Advanced manufacturing technology: Implementation policy and performance

This article investigates the relationships between adoption of various advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT), the way that firms plan for and implement them, and their eventual performance. Data obtained from 125 manufacturing firms in the U.S. is used to test several hypotheses which were derived from an extensive review of the AMT implementation literature. The four research questions that drive this study are: (1) What types of planning and installation activities have firms utilized to support their AMT adoptions?, (2) do differences in the level of effort applied to these activities have any impact on the eventual performance of the systems?, (3) are firms that are using integrated technologies, such as FMC/FMS and CIM, applying higher levels of effort on these planning and installation activities than other firms?, and (4) Are these firms achieving higher levels of success than firms that are not using the integrated technologies. The results indicate that firms adopting integrated technologies had exerted significantly higher levels of effort on strategic planning and team-based project management and had also achieved higher levels of performance across a wider range of performance factors than other firms. In addition, firms that had exerted higher levels of effort on developing human factors appeared to be achieving more of the benefits of AMT than their counterparts. The overall results and the research and practical implications of this study are discussed.     

Development of accounting regulation in Jordan

This study examines the development of accounting regulation in Jordan with emphasis on the dominant environmental factors that influence it. In order to have a better understanding of Jordan's present accounting practices, and its future development tendencies, we examine the path of accounting in Jordan since the early days of the nineteenth century, and analyze how Jordan's accounting environment — political, economic, legal and cultural — influenced the development of accounting in Jordan. We also examine Jordan's recent move towards full adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and find that Jordan's colonial past has exerted a strong influence. In addition, we conclude that political and economic factors, through privatization and the resulting accounting reforms, contributed more to the development of accounting practices than other environmental factors. Privatization led to reforming Jordan's disclosure regulation and laying down of the corporate-governance policy framework. Our conclusions could be of interest to other countries, particularly developing countries, who want to improve the quality of their accounting disclosures and practices.     

An Investigation of the Dynamic Relationship between Agency Theory and Dividend Policy

Agency theory posits that the dividend mechanism provides an incentive for managers to reduce the costs associated with the principal/agent relationship. Distributing resources in the form of cash dividends forces managers to seek outside capital, thus causing them to reduce agency costs as they subject themselves to the scrutiny of the capital marketplace. Under this scenario the optimum level of dividend payout is that which minimizes the agency cost structure relative to the cost of raising needed funds. A test of this theory employing time-series cross-sectional analysis and more direct measures of the agency cost structure shows that these tenets of agency theory may be valid. Managers do appear to adjust the dividend payout in response to the agency cost/transaction cost structure, both through time as well as across firms.     

Accounting for Management and Managing Accounting: Reflections on Recent Changes in the UK

This paper uses data derived from interviews carried out in a number of UK companies to explore the extent to which management concerns are driven by accounting practices, and also how accounting practices are mediated by the views that managers have of the role of accounting. The paper also analyses accounts given by UK managers of the ways in which changes in accounting are being managed. Two specific issues relating to accounting change are examined: (1) the impact of new information technology on accounting change, and (2) the competition between accounting and alternative bodies of expertise as mechanisms for change. In studying accounting in the context of wider organizational change, the paper focuses on a number of distinct, yet related, themes: (1) management accounting’s power to reinvent itself; (2) the interface between management accounting practices and employee empowerment (as one example of ‘new’ management practices); and, (3) contradictions in using management accounting calculi to facilitate the ‘new’ organization.     

Neyman–Pearson Lemma for Fuzzy Hypotheses Testing with Vague Data

In hypotheses testing, such as other statistical problems, we may confront imprecise concepts. One case is a situation in which both hypotheses and observations are imprecise. This paper tries to develop a new approach for testing fuzzy hypothesis when the available data are fuzzy, too. First, some definitions are provided, such as: fuzzy sample space, fuzzy-valued random sample, and fuzzy-valued random variable. Then, the problem of fuzzy hypothesis testing with vague data is formulated. Finally, we state and prove a generalized Neyman–Pearson Lemma for such problem. The proposed approach is illustrated by some numerical examples.     

Nonstationarity and Stochastic Stability of Relative Income Clubs

The recent literature on “convergence” of cross‐country per capita incomes has been dominated by the two hypotheses of “global convergence” and “club‐convergence,” pertaining to limits of estimated income distribution dynamics. Utilizing a new measure of “stochastic stability,” we establish two stylized facts regarding short‐ and medium‐term distribution dynamics. The first is non‐stationarity of transition dynamics, in the sense of changing transition kernels, and the second is emergence, disappearance, and re‐emergence of a “stochastically stable” middle income group. This middle income group emerges as the gap between rich and poor clubs gets larger, and it changes the dynamics of transition to and from the rich and poor clubs, eventually narrowing the gap between the poor and rich as the middle club vanishes. Analyzing the stochastic stability of middle‐income groups is thus a first step toward understanding higher‐order dynamics of narrowing or widening of the gap between rich and poor countries.     

In the quest for their trust: the perceptions of families on accessing leisure services for disabled children

This paper is based on the findings of a research project commissioned by a public body in the English Midlands, UK. Telephone surveys, focus groups and individual interviews were the data collection methods. It focuses on the perceptions of 44 families on the barriers to accessing leisure services for disabled children. Although there are numerous advantages for accessing such services, the findings showed that the families had very few successful experiences with the current provision due to a number of structural barriers. Trust was perceived as crucial to access these services.