UK charity accounting: An exercise in widening stakeholder engagement

Given the economic and social impact of the charity sector in the United Kingdom (UK), the importance of good governance has been recognised as a basis for underpinning effective and efficient performance, and for ensuring that charities meet the legitimate aspirations of key stakeholders. A major aspect of this is high-quality accounting and reporting. Over the past 25 years attempts have been made to improve this through the medium of successive, evolving versions of a Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP) for charities. As a foundation for the future review of the SORP (expected to be published in 2015), the SORP Committee undertook its largest ever consultation on an accounting pronouncement. This paper presents the findings of that consultation and, analysing them using stakeholder theory, concludes that this ambitious exercise facilitated much wider stakeholder engagement than had been experienced before and has the potential to legitimise further the SORP.     

Investment under Demand Uncertainty,Ex-Ante Pricing,and Oligopoly

This paper considers the capacity choice of duopolists who set price ex-ante under demand uncertainty with risk-neutrality. The duopolists compete for market shares on the basis of availability of supply, rather than by price competition. Collusive pricing coexists with Cournot–Nash capacity choice. A formal model is presented, where the market share of each firm may deviate from the certainty share due to rationing. With shares reflecting different costs, capacity utilisation for the lower cost firm is expected to be substantially lower. The implications for the price-cost margin and capacity formation are also explored.     

The donor–beneficiary charity accountability paradox: a tale of two stakeholders

Using stakeholder theory, this paper explores the motivations of charities in discharging accountability and the interplay of donor and beneficiary accountability needs. It considers the extent to which concentration on one group may disadvantage another. The authors found that stakeholders commonly perceived as more salient, such as donors, cede power and impute saliency to beneficiaries.     

Mineral Taxation in Less Developed Countries: Papua New Guinea's Balanced System

A bstract . In taxing their mining industries most Less Developed Countries must balance their need for mineral revenues with their requirement for continued private Investment in exploration and development. Papua New Guinea has attempted to achieve such a balance. An ideal system would use a Resource Rent Tax. Papua New Guinea accepted its underlying principle but combined it with royalties, a. flat profits tax, a dividend withholding tax and an additional profits tax. The rates and thresholds keep the tax burden bearable and avoid discouraging investment for exploration and development while ensuring that the government receives a substantial return from profitable projects.     

The effect of uncertainty on UK investment authorisation: Homogenous vs. heterogeneous estimators

This paper compares pooled and non-pooled models of UK capital investment using the Confederation of British Industrys (CBI) Industrial Trends Survey, focusing on the impact of uncertainty. The uncertainty measure is based on the cross sectional dispersion of optimism about the future business conditions in the industry in which the firm operates. The panel data estimation shows that uncertainty has quantitatively important negative effects on investment. However, if we look at the estimation results at the industry level, we find a great diversity in both estimated elasticities and t-statistics, providing valuable information not available from the pooled model. Finally, we compare the forecast performances of the above models; this analysis confirms that pooled estimators are generally better than non-pooled estimators in terms of out-of-sample forecast performance, but the difference between the two is not very large.     

Estate Agency: A Marketing Challenge John Driver

The application of marketing by estate agencies has been influenced and generally restricted by professional considerations, but dramatic changes are occurring us new types of competitor specialise in aspects of the agent's traditional work. The situation of local oligopoly is likely to change, especially in urban areas, but the advent of a new structure in house transacting paradoxically should enhance the professionalism of agencies as they transcend the role of information intermediary and pursue their distinctive competences in property assessment, buying and selling. Their marketing mix, however, must be better aligned to the needs of institutional and individual segments.     

Organizational Responses to Uncertainty

This paper investigates two problems in applying management models in beef feedlot farm planning: first, the methodological problem of modelling risk-efficient organizational responses; and second, the behavioural problem of explaining how and why an operator selects a particular organization from a choice set of efficient planning strategies. Specifically, the paper examines the feasibility of using a risk simulator in conjunction with a linear programming farm planning model (LP-RS) to calculate expected income (E)—risk (V) trade-offs as an alternative to quadratic programming (QP). Further, it identifies and examines those management components which aid the operator in forming an attitude toward the selection of one organization over numerous alternative planning strategies. The results from this research demonstrated that the E,V combinations generated by the LP-RS model closely approximated those generated by the QP model. Accordingly, it is implied that commercially oriented farm planning models (based on maximization of a linear profit function subject to linear restraints) could be modified to determine alternative planning strategies which embody different, but efficient, income-risk trade-offs. Additionally, the results indicated that in order to aid the operator in forming an attitude toward a particular organization, it is essential that the numerous E,V planning strategies be translated into management components which are consistent with his normal terms of reference. Cette publication éxamine deux problémes lies à I'application de models de gestion au cos de la production de boeuf en stabulation; un, le problème de méthodologie associéà la représentation du risque et de I'efficacité d'un type d'organisation; et deux, le problème du comportement de I'opérateur: comment et pourquoi ce dernier choisit une organisation particulière à partir d'un éventail de stratégies planificatrices efficientes. Par opposition à l'emploi d'une programmation quadratique (QP) cette étude éxamine, plus précisément, le possible emploi d'un simulateur de risques (RS) associé avec une programmation linéaire (LP) de la planification d'une ferme pour calculer diverses combinaisons de risques (V) et revenus (E). De plus les composantes de la gestion, qui participent à la formation d'une attitude de I'operateur vis à vis du choix d'une organisation parmi de nombreuses alternatives, sont identifiées et éxaminées. Les résultats de cette recherche démontrent que les combinaisons (E,V) proposées par le model LP-RS sont proches de celles produites par le model QP. En consequence cela implique que les models commercial de planification d'une ferme (basis sur la maximization d'une fonction linéaire de profit soumise à des contraintes linéaires) peuvent êlre modifiés de facon à déterminer diverses stratégies planificatrices incorporant diverses combinaisons efficaces revenues-risque. De plus les résultats suggerent que, pour que I'opérateur puisse s'aider du model lors de I'évaluation d'une organisation, il est essentiel que les nombreuses stratégies (E,V) revenues-risques soient traduites dans les composantes de gestion de manière compatible avec les termes de référence de I'opérateur.