Prospective screening of diagnostic testing: a valuable tool

The elimination of unneeded services is a key to reducing medical costs and enhancing quality of care. Diagnostic tests have been a target of efforts to reduce costs primarily because they are discretionary and often appear to be unnecessary. Believing that the concept of prior review for many diagnostic tests is a good one, this pilot study sought to evaluate prospectively the propriety of diagnostic tests ordered during the first half of 1989 on individuals insured through a major insurance carrier. A physician review found that 21% of the tests were deemed inappropriate, leading to the conclusion that prospective review can be an effective means of screening inappropriately ordered tests.     

A note on risk and value from an underutilized dataset: Consolidated disclosures

This essay highlights an underutilized source of data in insurance research: The consolidated data insurance holding companies disclose in Form 10‐K to their investors. A reinsurance example demonstrates that using consolidated data, as a complement to individual company statutory data, has the potential to extend insights gleaned from statutory data alone. Consolidated data, however, is limited to publicly traded insurers.     

SCAM: Design of a learning and teaching resource

University accounting students often have to assimilate technical auditing knowledge without practical audit experience. The desire to develop an appropriate experiential opportunity motivated this research - to create an audit teaching and learning resource to simulate audit experience and facilitate the development of transferable skills. Literature findings and dedicated questionnaire survey results suggested that such a resource should: (i) use a web based case-study to simulate a real-life audit scenario; (ii) require group working of the participants; (iii) facilitate the use and development of a range of transferable skills; and (iv) encourage a consideration of the wider business context. The web-based resource SCAM (www.scam-plc.co.uk) was developed to address these aims. This paper details this development process.     

Articulation in cash flow statements: a resource for financial accounting courses

Recent accounting research (Bahnson, P., Miller, P., & Budge, B. (1996). Nonarticulation in cash flow statements and implications for education, research and practice. Accounting Horizons, 10, 1–15 has shown that firms implementing the indirect method for reporting cash flows under SFAS 95 rarely produce financial statements that articulate cleanly. The purposes of this paper are (1) to provide financial accounting educators with a list of companies for which articulation does exist, (2) to describe the process by which educators can update the list in the future, or modify it to suit their own preferences, and (3) to present an analysis of firms’ reporting practices on the cash flow statement, which may be of interest to more advanced students studying the complexities of the statement of cash flows. This analysis of reporting practices involves an assessment of the articulation of individual COMPUSTAT line items (e.g. inventory) and subsets of line items (e.g. inventory, receivables, deferred taxes, and depreciation) for the 1998 data year. The findings indicate that relatively few firms report consistent values for single line items and that very few firms report consistent values across subsets of line items. Although the rate of articulation decreases as firm size, and hence reporting complexity, increases, 74 large, publicly-traded firms for which clean articulation does exist were identified. This list of firms should prove useful to introductory accounting educators who use real-world examples for classroom purposes.     

'Invisible' resource: women for boards

Despite the increased appearance of women on corporate boards in recent years, only 1.8% of the directors of the top 1,300 boards are women. Almost without exception, these women have been highly "visible" for their achievements in government, education, and nonprofit circles. But there are hundreds of other high achievers who are not so visible. The problem for chairmen and nominating committees is two-fold: (1) identifying and selecting the best of this "unknown" but talented pool of candidates and (2) defining and communicating their expectations from women.     

市场经济中作为资源的资本

(一)在市场经济条件下,不论从事哪种行业,其经济主体都是内生的,在市场的需求作用和催生中诞生的,又是在市场需求、包容下发展壮大,在优胜劣汰的竞争中不断更新进步升级的。如果把资本作为相对于经济主体而独立存在其外的另类的话,资本是经济主体赖以萌发的土壤,赖以成长的血脉和营养,赖以拨正航向的罗盘和舵轮。     

Short-sellers: Informed but restricted

According to theory, the level of short-selling can predict short-run future returns through two channels. One channel relates to the demand-side of the stock lending market: short-sellers are informed. The other channel relates to the supply-side: short-sellers are restricted. Measuring the importance of each channel is empirically challenging when, in general, supply and demand in the stock lending market are not directly observable. This paper takes advantage of a unique dataset that contains actual shifts in lending supply of stocks on the Brazilian market and proposes an identification strategy for the effects of both supply and demand on stock prices. We find that both channels are important.     

Managing the technical resource capability of cybercrime investigation: a UK law enforcement perspective

This article discusses the challenges faced by law enforcement agencies when investigating cybercrime. The article presents the technical investigation roles necessary for cybercrime policing in a resource capability matrix. Adopting a standard resource capability framework across the wider law enforcement community will assist in the development of common policies and procedures, and will maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of cybercrime investigation in a shrinking global economy.     

人力资源管理会计:人力资本与财务资本相结合的理论框架

进入知识经济时代,人力资源与人力资本的重要性凸现,奠基于工业经济时代的会计理论与方法体系将面临严重的挑战.人力资源管理会计突破了以往会计学只研究"物尽其用"的局限,把"物尽其用"置于"人尽其才"的基础上,有助于重构一个与知识经济时代相适应、以人力资本为主导并与财务资本相结合的会计理论与方法体系.     

杨嘉宏:不只工作,还要生活

和杨嘉宏的午餐地点是由他选定的,离他的办公室也就5分钟的步行距离,皇家大饭店的大堂吧内。本来这没必要特别提起,可你要知道,当当网新近搬了家,新办公室在北三环东路的一个写字楼上,这里不是跨国公司扎堆的CBD,也不是IT精英聚集的中关村,附     

大连:人才争夺硝烟先至

自从加入WTO后,大连成为首批对外资银行开放的城市之一.这对于一个就业人口中外贸、金融及其相关行业的人员占比相当高的城市而言,外资银行的进入将带来怎样的影响自不待言,但大连对此的反应看上去却相当平静.从前华俄道胜银行和横滨正金银行老楼所在的大广场(现在的中山广场)如今仍然是这个城市的心脏地带,绕中山广场走一圈,撞到眼帘里最多的仍然是银行的气派门脸.这些门脸背后仍然是一副气定神闲的景象.     

当前信息化的主题:信息资源运用

“计世资讯”在《2003年度中国大型企业信息化调查报告》中指出．2004年大型企业软件和服务投入占总投入的比例将出现大幅度增加，目前软件和服务投入占总投入的比例已经达到53.7％。此外，还有一些文章认为，中国的信息化进程正在悄悄地进行着一场划时代的转型——从信息资源建设阶段进入了信息资源管理阶段。国家信息中心2003年编制的《中国企业信息化发展     

李安是狐狸不是刺猬

《色,戒》是张爱玲最适宜拍成电影的作品,李安选对了,但他只是狐狸而非刺猬。你不得不佩服李安——除了他,还有谁可以将早已被正式纳入典范(canonize)的张爱玲作品拍成一出充满性与暴力的电影,而能得到本地文化菁英众口一词的激     

Statement 133: Not Perfect, but a Step in the Right Direction

Statement 133 represents progress toward achieving the goals of GAAP. To the extent it requires companies to mark their derivatives to market, balance sheets will give investors a clearer, more complete picture of a company's assets and liabilities.
But if the fair value accounting prescribed by Statement 133 has provided clarity for investors about corporate derivatives positions, it has also forced some companies—those unable or unwilling to qualify for hedge accounting—to report more volatile earnings, causing the accounting rule to come under heavy criticism. As the author argues, however, such criticism is based on the misperception that the objective of GAAP income statements is to provide a "normalized" measure of financial performance—a single number that can be discounted or capitalized by analysts to arrive at a company's value. In fact, it is mainly the job of the analysts themselves, not accountants, to determine which elements of a company's income statement are recurring and central to the business.
What's more, the author argues that the FASB went too far when it allowed hedge accounting for forecasted transactions. Rather than expanding the use of hedge accounting, the FASB should promulgate a comprehensive fair value standard, one that aims to mark all corporate assets and liabilities to market—which would eliminate the need for hedge accounting or any of its associated complexity, and compensate for 133's dearth of disclosures.     

TEACHING RESOURCE Using MONOPOLY TM and Teams-GamesTournaments in accounting education: a cooperative learning teaching resource

A three-week financial accounting simulation was conducted using university accounting majors (n=36) in one section of a junior-level financial reporting issues course. The curriculum involved using the board game Monopoly as a teaching resource in cooperative learning teams. Findings indicate students' attitudes toward financial accounting and learning, mutual concern for fellow students and perceived achievement were very positive upon completion of this cooperative learning exercise. Additionally, gender and student ability were found to impact the level of some measures of student attitudes and perceived achievement.     

Futures studies in the 21st Century: a reality-based view

Futures-thinking in various ways may or may not be expanding. But it is clearly an ever-changing activity, and appears to be ever more fragmented by culture, subject matter, style, and ideology. ‘Futures Studies (FS)’ as a subset of this larger activity is highly problematic as a viable entity, due to seven disabling myths: that FS is a field, that futurists are generalists, that futurists are primarily ‘futurists’, that FS does what no one else does, that FS is generally understood and appreciated, that FS is static, and that FS is a community. In contrast to these idealized but unsupported myths, the world of futures-thinking is presented as it really is, based on the author’s preparation of over 20,000 abstracts of futures-relevant literature over the past 30 years. Underlying complexity and wide diversity are sketched in three synoptic charts on the six purposive categories of futures-thinking (and 115 different terms that have been used), 17 general topical categories, and 12 generic continua on which futures-thinkers can be located. Based on this complex and fuzzy reality, futures studies should embrace its distinctiveness and strive to be a horizontal field connecting all others—a visible, respected, and ever-renewing network of humble hubs for integrative ‘big picture’ thinking about trends and visions of probable, possible, and preferable futures. To attain this status in the decades ahead, FS must communicate a shared and frequently-revised vision, emphasize all six purposive categories (especially integration and questioning), develop a serious global information system (and use it), establish an academic presence at leading institutions, fight back against ignorant futurist-bashers, promote multiple excellences, engage in ‘second profession’ recruitment and training, and secure adequate funding. These actions are necessary for establishing any meaningful ‘futures studies’ community.