Client organizations and the management of professional agency work: The case of English health and social care

A growing reliance on agency workers can lead to significant risks for client organizations, especially in core organizational roles. It has been suggested while these risk can be mitigated through investments in human resource management (HRM) directed at agency workers, in reality these will be hard to implement. This article draws upon Lepak and Snell's (1999) HR architecture model and uses a comparative case study method to explore this issue, focusing on agency working in core nursing and qualified social worker roles. The findings illustrate how client organizations can become more involved in the management of agency workers than has previously been acknowledged. Our analysis also identifies the conditions that shape this client‐side involvement, including the nature of agency worker contracts, the role of temporary work agencies, competing organizational cost‐control priorities, and perceptions of the regulatory context. These conditions are brought together in a general model for understanding the largely neglected role that client organizations play in the HR management of agency workers.     

Moving Beyond The Clash of Interests: On stewardship theory and the relationships between central government departments and public agencies

Abstract

This paper analyses the relationships between central government departments and agencies through the lens of stewardship theory. Stewardship theory has been developed as an alternative to agency theory and focuses on shared goals and norms. The paper first shows how current regulations are strongly imbedded in agency theory and then proceed to analyse, on the basis of a survey and focus groups, how the problems experienced by public managers generally point to the relevance of stewardship. On this basis and with input from sixty public managers, a stewardship model for the relationships between agencies and central governments is developed.     

Do NPM-Type Reforms Lead to a Cultural Revolution Within Public Sector Organizations?

Abstract

Agencification and granting public sector organizations managerial autonomy in particular is believed to change organizational cultures, away from traditional compliance- and detail-oriented bureaucratic cultures and towards organizational cultures which are more oriented towards external customers. There is however very little empirical information on the relationship between managerial autonomy and organizational culture. Using a unique data set on public agencies in Flanders, we not only test how managerial autonomy affects the strength of a customer-oriented culture within public sectors but also examine whether this culture becomes dominant over traditional public administration culture. Analysis shows that managerial autonomy positively affects a customer-oriented culture; however, it does not make it a dominant culture.     

信用评级机构监管问题研究

此次金融危机中信用评级机构的拙劣表现表明,仅靠信用评级业的行业自律是不够的,信用评级机构应当被纳入金融监管的范畴。目前,我国信用评级机构所承载的社会功能尚未得到充分发挥,我国信用评级机构监管体系仍然存在诸多问题。借鉴发达国家的经验与教训,我国应建立健全信用评级法律法规体系,尽快明确信用评级的监管组织体系,制定信用评级行业的准入和退出机制,严格规范信用评级机构的执业行为,完善信用评级的认可机制,加强行业自律,进一步加强对信用评级机构的监管。     

Is it possible to be too risk averse? Considerations for financial management in the public sector

Within the financial management discipline, risk aversion is viewed as ‘secure’ and ‘responsible’. Yet, frequently risk aversion is associated with delays, failure to take action, decreased employee morale and stakeholder frustration. This article considers the role of risk aversion within the public sector and questions whether the risk-averse nature of the organization, coupled with risk-averse leaders can result in negative outcomes for the agency. The article concludes that while risk aversion is important, there are actions that a risk-averse leader can take to minimize the implications of risk-averse behaviour on the organization as a whole.     

建立控股股东、小股东、会计师事务所平衡的制度

通过建立控股股东、小股东、会计师事务所之间关系的模型分析,找出现行制度的不足,然后建立一个新的模型,从制度上修正其不足,从而在制度上达到控股股东、小股东、会计师事务所三方的平衡,保证会计师事务所的独立性,最终有利于我国资本市场的发展。     

Is there valuable private information in credit ratings?

Credit rating agencies (CRAs) contend their ratings contain a quantitative assessment based on hard information, and a qualitative adjustment based on private information. We study if the qualitative portion of ratings, generated with the companies’ own private information, contains valuable information for equity investors. We generate predicted ratings based on hard information alone and form portfolios of stocks based on the difference between observed and predicted ratings. Over a sample from 1998 to 2018, we find that stock portfolios formed on the basis of private information generate 2% to 4% in annual risk-adjusted returns. We also find that companies with positive private information have better future accounting performance. Our results suggest that CRAs bring valuable information to the market and investors could benefit from it.     

行政机关单位内部会计控制探讨

当前,行政机关单位的内部会计控制存在诸多问题,包括行政机关单位的内部会计控制失效,内部会计控制意识相对薄弱,执行力不够;制度不完善,缺乏有效控制;财务管理不受重视,缺乏有效监督。因此,加强和完善行政机关单位的内部会计控制,既有助于提高行政机关单位的运营管理能力,也有助于单位内部廉洁奉公之气的形成。     

An Estimation Model for the Term Structure of Yield Spread

An estimation model for term structure of yield spread has become an extremely important subject to evaluate securities with default risk. By Duffie and Singleton model, yield spread was explained by two factors, namely collection rate and default probability. An estimation of the collection rate is given from historical earnings data, but estimation of default probability is known to be a remaining problem.There are some approaches to express default probability. One of them is to describe it through hazard process, and the other is to represent it by risk neutral transition probability matrix of credit-rating class. Some models that use Gaussian type hazard process or Vasicek type hazard process have already constructed.An advantage of evaluation using a rating transition probability matrix is that it is easy to obtain an image of movement of the credit-rating class. We do not need to show the calculation basis of the threshold or an assumption for distribution of prospective yield spread. But the model that uses the risk neutral transition probability matrix has not established yet, because of the computational difficulty required to estimate large number of the parameters.At first, for the purposes of this article, we will estimate the term structure of credit spreads results from the possibility of future defaults. It is assumed that credit risk is specified as a discrete-state Markov chain. And we construct a model which can be used to estimate the baseline transition matrix of the credit-rating class, risk-adjusting factors, industrial drift factors, corporate drift factors and recovery ratio, from yield spreads for individual bond. This enables us to compute the implied term structure from market data. We are capable of computing the implied term structure from market date by this process. Next, we will provide a valuation model for the term structure of yield spread.     

国际信用评级体系改革进程及我国评级业发展展望

信用评级是解决金融市场信息不对称问题的重要途径之一,其在资本市场特别是债券市场运行中起着风险揭示、市场定价、防范信用风险等重要作用。长期以来,国际信用评级领域形成了以美国三大评级机构为主体的寡头垄断格局。本次国际金融危机和欧洲主权债务危机的爆发,凸显出现行国际信用评级体系存在的种种弊端。本文分析了现行国际信用评级体系所存在的缺陷,探讨了国际社会及我国政府为进一步完善国际信用评级体系所采取的措施、信用评级对我国商业银行的重要作用及应对建议。