Client importance and non-Big 5 auditors’ reporting decisions

In this paper, we examine the effect of the trade-off between economic dependence and reputation protection on the link between client size and the audit reporting decisions of non-Big 5 auditors. We find that non-Big 5 auditors, like Big 5 auditors, do not allow their larger clients greater leeway to manage earnings. In fact, there is some evidence that non-Big 5 auditors treat their larger clients more strictly. In addition, non-Big 5 auditors, like Big 5 auditors, are at least as likely to issue a going-concern report to their potentially financially distressed larger clients as they are to their otherwise smaller clients.     

Herbert simon appreciation and aspiration

The award of the Nobel Prize in Economics to a Professor of Computer Sciences and Psychology is surprising but refreshing. Unlike many economists, Simon is more concerned with how decisions are made than with what decisions are made. His writings, although academic and theoretical, are concerned with the real world and are of practical value to the administrator. He is willing to accept evidence from any relevant source and has ranged widely over not only the disciplines of the social sciences but also the philosophies. Simon is well aware of the value of quantitative methods, but remains convinced of the great importance of value judgements in decision-making. In view of the trends in modern society towards greater concern with aspects of welfare which are difficult to quantify, and the growing importance of the public sector, Simon's work is highly relevant to our times. It is in the best traditions of political economy, and is not remote from reality.     

A visual analysis of trends in the titles and keywords of top-ranked tourism journals

We generated a visual trend analysis of the titles and keywords of highly ranked tourism journals in the years 1982, 1992, 2002, and 2012 by using word clouds. This approach provides a fascinating snapshot into shifts in the priorities of tourism researchers over the last four decades, thus tracing the history of theoretical development in the field of tourism. Comparisons were made between (1) the titles of articles in all journals in different years; (2) titles in each journal in a recent year; and (3) titles and keywords of articles in the same journal in the same years. Not only do themes and concepts visibly shift in prominence over time and between journals, but also variance between keywords and titles of articles in the same journal for a particular year is observable. The practical applications for article titling, placement, and keyword designation are discussed.     

A hidden risk of auditor industry specialization: evidence from the financial crisis

Review of Accounting Studies - We identify situations in which auditor industry specialization could be detrimental for audit outcomes. We predict that during periods of heightened...     

Development of environmentally extended social accounting matrices for policy analysis in Alberta

This paper outlines the development of inputs to an integrated land use and transportation model based on a series of environmentally extended social accounting matrices (SAMs) for the Canadian province of Alberta. A novel form of industry disaggregation is employed, based on aggregate iterative proportion and a unique formulation of location quotients. Social accounts are extended via the inclusion of detailed household consumption broken down by income quintiles. The SAMs are developed from supply-use matrices. Physical flow accounts are framed as derived demands, acting as necessary inputs to the production of downstream goods and services. Applications to regional economic modeling are considered, as planning authorities increasingly seek to model the environmental impacts of policy. The SAMs are then applied to the assessment of two technology change scenarios: a shift in the provincial electricity generation mix and a transition to a fully electric private automobile fleet.     

Transformation bias in the costs and benefits of housing subsidies

This note investigates the importance of testing the validity of the Hicks-neutral technical progress assumption in the context of examining the substitutability or complementarity between capital, labour and energy in the UK industrial sector, It is found that the hypothesis of neutral technical progress must be rejected in favour of the non-neutral hypothesis: with technical progress thus biased to using both capital and energy but to saving labour. In addition, it is found that all three factors are substitutable for one another when non-neutral technical progress is modelled.     

Leadership: the Role of the Exemplar

Attempts to define the qualities which make up leadership probably go back beyond the invention of writing: certainly, to the orally transmitted poetry of Homer and his peers. Yet satisfactory answers have been elusive. This article reports on a two-year survey which attempts to refine the grounds for debate further by benchmarking the features of leadership identified in the Exemplar Model against the competencies associated with high performing managers. The survey covered 105 senior executives and the perceptions of them by over 1,000 of their colleagues.