Tracking innovation: The need for reliable measures of its presence and effects

It is generally accepted that innovation is an essential ingredient of corporate success and, when pervasive, strengthens the economy while warding off foreign competition. Many point to a perceived weakening of this process in U.S. firms as a contributing factor to the steady decline of productivity growth vital to our nation's stability. They clamor for government programs to encourage technical venturing, embracing the “R & D hypothesis” which declares that privately sponsored research is the wellspring of innovation, and thus the key to a producer's prosperity — leading to more vigorous industries.In response, Washington is seeking ways to spur private spending on R & D during this era of diminished Federal backing for research. Such initiatives are handicapped by a lack of data establishing the existence and extent of the apparent slump in industrial creativity. Also there is scant information available to management that demonstrates a close correlation between fortunes of the firm and activities characterized as innovations. Without such evidence, business appears reluctant to abandon its cautious attitude towards support of R & D that cannot be readily commercialized.Little is known about innovation's economic impact or bearing on the survival of an enterprise. The connection between industrial research and the launch of desirable products is too abstruse to permit the assumption that in-house R & D inevitably spawns viable innovations. We do not have data which permit rational decisions for the effective management of innovation by firms, or the design of a workable model for the process. This information gap has a deleterious effect in industries traditionally dependent upon research, and leads to strategies — aimed at fostering innovation — that are inadequate, badly timed or ill conceived.An innovation stems from a series of management decisions motivated by the quest for profits and tempered by industry conditions — government incentives notwithstanding. Companies pay for R & D which promises revenues that would not otherwise appear, and back a new product when the expected return is comparable to that from less risky alternative investments. They require an easily administered method for verifying, in accounting terms, the outcome of an innovation so its contribution to profits can be contrasted with the yield from product improvements or line extensions. Management could then weigh a proposed innovation the same way it evaluates other commitments.Authors of public policy need to monitor the pace of innovation on a regional or national scale so that they can determine when stimulants are called for — to restore this activity to the desired level. The traditional indices of innovation's intensity are imprecise, and misleading if the purpose be to identify a trend. “R & D expenditures” must be viewed with circumspection for they are not always incurred in pursuit of innovations, especially with increasing outlays for compliance with government regulations. “Patents awarded” or “technical articles published” are scant proof of seminal activity, and “government contracts awarded” is not a useful statistic. A true “index of innovation” is needed to guide public policy — one founded on data tied to the launching of products.In conclusion, this article suggests a technique for quantifying innovation inside the firm, as a planning tool of management and to provide the data base for a meaningful “index of innovation”. It describes the index, to be derived from data reported by a representative sample of geographically dispersed companies. A procedure is outlined for generating such data in firms, collecting it by a central authority, and calculating the index.     

Cost of hospital care for elderly at risk of falling

The variables that relate to cost of hospital care for a large sample of elderly patients at risk for falling are examined. The chief predictors of cost of hospitalization were medical, pharmacy, and nursing interventions. Use of nursing interventions, on average, raised the median hospital cost less than use of medical or pharmacy interventions. Using a standardized nursing language with the hospital's information system can provide nurses with information that demonstrates the cost effectiveness of their interventions.     

Mortgage lending,monetary policy,and prudential measures in small euro‐area economies: Evidence from Ireland and the Netherlands

This paper examines whether the increased use of macroprudential policies since the global financial crisis has affected the impact of (euro‐area and foreign) monetary policy on mortgage lending in Ireland and the Netherlands, which are both small open economies in the euro area. Using quarterly bank‐level data on domestic lending in both countries for 2003–2018, we find that restrictive euro‐area monetary policy shocks reduce the growth of mortgage lending. We find evidence that stricter domestic prudential regulation mitigates this effect in Ireland, but not so in the Netherlands. There is some weak evidence for an international bank lending channel that can be mitigated by stricter lender‐based domestic prudential regulation.     

Editorial proximity equals publication success: A function of rational self-interest or good-faith economy?

This paper inquires into a recent finding that shows that proximity to the editor of a top accounting journal significantly increases one's chances of publishing in that journal. Three explanations are provided for this finding—two based on ‘rational self-interest’ and one on the ‘good-faith economy’. These explanations are further considered in light of interview data collected from individuals who worked in the same social space as these editors. While the first two of these explanations align themselves with the field's dominant methodological assumptions they alone do not fully describe actual practice in this field. Indeed, to the extent that this field's actors ignore or discount the third, good-faith explanation the field abrogates its scientific commitment to truth-seeking and objectivity, putting its faith instead in a naïve and potentially damaging vision of human behavior.     

Lessons from the field: reflecting on a tourism research journey around the ‘celtic’ periphery

The challenge within the tourism academy to acknowledge the situated nature of knowledge within the research process is intensifying. Drawing on a multidisciplinary body of reflexive narratives and recent work in tourism that acknowledges the personal influences that construct knowledges, this paper embraces this challenge by offering an autobiographic narration of field work in Ireland, Scotland and Cornwall. Food tourism is employed as a conceptual vehicle to pursue a more culturally focused, critical tourism investigation, thereby contributing to work that extends tourism research beyond the sphere of management and business. Drawing on research involving in-depth interviews with (food) tourists and participant observation, it is suggested that tourism knowledge is constructed at the micro-level, directly shaped by seemingly insignificant or overlooked moments. The paper illustrates how personal aspects of field work (gender, age, ethnicity, personal insecurity, loneliness and physical demands), combined with overcoming more practical issues (weather and transport logistics), should inform the contextual foundations of any empirical research; it from these moments where tourism knowledge is truly cultivated. Underpinned by qualitative methodological literature within a framework of critical realism, it urges others to embark upon a similar reflexive journey in order to develop tourism research into a robust sphere of academic enquiry.     

The sign value of accounting: IMF structural adjustment programs and African banking reform

This paper examines an IMF structural adjustment program and the role of accounting technologies and agents within that program. Focusing on banking sector reform in Nigeria, the paper shows how IMF attempts to remake economic life come up against formidable contextual challenges, and how accounting may or may not be taken up to confront those challenges. Specifically, it shows that even where accounting numbers are ‘managed’, the potential disciplinary power of accounting's system of signs remains, though again that power may not be exploited if those who are responsible for governing lack the necessary desire. The study's findings challenge two sets of understandings: that which sees the economy as somehow separate or distinct from the wider socio-political field, and that which sees crises such as occurred in Nigeria as simply resulting from inadequate or insufficient accounting regulations and controls.     

Transformation,meaning-making and identity creation through folklore tourism: the case of the Robin Hood Festival

Folklore tourism is often regarded as a subset of heritage tourism, although it has received less attention than comparable heritage events based on documented historic events such as civil war re-enactments and living history sites. Although the ‘theming’ of landscapes and the journeying to places based on their literary association enjoys a long tradition, this paper focuses on the relationship between tourism and folklorism. It explores how folklore events appropriate contemporary and social interpretations of stories to entertain whilst also outlining how legendary historical personalities can play a role in generating tourism. In 2013, a constructivist methodology was employed using 20 in-depth interviews and participant observations to generate qualitative data at the Robin Hood Festival in Nottinghamshire, UK. Numerous themes emerged after coding including the way folklore events blend historic fact and fiction, the power of the imagination to create spaces, and the importance of natural settings and spaces to transform people and places. However, three dominant themes emerged which are specifically presented in this paper, these are: (a) a sense of freedom and escape felt by participants, (b) camaraderie and inter-personal social authenticity and (c) the transformation of self and creation of alternative (additional) social identities.