How accounting academicians can use citation indexing and analysis for research

With the rapid increase in the accounting research arena over the past decade there has arisen the need for new tools to facilitate the research process. This paper presents citation indexing and analysis as two such tools. It presents some of the ways in which citation indexing and analysis have been used to perform scholarly research and it shows how citation indexing and analysis can be used for conducting historical research using a simplified accounting example.     

Behavioral agency and corporate entrepreneurship: CEO equity incentives & competitive behavior

Scholars have long studied drivers of entrepreneurial behavior among established firms. Yet little is known about how individual factors shape a firm’s choice to pursue entrepreneurship. We draw on behavioral agency theory to explore the role of equity incentives in driving corporate entrepreneurship. Our findings suggest CEOs avoid corporate entrepreneurial behaviors as their option wealth increases. However industry dynamics also prove to be an important contingency when predicting the effects of both restricted stock and stock options on the likelihood that the CEO engages in corporate entrepreneurship. Our findings provide a theoretical platform for predicting dimensions of entrepreneurial behavior and highlight effects of CEO equity ownership.

     

Duration gaps with futures and swaps for managing interest rate risk at depository institutions

Duration gaps for depository institutions are derived for economic net worth, economic net income, and book value interest income. The duration gaps previously constructed for on-balance sheet accounts are expanded to off-balance sheet accounts, including futures contracts and swap agreements. These expanded duration gaps are indicators of the sensitivity of the market value of net worth and income measures to interest rate fluctuations. Managers of depository institutions can establish these duration gaps as targets and can utilize futures markets and swap agreements to affect the target values. The developments in this article are based on a single factor model of interest rate movements, but the results can be extended.The work in this article is based partly on Bierwag and Kaufman (1989), a study prepared for and funded by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. We have benefited from comments of discussants and participants at presentations at HEC Jouy-en-Josas, the meetings of the European Finance Association, and seminars at the University of Delaware, Loyola University of Chicago, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Florida State University, and the University of Illinois, Chicago.     

Are we operating effectively? A lean analysis of operating theatre changeovers

Hospital operating theatres are a critical but costly resource in healthcare processes. Their efficiency and utilisation impact upon hospital finances, clinical effectiveness and patient outcomes. Operations management techniques have now been applied widely to optimise flow. An important challenge is to balance the needs of process flexibility, efficiency and work standardisation with clinical requirements. This paper applies operations management methods to analyse elective orthopaedic surgery at five international hospitals to describe the issues that affect operating theatre productivity. It utilises an innovative method of video analysis to observe patient changeovers over 29 days of surgery and data is analysed to understand the causes of variability and waste. The findings suggest that processes which are standardised via operations management methodologies can improve productivity in a process that exhibits wide variation in practice. There are apparent trade-offs associated with efficiency and clinical concerns such infection control, that lead to different standard process archetypes being utilised. Recommendations for standardising patient changeovers are provided.     

Response to Seitz and Tödter, 'How the P* Model Rationalizes Monetary Targeting: A Comment on Svensson'

Seitz and TÎdter argue, counter to Svensson, that the P * model provides a rationale for money-growth targeting. In particular, they argue that 'money growth targeting is a special form of inflation forecast targeting based on a "limited" information set. In contrast to "full information" inflation forecast targeting, money growth targeting is likely to be more robust under changing conditions of the real world'.
However, money-growth targeting is better described as a special case of inflation targeting, namely when money growth is considered to be the only predictor of future inflation. But there is overwhelming empirical evidence that there are not only other, but also better, predictors of future inflation than money growth, which makes inflation-forecast targeting superior to money-growth targeting. Inflation-forecast targeting is indeed more robust (in the sense of using available information and allowing judgemental adjustments in a flexible way) than monetary targeting.
In particular, in the P * model, the real money gap is a better predictor of future inflation than money growth, as demonstrated theoretically by Svensson and empirically by Gerlach and Svensson (the empirical finding is also confirmed by Trecroci and Vega). Therefore, inflation-forecast targeting is superior also within the P * model. Under `changing conditions of the real world', for instance after the formation of a monetary union, money growth is likely to be particularly unreliable as a predictor of future inflation, making monetary targeting especially unsuitable and non-robust.