Dynamische Wertprobleme

Ohne ZusammenfassungAus dem Schwedischen übersetzt von J. Morgenstern, Wien     

Financial Accounting Reform in Flemish Universities: An Empirical Study of the Implementation

This paper presents an overview of the current accounting reform towards accrual accounting in Flemish universities. The focus is on the concept of the reformed accounting legislation and on the empirical outcomes of implementation based on an examination of annual accounts. An important issue is the unsuccessful mixing up of the traditional budgetary accounting system with the new financial accounting system. The empirical examination reveals a lot of accounting problems in the area of the reformed regulations as well as in the accounting practices and that the comparability of the annual reporting is not guaranteed even after years of experience.     

Optimal Insurance With Costly Internal Capital

We introduce costly internal capital into a standard insurance model, in which a risk‐averse policyholder buys insurance from a risk‐neutral insurer with limited liability. The unique optimal contract and internal capital lead to a strictly positive probability for insurer default. Some risks are uninsurable in that the insurer chooses not to provide insurance against such risks. An increase in the cost of capital may lead to a higher optimal amount of internal capital. The results extend to multiple policyholders in a symmetric setting. Our extension of the classical model to include costly internal capital provides a fruitful approach to many real world insurance markets.     

Who performs marketing? Dimensions of agential variation in market practice

Recently, there has been a renewed academic interest in marketing practice. To capture the practical performance of marketing, however, a re-conceptualization of marketing practitioners is needed. To this end we explore how to characterize those who perform marketing. Working abductively by combining previous ideas on the constitution of economic agents with two longitudinal case studies of Swedish retail trade, we identify general dimensions of agential variation in three areas: in the constitution of agents, i.e. in how agents are put together/what agents are made of; in their programs of actions, i.e. the motives, interests and/or functions ascribed to agents; and in their capacities, i.e. in what market agents are capable of. We then trace implications of the observed heterogeneity of market practitioners for marketing.     

Preferences with and without prices - does the price attribute affect behavior in stated preference surveys?

The experimental as well as the non-market valuation literature include several examples of how an introduced price can affect behavior in otherwise not expected ways. It has become standard to include a price vector as an attribute in choice experiments, something that enables us to estimate a marginal willingness to pay for other attributes. We test the impact on preferences by an inclusion of a price in a choice experiment. Preferences are affected, as might be expected. However, also the relative ranking of individual attributes is affected.      

Shaping sustainability: Is there an unreleased potential in utopian thought?

This article develops from the argument that sustainable development primarily will be restricted to rhetorical discourse if the utopian dimension of politics and planning is neglected. I will firstly discuss what is typical for utopian thought in general as well as its potential role in politics and planning. Secondly, I will briefly explore of the contemporary politics of sustainable development with the focus on its utopian dimensions, and thirdly, I will also comment on the different kinds and forms of utopian thought that should be relevant for sustainability projects on different levels. My conclusions are that the utopian language is flourishing in many of the discourses on sustainable development, especially in comparison to other fields of politics, but that the role of utopian thought in this area needs to be reflected on and more thoroughly recognized in the practical endeavors taken in this area.     

Erratum: VOL.6, NO.3, 1997

In this issue the paper entitled "The Greening of Industry for a Sustainable Future: Building an International Research Agenda", which appeared on pages 153-162, should have appeared immediately after the Greening of Industry Network Noticeboard.     

Swinging a double-edged sword: The effect of slack on entrepreneurial management and growth

Resource slack represents a double-edged sword, simultaneously fueling and hindering growth. Drawing on Penrose's growth theory and Stevenson's entrepreneurial management theory, we have developed and tested a conceptual model that provides a more nuanced account of the resource slack-growth relationship. Using a large dataset spanning six years, we have found that slack has a positive direct effect on growth but a negative effect on entrepreneurial management, and that entrepreneurial management has a positive effect on growth. Our empirical and conceptual findings are important to the development of firm growth theory and explicate causal mechanisms transforming slack into firm-level outcomes.