AN EPISTEMIC COMMUNITY AS INFLUENCER AND IMPLEMENTER IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTING IN AUSTRALIA

This paper explicates the dual role of epistemic communities as influencers of accounting policy within regulatory space and as implementers who effect change within the domain of accounting. Set within the context of New South Wales in Australia, and the challenge of the financial sustainability of its local councils, the study was informed by documentary sources, and used data from interviews and a survey. Accounting and finance professionals, as an epistemic community, played a pivotal role in formulating accounting policy and in embedding fair value measurement of infrastructure assets.     

The evolution of Indian accounting standards: Its history and current status with regard to International Financial Reporting Standards

This paper addresses the adoption and applicability of International Accounting Standards (IAS) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) to India. Specifically, the paper highlights some major areas where the country lacked harmonization with IAS in 1993 and the rapid congruence with IAS in the decade that followed. The attempt to achieve congruence with IAS appears to be more a by-product of the country's rapid economic growth rather than its catalyst. However, continued growth and the attraction of foreign capital to domestic ventures will depend on the transparency of the financial dealings. The Institute of the Chartered Accountants of India, (ICAI), India's standard setting body, is increasingly attempting to provide this transparency by revisions and additions to accounting standards, and by Exposure Drafts which aim to bring India more in line with International Financial Reporting Standards.     

The measurement of left-right and libertarian-authoritarian values: A comparison of balanced and unbalanced scales

In this paper we compare the performance of balanced and unbalanced Likert scales of two core dimensions of political attitudes: left-right and libertarian-authoritarian values. The balanced scales control for the effects of acquiescence response sets, whereas the unbalanced scales do not. Using data from two panel surveys, balanced and unbalanced scales are compared for reliability, stability and validity both with each other, and with other measures of political ideology and values (left-right self-placement and postmaterialism). Both balanced and unbalanced versions of the left-right and libertarian-authoritarian Likert scales are found to be more stable and strongly associated with social characteristics than are the other measures. The unbalanced scales have slightly higher reliability than the balanced scales; they are also orthogonal, whereas balanced left-right and libertarian-authoritarian scales are moderately correlated. Unbalanced scales also display a slightly stronger relationship with social characteristics, but they do not differ in their pattern of association with political preferences. Differences between balanced and unbalanced scales are attributed to the effects of acquiescence bias. This needs to be considered when using the scales for substantive analyses, but its effects are not problematic.     

来自西班牙的CAD/CAM科技

产品覆盖全球超过55个国家,拥有超过6000个客户,世界排名前三位的西班牙艾维斯公司(Investronica)以其CAD/CAM的软件系统,为世界时装生产企业带来了革命性的技术,众所周知的一些西方品牌,如ErmenegildoZegna、Canali、Forall(PalZileri)、Benetton、Dolce&Gabana、Armani都将西班牙艾维斯公司的技术作为它们“科学生产管理”和高质量标准的基础,与艾维斯连手,共同缔造现代时装艾维斯科技。     

Freedom of Association, Freedom of Contract, and the Right-to-Work Debate

The debate over union security arrangements is often presented as involving irreconcilable goals and values. Supporters of union security typically stress their importance to the union’s organizational strength and workers’ welfare. Right-to-work supporters, who favor banning such arrangements, typically emphasize employee freedom and choice. Our approach involves a unique comparison of both perspectives, which shows that neither perspective is completely compatible with safeguarding freedom. We therefore advocate reconciliation based on compulsory worker representation, which preserves the best freedom-enhancing properties of each perspective.     

The changing face of HRM: in search of balance

Current models of HRM suggest that expectations about HR roles are changing as organisations are striving to make the HR function leaner and more ‘strategic’. In our article we explore the changing roles of HRM as they are perceived by different stakeholder groups within the HR profession through the medium of a study examining the diffusion of the concept of ‘the thinking performer’ launched by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development in 2002. We explain how the concept of business partnering dominates respondents' talk about HR policy and practice and raise questions about the impact of this in terms of HRM's relationship with employees, employee well‐being and the career paths of HR professionals. We argue that the profession needs to reflect seriously on the consequences of a dominant business/strategic partner framing of HR work, which fails to address the duality that has historically always been inherent in HR practice. We conclude that there is a need for a more balanced HR agenda addressing human and economic concerns in current and future models of HRM.     

Bridge over troubled waters? problems and opportunities in interfirm research collaboration

Effective interfirm collaboration is an incresingly significant factor in technological innovation. A wide and complex range of options exists within collabotative arrangements which affect the outcome and rewards for both partners. Firms are often unaware of the strategic implications of collaborative ventures. While some large firms may be invloved in strategic alliances at the corporate level in order to establish or maintain competitiveness, many remain unaware or unconvinced of the potential for the generation of innovations through collaborations with small, flexible, 'hi-tech” firms. the pace of change and the challenge of international competition threatens Western European firms with a 'technology gap' within a 'disorganized capitalist' setting. Various forms of interfirm cooperation within and across natinal boundaires may be important responses to such uncertainty and amy ultimately provide successful strategic remedies to the situation. This article presents the findings of a recently completed research project in which 27 pairs (mostly small/large) of collaborating, innovative firms were studied in order to examine the strategic and operational issues involued in interfirm research cooperation. Whilst highlighting the advantages of collaboration, and the potential problems for both the small and the large partner, we argue that the adoption of 'cooperative game' rules id vital for successful collaborative innovation. Additionally, we attempt to posit our findings within the current debate on organized/disorganized capitalism.     

Democracy,Veto Players and the Depth of Regional Integration

We examine how domestic political factors influence the type of regional integration arrangement (RIA) that states enter. States can pursue at least five types of RIA, in order of their depth of policy integration: preferential trade agreements, free trade areas, customs unions, common markets and economic unions. We argue that a country's regime type and the number of institutional ‘veto players’ strongly affect the type of arrangement that states choose. Democracies are more likely to form an RIA than other states, a tendency that becomes more pronounced as the proposed level of integration in an arrangement rises. However, all democracies are not the same. As the number of veto players rises, the likelihood of a democracy entering an RIA declines. Furthermore, veto players are expected to have a larger effect on the odds of a democracy forming an RIA, the greater is the extent of integration that the arrangement aims to achieve. A series of statistical tests, based on analysis of all pairs of countries from 1950 to 2000, support our arguments.     

Janelle S. Taylor, Linda L. Layne, and Danielle F. Wozniak, eds. Consuming Motherhood. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004. ix + 323 pp. ISBN 0-8135-3429-1, $62.00 (cloth); 0-8135-3430-5, $22.95 (paper).

Motherhood imposes a birth of sorts for the women involved,according to the various authors in this exceptionally wellintegrated and provocative volume of essays. Women are rebornto a new status of ‘mother’ and simultaneously asa new kind of consumer of goods—goods in the form of services,consumer products, and even of babies. This volume weds thestudy of consumerism to the anthropological study of motherhoodand represents a genuine contribution to an array of fields,including