Knowledge creation for practice in public sector management accounting by consultants and academics: Preliminary findings and directions for future research

This study is about knowledge creation for practice in public sector management accounting by consultants and academics. It shows that researchers emphasize the importance of practice, but worry about the prospects of a successful cross-fertilization between practice and research, because of the pressure they feel to publish in international research journals. Their contacts with consultants are limited. Consultants have limited access to academic research, because of pressures from their daily work. Knowledge created by consultants is initiated by problems coming from practice; it has to be ready-made for application in practice, and is often a combination of explicit and tacit knowledge. However, our interviews with researchers show a more diffuse picture; the knowledge created by some of them is disciplinary-driven and fundamental, whereas the research of others is more problem-driven and applied. Our study hints at two intermediary groups, i.e. consultant-researchers and consultants working in the expertise centres of their firms, both of which can potentially overcome hindrances in the communication between consultancy and research.     

Principles of Advertising & IMC, 2nd edn.

Community involvement is recognized as part of an organization's attempts to build good will in the local community and as such can be thought of as part of corporate social responsibility. The argument has been made that there is a need for more examination of the content of CSR activities, in particular for firms operating in diverse domestic and foreign contexts (Gardberg and Fombrun, 2004, Academy of Management Review, 31(2), pp. 329–346). This paper explores some of these issues by presenting an in‐depth look at McDonald's community involvement initiative in Norway, where the attempts to build a Ronald McDonald House met much resistance and many barriers, many of them from political parties, doctors and academics.     

When Polypropylene Fiber Can Be Dyed

What if polypropylene fiber can be dyed someday?That means fiber offers immense production possibilities, means manufacturers will benefit from increasing their operational effectiveness, reducing the inventory of colored yarns,means streamline production process, means……     

Changing the Rules of the Game

Abstract

This article examines the impact of privatization on the relative bargaining strength of management and trade unions. Findings are based on a study of Ireland's largest telecoms provider, Eircom, which has been privatized since 1999. The privatization of Eircom adopted a stakeholder approach, under which employee share-ownership and management–union partnership played an important role in firm restructuring. Findings show that despite this approach privatization has resulted in a significant decrease in the perceived bargaining strength of unions and an increase in the perceived bargaining strength of management.     

A statistical review of the risk associated with offshore support vessel/platform encounters in UK waters

Safety performance on the UK Continental Shelf is normally considered to be of a high standard, although there are still many incidents and accidents. This paper discusses some of the initial findings in an offshore support vessel safety research project. Following a brief review study of the uses of various types of existing offshore support vessels, a comprehensive statistical failure data analysis of the vessels is carried out mainly based on a Ship/Platform Incident Database drawn from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). The variation of incident frequency with time for different types of offshore oil and gas installations, and for different vessel types has been established. A total of 394 records within the period 1980 to 1997 are investigated in this study. The variation of incident frequency with time and seasons, causation factors, incident with respect to geographical distribution, and sea conditions are discussed. The relationship between vessel types, sizes and operations is analysed; operating circumstances, reported primary failure cause, and impart orientation for different vessel types are also described. The statistical analysis reveals that safety culture in terms of good seamanship by vessel masters is probably responsible for mitigating the magnitude of many of the impacts that do occur and also that there is a need for improvement in safety performance. Issues pertaining to human element, the availability and reliability of data, risk criteria, and safety culture in the context of marine and offshore risk assessment are also discussed.     

Concert for Solo Italian Fabric

Known as the biggest national pavilion,in INTERTEXTILE 2008 held in Shanghai New International Expo Center in October,Italian Trade Commission-I.C.E. and their knighthoods came again.     

Endogenous housing market cycles

Housing markets tend to display positive serial correlation as well as considerable volatility over time. We present a heterogeneous agent model illustrating the connection between adaptive expectations and housing market fluctuations. A dwelling serves as a shelter, as a vehicle for investment and as mortgage collateral. Interesting dynamics arise as the valuation of these three properties changes over time through the interaction of buyers, sellers and mortgagees. In the absence of credit constraints imposed by mortgagees, house prices oscillate mildly around the equilibrium price. However, credit constraints imposed by mortgagees can affect market dynamics quite dramatically with periods of mild oscillations interrupted by violent collapses. This chaotic behavior arises even though buyers, sellers and mortgagees agree on market forecasts.     

Budgeting and portfolio allocation for biosecurity measures

This paper presents a practical model for optimally allocating a budget across different biosecurity threats and measures (e.g. prevention or border quarantine, active surveillance for early detection, and containment and eradication measures) to ensure the highest rate of return. Our portfolio model differs from the common principle, which ranks alternative projects by their benefit cost ratios and picks the one that generates the highest average benefit cost ratio. The model we propose, instead, aims to allocate shares of the budget to the species where it is most cost‐effective, and consequently determine the optimal scale of the control program for each threat under varying budget constraints. The cost‐effectiveness of each block of budget spent on a threat is determined by minimising its expected total cost, including the damages it inflicts, and the control expenditures incurred in preventing or mitigating damages. As an illustration, the model is applied to the optimal allocation of a budget across four of Australia's most dangerous pests and diseases: red imported fire ants; foot‐and‐mouth disease; papaya fruit fly; and orange hawkweed. The model can readily be extended to consider more species and activities, and more complex settings including cases where detailed spatial and temporal information needs to be considered.