AASB 1037 Sows the Seeds of Change: A Survey of SGARA Measurement Methods

International developments are set to reignite the controversy over how self-generating and regenerating assets (SGARAs) are measured. The International Accounting Standards Committee is working on an international accounting standard on agriculture due to be effective some time after 1 January 2002. The standard is expected to be similar to AASB 1037 Self-Generating and Regenerating Assets. This is an interesting development since the Australian Accounting Standards Board was urged to not move ahead of international developments when it released Exposure Draft 83 Self-Generating and Regenerating Assets
This paper surveys Australian SGARA measurement practices to assess the extent of reporting change required by AASB 103 7 and its international counterpart.     

Mutual fund expenses: Evidence on the effect of distribution channels

This paper employs a new set of variables in examining the determinants of fund expenses. The Finnish Association of Mutual Funds requires the industry to disclose new variables such as turnover and tracking error from 2002. Using this information the authors examine whether bank-managed funds are managed more actively than their non-bank competitors, which would explain their higher management fees. Equity and balanced funds distributed through bank offices charge higher expense ratios than funds distributed through independent fund management companies. The results suggest that existing customer relationship, bank cross-selling and convenience rather than operational expenses contribute to fund selection of bank mutual fund customers.     

Expatriation: Traditional criticisms and international careers: Introducing the special issue

In this introduction to our special issue, we will first seek to discuss the extent to which recent expatriation research and literature is still subject to earlier criticisms. Second, we will discuss the future research needs concerning the theme of this special issue, international careers, briefly reviewing the dominating research theme within the international career context (i.e., the career impacts of international assignment) and suggesting some future research areas. After that, we will offer a particularly promising new avenue for future research: the new forms of international work. We will conclude by summarizing the articles for this special issue and illustrate how they fit within this new avenue. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Doing sensory ethnography in consumer research

This paper is a contribution to sensory‐aware cultural consumer research. It suggests that while the audio‐visual domain is unquestionably a crucial ingredient of contemporary consumer culture, there is a pressing need to explore the role of the other senses as well. The study works towards a practice‐based culturalist approach to sensory ethnography, a perspective that allows consumer scholars to empirically account for the cultural aspects of the senses. Through an empirical case study on sport fishing, the paper scrutinizes the challenges and opportunities related to conducting sensory ethnography. In addition, it discusses the benefits of this approach in consumer research.     

Has Germany Been Europeanised or Has Europe Become (too) Germanic?

It has often been argued that European monetary unification must basically be seen as a device to Europeanise re-unified Germany. For the Germans it seemed to be the best possible way to prevent a German “Sonderweg” and end any German ambition for hegemony. For the rest of Europe, and particularly France, it seemed to be the best way to curb German monetary dominance and to secure a French imprint on EU policy-making. In this article, however, it is argued that the German impact on the economic governance regime of EMU and its fencing off the French proposal of a “gouvernement economique” is so substantial that the term “Germanic Europe” seems in fact to be appropriate. More importantly, the economic governance system of “Germanic Europe” has locked the European Union into a politics of disinflation which makes it difficult for the EU to prosper and reap the potential fruits of European integration.

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* This paper was written while the author was a guest researcher at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), Brussels, from March to April 2005. He is most grateful to Andrew Watt for his help and the ETUI for its support.