Mediating Interests: The Accountancy Bodies' Responses to the McFarlane Report

There is now a considerable literature on the significance for accountants of their being accepted as a profession. The claim that they have regard to ‘the public interest’ in their activities is a central feature of the accountancy bodies’ claims to being accepted as a ‘profession’. This, they argue, distinguishes them from trade associations and trade unions. The claim is significant for both their economic and symbolic value. This paper examines the accountancy bodies’ claims by examining their responses to the 1992 publication of a discussion document The Future of Auditing by the Auditing Practices Board. Responses by four major professional bodies are analysed in detail. It is concluded that most of them do not attempt to redeem the claim to have regard to the public interest. Instead, they are mainly concerned to promote their members' private interests, frequently by advocating policy measures that will advance their own members' interests at the expense of those of other accountancy bodies. The significance of the contradiction between the transparency of this advocacy and the considerable effort expended in claiming to act in the public interest is discussed.     

Beware the Challenge of the Importers

Advertising bans can increase or decrease alcohol consumption due to effects on beverage choice, price competition, and substitution by producers towards non-banned media. We study bans on broadcast advertising in 17 OECD countries for the years 1977 to 1995, in relation to per capita alcohol consumption, liver cirrhosis mortality and motor vehicle fatalities. The results indicate that advertising bans in OECD countries have not decreased alcohol consumption or alcohol abuse.     

Towards an understanding of total service quality in hotels

The importance of service quality for business performance has been recognized in the literature through the direct effect on customer satisfaction and the indirect effect on customer loyalty. The importance was recognized by Parasuraman et al. [1985. A conceptual model of service quality and its implications for future research. Journal of Marketing 49(4), 41–51] in the development of SERVQUAL, a measure of perceived service quality across industries. Although the importance of service quality and service quality measurement has been recognized, there has been limited research that has addressed the structure and antecedents of the concept for the hotel industry.This research addresses the antecedents and structure of service quality in the context of the luxury and first class hotel sectors. The data are analysed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis approaches and a structural model is used to test the structure of service quality.The paper clarifies the dimensions and structure of service quality in the hotel industry. The clarification of the dimensions is important for managers in the hotel industry as it identifies the bundles of service attributes consumers find important. The clarification of the structure is also important as it confirms, in a hotel context, that customers see service quality in its entirety as a second order dimension.     

提供专业的自动识别解决方案——访斑马技术业务发展高级副总裁Hugh Gagnier

斑马技术有限公司(以下简称"斑马")是全球领先的专业打印解决方案供应商,1969年成立于美国伊利诺斯州,前身是一家高速电机产品制造企业.公司于1982年将业务重心转向专业按需标签打印和票证打印系统业务,并于1986年正式更名为斑马技术有限公司.出于战略发展考虑,1997年斑马成立亚太分部,其总部和物流中心设于新加坡.     

The multi-channel challenge: A dynamic capability approach

The maturing of e-commerce, the diffusion of call centres into the B2B space and purchaser demands on price and service are leading to rapid change in the route to market in many B2B sectors, with shifting combinations of channels being offered to the customer in the search for advantage. In this situation managers can no longer rely on the channel resources that they have assembled to provide their extant competitive position. Instead they must be able to combine resources in new ways, gain additional resources and dispose of superfluous resources, and to do this repeatedly and rapidly if they are to compete successfully. The term ‘dynamic capabilities’ has emerged in the strategic management literature for these activities. Using four case studies and the analytic induction approach to data analysis, we identify seven dynamic capabilities for channel transformation.     

Fanning the flames of learning

Hugh Coble has worked for Fluor Daniel since 1966. Fluor Daniel provides a broader range of engineering, construction, maintenance, and diversified services to more clients in more industries and geographic locations than any global competitor. With over 50 electronically networked offices supporting 2,000 projects in 82 countries, Fluor Daniel is a truly global company in every sense of the word. Coble has spent more than half his professional life outside the United States, moving a total of 22 times. Even when stationed in the United States, his responsibilities have often focused on the world at large. Throughout the past 30 years, he has seen a multitude of exciting changes in the global work place. This wealth of international experience is the basis for his Commencement Address at Thunderbird, The American Graduate School of International Management, in August of 1997. The following is an adaptation of this address. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Do culturally distant partners choose different types of joint ventures?

Studies of international joint ventures yield conflicting results when looking at the role played by cultural distance. We argue that managers understand the problems associated with cultural distance and seek to mitigate its impact by selecting certain types of joint ventures. Using Das and Teng's [Das, T. K., & Teng, B.-S. (2001). A risk-perception model of alliance structuring. Journal of International Management, 7(1): 1–30] typology of unilateral and bilateral alliances to categorize a sample of ventures based on their strategic focus, our results indicate that greater cultural distance is associated with an increased probability that a marketing or supplier alliance will be formed and a lower probability that an innovation-oriented alliance will be formed.     

Urban containment strategies: A case-study appraisal of plans and policies in Japanese, British, and Canadian cities

This paper presents a comparative assessment of the nature and impact of urban containment policies in three countries, through examination of strategic plans for six case-study cities. Recent development patterns and current planning policies are mapped and assessed, and compared to a conceptual model of strategic options for urban containment. Emphasis is on rationales for containment, locational attributes of areas where development is encouraged or curtailed, the overall supply of developable land, and policies relating to development densities.The case studies demonstrate more stringent control on the location, timing, and density of development in Britain and Japan, with shorter time horizons and tighter development boundaries than in Canada. The Canadian cities, however, are moving towards higher densities, to enable transit-oriented development.     

THE DIAMOND OF MACROECONOMIC EQUILIBRIA AND NON‐INFLATIONARY EXPANSION

This paper combines the microeconomic foundations of earlier models of a range of equilibrium rates of employment to generate a model with a diamond of equilibria. Analysis of the diamond model shows that for a depressed economy an expansionary aggregate demand policy can, without violating rational expectations of inflation, generate a central proposition of Keynesian economics—a non‐inflationary expansion (NIE), that is a permanent increase in employment without increasing inflation. The microeconomic foundations of the model draw on ideas of customer markets, reference dependence and loss aversion. It is also shown that the possibility of achieving an NIE is enhanced if a macro price policy, such as incomes policy or inflation targeting, accompanies the expansion in aggregate demand.     

The consequences of using increasing block tariffs to price urban water

Increasing block tariffs (IBTs) are currently used to price urban water in many Australian mainland capitals and a great many cities worldwide. This paper provides a systematic analysis of the impact of the adoption of IBTs to price urban water under the common constraints of scarce supply and cost recovery. The key tools available to policymakers using IBTs are the volumetric rate in the low tier and the threshold level of that tier. This paper shows how variations in these tools influence (i) the fixed charge set by the firm, (ii) the deadweight loss from the IBT and (iii) the bill paid by customers for particular levels of demand. Our analysis suggests that IBTs are neither fair nor efficient. We propose a modification to IBTs that, while retaining their perception of fairness, results in the efficient allocation of urban water.