Marketers expressing the future: Scenario planning for marketing action

Thomas Friedman exhorts us to imagine the future [1] - we urge marketers to invent the future, to learn the future faster, and to deliver the future earlier. Marketers are asked to develop scenarios about emerging technologies such as broadband wireless but more often than not have no education or training in scenario planning. Also marketers are often stuck in a strategic planning mindset based on successful replication of past marketing strategies. Strategic management and marketing learning has ventured into futures and foresight methodologies, but with strong focus on conventional macroscopic high-level scenario planning methods.This paper positions scenario planning as a method to express the future vision, both tacit and explicit, of business, products and services in a clear succinct story form, to underpin all elements of a marketing strategy (goals, position and execution). The scenario planning for marketing action (SPMA) model is introduced and discussed incorporating eight principles: moderation and time compression; storytelling led new product and service development; customer orientation; iterative dynamic scenarios; complexity science to foster non-linear thinking; risk weighted scenarios; participant hosted scenario workshops; springboard consolidation.The SPMA method was proven and evolved within postgraduate Executive education courses in Sydney and Bangkok from 2003 to 2007. This approach is fundamental for marketers to gain competences in “learning the future faster”, thus possessing capabilities to imagine and invent the future and deliver the future earlier.     

A Trusteeship Theory of Accounting for Natural Capital Assets

One of the problems encountered in implementing accrual accounting in the government sector is that of accounting for natural capital assets provided freely to government and which are used as public goods. Professional accounting standards require that these assets be valued and included in the government's statement of assets and liabilities. The problem is not encountered in business accrual accounting because business neither acquires assets freely nor provides services to the public on a non-commercial basis.
Various issues surrounding accrual accounting for natural capital assets used as public goods are examined in this article. The nature and characteristics of such assets, and the distinctions between private goods and public goods markets, are first explained to set the context for examination of the issues. Then the issues as to whether natural capital assets should be treated as assets for accounting purposes and included in the government's statement of financial position are analysed according to FASB standards; it is concluded that they are not assets. Rather, it is proposed that these assets used for the provision of non-commercial services to the public should be treated in a separate category as public goods assets which are held in trust by the government on behalf of the nation, for the benefit of current and future generations and for the preservation of the natural ecology of the nation. Commercial valuations are not relevant for these assets and they need not be valued in financial terms for their good management.     

Personality Types and Career Patterns: Some Empirical Evidence on Holland's Model

Using John Holland's theory of career development, the paper tests nine hypotheses about the role of personality type in individuals' career choices, career mobility, and career satisfaction. Data were collected from 964 accountants on the impact that personality type has on the following dependent variables: entry into the occupation; satisfaction with vocational choice; job satisfaction; professional commitment; opportunities to develop friendships at work; co-operation with co-workers; tenure in the profession; and intention to change professions. The data suggest that personality type is significantly related to job satisfaction, satisfaction with vocational choice, and professional commitment but has much less impact on entry into the occupation, opportunities to develop friendships at work, co-operation with co-workers, tenure in the profession, and intentions to change professions. Résumé En utilisant la théorie de John Holland sur les plans de carrière, cette étude examine neuf hypothèses relatives au rǒle de la personnalité dans le choix de carrière de l'individu, sa mobilité professionnelle, et sa satisfaction au travail. Les données furent recueillies auprès de 964 comptables pour étudier l'impact du type de personnalité sur les variables dépendantes suivantes: entrée dans la profession: degré de satisfaction du choix de carrière; possibilités de faire des nouvelles amitiés au travail: coopération avec les collègues; permanence; intention de changer de profession. Les données indiquent que le type de personnalité est étroitement lié au degré de satisfaction professionnelle, à la satisfaction quant au choix de carrière, et au dévouement professionnel mais a beaucoup moins d'impact sur le choix de carrière, les nouvelles amitiés développées au travail, la coopération avec les collègues, la permanence, et l'intention de changer de profession.     

Accounting for Management and Managing Accounting: Reflections on Recent Changes in the UK

This paper uses data derived from interviews carried out in a number of UK companies to explore the extent to which management concerns are driven by accounting practices, and also how accounting practices are mediated by the views that managers have of the role of accounting. The paper also analyses accounts given by UK managers of the ways in which changes in accounting are being managed. Two specific issues relating to accounting change are examined: (1) the impact of new information technology on accounting change, and (2) the competition between accounting and alternative bodies of expertise as mechanisms for change. In studying accounting in the context of wider organizational change, the paper focuses on a number of distinct, yet related, themes: (1) management accounting’s power to reinvent itself; (2) the interface between management accounting practices and employee empowerment (as one example of ‘new’ management practices); and, (3) contradictions in using management accounting calculi to facilitate the ‘new’ organization.     

银行资产证券化选择问题

作为一种融资方式 ,资产证券化被银行用作流动性管理和资本管理的工具 ,本文建立了一个简单模型用以描述银行出于这种管理目的而进行资产证券化的选择问题。模型结果显示 ,随着流动性冲击相对于因信用冲击产生资本需求而增大 ,银行选择资产证券化融资方式的成本满足条件逐渐变得相对宽松。尽管资产证券化可以作为资本管理的一种工具 ,但是由于与附属债务融资相比同等数量的证券化只能降低部分资本需求因而其作用效果相对有限。如果证券化的是不良资产 ,由于银行要冲销不良资产损失致使证券化的成本条件相对变得更加严格。利用 1992年至 2 0 0 0年间美国银行控股公司的资产证券化数据对模型所得结论进行检验的结果显示 ,资产证券化数量的变化与流动性冲击紧密相随 ,说明证券化是一种流动性管理工具。我们没有发现支持证券化作为资本管理工具的经验证据。     

The skilled revolt against general unionism: the case of the BL Toolroom Committee

During the 1970s, the position of craft workers became increasingly acute: their traditional differentials over semi-skilled and unskilled workers were eroded to an unprecedented degree; and their privileged position within their trade unions was weakened. Here Hugh Scullion examines developments through a case study of the BL Toolroom Committee.