Money on the move: Opportunities for financial service providers in the ‘third space’

Delivering financial services to customers on the move is an emerging imperative for the industry, as at present the services available do not meet the needs of customers. Such services could empower customers to control their own finances, at the same time as reducing costs for companies. Those in most need of such services require top line account updates at present, but also welcome the possibility of more advanced account management services. These services have the capacity greatly to improve relationships with customers; ‘guardian-services’ which monitor financial performance and respond accordingly will foster ‘good will’ and increase loyalty. While complex services requiring expert advice should remain branch based, new data-enabled mobile phones will establish new opportunities for service provision in the future.     

Service-learning: an innovative approach to teaching accounting: a teaching note

Service-learning allows students to enhance their learning through real-world applications of accounting concepts. This Teaching Note describes the service-learning process and the benefits to students, faculty, the university, the community, and the accounting profession. Quotations from students' reflective journals are used as illustrations regarding how students develop communication, leadership, strategic, and critical thinking skills. Practical issues for implementing and supervising service-learning projects are also given.     

Forecasting systemic impact in financial networks

We propose a methodology for forecasting the systemic impact of financial institutions in interconnected systems. Utilizing a five-year sample including the 2008/9 financial crisis, we demonstrate how the approach can be used for the timely systemic risk monitoring of large European banks and insurance companies. We predict firms’ systemic relevance as the marginal impact of individual downside risks on systemic distress. So-called systemic risk betas account for a company’s position within the network of financial interdependencies, in addition to its balance sheet characteristics and its exposure to general market conditions. Relying only on publicly available daily market data, we determine time-varying systemic risk networks, and forecast the systemic relevance on a quarterly basis. Our empirical findings reveal time-varying risk channels and firms’ specific roles as risk transmitters and/or risk recipients.     

Working Together: Critical Perspectives on Six Cross-Sector Partnerships in Southern Africa

Early strategy scholars have pointed to the importance of reflecting on moral issues within the scope of strategic management. Although strategy content and context have been discussed in relation to ethical reflection, the third aspect, strategy process, has found only little or no attention with regard to ethics. We argue that by emphasizing the process perspective one can understand the related character of strategic management and ethical reflection. We discuss this relatedness along formal, functional, and procedural similarities. Whereas formal aspects refer to the conditions under which both processes occur, functional aspects look at the role that strategy process and ethical reflection fulfill. Procedural aspects account for similarities in the nature of both processes insofar as the activities that are conducted within each process phase share common characteristics. We claim that ethical reflection can be thought of as an integrative part of strategic management – either explicitly or implicitly. Michael Behnam received his PhD from the University of Frankfurt, Germany. He is an Associate Professor of Management at the Sawyer Business School, Suffolk University, Boston, USA. Prior to this he was the Head of the Department of International Management at the European Business School, Germany. His research has been published in Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of International Business and Economy as well as in German top-tier outlets. He authored or co-authored numerous book chapters as well as three books, most recently the 7th edition of a textbook on Strategic Management. His research areas are Strategic Management, International Management and Business Ethics. Andreas Rasche received his PhD from European Business School, Germany and is currently Assistant Professor for Business Ethics at Helmut-Schmidt-University, University of the Federal Armed Forces in Hamburg, Germany. He has published articles in the Journal of Business Ethics, Business Ethics Quarterly and authored numerous book chapters on international accountability standards. He has gained working experience at the United Nations in Washington D.C. and New York and works closely with the United Nations Global Compact Office. His research interests and publications focus on the process of standardization in the field of CSR and the adoption of standards by corporations. More information is available under: http://www.arasche.com