Strategy as revolution

How often does the strategic-planning process start with senior executives asking what the rest of the organization can teach them about the future? Not often enough, argues Gary Hamel. In many companies, strategy making is an elitist procedure and ?strategy? consists of nothing more than following the industry's rules. But more and more companies, intent on overturning the industrial order, are rewriting those rules. What can industry incumbents do? Either surrender the future to revolutionary challengers or revolutionize the way their companies create strategy. What is needed is not a tweak to the traditional strategic-planning process, Hamel says, but a new philosophical foundation: strategy is revolution. Hamel offers ten principles to help a company think about the challenge of creating truly revolutionary strategies. Perhaps the most fundamental principle is that so-called strategic planning doesn't produce true strategic innovation. The traditional planning process is little more than a rote procedure in which deeply held assumptions and industry conventions are reinforced rather than challenged. Such a process harnesses only a tiny proportion of an organization's creative potential. If there is to be any hope of industry revolution, senior managers must give up their monopoly on the creation of strategy. They must embrace a truly democratic process that can give voice to the revolutionaries that exist in every company. If senior managers are unwilling to do this, employees must become strategy activists. The opportunities for industry revolution are mostly unexplored. One thing is certain: if you don't let the revolutionaries challenge you from within, they will eventually challenge you from without--in the marketplace.     

Evolution,revolution or nothing at all? Recent reforms to Canadian bankruptcy and insolvency legislation

On November 25, 2005, Canada's Parliament passed legislation to reform its bankruptcy and insolvency legislation (2005 Amendments). The 2005 Amendments were built from a report of the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce (Senate Committee), although the Canadian Parliament did not adopt all of the recommendations contained in that report. As well, the 2005 Amendments adopted significantly revised versions of many of the Senate Committee's recommendations. As a result, stakeholders, including the Senate Committee itself, were not satisfied with the 2005 Amendments and sought to have Parliament delay the proclamation of them with a view to providing further commentary on the proposed changes. Thus, the 2005 Amendments are not yet in force, but the current government appears to be committed to proclaiming them, or some form of them, in the near future. This paper examines some of the issues contained in the 2005 Amendments, by providing a summary of the Senate Report, reviewing the amendments and determining whether Parliament responded to the Senate Committee's recommendations. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Audit value and charitable organizations

I examine whether donors favor charities that use high quality auditors and whether the propensity to donate varies directly with audit quality. I find that audit quality affects donor decisions in the market for contributions. From a signaling perspective, charities benefit simply from engaging a higher quality auditor. From an information perspective, donors are more sensitive to changes in reported accounting information verified by a high quality auditor. I also find that, after conditioning on the charity’s reputation, donors are still willing to give more to charities aligned with a quality auditor, but the effect of audit quality choice dissipates with the size of the charity. Thus, a charity’s reputation and the choice of auditor are substitute mechanisms for signaling the credibility of financial information to donors.     

Accounting,risk, and revolution

In response to the position of Steve Toms, this article argues that risk must be understood not as it has been posited by capital but rather as it might be taken up by labour. It uses Marx's socialization thesis to maintain that risk is a symptom of possibility for labour. Drawing on the work of Randy Martin the argument culminates in a consideration of the interanimation of capital in labour occasioned by the second helping of risk produced by its commoditisation. It concludes that far from being just what Michel Aglietta calls a social evaluation of private economic activity, risk offers the opportunity to develop an accounting not just to provoke capital's contradictions with its own tools but to develop an immanent accounting of socialized labour in revolution, an accounting to come.     

Fraud dynamics and controls in organizations

This paper develops an agent-based model to examine the emergent dynamic characteristics of fraud in organizations. In the model, individual heterogeneous agents, each of whom can have motive and opportunity to commit fraud and a pro-fraud attitude, interact with each other. This interaction provides a mechanism for cultural transmission through which attitudes regarding fraud can spread. Our benchmark analysis identifies two classes of organizations. In one class, we observe fraud tending toward a stable level. In the other class, fraud dynamics are characterized by extreme behaviors; organizations with mostly honest behavior suddenly change their state to mostly fraudulent behavior and vice versa. These changes seem to occur randomly over time. We then modify our model to examine the effects of various mechanisms thought to impact fraud in organizations. Each of these mechanisms has different impacts on the two classes of organizations in our benchmark model, with some mechanisms being more effective in organizations exhibiting stable levels of fraud and other mechanisms being more effective in organizations exhibiting unstable extreme behavior. Our analysis and results have general implications for designing programs aimed at preventing fraud and for fraud risk assessment within the audit context.     

信息时代的金融变革与创新

一、当代金融变革的背景和本质20世纪90年代以来,全球金融业开始以明晰的理论为指导,有选择地把新技术引入金融系统,加大理论牵引力度,一批新概念和新理论,如系统集成、综合业务服务、集约化混业经营、扁平式管理模式、个性化金融产品、理财服务、网上支付和网上金融服务等纷纷涌现。从20世纪90年代开始的当代金融变革,是人类文明由工业时代向信息时代转变的产物,是当代国际综合国力竞争在金融领域的反映。与以往的金融变革不同的是,当代金融变革是在全球化的大背景下发生的。它不只是单一技术因素直接推动的结果,而是技术推动与理论牵引双…     

Winning the talent war for women. Sometimes it takes a revolution

In 1991, Deloitte & Touche got a wake-up call about its efforts to retain women professionals. While it was recruiting almost as many women as men, the company had a much higher turnover rate for women. Many in the firm thought Deloitte was doing everything it could to retain talented women, but when they looked harder, they found otherwise. Most women weren't leaving to raise families; they were leaving after having weighed their unpromising career options in Deloitte's male-dominated culture. CEO Mike Cook led the way in making a business case--not a moral or emotional one--for change. Next, the company held mandatory, two-day, intensive workshops for its 5,000 U.S. managers. Case vignettes and discussions brought out subtle gender-based assumptions about careers and aspirations that had discouraged high-performing women from staying. The workshops were instrumental in convincing a critical mass of partners to join the effort, and the firm began to monitor the progress of women to ensure they received their share of mentoring and premier assignments. Executive compensation became linked to how successfully units implemented a flexible menu of goals. And other policies promoted a better balance between work and life for both men and women. Finally, an external advisory council kept the firm's feet to the fire. Deloitte's gender gap in turnover has now nearly vanished, and the number of women partners and directors is the highest among the Big Five. These cultural changes weren't easy, but they've enabled Deloitte to grow faster than any of its competitors.     

The roles of accounting in organizations and society

The paper seeks to contrast the roles that have been claimed on behalf of accounting with the ways in which accounting functions in practice. It starts by examining the context in which rationales for practice are articulated and the adequacy of such claims. Thereafter consideration is given to how accounting is implicated in both organizational and social practice. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for accounting research.     

金融功能、金融发展与中国金融体制改革

金融功能是金融与经济关系的实质、核心与基础。金融功能性资源比其他层次的金融资源更难得,从而更稀缺。金融功能层次的复杂化与提升,功能层次与种类的扩展与强化过程即是金融功能的演进,金融功能的演进即是金融发展。在此基础上以金融发展的金融功能观视角来进行中国金融发展状况的功能判断,提出中国金融体制改革的若干思考。     

谈谈中介机构业务收入分配办法的改进与规范

目前,许多中介机构对业务收入分配采取业务提成的办法,即将承办业务人所实现的业务收入按一定比例返给业务承办人(部、室)用于奖励(工资).它为中介机构业务创收带来了明显的经济效益,也使中介机构的员工从中获取了益处.     

关注能源转型和能源革命时代

前不久,由中国人民大学国际能源战略研究中心、石油工业出版社有限公司、《能源》杂志社和中德可再生能源合作中心联合主办的2016国际能源热点问题高层论坛在京举行。石油工业出版社有限公司总经理、党委书记张卫国主持了主题论坛,中国石油天然气集团总经理助理李鹭光致欢迎辞,德国能源署前署长史蒂夫·科勒和中国石油勘探开发研究院副院长邹才能发表了主题演讲。此次论坛中德两国能源专家围绕能源转型与能源革命这一主题,进行了热烈而有意义的高端演讲与对话。     

美国发薪日贷款演变、监管及启示

发薪日贷款起源于20世纪80年代末的美国,在其发展过程中一度广受争议。发薪日贷款具有息费成本较高、周期短、额度小、无抵押等特点,且因其操作便捷而受到低收入群体的普遍欢迎。美国各州对发薪日贷款的监管态度可分为合法型、禁止型和限制型三种。当前,美国的发薪日贷款进入到发展转型和监管调整阶段。参考美国发薪日贷款的监管经验,我国应当在合理控制风险的前提下对"现金贷"等业务坚持适度监管,同时强化信息披露、加强大数据风控应用以及明确展期和罚金规则,积极引导行业合法经营和健康发展。