Generic skills in accounting: perspectives of Chinese postgraduate students

This study examines Chinese accounting students’ perceptions of skills required for a professional accounting position in Australia and of the emphasis placed on skills during their postgraduate Master of Professional Accounting (MPA) course. The study is motivated by concerns about international students’ inadequate generic skills and their difficulty in securing professional employment. We find that Chinese students perceive ‘communication skills’ to be the most important for their professional employment in Australia, but at the same time they tend to overemphasise technical skills and underemphasise other desirable generic skills.     

Can money endogeneity be generalized? Empirical evidence from Caribbean economies

This study investigates the direction of causality between the money supply and reserve money for some selected Caribbean countries using recently developed techniques of causality tests. The findings suggest that neither money endogeneity nor money exogeneity can be generalized to all small, open economies. The causal patterns may differ according to whether the monetary arrangements of the countries follow either a fixed or flexible exchange rate regime. Moreover, this-study highlights the fact that a mixed bag of policies must be implemented by respective central banks to maintain macroeconomic stability.     

A quest for “transparency” in the Spanish timeshare market. What will EU Directive 94/47 bring?

Timeshare should be viewed more as a consumer product than as a real estate transaction. It is not, however, a single product. The many schemes may ultimately be grouped into two categories: proprietary and non-proprietary. In Spain, there are co-ownership formulas with access to the Land Registry and contractual schemes, mostly international, governed by the conflicts rules of the Rome Convention. As yet no final draft has been submitted to implement the new EU Directive 94/47. In the paper, special consideration is given to this Directive developed in the context of Article 100A and aimed at the completion of the internal market. It refers only to certain aspects of the timeshare contract — duties of disclosure and how they are carried out, and the “cooling-off” period with withdrawal rights — and, even in these cases, only minimum standard rules have been set up, leaving further regulation to individual states. Steps are to be taken by Member States to ensure that the protection afforded by the Directive is not lost by an exotic choice of law. Consumer protection should restore freedom of contract. Additional tourist information and local supervisory activities should increase the “transparency.”     

Human Resource Management Technology Diffusion through Global Supply Chains: Buyer-directed Factory-based Health Care in India

We examine the role that buyers in global supply chains play in helping vendors uncover productivity-enhancing labor management innovations. We report on a buyer-directed NGO-coordinated factory-based program targeting intestinal parasites and anemia in seven Bangalore apparel factories. Raw pre-post productivity comparisons were confounded by factory organizational changes that were implemented in anticipation of the termination of the Multi Fiber Arrangement (MFA). Using a difference-in-difference-in-difference (DDD) estimator, a full complement of medically appropriate treatment was found to increase individual productivity of anemic workers by 8% relative to non-anemic workers.     

Performance measurement and metric manipulation in the public sector

This paper explores the circumstances that influence whether managers in the public services manipulate the measurement information that is used to assess performance; and if they do, what level of deception they might use. The realistic evaluation approach is adopted. A Delphi survey and the collection of critical incidents through interviews are used to identify possible configurations of contexts–mechanisms–outcomes that provide possible explanations of information manipulation. A number of these configurations are discussed. In a later stage of the project these configurations will be further tested through another Delphi survey, with the intention of developing proposals for improved governance of performance measurement systems in the public services.     

Entry into the Schooling Market: How is the Behaviour of Private Suppliers Influenced by Public Sector Decisions?

This research examines the location choice of private schools entering the California schooling market in 1979–80. We find that entrants are more likely to locate in public school districts with lower levels of per–pupil expenditure and higher fractions of public school students who reside in low–income households. In addition, we provide evidence of differences in the responsiveness of different types of private schools to the underlying conditions. Also, in comparing our results to those of previous research, we find that the determinants of the location choices of entrants appear to be the same as the determinants of the location pattern of incumbent private schools.