiveness of gold price predictions, the economic viability of gold mining, risk management using gold, and its comparisons against exchange rates and stock prices have been some of the consistent foci of researchers. Applying bibliometrics on 453 top articles published on gold between 1970 and 2021, we present a comprehensive overview of the academic discussions on one of the fast evolving research domains. Apart from identifying the publication and citation trends, we note seven intellectual clusters contributing to growth of the contemporary research identified as: dynamics of gold prices and its linkage with other asset prices, gold prices: forecasting and comparison, gold as an instrument for an inflation hedge, gold and currency market, economic policy and gold prices, role of gold in the global financial market, and expected value and volatility of gold.     

Risk, knowledge and contradiction: An alternative and transdiciplinary view as to how risk is induced

The following paper attempts to elucidate the relationship between risk and knowledge across a specific form of contradiction by (1) examining the notion and definition(s) of contradiction; (2) examining a specific type of contradiction (as ‘ambiguity’) which can act as either a cause or mitigator of risk; and (3) examining the nature of both knowledge and risk. The resultant proposed framework provides an alternative perspective on risk, whereby it is argued that risk is induced across repressed ambiguities; with the latter also resulting in truncated or limited knowledge. Conversely, risk is mitigated across the full expression of these same ambiguities, which in turn leads to enriched or complexified knowledge.This perspective argues that as long as we fail to recognise and embrace the myriad of dyadic pairs or ambiguities which both surround us and are inherent within us as human beings, we strongly increase the likelihood of both validating and reinforcing Beck's [U. Beck, La société du risque: Sur la voie d’une autre modernité, Alto Aubier, Paris, 2001] thesis of a future society where risk predominates.     

A three-pronged approach to transforming African universities: Inherited knowledge, received knowledge and quartiary education

In the course of reappraising the future of the African university, this article focuses on the role and place of inherited knowledge; the significance of domesticating and enriching received knowledge; and the need for a quartiary level to be fully built into African universities. To do so, African universities must tap on all forms of their endogenous societal resources.     

Factors that affect consumers' cross-buying intention: A model for financial services

Cross-buying behaviour in retail banking is receiving increasing research attention. Most studies on relationship development however revolve around relationship depth and length, while there has been hardly any work on the factors that affect relationship breadth. This research proposes and subsequently tests through structural equation modelling a model of factors that affect customers' intention of cross-buying retail financial services. The study yielded rich research results. Most notably, it demonstrated the centrality of image and trust in the formation of cross-buying intention and also showed that customers' cross-buying intention is formed by a combination of interrelationships among the four variables in the model, which should all act simultaneously.     

Bidding strategies and takeover premiums: A review

I review recent empirical research documenting offer premiums and bidding strategies in corporate takeovers. The discussion ranges from optimal auction bidding to the choice of deal payment form and premium effects of poison pills. The evidence describes the takeover process at a detailed level, from initial premiums to bid jumps, entry of rival bidders, and toehold strategies. Cross-sectional tests illuminate whether bidders properly adjust for winner's curse, whether target stock price runups force offer price markups, and whether auctions of bankrupt firms result in fire-sale discounts. The evidence is suggestive of rational strategic bidding behavior in specific contexts.