I suppose you think that's funny! The role of humour in corporate learning events

This paper examines the uses of humour among participants in five bank training programmes in the UK. These programmes, run by the banks themselves, were studied using ethnographic methods and the observations reported here are based upon extensive field notes. The paper examines the ways in which participants deployed humour during these learning events and the role humour played in the management of their relations with their fellow learners and the course instructors. The course instructors' use of humour is also examined. It is argued that humour played a far from trivial role in the programmes studied. On the contrary, humour was vital to their maintenance as viable organizational practices. In conclusion it is suggested that the more systematic study of humour could make an important contribution to the understanding of the social realities of corporate training programmes.     

The impacts of large trades by trader types on intraday futures prices: Evidence from the Taiwan Futures Exchange

We find that China's P/E ratio is comparable to that of the U.S. S&P 1500 index, a broad based index covering large, middle, and small capitalization firms. We provide an explanation as to why China's seemingly low P/E ratio is not surprising in light of the economic growth that it has experienced. Specifically, we show that (i) the P/E ratio is negatively associated with earnings volatility in both the Chinese and U.S. stock markets with an economically significant magnitude; and (ii) historical earnings volatility is considerably higher in China than in the U.S. Higher earnings volatility in China offsets higher growth prospect in setting the P/E ratio, making its P/E ratio much closer to what is observed empirically than otherwise implied by its growth rate.     

New development: Local government ethics in England: how is local ownership working?

With the abolition of the Audit Commission and the Standards Board for England, and the emphasis in the Localism Act 2011 on local ownership in England for standards, research was undertaken into a group of councils to assess their legislative compliance arrangements and the development of organizational ethical cultures. The research argues that the delivery of the former is a work-in-progress and that there is little evidence of the latter.     

Using Pacioli’s pedagogy and medieval text in today’s introductory accounting course

Students today see little relevance in learning double-entry bookkeeping and find it difficult to learn how to prepare journal entries correctly. In particular, they struggle with the first stage of the double-entry process: identifying which accounts are to be debited and which are to be credited for each transaction. This paper reports on an attempt to overcome this situation by using the first printed instructional text on the subject (Pacioli, 1494) as the principal textbook on a 20-hour component of the introductory financial accounting course in an undergraduate accounting degree program. Instruction followed the pedagogy presented by Pacioli and only minimal additional costs to faculty were incurred.     

Strategic Sequential Bidding for Government Land Auction Sales – Evidence from Singapore

This paper studies the extent to which equilibrium land auction prices are pushed up sequentially due to strategic bidding behaviors in government land auction sales. Using a unique dataset that covers the universe of tendering prices submitted by all developers for all residential land auction sales in Singapore, we find that a tenderer’s bids are significantly higher where there was a previous land parcel sold within two years and located within four kilometers. The identified price margin decreases with time and geographic distance. Tracking sequential bids submitted by the same developer over time, we find that the incumbent winner of a previous auction is more likely to participate in subsequent nearby land sales as compared to the second-highest bidder of the same auction. However, it does not necessarily win the subsequent sites. We argue that the incumbent deliberately bids up the subsequent land prices to gain pricing advantages to their own parcels.