New development: Private finance over public good? Questioning the value of impact bonds

This article contrasts the proposed benefits of social impact bonds (SIBs) with the more mixed performance of initial projects, and reviews the early literature, revealing a similar divide between initial optimism and subsequent critique. Despite this, SIBs continue to receive high-level support, while expanding their reach through controversial new ‘development’ and ‘environmental’ impact bonds. This situation deserves more scrutiny in the accounting literature.     

Managerial myopia and the unintended real consequences of conditional conservatism

We examine whether the demand for conditional conservatism produces unintended real consequences that are exacerbated by managerial incentives to report higher earnings. We document a robust positive association between conditional conservatism and real earnings management (REM), particularly for firms whose CEOs face greater compensation incentives and capital market incentives to report higher earnings. Using mediation analyses, we find that conservatism has a negative indirect relation with future returns via REM over the next 1–3 years. In additional tests, we find that the relation between conservatism and REM is attenuated for firms with higher debt-to-equity, which suggests that debtholders moderate the negative relation between conditional conservative reporting and REM. Our findings suggest that, in contrast to its monitoring benefit, conditional conservatism can exacerbate managerial myopia, resulting in negative consequences for future firm value.     

Development and implementation of customer solutions: A study of process dynamics and market shaping

A broad, dynamic network perspective on solution processes remains scarce. This article presents the process of developing and implementing customer solutions and its effects on the wider business environment by investigating customers and suppliers in the global mining industry (Australia, Chile, and Sweden), analyzing the deployment of a new customer solution, and assessing the changes to the competitive environment and focal firms' relationships with other customers and suppliers. It shows that the forces that drive customer and supplier interests and motivation to co-develop customer solutions may change over time, thus redefining the aim and scope of solutions and creating failure risks. Customers present problems; suppliers respond, on the basis of not only the feasibility of the customer-specific solution but also of their evaluation of future solutions in a broader market; then suppliers aim to standardize successful solutions across markets. Customers want close supplier relationships and unique solutions but also like standardized and repeatable solutions, so they can share development costs with competitors and expose the supplier to competition to avoid lock-in effects. From a network perspective, a novel solution can have a market-shaping effect and evoke reactions from other actors who want to enhance their market position. However, these changes are not necessarily deliberate, and the dynamics that market introductions of solutions trigger may be difficult to predict.     

The wages of motherhood: better or worse?

Data from two British cohort studies show that women with childrenhave lower wages than childless women. We develop an innovativedecomposition of this 'family gap'. The crude pay gap betweenmothers and childless women in their thirties was similar in1978 and 1991, but low pay in part-time work became more importantin explaining this gap, and human capital less so. We find that,among full-time employees, women who broke their employmentat childbirth were subsequently paid less than childless women.In contrast, mothers who maintained employment continuity wereas well paid as childless women, but neither were as well remuneratedas men.     

Engaging stakeholders in corporate accountability programmes: A cross‐sectoral analysis of UK and transnational experience

This paper explores the type of stakeholder engagement currently being undertaken by many organisations as part of social and ethical accounting, auditing and reporting (SEAAR) processes. Specifically, the paper seeks to determine the extent to which current corporate practice iteratively promotes stakeholder participation in collaboratively designing accountability programmes, or whether it merely is a new term for canvassing stakeholder opinions. Arnstein's Ladder of Citizen Participation is used as a conceptual model for positioning contemporary methods of stakeholder dialogue. The findings from interviews with representatives from twenty‐nine UK and transnational organisations actively engaged in stakeholder dialogue are presented. This paper concludes that contemporary organisations seem to be seeking to engage with stakeholders in partnerships, yet their attempts still fall short of what Arnstein called Citizen Control, the level of achievement that non‐governmental organisations would like stakeholder engagement to attain.     

Fairytale authenticity: historic city tourism,Harry Potter,medievalism and the magical gaze

ABSTRACT

This article makes an original contribution to debates about authenticity by asking how tourist experiences of the medieval historic environment are linked to fairytales, providing a new way for tourists to imaginatively authenticate heritage. The architecture of some historic cities is preponderantly medieval, an era which is strongly associated with fairytales. Magical-historical double affectiveness has been compounded in the collective imagination by modern fairytales such as the fantasy Harry Potter and Game of Thrones which employ historic city locations and faux-medieval settings, establishing a fluid magi-heritage simulacrum. This is concretised by the appearance in many historic cities of evidence of magical placemaking and staged magical authenticity, such as wizarding shops. The study used a visual methodology to examine 14 historic cities including Oxford, Cambridge, Bath, York, and Canterbury, demonstrating how the magical gaze employs fairytale schemata to imaginatively authenticate places. The findings illustrated how heritage tourists serendipitously encountered the medieval-fairytalesque, unfolding the agency of monumental cathedrals and castles and discovering stories and the historicisation of mythology within the extraordinary-ordinary streetscape. The research findings imply that in an era when the fantasy genre is increasingly popular, the experiential authenticity of heritage tourists may be enhanced by the ‘heritage marvellous.’     

Chinese intellectual property rights? Know before you go

China's membership in the World Trade Organization further encourages foreign direct investment. Organizations establishing a multinational enterprise in China, and intending to utilize their intellectual property rights as a method of conducting their business enterprise, must be familiar with the current laws and developments regarding their protection and enforcement. This article focuses on Chinese intellectual property laws with examples of both infringements and enforcements. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.