Accounting, hybrids and the management of risk

This essay addresses the implications of accounting and hybrids for the management of risk. We argue firstly and most generally for a definition of hybrids that extends beyond organisational forms. The existing literature, we suggest, has been too focused on organisational forms, and has largely neglected the hybrid practices, processes and expertises that make possible lateral information flows and coordination across the boundaries of organisations, firms, and groups of experts or professionals. Secondly, we argue that the management of organisations is rapidly being transformed into and formalised around the management of risk, while much of the management of uncertainty occurs through a variety of hybrids that reside beyond the formalised practices of risk management. Thirdly, we argue that accounting practices are central to these issues, in so far as accounting is constantly engaged in a dual hybridisation process, seeking to make visible and calculable the hybrids that it encounters, while at the same time hybridising itself through encounters with a range of other disciplines. We address these issues in three main stages. The first section considers the ‘discovery’ of hybrid organisational forms by researchers on management and organisations over the course of more than two decades. The second section examines the ways in which economists, lawyers and other social scientists have considered the issue of hybrids. Here, the preoccupation with hybrid organisational forms largely continues, with its attendant neglect of hybrid practices, processes and expertises. The third section considers the discovery of a wider range of hybrids by researchers in accounting, and examines two specific arenas in which the hybridising of accounting expertise has been central: the microprocessor industry, and the various encounters between medical and financial expertise in the context of the ‘New Public Management’ reforms. The essay concludes with a discussion of the implications of this broader definition of hybrids for accounting and the management of risk.     

Evolving Producer–Packer–Customer Linkages in the Beef and Pork Industries

The U.S. pork and beef sectors are rapidly moving from traditional cash markets to formal vertical linkages. In 1999, 27% of hogs and 65% of cattle were traded in the cash market and packers owned 18% of hogs and 5% of cattle; the rest were procured via marketing contracts. Contrary to popular opinion that plant efficiency is the impetus for the change, packers clearly identified quality concerns as the dominant reason for using marketing contracts or self-production. Quality standards and procurement systems to achieve them will increase in importance with the introduction of more branded pork and beef products.     

The Duration of Industrial Disputes in Australian Mining and Manufacturing

Using a unique dispute-level database of industrial action in Australian mining and manufacturing industries, this paper investigates the determinants of the duration of industrial action. For the first time in the Australian literature, the duration of individual disputes is analysed within a hazard function framework that estimates conditional settlement probabilities over the duration of the dispute. Further, the analysis is conducted for both strikes and non-strike forms of industrial action such as bans on working overtime. A range of parametric and semi-parametric specifications are estimated in order to determine the sensitivity of the results to alternative econometric techniques. The duration of both strikes and work bans are found to be affected by a range of factors, including the state of the labour market, industry characteristics, past union experiences and the cause of the dispute. The conditional settlement rate of both strikes and bans are found to be upward sloping, implying that the longer that a dispute has already lasted, the more likely that it is to end. However, failing to control for unobserved heterogeneity results in bias toward declining conditional settlement rates.     

Risk and evolution

Summary. I examine a Knightian (1921) model of risk using a general equilibrium model of investment and trade. A population of agents with various preference types can choose between a safe production technology and a risky production technology. In addition, the distribution of types of agents changes through a standard evolutionary dynamic. For a given population distribution, the equilibrium is in general inefficient, however, by allowing the population distribution to change in response to market generated rewards, the population will converge to one where the equilibrium is efficient and where the population as a whole behaves as if all agents were risk neutral. Received: November 7, 1996; revised version: October 20, 1997     

An Examination and Validation of Linguistic Constructs for Studying High-Stakes Deception

Theories of deception have produced upwards of 150 potential verbal and nonverbal communication indicators. Of these, approximately 30 indicators, or cues, have been used previously with automated linguistic analysis tools to study text-based communication. The current research examines the interrelationships among these cues and proposes a set of specific constructs to be validated for high-stakes deception research. We analyzed linguistic-based cues extracted from 367 written statements prepared by suspects and victims of crimes on military bases. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to evaluate two models. The superior model retained seven constructs: quantity, specificity, affect, diversity, uncertainty, nonimmediacy, and activation.     

A further inquiry into the scholarly productivity of academic accountants: Twenty years of evidence from classes of 1980-82

Scholarly productivity is a key component of faculty evaluation at many universities. In fact, under current accreditation standards promulgated by the AACSB, faculty members must remain academically qualified in research. Here we provide evidence regarding faculty research productivity. The determinants of faculty productivity are estimated with data spanning a 20 year period for 487 accounting doctoral graduates during the years of 1980-82. Sample statistics reveal that a relatively small portion of researchers produce over half of the sample's articles. Also, our regression results suggest that top-tier institutions of first hire, larger department size of initial hire, and the experience within academic ranks are all positive determinants of scholarly productivity. Conversely, research output is reduced with increased time spent teaching and accepting an initial hire at a public rather than a private institution.     

A time‐series analysis of Zimbabwe's corn sales to the Grain Marketing Board

This article considers methods of cointegration testing to construct a model of Zimbabwe ‘s corn sector. Corn production, sales of corn to the government, the price of corn, and price of beef are linked together in one long‐run equilibrium (cointegrating) relation. Only the price of beef is not weakly exogenous to perturbations in this relation. That is to say, when these variables are out of long‐run equilibrium, it is through subsequent changes in the price of beef that equilibrium is restored. The other variables do not respond to a long‐run disequilibrium. Short‐run forecasts from this model are compared with expert opinion forecasts made by the government's marketing board. Possibilities for improvement in long‐run forecasting and planning are discussed.     

Labor force participation and pair-wise efficient contracts with search and bargaining

A “constant” wage is pair-wise inefficient in a standard search model when workers endogenously separate from employment. We derive a pair-wise efficient employment contract that involves workers paying a hiring fee (or bond) upon the formation of a match. We estimate the constant wage and pair-wise efficient contract assuming the hiring fee is unobservable, and find evidence to reject the pair-wise efficient contract in favor of the constant wage rule. A counterfactual experiment reveals the current level of labor force participation to be 9.6% below the efficient level, and a structural shift to the pair-wise efficient contract improves welfare by roughly 3.5%.