Beyond the mundane: reconciling breadth and depth in futures enquiry

For some time there has been a need within Futures Studies (FS) to develop methods which go beyond the dominant empirical tradition. For many years there has been a near-exclusive emphasis on understanding the external world ‘out there’. But as time has gone by, so it has become clear that our ability to understand the world ‘out there’ crucially depends on an underlying world of reference that is ‘in here’. Understanding the near-future environment calls for a combination of ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ views which, for example, give as much credence to judgment as to calculation. This paper considers a way of considering these very different ‘ways of knowing’. Overall, the aim is to go beyond what might be termed ‘mundane’ analysis, i.e. that which is preoccupied with surfaces, and to open out a broader arena for futures enquiry.     

Exploring (false) dualisms for environmental accounting praxis

This paper focuses on the political nature of the linguistic dualisms or ‘false antinomies’ that inhere in environmental accounting practice and environmental accounting research. These dualisms, ‘subject–object,’ ‘man–woman,’ ‘mind–body,’ and ‘culture–nature,’ the paper argues, need to be ‘ambiguized’ if the politics inherent in these dualisms are to be resisted. Two strategies for the ‘ambiguization’ of these dualisms are suggested: ‘performative parody,’ which is a strategy intended for environmental accounting practitioners, and ‘democratic reflexivity,’ which is a strategy intended for environmental accounting researchers. In taking this linguistic focus, the paper challenges common sense constructions of the environment and the potentially elitist and anti-democratic nature of environmental accounting research. By offering these two strategies, the paper provides a means of environmental accounting praxis, or means of resisting global ‘environmental’ domination.     

Global modelling in the 1990s : A critical evaluation of a new wave

It seems that after a ‘golden decade’ in the 1970s and a period of decay in the 1980s, global modelling is making a comeback. In particular, the report Scanning the Future seems to mark the beginning of a new era in this respect. In this article this ‘new wave’ of the 1990s is compared with the ‘old wave’ of the 1970s. Although there is progress in the scientific realm, these new models lack a deep concern for the burning problems of our time like the poverty gap between the North and the South and the ‘ecological problematique’. In many ways these new models reflect the new mood of the times, which lacks any vision of a new paradigm and which is strongly ‘northern-centric’.     

Smaller business governance: Exploring accountability and enterprise from the margins

Smaller businesses now rank higher upon the corporate governance agenda. This agenda places their accountability and ‘enterprise’ particularly at issue. It is only put at issue because of just one possible problematization however. That problematization firstly assumes judicious accountability to be the crux of good governance with accounting at its hub. It secondly assumes that smaller businesses are the very seedbed of any ‘enterprise economy’, virtually irrespective of what form they take, or ‘enterprise’ they display. By then combining these assumptions together, this finally reproblematizes any relationship between accountability and ‘enterprise’, so that ‘de-regulation’ and decoupled accountability liberates smaller business ‘enterprise’ further. Others might question and challenge the very basis, as well as particular formulation, of this problematization however. A better grasp of the greater fluidity and complexity of smaller businesses would make the boundaries of their accountability and ‘enterprise’ more clear and leave their respective margins more suitably exposed. As a key potential instrument for that purpose managerial accounting research might then better inform the debate by specifically rendering these boundaries more visible while also identifying the precise scope for manoeuvre at/across their margins as well. To that end this paper uses certain enabling frameworks to construct and interpret the particular case of managerially accounting for a grown smaller business working across exactly those margins from the perspective of a ‘reflective practitioner’ acting as a field researcher for these purposes. As well as offering fresh insights into how far the boundaries of accountability and enterprise might legitimately stretch, this case calls for more critical thinking about how they might change.     

Monetary policy, ‘dollarization,’ and parallel market exchange rates: The case of the Dominican Republic

Excessive money creation may give rise to inflation tax revenues and to a depreciation of the domestic currency. this in turn leads to a shift away from the domestic currency into a foreign currency (e.g., the US dollar, hence the term ‘dollarization’). From the domestic monetary authority's point of view, ‘dollarization’ is an unwelcomed phenomenomn, thus the monetary authorities will attempt to arrest the ‘dollarization’ phenomenon while maintaining the excessive money growth. This paper develops and tests a model which analyzes the effects of monetary policy on dollarization and the ‘parallel’ market exchange rates.     

Efficiency in the gold market — a note

This paper investigates the efficiency of the gold market with respect to the information contained in sequences of successive price changes. Tests for serial correlation and modelling the changes as first-order Markov processes indicate some short-term dependence. While there is no reason to believe outsiders can profit from knowledge of these relationships, insiders might, though this is not certain. In addition, the application of a market model to monthly returns for the period 1974–1977 results in the finding that gold's ‘alpha’ and ‘beta’ were positive, but not significantly different from zero.     

The end in sight?: Some speculations on environmental trends in the twenty-first century

For a generation there has been unresolved debate between anxious environmentalists and sanguine ‘contrarians’, both of which have been able to amass strong evidence in favour of their positions. This is an important paradox, and the paper attempts to resolve it by means of an elementary but robust model of environmental trends between 1950 and 2100. A crucial feature of the approach is to disaggregate the developed ‘North’ and developing ‘South’, revealing strikingly different patterns. The North's environmental impact will decline steadily, but in the South a rapid increase in environmental impact can be expected in the first half of the 21st century, followed by an equally rapid decline. This dramatic environmental ‘spike’ will be unique in human history and mark a fundament transition to the sustainable state. Its qualities and duration will determine many features of the human and natural world for millennia to come. Many policy implications flow from this analysis. Controversially, it suggests that the ‘spike’ should be embraced and managed rather than avoided or delayed.     

Transferring knowledge across sub-genres of the ABC implementation literature

In the last decade, a continuous stream of empirical articles has investigated how various implementation process factors (including, top management support, adequate resources, and ABC training) influence ABC implementation success. However, at the same time, a growing number of researchers have criticised this ‘mainstream approach’ for, among other things, neglecting issues of power and politics and for viewing ABC implementations as something inherently positive. Based on Lukka and Granlund's [Lukka, K., Granlund, M., 2002. The fragmented communication structure within the accounting academia: the case of activity-based costing research genres. Acc. Organ. Soc. 27, 165–190] call for communication between various streams of ABC research, the purpose of this paper is to discuss how the ‘mainstream’ implementation literature may benefit from insights made in the politically oriented literature. A key conclusion is that such an analysis not only provides us with enriched explanations of the relatively strong and coherent findings in the ‘mainstream’ ABC implementation literature, but has also the potential to explain ‘unexpected’ and ‘contradictory’ results found in this stream of research. Based on these observations, a number of directions for future research are proposed.     

Pacific science in the 21st century

‘Science’ is often implied to be something emanating from Western Europe or its derivatives. But the people of the 24 nations and territories of the Pacific Islands also want their unique scientific knowledge recognized and perpetuated. Politically the islands are divided into 24 nations and territories, and culturally their people speak about 1200 different languages—each with some differences of culture. This is much the greatest cultural fragmentation on earth. Each culture has, over thousands of years, experimented and discovered some unique principles and evolved some unique techniques. For example, some principles of Pacific navigation (for many centuries the world's most advanced) and techniques of vessel construction, are unknown elsewhere—even today. Some pharmaceutical remedies are unique, some items of marine and plant science are not known to ‘Western science’ and so on. It is to these that the term ‘Pacific science’ refers. This essay explores the potentials for Pacific science in the future, and for Pacific contributions to global knowledge.     

Bridging the divides of online reporting

This paper looks at the possibilities of improving online reporting by closing the ‘digital divide’ through a ‘digitalised revolution’ and by narrowing the ‘accounting divide’ through the sharing of power and the expansion of membership in the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). Paradoxically, whilst the IASB may have contributed to the ‘accounting divide’ it may very well possess the potential to close it and thus improve online reporting. The potential to bridge the ‘accounting divide’ rests with the greater participation by developing country members to exert influence and ownership of the accounting standards setting process.     

Revisiting the ‘Court of Generations’ Amendment : A conversation

In 1991, futurist Bruce E. Tonn proposed a ‘Court of Generations’ Amendment to the US Constitution. His proposed ‘Court of Generations’ lacked punitive powers but, hopefully, would have sufficient legitimacy to counteract extreme present-minded thinking evident in US political processes and institutions. Although Tonn's ‘Court of Generations’ Amendment has been well received in the futures community, who else has heard of it? Otherwise, has it made any difference? How can the cumbersome and nonfuturistic amendment procedure in the US Constitution generate a futures-oriented ‘Court of Generations’? And for those who sincerely look forward to a ‘Court of Generations,’ precisely what kind of tactically savvy visionary leadership will give the ‘Court of Generations’ any chance of being approved? During 1997, Vincent Kelly Pollard engaged Dr. Tonn in an Internet conversation aimed at clarifying these issues.     

THE IMPACT OF THE QUALITY OF EARNINGS ON THE VALUATION RELEVANCE OF CASH FLOW DISCLOSURES

This study investigates whether the ‘quality of earnings’, defined as the relationship between profitability and cash generating ability, is a conditioning factor with regard to the valuation relevance of cash flow disclosures. The study is performed on a sample of 197 British firms employing data over a 23-year period. The results of the study support the contention that the valuation relevance of cash flow disclosures is conditional upon the ‘quality of earnings’, as previously defined. Specifically, the decomposition of unexpected earnings into its cash flow and accruals components provides incremental information content to earnings when the firm-specific time-series correlation between earnings and cash flows is low. Furthermore, the cash flow ‘surprise’ is valued more than the accruals ‘surprise’ when the firm-specific time-series correlation between earnings and cash flows is low.     

Social accounting research: An Australasian perspective

This paper provides an insight into the nature and the extent of social accounting research being undertaken within Australasia. It demonstrates that Australasian researchers account for a significant amount of internationally published social accounting research, but emphasises that the research effort seems to be confined to a limited number of researchers perhaps reflecting a lack of ‘take-up’ in this area in terms of the scale of participation. Information is also presented about the relative propensity of journals within the sample to publish social accounting research, and identifies that ‘top tier’ accounting journals historically have not published social accounting research. The paper also considers various factors which seem to be impeding the ‘recruitment’ of new social accounting researchers.     

Resurrection of traditional communities in postmodern societies

Modern societies seem to have recognised the importance of communities and the community capacity to be self reliant, and to reduce burden on the state, at least to some degree. Thus it is hardly surprising that several western countries’ current policies have been reverberating with the idea and vision of community responsibilities, participation and decision making. What kind of communities do these policies envision? Can western societies resurrect traditional communities in postmodern societies? To address such questions, this paper argues that though highly challenging, it is possible to rebuild some elements of traditional communities in postmodern societies. In fact, such creation is an ideal world to live in. For that to occur western societies should give adequate time, resources and commitment to it, as they did to create modern societies. Most importantly, they also need to somewhat alter their ‘life style’: “When you throw ‘individuals’ from the window, communities rush in through the door”.     

Information and the transnational SME controller

One of the issues that face the small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) when expanding is the ‘control’ issue and this paper investigates and presents preliminary evidence of ‘controlling’ or ‘management accounting’ practice in a transnational SME. Wibsey, the site of the case, is now a small group of companies that have expanded from a U.K. base into 10 European countries. This expansion has posed complex problems, which have increased the information requirements of the SME. The contextual issues of complexity and resulting challenges for the transnational organization in its management accounting, information and control systems are considered. Wibsey uses traditional management accounting as the basis of supporting decision-making in the group and a lower level of information need is reported, in contrast to Dent (1996) (Dent, J. F., 1996. Global competition: challenges for management accounting and control,Management Accounting Research , 7(2), 247–269), because the group chooses to maintain a traditional ‘accounting-led’ evaluation system in controlling and evaluating its transnational operations.     

Long waves and geography in the 21st century

Intersecting macrohistorical rhythms provide insights into the processes that will guide geographical change in the first half of the next century. The repetition of long-wave rhythms provides a key to what lies 25 and 50 years ahead, helping us to identify the patterns, determine the processes, and work out their logical consequences. To understand this it is necessary to clarify the concepts of ‘techno-economic systems’ and ‘long waves of prices’ and their interrelationships in ‘growth logistics’. A second key to the next half-century is provided by the baby boom-baby bust generational rhythms that interlock with long waves and growth logistics at double the frequency. Together, the two keys not only provide a macrohistorical framework for unraveling the course of economic and social history; they provide a basis for geographical anticipations.     

New markets and new commons : Opportunities in the global casino

The United Nations is well positioned for the global changes of the information age now engulfing nation-states. The UN role and tasks—as global norm setter, broker, networker, convenor, and peacekeeper—are ideally suited to today's world of linked ‘infostructures’ and distributed power, influence and knowledge typified by the emerging global civil society. The UN can serve all these emerging infostructures—and be compensated by fostering debates and convening parties to design the needed agreements for operating the emerging ‘electronic commons’, including today's global financial casino. Technological, social and economic contexts for this new global agenda are described together with some market opportunities in new public/private partnerships to serve the global commons.     

Enterprise resource planning systems, management control and the quest for integration

This paper analyses how two companies pursued integration of management and control through enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. We illustrate how the quest for integration is an unending process and it is produced concurrently and episodically. Integration is not only about ‘mere’ visibility and control at a distance. ERP systems do not define what integration is and how it is to be developed, but they incur a techno-logic that conditions how control can be performed through financial and non-financial representations because they distinguish between an accounting mode and a logistics mode. A primary lesson from our cases is that control cannot be studied apart from technology and context because one will never get to understand the underlying ‘infrastructure’—the meeting point of many technologies and many types of controls. ERP systems are particularly interesting for what they make impossible, and our cases illustrate how the two organizations in the quest for integration mobilized a number of ‘boundary objects’ to overcome systems-based ‘blind spots’ and ‘trading zones’. The paper points out that management control in an ERP-environment is not a property of the accounting function but a collective affair were local control issues in different parts of the organization are used to create notions of global management.     

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.     

Changing images of futures in the 20th century

The 20th century has seen a rise in dystopian images of futures and an apparent decline in imaging capacity. This article considers responses to this ‘imaging dilemma’. They include critique, futures workshops, accessing cultural resources, renegotiating aspects of a worldview and ‘imagining’ a different historical dynamic. It is concluded that there is a substantive basis for informed optimism and empowerment. The keys to each lie in the nature of the human response to what is desired or feared.