Increasing returns and the share economy

Under imperfect competition, profit maximization by firms results in the market price exceeding the marginal cost of production; Weitzman terms this “excess supply” Weitzman wishes to replicate in the cost function (in terms of labor) the properties of the revenue function (in terms of output), thus generating “excess demand” for labor. A revenue-sharing scheme will achieve this if and only if there are decreasing returns to scale. Hence increasing returns apparently play no role in Weitzman's analysis.     

Informational Networks, Entrepreneurial Action and Performance

This paper develops a model that incorporates personal and business networks, firm action, and performance based on the existing literature. It explores the links between information and entrepreneurial-type action, and action and performance. Survey data was collected from a sample of 100 manufacturing firms in Thailand. Results show that entrepreneurs value the information they receive from their networks. However, there is little statistical support for tangible links between personal or business networks and entrepreneurial action and performance, or between action and performance.     

A decade of hybrid reporting and accountabilities of the Hanyeping Company (1909–1919)

Using a model of hybrid reporting and accountabilities, this article considers the reporting and accountability of the Hanyeping Company in the Beiyang era. The results of the study suggest that the Hanyeping Company attempted to provide comprehensive accounts of its activities to satisfy the needs of a plethora of domestic and foreign stakeholders through a combination of detailed Western and Chinese accounts. In keeping with Western and indigenous Chinese expectations of accounting, the Hanyeping Company prepared accounts that demonstrated characteristics of Auyeung’s demonstrated features of nineteenth-century Westernised reporting and the traditional reporting model. This suggests that the period between 1909 and 1919 experienced a decade of reporting hybridisation in direct contrast to the so-called period of accounting stagnation of the late Qing Dynasty.     

Regulated firms in pollution permit markets with banking

This paper examines a competitive intertemporal market for bankable emission permits, such as sulfur dioxide allowances. Without profit regulation, firms are willing to bank permits if permit prices rise over time with the rate of interest, but will not bank if prices rise more slowly.The market achieves aggregate emission targets at least total cost if there is no profit regulation, but may not do so if firms are subject to profit regulation. Firms must arbitrage differences both in abatement cost and in the regulatory treatment of permits to achieve least total cost.The impetus for this work came from research we initiated during the Summer of 1990 for the Energy Information Agency. We would like to thank Chuck Howe for his detailed comments and enthusiasm, and Jim Alm, Dave Bjornstad, Charles deBartolome, Mike Greenwood, Robert Hahn, Douglas Hale, Carolyn Lang, Jim Markusen, Edward Morey, Till Requate, and Tom Tietenberg. We are grateful to the editor and two anonymous referees for stressing the importance of regulation in these markets and for their helpful and clarifying advice.     

Developing a conceptual framework for slow travel: a grounded theory approach

This paper discusses the sociocultural phenomenon of slow travel and explores and clarifies definitional issues. The 30-year-plus antecedents of slow travel are examined. A literature review shows a concentration on four key features: slowness and the value of time; locality and activities at the destination; mode of transport and travel experience; and environmental consciousness. Links to the slow food and slow city movements are discussed, and evidence that slow travel is an important emergent form of tourism in Europe, accounting for 10% of the holiday market, is provided. A grounded theory approach continues the exploration, involving 23 in-depth interviews with practitioners and academics, which revealed that their core requirements for slow travel centred on slowness, the travel experience and environmental consciousness. There was a lack of consensus about the eligibility of car travel and high-speed rail. Slow travel is seen as a group of associated ideas rather than as a watertight definition; it is a mindset about travel rather than a tangible product and concentrates on lack of speed rather than slowness per se. The conclusion shows it to be a growing part of the sustainable tourism paradigm and proposes a working definition of slow travel.     

Time-Based Management of the New Product Development Process

This study explored the problem of compressing new product development by focusing on the specific phases of the innovation process. These phases manifest significant qualitative differences that require attention for understanding the complexities of accelerating new product development. Based on data from 35 high-technology companies, Necmi Karagozoglu and Warren Brown identified several different acceleration methods. Results revealed unexpected and at times inconsistent insights than those reflected in the case study and anecdotally based literature, and implied also that some of the well documented approaches to successful new product development need to be replaced with their time-based versions.     

Ten Years of IFRS: Practitioners’ Comments and Suggestions for Research

A growing body of research is evaluating the widespread adoption of IFRS. The aim of this paper is to link the findings of academic research with feedback from practitioners about whether the hoped‐for benefits of adoption are being realised. In addition, we present comments from practitioners about IFRS research and we identify areas that may be usefully explored in future research. Our review complements the papers included in part one of this forum (Australian Accounting Review, September 2012), which describe events in the development of global standards over the last 10 years.     

Agonizing over engagement: SEA and the “death of environmentalism” debates

Social and environmental accounting (SEA) is currently going through a period of critical self-analysis. Fundamental questions are being raised about how SEA should be defined, who should be doing the defining, and if, how and whom it should engage. We attempt to enrich these debates by drawing on the political philosophy of agonistic pluralism and a set of debates about engagement within the environmental movement – “the death of environmentalism” debates. We set forth the “Death” debates and, in doing so, contextualize and theorize the contested nature of SEA engagement using agonistic pluralism. In contrast to consensually oriented approaches to SEA, the desired outcome is not necessarily resolution of ideological differences but to imagine, develop, and support democratic processes wherein these differences can be recognized and engaged. We construe the “Death” debates as illustrative of the contestable practical and political issues facing both SEA and progressive social movements generally, demonstrating the range of deliberations necessary in contemplating effective engagement programs. The SEA community, and civil society groups, can benefit from the more overtly political perspective provided by agonistic pluralism. By surfacing and engaging with various antagonisms in this wider civic sphere, SEA can more effectively respond to, and move beyond, traditional politically conservative, managerialist discourses.     

Communication about a communication technology

As genetically modified (GM) products approach the market stage, the UK government and agro-food industry have faced a suspicious or hostile public. Since 1998 many retail chains have undertaken to exclude any GM-derived ingredients from their own-brand lines. This commercial blockage has intensified pressures for greater precaution, even for a moratorium on cultivating GM crops. Political protest has led to strategies for precautionary commercialization. Government and industry have cooperated to plan a ‘managed development’ of GM crops. Across the agricultural supply chain, industry has devised voluntary guidelines to ensure segregation of GM crops and to limit the spread of GM herbicide-tolerance. In particular UK regulators seek to test the risk that broad-spectrum herbicide sprays could damage wildlife habitats; they have broadened the advisory expertise accordingly. These measures open up the precautionary content to further debate, at both national and EU levels. Market-stage precautions establish a means to test claims that GM crops are environmentally-friendly products. By translating public concerns into broader risk-assessment criteria, the UK procedure involves critics in potentially influencing standards of scientific evidence and environmental harm. This social process has become a prerequisite for legitimizing commercial use.     

Resolving the exposure puzzle: The many facets of exchange rate exposure

Theory predicts sizeable exchange rate (FX) exposure for many firms. However, empirical research has not documented such exposures. To examine this discrepancy, we extend prior theoretical results to model a global firm's FX exposure and show empirically that firms pass through part of currency changes to customers and utilize both operational and financial hedges. For a typical sample firm, pass-through and operational hedging each reduce exposure by 10–15%. Financial hedging with foreign debt, and to a lesser extent FX derivatives, decreases exposure by about 40%. The combination of these factors reduces FX exposures to observed levels.