Institutionalising XBRL for financial reporting: resorting to regulation

By integrating and streamlining financial information within and among various organisations, eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) has been developed with a view to enhancing the efficiency, accuracy, and transparency of corporate accounting information. Taking an inter-organisational focus, this paper investigates the process of how XBRL was institutionalised. It explains and offers insights on how institutional arrangements emerge and become relevant as heterogeneous organisations consider adopting accounting innovations while evidence concerning their benefits is unavailable. The original and overall contribution of this study is that it improves current understanding of coal-face actors' perceptions, behaviours, and strategies as they interact in the organisational field and become engaged in developing accounting innovations to produce the macro-level observations documented in existing institutional theory studies.     

MFN vs Tariff Discrimination in the Presence of Cross Ownership

We develop a three‐country two‐firm model to examine the superiority of most favored nation (MFN) vs tariff discrimination in global welfare by taking into account the cross ownership between exporters. We obtain several interesting results as follows. First, given cross ownership of financial interests and linear demand, the government of the importing country will impose a lower (higher) tariff on the low‐cost (high‐cost) firm and the global welfare under tariff discrimination will be higher than that under MFN, regardless of whether the mode of competition is Cournot or Bertrand competition, when the magnitude of cross ownership is relatively large compared with the cost difference. Second, given the cross ownership of corporate control and linear demand, the global welfare under tariff discrimination will be identical to that under MFN.     

The Economic Driven by Politics as Values: The Example of Pharmaceuticals in France

Considering that the definitions of politics which dominate political economy are actually synonyms for other terms (politicians, powering or strategising), and in order to focus research more sharply upon the political itself, this article proposes a robust alternative: politics as the mobilisation of values to change or reproduce the institutions that orientate economic activity. Drawing upon constructivist strands of institutionalism, political sociology and industrial economics, this definition is used to build an analytical framework for understanding the ‘political work’ which determines the policies of both firms and public regulatory authorities. Specifically, using this ‘politics as values approach’, a fundamental tension within capitalism between the values of Freedom, Security and Equality is closely examined. This is tackled by studying conflicts within the definition of these three values during the regulation of specific industries, together with their prioritisation. To illustrate the heuristics of this analytical framework, the case of recent change within the regulation of medicines in France is then developed. Far from simply resulting from a drug ‘scandal’, this approach shows that this change was caused firstly by a value-driven conflict within pharmacology and, secondly, by its impacts upon the way administrators, journalists and politicians have reframed the Freedom–Security–Equality value hierarchy.     

The impact of the cessation of blogs within the UK police blogosphere

This article investigates the concept of influence within a group of police work‐bloggers. During the period studied (2007–2013), three influential police bloggers, well‐known within the small and tightly knit UK police blogosphere, abruptly ended their blogging activity. Their cessation stimulated others to reconsider their own blogging and led to several bloggers ceasing to blog for fear of being outed and disciplined or because they had been warned by superiors. This can be seen as part of a wider phenomenon as increasing blog surveillance has resulted in a reduction of work‐related blogs. The study shows that work‐blogging cessation is influenced by the activities or perceived activities of bloggers' peers and that, while internal factors were influential in the creation of new work‐blogs, external factors—in particular, fear of consequences for their career—were the predominant influences on their cessation.     

The Public Duties and Social Responsibilities of Big British Banks

The implicit social compact between the big British banks and the U.K. government broke down in the 1980s. Since then, the banks have sought to maximize shareholder value by closing less profitable branches, thereby reducing access to finance and increasing risk taking. Post-1990, the big banks also substantially increased their dependency on wholesale funding and dramatically reduced their liquid asset holdings, which increased their leverage and risk exposure. The U.K. government’s response to the financial crisis was to encourage mergers between banks, increasing concentration in the industry. The government bail-outs allowed the big banks to enjoy free insurance paid by taxpayers. The establishment of an autonomous retail banking (and insurance) utility regulator and a system for taxing the big banks fairly is recommended.     

Chinese Auditors' Ethical Behavior in an Audit Conflict Situation

This paper draws on the economics of ethical compliance model to examine the association between ethical reasoning, perceived risk of detection, perceived levels of penalties and Chinese auditors' ethical behavior in an audit conflict situation. Using 53 Chinese auditors from Shenzen as subjects, and a survey questionnaire, this study found that there is a significant negative association between ethical reasoning and the likelihood of unethical behavior and that this negative association is weaker for auditors who perceive higher risks of detection.     

Towards an ontology for electronic transaction services

In this paper we present an ontology for transaction services built upon an established ontology for corporate knowledge called the Enterprise Ontology. We introduce the SmartGov platform for the ‘Smart’ deployment of online services for Public Authorities (PAs) whose requirement of a model of PAs has motivated the ontology, and describe our approach to constructing it. After presenting the ontology we then relate it to the pilot application areas in which the SmartGov platform will be trialed and evaluated. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Technology Transfer and Universities' Spin-Out Strategies

Universities may seek to transfer technology from the public to the private sector, and therefore capture the benefits of commercialization, through a number of different mechanisms. This paper examines the option of using technology-based spin-out companies. Based on a survey of technology transfer/business development officers at 57 U.K. universities, we examine their strategies to promote the creation of spin-out companies and how they then manage the development of these companies. Our analysis focuses on the difference between those universities that have been most active in the area and those that have been least active. The results indicate that the more successful universities have clearer strategies towards the spinning out of companies and the use of surrogate entrepreneurs in this process. In addition, the more successful universities were found to possess a greater expertise and networks that may be important in fostering spin-out companies. However, the role of the academic inventor was not found to differ between the more and less successful universities. Finally, equity ownership was found to be more widely distributed among the members of the spin-out company in the case of the more successful universities.     

Internationalization of Western Venture Capitalists into Emerging Markets: Risk Assessment and Information in India

This paper provides the first analysis of the internationalization of venture capital firms through an examination of risk assessment and information usage by firms in India. Personal interviews were conducted with executives in 31 (84%) of the active venture capital firms. The paper extends previous research by comparing perceptions of the behavior of domestic venture capital firms in India, foreign (primarily U.S.) venture capital firms in India and U.S. venture capital firms in their domestic markets. Foreign firms in India place significantly greater emphasis on product market factors and accountants' reports than domestic firms in India. They place significantly less emphasis on financial contributions of management in assessing risk and own due diligence and information from entrepreneurs than do U.S. firms in their domestic market. They make more use of information from trade publications and relating to production capacity and technology and information from accountants' reports than do domestic venture capital firms in India. The evidence is consistent with venture capital firms adapting to local market conditions rather than implementing "recipes" from their domestic markets.