Transport in London: The case for organisational change

Transport planning arrangements in London are generally agreed to be unsatisfactory. In the search for solutions, foreign models have often been cited. An adviser to the House of Commons Committee on Transport explains how the recommendations in its recent report could resolve current inadequacies better than any of the alternative models.     

Research Note: Resolving Contested Notions of Tourism Sustainability on Western Australia's 'Turquoise Coast': The Squatter Settlements

Squatter's shacks, or informal holiday homes, have been a feature of sections of Western Austalia's coastline for many years. However, population growth and improved accessibility have brought pressure on government to deal with the problems they present. This paper outlines the procedures being used to address the squatter situation, while also suggesting that many of the characteristics of the squatter communities might be used to advantage in the development of new holiday-based settlements.     

Corporate Governance und Unternehmenswerteffekte bei Leveraged Buyouts – State of the Art der empirischen Forschung

This state-of-the-art paper systematizes and discusses the results of numerous empirical studies that deal with the effects of corporate governance on the value of leveraged buyouts. Moreover, additional need for research is derived. The article shows that leveraged buyouts share three common characteristics: significant management participation, the use of debt to discipline the management, and intensive monitoring of the private equity firm. Positive wealth effects through leveraged buyouts are beneficial for both the previous owners and the private equity firm. The studies yield evidence that the specific corporate governance of leveraged buyouts contributes to these positive value effects. Studies on reverse leveraged buyouts provide further evidence for this stream of thought. Main areas for future research comprise methodological issues of measuring wealth effects, its link to corporate governance in leveraged buyouts and the different types of buyouts. Alternative explanations of the wealth development as well as macroeconomic effects constitute further avenues for future research.     

Fighting multiple tax havens

This paper develops a competition theory framework that evaluates an important aspect of the OECD's Harmful Tax Practices Initiative against tax havens. We show that the sequential nature of the process is harmful and more costly than a “big bang” multilateral agreement. The sequentiality may even prevent the process from being completed successfully. Closing down a subset of tax havens reduces competition among the havens that remain active. This makes their “tax haven business” more profitable and shifts a larger share of rents to these remaining tax havens, making them more reluctant to give up their “tax haven business”. Moreover, the outcome of this process, reducing the number of tax havens, but not eliminating them altogether, may reduce welfare in the OECD.     

Unemployment governance,labour cost and earnings management: Evidence from China

This study investigates the effect of labour cost on earnings management based on the panel data of listed firms in China. We use the average wage of employees in firm level as the proxy for labour cost. Firms with rising labour cost become more likely to engage in negative earnings management to conceal profits or report losses. The effect becomes more significant in state-owned enterprises, labour-intensive enterprises, firms in high unemployment-rate regions and firms with political connections. Further research finds that, under the institutional background of Chinese unemployment governance, firms get more government subsidies and tax preferences and reduce the excessive employment through negative earnings management. To a certain extent, this weakens the policy effect of unemployment governance. Overall, our conclusions are meaningful to the reform of unemployment governance, the standardisation of earnings management behaviour, the improvement of the government subsidy policies and the improvement of the efficiency of public resource allocation.     

The impact of emotional self-management on benefit offerings and employment growth: an analysis of the fastest growing businesses in the United States

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - Increases in the cost of benefit offerings have led organizations to cut back benefits in an effort to reduce overall labor costs. Since...     

Communication instruction: What is being done to develop the communication skills of accounting students?

A survey was conducted to determine what colleges and universities are doing to improve accounting students' communication skills and how they are doing it. Results indicate that much is already being done to improve the communication skills of accounting students, and that more programs are being planned. The survey revealed that accounting students at most of the responding colleges and universities have access to formal instruction in business communication, and that some communication programs are tailored for accounting majors. In addition to communication programs already in effect at the time of the survey, several schools were planning to add either an accounting communication course or an integrated skills program.     

The existence of a real value-added function in the Canadian manufacturing sector

Sims (1969), Gordon (1969), and Arrow (1972) have demonstrated that the capability of using real value-added to measure the output of a sector when material inputs are employed in the production process rests upon primary factor inputs being weakly separable from material inputs. In Canada, the double deflation technique is used by Statistics Canada to measure the real value-added output of an industry; this technique assumes strong separability. This paper tests both of these separability hypotheses for the Canadian manufacturing sector using data from 1950 to 1972 and a translogarithmic production function. Our tests lead us to reject both the strong and weak separability hypotheses. Furthermore, our estimates of the Allen partial elasticity of substitution of capital for labor are radically different from the results of previous Canadian studies.     

Using scenarios to explore UK upland futures

Uplands around the world are facing significant social, economic and environmental changes, and decision-makers need to better understand what the future may hold if they are to adapt and maintain upland goods and services. This paper draws together all major research comprising eight studies that have used scenarios to describe possible futures for UK uplands. The paper evaluates which scenarios are perceived by stakeholders to be most likely and desirable, and assesses the benefits and drawbacks of the scenario methods used in UK uplands to date. Stakeholders agreed that the most desirable and likely scenario would be a continuation of hill farming (albeit at reduced levels) based on cross-compliance with environmental measures. The least desirable scenario is a withdrawal of government financial support for hill farming. Although this was deemed by stakeholders to be the least likely scenario, the loss of government support warrants close attention due to its potential implications for the local economy. Stakeholders noted that the environmental implications of this scenario are much less clear-cut. As such, there is an urgent need to understand the full implications of this scenario, so that upland stakeholders can adequately prepare, and policy-makers can better evaluate the likely implications of different policy options. The paper concludes that in future, upland scenario research needs to: (1) better integrate in-depth and representative participation from stakeholders during both scenario development and evaluation; and (2) make more effective use of visualisation techniques and simulation models.     

Supervisor–Subordinate Guanxi and Employee Work Outcomes: The Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction

In this study, we attempt to explain the divergent results found in the relationships between supervisor–subordinate guanxi and employee work outcomes. Specifically, we propose that the relationships between supervisor–subordinate guanxi and participatory management, turnover intentions, and organizational commitment are mediated by job satisfaction. Based on the data collected from a sample of 196 employees of three local manufacturing firms in Zhejiang Province, China, we found that job satisfaction fully mediated the effects of supervisor–subordinate guanxi on participatory management and intentions to leave, but partially mediated the relationship between supervisor–subordinate guanxi and organizational commitment. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.