Grounded Theory und ihre bisherige Anwendung in der empirischen Controlling- und Rechnungswesenforschung

Zusammenfassung  Die Bildung von Forschungshypothesen ist zwar immer ein kreativer, sollte aber gleichzeitig kein unsystematischer Prozess sein. Im vorliegenden Artikel liegt der Fokus auf der Methodenunterstützung des Entdeckungszusammenhangs. Die Methode der Grounded Theory bietet einen Bezugsrahmen für qualitative empirische Studien, mit dem Theorien entwickelt werden, die aus dem Textmaterial zu begründen sind. Eine Literaturanalyse verdeutlicht, dass das Potenzial dieser Methode bisher in der Controlling- und Rechnungswesenforschung weitgehend ungenutzt bleibt. Anhand einer Diskussion empirischer Studien, welche auf die Methode zurückgreifen, werden Anwendungsm?glichkeiten der Grounded Theory für diese Disziplinen aufgezeigt.

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Summary  Creating research hypotheses is always a creative but not necessarily an unsystematic process. In our study we introduce a method supporting the logic of discovery. The grounded theory approach provides a framework for a systematic development of theories emerging from empirical data. A literature review stresses that the potential of the method so far is unused in accounting research. The grounded theory approach is introduced to support empirical work within this research field. Options for an application of the method in accounting research are shown by the means of a discussion of empirical studies. Furthermore the reader gets hints for reference studies.

     

Accrual accounting and Australian fiscal policy

Australian governments have recently moved from cash accounting to accrual accounting. Accrual accounting has been accompanied at the national government level by the introduction of a new key fiscal policy measure: the ‘fiscal balance’. This paper explains and evaluates this new fiscal measure. It concludes that, given the present fiscal policy of the Australian government, fiscal balance is a superior fiscal policy measure to the ‘cash’ budget balance measure which it replaced. However, from the alternative ‘golden rule’ policy standpoint, fiscal balance is not a meaningful fiscal policy measure — although its stock counterpart, net financial liabilities, certainly is.     

Folgerungen einer Rationierung in der gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung für die private Krankenversicherung und ökonomische Grenzen für die private Krankenversicherung

The compulsory health insurance fund in Germany is under huge cost pressure. The reasons are the demographic development and the proceeding medical-technical progress, which keep raising the expenses instead of reducing them. Seeing that financial means are getting scarce, there are multifaceted appendages of rationing the medical supply. New market potential arises, however, for the economy of private health insurance for which one can develop and offer answers. The contribution scetches which economic boarders the private health insurance needs to adhere to.     

Standardization Process of Systems Technologies: Creating a Balance between Competition and Cooperation

Many firms are experimenting with how to standardize new technologies. They may use proprietary technologies for their products and services, and let them compete in the market selection. Alternatively, they can cooperate to jointly set a standard and experiment with combinations of market process and cooperation. If firms let the market decide, they can compete with technologies and need not invest time and effort in hammering out a standard. If they do incur the costs of negotiated standardization, they may enable end users to realize the benefits of standards. A hybrid standardization process combines the advantages of both market selection and negotiated decision making. This paper presents a contingency framework to identify conditions that will affect the preferred standardization process for vendors who introduce new technologies. A major contingency that this paper points to is the systemic nature of technologies in information and communication technology industries. The more systemic the technology is (in a way to be clarified), the less likely that firms will establish a hybrid standardization process. One advantage of decomposing technology systems in smaller components (modules) is that this approach enables firms to combine market selection with negotiated selection of standards.     

Another view on optimal design for estimating the point of extremum in quadratic regression

In this paper we illustrate how certain design problems can be simplified by reparametrization of the response function. This alternative viewpoint provides further insights than the more traditional approaches, like minimax, Bayesian or sequential techniques. It will also improve a practitioner’s understanding of more general situations and their “classical” treatment.