Darwinian dystopia: the shape of things to come

Acknowledging that evolution is directionless, shaped only by context and history, and that predicting the future is, therefore, a risky business, scenarios for ‘short-term’ (next few centuries) and ‘long-term’ (10s-100s of thousands of years) futures are offered. The short-term future will be determined by the appearance of transnational corporations that represent levels of social complexity above that of the nation state. Best described as laissez-faire capitalism run amok, the rise of transnationals controlled by powerful managerial elites is warranted or justified by the simultaneous emergence of neo-conservative ideologies that resemble the pernicious social Darwinism of Victorian England. The long-term future will be shaped by the failure of humans to control their fertility. In the face of cultural barriers to rational control of population growth, and as global populations exceed the carrying capacity of the planet, countless millions of ignorant, miserable humans will barely eke out an existence, surviving only long enough to reproduce more of the same. The prospects for speciation are nil, given that high global population densities will preclude reproductive isolation.     

The United States treasury review of the multilateral development banks : An economic critique

This paper critiques the 1982 U.S. Treasury Department report that evaluated the multilateral development banks. The focus is on the economic content of the Treasury assessment which is found to be lacking in analytical rigor. Political issues and conclusions are camouflaged under a veneer of economics.     

The greening of Swedish energy policy: A critique

This article discusses Swedish energy policy over the period 1973–1992 with a focus on its current energy objectives. Bans on energy sources are assessed as one of the challenges faced by Sweden in the 1990s. We raise questions about the future consequences of such draconian approaches to energy policy that inhibit societal learning. Bans on any fuel source only serve to handicap the economy and lead to a less flexible and more inefficient energy supply at a greater than necessary cost. With the Swedish economy on the verge of becoming more integrated with the rest of Europe, it is imperative to view its comparative advantage in electricity as the basis for its energy policy rather than the individual fuels that generate that electricity. Our goal has been to synthesize components among existing energy objectives to suggest logical implications for the future.     

The enactment of management control systems: A critique of Simons

Simon proposes a contingency relationship between a firm's strategy and its management control systems. However, his model underspecifies the relationship between strategic uncertainties and management controls, underplays the recursive impact of management controls on strategy formulation, and ignores the potential influence of managerial characteristics on control system design.     

Accounting standards, health care, and retired American workers: An institutional critique

The Financial Accounting Standards Board in 1990 issued an accounting standard (SFAS 106) that requires U.S. companies to apply accrual accounting techniques to obligations arising from employee postretirement health care plans. Despite significant economic implications for current and future retirees, U.S. workers and labor groups were conspicuously absent from deliberations preceding the issuance of the standard. This paper critically examines, from an institutional perspective, how American workers were effectively denied a voice in the debate over their future health care benefits despite several avenues through which they can ostensibly express themselves.     

The cry of Sakeena: a post-nationalist critique of violence in South Asia

Violence, both of the state and the non-state, is central to the construction of the national state in South Asia. Both Sadat Hasan Manto and Fakir Alamgir, albeit at different historical conjunctures and through different medium, have critically exposed the horrifying outcome of what is commonly regarded as the birth of the nation. A post-nationalist critique of violence, including feminist perspectives, allows us to see how intricate has been the relationship between alienation, violence and the construction of the nation, nationalism and nationhood. The sooner we take cognizance of this fact the sooner we will be able to transform and go beyond the nation.     

开证行拖欠付款的背后

A公司向B公司出运一批价值106万美元的发电机组,约定结算方式为L/C即期。A公司通过中国国内交单行向开证行C提交单据后,C银行既未在审单时限内提出任何＂不符点＂,也未在信用证规定时间内履行付款义务。因投保了出口信用保险,A公司遂向中国信保通报可能损失     

The moral potential of individualism and instrumental reason in accounting research

The dominance of positivism in accounting research is at the root of a deep malaise felt by many scholars. Although the methodological limitations of positivist research, as well as the political and cultural foundations of its hegemony, have regularly been highlighted in the literature, the merits of interdisciplinarity are still denied by the major institutions dominating the field. The present paper argues that the case in favor of academic pluralism is nonetheless worth pursuing, because not only it represents a central feature of the interdisciplinary identity, but also because it provides support to those engaged in a relentless (and sometimes successful) bid for greater openness in accounting research. The paper's main goal is to promote and further this endeavor by moving the line of argument off the beaten track of methodology and domination in order to focus on morality. The largely unexplored terrain of morality can be used as a basis for original arguments supportive of intellectual pluralism that may help to raise awareness of alternative research avenues and possibilities – though it is important not to harbor unrealistic hopes. Drawing on Charles Taylors’ view of modernity, we highlight the richer moral background from which the current stress in the discipline on individualistic values and instrumental reason took its rise. As a result, we provide the accounting mainstream with the perspective of an alternative framework for its research agenda by (re)adopting an ethic of compassion. Merchant's (2008) analysis of the marginalization of interdisciplinary research in North America will be used as a critical basis and starting-point for our argument.     

The litany of death: a deep futures critique of the Australian Royal Commission into aboriginal deaths in custody

This article applies the futures research methodology called Causal Layered Analysis to the Australian Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Specifically the method is used to analyse the 339 recommendations of this Royal Commission that examined the causes of some 99 Aboriginal Deaths in Custody during the nine-year period from 1/1/1980. Spanning a generational period of 20 years, 10 of which since the multi million dollar Royal Commission and multi-multi million-dollar implementation process were put in place, aboriginal deaths in custody remain at the same rate. Conclusions are drawn about the inquiry, its inability to access deeper layers of cross-cultural causation and the separate implementation process. Further the failure of public administration in implementing the recommendations are also explored. Finally an ‘act of recovery’ is proposed to help us learn to prevent this happening again.     

The Pigou effect: An elaboration

The ‘Pigou effect’ has drawn the attention of monetary theorists for three decades. We argue in this paper that the nature and significance of Pigou's (1943, 1947) comments on Keynes have been frequently misinterpreted. In particular, we suggest that Pigou's logic implies not only that monetary policy will be successful in escaping unemployment in the liquidity trap situation, but also that it is a Pareto optimal means of doing so.     

平衡计分卡的有用性:一项实验研究

一直以来,人们对平衡计分卡能否有效地将企业战略与业绩评价相结合争论不休。作为平衡计分卡的新发展阶段,战略地图的出现为本文的研究提供了契机。本文基于实验研究方法,以战略地图描述业务单元战略,分析实验参与者在评价业务单元业绩时的指标选择。本文发现,实验参与者均较为依赖共性指标;相对而言,有战略信息的实验参与者更加依赖个性指标,而无战略信息的实验参与者更加依赖共性指标。     

刘乃兰的企业家人生

从刘乃兰身上,我们看到了两种不同特质的完美结合:她的身上既有经济人的理性、精明和现实主义,又有道德人的善良、律己和理想主义.所以,她最终成为了一个成功的有中国特色的企业家.     

The Review Report: An Empirical Investigation

A laboratory study was used to investigate two questions of relevance to the expectations gap: (1) what differences do the users of financial statements perceive between an audit and a review?, and (2) what impact does changing the format of the audit report from the short form wording used in the UK prior to September 1993 to an expanded version (based on the expanded US audit report) have on these perceptions? Results of investigating (1) indicate that users perceive a number of differences between the audit and the review. Results of investigating (2) demonstrate that expansion of the audit report increases the number of differences perceived by users. The paper goes on to discuss the results in the context of the differences between an audit and a review suggested by IFAC guidelines. It was found that, in a number of respects, IFAC guidelines are inconsistent with user perceptions irrespective of the expansion of the audit report. The implication for audit policy is that any proposal to promote the use of reviews in the UK should address this inconsistency either by reappraising and refining IFAC's guidance on the review and/or by sharpening user perceptions of the review through careful wording of both the review and the audit reports.     

The Private Equity Market: An Overveiw

The private equity market is an important source of funds for start‐up firms, private middle‐market firms, firms in financial distress, and public firms seeking buyout financing. Over the past fifteen years it has been the fastest growing corporate finance market, by an order of magnitude over the public equity and public and private bond markets. Despite its dramatic growth and increased significance for corporate finance, the private equity market has received little attention. This study examines the economic foundations of the private equity market, analyzes its development and current role in corporate finance, and describes the market's institutional structure. It examines the reasons or the market's explosive growth over the past fifteen years and highlights the main characteristics of that growth. It provides data on returns to private equity investors and analyzes the major secular and cyclical influences on returns. It describes the important investors, intermediaries, issuers, and agents in the market and their interactions with each other. Drawing on data from trade journals, the study also estimates the market's size as of year‐end 1995.