Accounting for the dissolution of a nation state: Scotland and the Treaty of Union

Building upon the insights of socio-historical accounting research this paper attempts to show accounting’s centrality to major historical events. In this context, accounting is viewed as a technology which was employed in order to implement a particular political programme – the union of the Scottish and English parliaments in 1707. Accounting is presented as both a necessary and impossible technology in this context. Forging an economic compromise between Scottish and English Parliamentarians necessitated an economic calculation of the relative economic power of each country in the first instance, and some calculated reconciliation between the two in the second. However, such a calculation also proved to be impossible as competing political factions contested the figures, ostensibly on technical grounds, but substantively on an ideological basis. Furthermore, building upon the notion of impossibility, the paper shows that political programmes can sometimes be subservient to the technologies that they rely upon for their implementation. Faced with congenitally failing accounting practices the political programmes associated with union had to be modified into something that was deliverable through the constraints of the extant accountability.     

Social and environmental reporting and the corporate ego

This paper reports on the results of a qualitative exploration into the target audiences for social and environmental reporting (SER). In spite of the wealth of literature on SER motivations, relatively few studies have sought to ascertain who the key target or actual audiences are for SER. The results of this study, based on interviews with UK SER managers, suggest that investors and employees are overwhelmingly the most important audiences targeted by SER managers. The paper draws on auto‐communication theory to question the extent to which SER serves as a means of engaging in dialogue with stakeholders. It is argued that, beyond sending risk management signals to the financial markets, SER primarily serves as a vehicle whereby organizations can communicate with themselves. Moreover, broader stakeholders might be targeted with SER only insofar as doing so serves as a perceived endorsement of organizational communications, thereby embellishing the corporate ego's fantasy of how it would like to be perceived. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Learning from toys: Reflections on the 2007 recall crisis

The year 2007 will be remembered as the year the toy industry was shaken by a seemingly endless stream of recalls. The scope of this recent wave of recalls associated with lead‐tainted toys coming from China has focused the attention of parents and others responsible for ers who sell these toys, companies who import these toys, and numerous government officials on the problem of toys that have been painted with lead‐tainted paint. Much of the focus of this crisis is on China and its contractors. This is counterproductive and reactive. The problem of lead‐tainted imports is not new. The fact that China is currently in the crosshairs is to a large degree a function of their growth in importance as a preferred site for outsourced manufacturing. It is a volume issue. Lead‐tainted imports have many causes, and these will be explored in this article. This article concludes with a discussion of lessons that managers can take from this crisis. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Recent Advances in Structural Econometric Modeling: Dynamics, Product Positioning and Entry

In the empirical analysis of consumer markets, recent literature has begun to explore the dynamics in both consumer decisions as well as in firms' marketing policies. Other research has begun to explore the strategic aspects of product line design in a competitive environment. In both cases, structural models have given us new insights into consumer and firm behavior. For example, incorporating consumer and firm dynamics may help explain patterns in our data that are not well-captured by static models. Similarly, the strategic aspects of firm entry and product-positioning may be intrinsically linked to firm conduct and the intensity of competition in a market. Structural analysis of these consumer and firm decisions raise a number of substantial computational challenges. We discuss the computational challenges as well as specific empirical applications. The discussions are based on the session “Structural Models of Strategic Choice” from the 2004 Choice Symposium.     

Price discrimination in service industries

This article outlines recent methods and applications directed at understanding the profit and consumer welfare implications of increasingly prevalent price discrimination strategies in the service sector. These industries are typically characterized by heterogeneity in consumers?? valuation and usage of the service, resale constraints, and a focus on price as the service??s key attribute. The article focuses on how firms use nonlinear pricing or bundling strategies to benefit from the heterogeneity in consumer demand. We describe the basic economic model commonly used in the literature to analyze such strategic choices and present recent methodological improvements to this benchmark. A discussion of existing applications and future research opportunities concludes the article.     

Maximin behavior and efficient allocation

A mechanism that can implement any Pareto-efficient allocation in a two-person Edgeworth box economy when agents choose among uncertain alternatives by the maximin criterion is described. This, coupled with the association of maximin and its generalizations with complete ignorance, suggests that deliberately withholding information from agents about each other's preferences might allow the design of mechanisms with improved performance.     

Issues for Management Thought and Research

One of the tenets of the editors of The Journal of Product Innovation Management is the principle, probably first enunciated by social scientist Kurt Lewin, that there is nothing more practical than a good theory. That principle is one that draws together academics and practicing managers to the journal's task of advancing the management of product innovation. It is a principle that says to academics that their theories must meet the test of utility, and to managers that it can be useful to develop a theoretical perspective.
Questions of practice and theory emerged in the first two issues of the journal when members of the Editorial Board presented a series of viewpoints on the issues they thought would be significant for the future of product innovation management. These were viewpoints that questioned our current practices and suggested