Trustee decision making in small UK charities

Management theory suggests that increasing the quantity and quality of management information available to key members in organisations will lead to improvements in their decision making. However, judgements as to what counts as ‘management information’, and in what its quality consists may vary according to organisational location, size and purpose. Where those ‘key members’ are volunteers, as with charity trustees, perceptions of management information need, amount and value, may vary further. This paper explores aspects of this theory, with particular reference to trustees of small charities in the United Kingdom. It outlines a research programme drawing on trustees in organisations working for children and for people with disabilities. A range of findings is presented, recording trustee experiences of and responses to management information, as this affects their charities' performance. Following from three in-depth case studies in small charities, findings show that informal systems are in operation, whereby trustees devolve much of the responsibility for management information to their chief officers, who are then monitored by their chairs. While this system is viewed by participants as an effective and practical means of enabling decision making, certain questions are raised regarding trustee liability and accountability.     

审计定价与审计质量——文献回顾与政策含义

审计市场激烈的价格竞争是否削弱审计师的独立性,审计师对公司的财务依赖性是否降低审计质量,这两个问题始终是审计职业界、监管者和社会公众争论的焦点。围绕这两个问题,文章回顾了审计定价与审计质量的实证研究文献,总结我国目前相关研究的缺失,最后阐明这些经验证据的政策含义。     

中英国家审计比较研究

中英国家审计比较研究后的启迪：计算机审计技术广泛而深入地应用；风险导向审计成为现代审计发展的必然趋势；国家审计独立性、权威性应进一步强化；国家审计重点逐步转向绩效审计。     

Economic Viewpoint: Options for UK policy within the ERM

Although the precise timing of the British government's decision to take sterling into the Exchange Rate Mechanism on 8 October was a surprise, the broad features of the decision were not. Indeed, we argued in the June Economic Viewpoint for entry this autumn with broad 6 per cent bands and a high central rate against the DM, illustrated at DM2.95, precisely in line with the outcome. Now that sterling is in the ERM, the conduct of UK macroeconomic policy is profoundly altered, with changes not just in its technical aspects but also in the balance of the supporting institutions. In this Viewpoint, we explore the map of macroeconomic policy in the post-flouting, ERM context.     

An industrial ecology virtual framework for policy making in China

ABSTRACT

This study develops a multi-regional input–output (MRIO) laboratory for policy-relevant applications in China. The Chinese IELab features unique flexibility and advances the previous state of the art in terms of three novel aspects. First, it can generate regionally and sectorally very detailed MRIO tables based on users’ own research questions. Second, it covers the entire territorial economic boundary and has the longest and most up to date annual time series from 1978 to 2015. Third, it can be used to provide insight to a wide range of research and policy questions including social, economic, and environmental issues, thus significantly improving all applications that rely on input–output tables. These features are illustrated by generating a Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei multi-regional supply and use table for 2014 at city level and applying it to the case study of transferring Beijing’s non-capital functions according to The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Coordinated Development Strategy set by the Chinese government.     

UK environmental policy and the small firm: broadening the focus

The poor environmental performance of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK has been attributed to a wide range of barriers, both internal and external to the firm. However, the debate has seldom considered the interplay of factors beyond ‘the firm’. In order for the debate to progress we emphasize the importance of situating the environmental practices of small firms within a context of national policy arrangements. A lack of institutional enfranchisement for SMEs in the UK is a key factor in understanding why environmental policies have yet to be successful in encouraging more environmentally proactive behaviour within this sector. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment.     

Industrial policy and employment in the UK: evidence from the pharmaceutical sector

Employment scholars have a longstanding interest in the potential for an active industrial policy to shift the UK economy to a high‐wage, high‐skill trajectory. This article addresses this topic by examining policy, performance and employment in the UK pharmaceutical sector, which has historically benefited from substantial government assistance. While weaknesses are apparent, overall the industrial policy context has supported the performance of the UK sector, underpinning a sizable number of highly skilled and paid jobs. The findings demonstrate the potential of an active industrial policy to facilitate a shift to a higher skills trajectory. Wider considerations of relevance and policy recommendations are discussed.     

公司法定审计模式的演变--以英国公司法为背景的考察

是否选择全面强制审计模式是当前《公司法》修改中的热点话题。对英国公司法下审计模式演变历史的考察显示，公司法对民间审计模式的调整一直在进行，目的在于实现审计效益与成本的平衡。我国《公司法》不应拘泥于某一种理念，而应从现实出发选择最适宜的法定审计模式。     

Market segmentation - are UK charities making the most of the potential?

This paper discusses the findings of research carried out into the application of market segmentation in the charity sector. Four hundred and ten of the top performing charities (as ranked by income from voluntary donations) were surveyed to determine what techniques of segmentation they apply to their database. They were also asked to indicate how this information is used to inform and determine appropriate fundraising strategies. The findings show that with the exception of a few large organisations, the concept of market segmentation is as yet not utilised to its full potential in the development of successful fundraising strategy.     

民间审计在环境审计中的定位分析

环境问题的出现催生了环境审计,在新的审计环境中,不同的审计主体扮演着各自不同的角色．随着社会公众对环境信息的需求,民间审计组织应成为未来环境审计的主导。     

安然事件后英国审计费用结构的变化及对中国的启示

本文运用安然事件以后英国FTSE100审计收费结构的数据说明了英国在审计收费方面的提高，而在审计监管的严厉程度方面不如美国。统计结果发现，英国审计费用的增加相应减少了上市公司向审计事务所支付的内部审计和税收咨询等其他审计费用，并从理论上加以了解释。这一结果对我国审计监管的启发意义在于，我国在审计监管上的步子还应迈得更大，进一步与国际审计趋同，并且在审计监管的范围和内容上要特别注重那些有助于改善上市公司内部管理的项目。企业内部控制系统的加强与完善是解决会计和审计信任危机的根本途径．     

Carbon disclosure and financial performance: UK environmental policy

The outcome of carbon disclosure, the importance of which has grown remarkably in recent years to become a strategic decision‐making issue for organisations in today's competitive environment, is a subject of lively debate but remains under‐researched in the environmental accounting literature. This study is motivated by this research gap and the growing interest in assessing the financial consequences of corporate involvement in climate change beyond regulatory compliance, as evidenced by firms' voluntary participation in the Carbon Disclosure Project. Using the resource‐based view of the firm as a theoretical framework and linking it to carbon disclosure through Carbon Disclosure Project, we conceptualise and empirically investigate the impact of adopting proactive carbon management policies and communicating them to stakeholders, focusing on the financial performance of the top FTSE350 companies between 2007 and 2015. By developing a comprehensive financial performance index and controlling for several firm characteristics, we find strong evidence that voluntary carbon disclosure is positively associated with firm financial performance. The findings in this paper provide new insights and policy implications for managers, financial stakeholders, and regulators.     

Validity of climate change forecasting for public policy decision making

Policymakers need to know whether prediction is possible and, if so, whether any proposed forecasting method will provide forecasts that are substantially more accurate than those from the relevant benchmark method. An inspection of global temperature data suggests that temperature is subject to irregular variations on all relevant time scales, and that variations during the late 1900s were not unusual. In such a situation, a “no change” extrapolation is an appropriate benchmark forecasting method. We used the UK Met Office Hadley Centre’s annual average thermometer data from 1850 through 2007 to examine the performance of the benchmark method. The accuracy of forecasts from the benchmark is such that even perfect forecasts would be unlikely to help policymakers. For example, mean absolute errors for the 20- and 50-year horizons were 0.18  C and 0.24  C respectively. We nevertheless demonstrate the use of benchmarking with the example of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 1992 linear projection of long-term warming at a rate of 0.03  C per year. The small sample of errors from ex ante projections at 0.03  C per year for 1992 through 2008 was practically indistinguishable from the benchmark errors. Validation for long-term forecasting, however, requires a much longer horizon. Again using the IPCC warming rate for our demonstration, we projected the rate successively over a period analogous to that envisaged in their scenario of exponential CO₂ growth—the years 1851 to 1975. The errors from the projections were more than seven times greater than the errors from the benchmark method. Relative errors were larger for longer forecast horizons. Our validation exercise illustrates the importance of determining whether it is possible to obtain forecasts that are more useful than those from a simple benchmark before making expensive policy decisions.     

Implications of variant efficiency measures for policy evaluations in UK higher education

Policy goals in UK higher education encourage the publicly funded universities to become more-specialised and larger in size without compromising output quality. Efficiency gains are expected to flow from this increased specialisation in accordance with universities’ comparative research and teaching strengths. Mergers to reap further gains from economies of scale are also being actively encouraged. Given this scenario, the paper investigates whether best-practice efficiency measurement based on data envelopment analysis (DEA) provides empirical support for the current policy goals. It also assesses whether such support is dependent on the specific type of efficiency measure used in the DEA modelling. This assessment finds that a selection of (nine) commonly used, variant efficiency measures generally support the current policy goals. The paper also uses the principal-agent framework to explore the issues involved in using computed DEA-based efficiency scores for policy evaluations and possible funding guidance in UK higher education. This highlights empirically how policy-makers and universities can have very different preferences about which efficiency measure is to be used for policy evaluations and possible funding guidance.