NSPCC: Marketing the “solution” not the “problem”

In private sector companies, marketing philosophy and their accompanying portfolio of tools and techniques have long had a strong and shaping role in the creation of a market‐led corporate strategy. This is because in most cases there is an obvious and direct link in the economic transaction which takes place, between the consumers of the product and the suppliers of the product. In such a relationship, consumer preference and consumer sovereignty are meaningful and explanatory concepts. In contrast, in the Charitable Sector, the situation arises where a consumer receives a product or service which is supplied by a charity, but paid for by a third party, which may be a private sector organisation, a public sector organisation or a private individual. This arrangement has often meant that charities have only selectively applied those marketing techniques which are primarily concerned with attracting income from funders to the organisation. Thus a marketing philosophy and all that it implies for the development of an interactive and consumer responsive marketing system, has not been significantly developed.

This paper will argue through use of the illustrative example of the NSPCC (National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children), that charitable organisations can enjoy substantial benefits through the wider application of marketing principles to their activities.

It will show through its narrow emphasis upon its relationship with the funders, that the NSPCC has created a brand image based upon the problems encountered by the NSPCC, rather than upon the “solutions “ to those problems. This has had the further consequence that the resource allocation and resource attraction systems within the NSPCC has remained separate. A simple model is presented which facilitates examination of this relationship.

It will be suggested that this dichotomy within the NSPCC can be bridged through the Introduction of a marketing orientation which will enhance understanding of the relationship between the NSPCC and its funders, and which above all will provide the stimulus to the creation of a communication system between the funders and the children who are beneficiaries of the NSPCC activity.     

The Fall and Rise of Keynesian Fiscal Policy

This paper reviews the recent evolution of thinking and evidence regarding the effectiveness of activist fiscal policy, including how policy multipliers might vary with respect to economic conditions. Like many other countries that were hit by the “Great Recession,” the USA responded initially with active fiscal policy measures. But a more positive view of fiscal intervention appears to have developed earlier in the decade, and estimated decision rules confirm that there was an increase in policy activism. While this positive view has been tested by the unclear effects of fiscal policy during the Great Recession, recent evidence does suggest that fiscal policy may be especially effective in recession. Fiscal policy activism has also been tempered by recent concerns about growing government debt, a development which potentially might also undercut the effectiveness of expansionary fiscal policy.     

The Influence of an Organisation’s Corporate Values on Employees Personal Buying Behaviour

This article explores the influence that an organisation’s corporate values have on employees’ behaviour and values both within and outside the work environment. In particular, it focuses on the impact of these values on the personal buying behaviour of employees. The empirical research was undertaken within a case study organisation that produces wine in Spain and involved interviews with senior management, an analysis of company documentation, as well as group discussions with employees supported by an employee survey. The article argues that an organisation’s corporate values influence not only its employees’ behaviour within the work environment, but also impacts on their global values system outside of the work environment. In particular, this was evident within the employees’ buying behaviour practices in relation to supplier loyalty and environmental concern. This has implications for business ethics as an organisation’s value system may go beyond the purely business context. Organisations need to be aware of their impact on employees’ behaviour outside of the work environment; this is particularly the case for multinational companies working across many cultures.     

The Effect of Attending a Small Class in the Early Grades on College-test Taking and Middle School Test Results: Evidence from Project Star

This paper provides a long-term follow-up analysis of students who participated in the Tennessee STAR experiment. In this experiment, students and their teachers were randomly assigned to small, regular-size, or regular-size classes with a teacher aide in the first four years of school. We analyse the effect of past attendance in small classes on student test scores and whether they took the ACT or SAT college entrance exam. Attending a small class in the early grades is associated with an increased likelihood of taking a college-entrance exam, especially among minority students, and somewhat higher test scores.     

A content analysis of CPA firms’ correspondence following PCAOB inspections: 2004–2010

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) has conducted well over 1000 inspections of public accounting firms since 2004, the year their inspections began. The PCAOB inspections are mandated by the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, and are designed to promote high professional audit standards and improve the audit quality of registered public accounting firms (U.S. House, 2002). Since then, a growing body of research has emerged focusing on the process, results, and decision implications of the inspections. Most of the research to date has focused on determining the impact of the inspection regimen from the perspective of regulators, clients, or markets, but there has been very little research focused on the effect of inspections on the accounting firms themselves.We evaluate the letters provided by triennial audit firms (100 or fewer issuer clients) to the PCAOB in response to their inspections. The response letters provide insight into what the firms themselves think about the value of the inspection and the results of the inspections. Our study and its findings are particularly timely in light of the PCAOB Chairman James Doty’s recent speech (Doty, 2011) in which he claimed that deficiencies were concrete instances of audit failure, and sharply criticized the responses of many audit firms who received inspection deficiency reports, most of whom maintain that their deficiency finding resulted from either differences in professional judgment or inadequate documentation, or both (but not audit deficiencies).We find that a majority of firms writing response letters (1) state they support the PCAOB’s objective of improving audit quality and (2) believe the inspection process will lead to higher audit quality. However, a substantial majority of firms that had an audit engagement deficiency disagreed with the PCAOB’s evaluation, citing differences in professional judgment and/or documentation issues. Our findings do not support but run counter to the PCAOB Chairman’s criticisms and insistence that inspection deficiencies are not attributable to professional judgment differences.     

Paradigms,theory and management accounting practice: A comment on Parker (forthcoming) “Qualitative management accounting research: Assessing deliverables and relevance”

Parker (forthcoming) provides a valuable discussion of the state of, and prospects for, qualitative research in management accounting. This comment amplifies three issues raised in Parker's (forthcoming) review: the multi-paradigmatic nature of qualitative research and the potential that this offers for the expanded use of qualitative methods in accounting research; the role of theory in qualitative management accounting research and the need for such research to contribute to the literatures from which it draws rather than simply being a consumer of theory; and the potential for qualitative management accounting research to inform management accounting policy and practice when research gains rigor through paradigmatic bracketing.     

From the Editor

No abstract available for this article.     

Inequality and capitalism

By participation in lotteries, people reject the goals of equality of outcome or of opportunity - fortunately because both are infeasible.