Conformity and diversity of accounting and financial reporting practices in Portuguese local government

Portuguese governmental accounting has evolved from essentially a cash‐based budgetary accounting system to an accrual‐based financial and cost accounting system. Evidence from financial reports shows a great level of diversity amongst municipalities' voluntary compliance with the new accounting rules. Using a sample of Portuguese municipalities in the year 2003 we calculate and analyse the levels of compliance with the practices required by law and document the diversity in compliance across municipalities. The differences across municipalities are explained by some fundamental factors: size, financial conditions, urban characteristics, and diffusion across neighbouring municipalities. We show an unexpected effect of size. Larger municipalities comply less with accounting standards. Organizational complexity, conservative practices, and aversion to change may explain this result. Copyright © 2007 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The image of the Third World in tourism marketing

The disparity between advertised image and reality has long been of interest to geographers concerned with settlers to or travelers in a new land. The new persistence of distortion is clearly manifest in the surprise and dismay that international tourists frequently experience when traveling in developing countries. The tourism industry continues to portray these places as “paradise,” “unspoiled,” “sensuous,” or other distortions, presumably to compensate for the obvious poverty beyond the hotel or sightseeing bus. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the inability of the tourism industry to represent destinations as real places. Themes and biases in advertisements, travel journalism, and the travel trade press are examined. It is maintained that the use of distorted imagery has adverse impact on the quality of the visitor's experience and on the receiving society. The disparity in image is increasingly assailed by local and foreign critics of mass tourism, yet public administrators are reluctant to force modification of the message. Some alternatives, including information and advertisements already in use, are presented.     

An Economic Evaluation of Crop Rotations in Southwestern Saskatchewan

This study reports on an economic analysis of twelve crop rotations considered feasible for southwestern Saskatchewan. The results suggest that producers in this region should consider selecting a more intensive cropping system than has been the tradition. The three-year fallow-wheat-wheat rotation with recommended rates of nitrogen and phosphorus (N and P) fertilizers provided the highest expected net returns under most reasonable input cost and product price assumptions. Expected net returns for the traditional two-year wheat rotation and for the continuous wheat rotation averaged about 24 percent lower. The application of recommended rates of N fertilizer increased expected net farm income for the three-year and continuous wheat rotations by 6.6 and 10.5 percent, respectively. Use of P fertilizer in the three-year wheat rotation increased expected net farm income by an average of 20.6 percent. Average production costs increased as the proportion of summerfallow in the rotation decreased. Break-even stubble /fallow yield ratios that provided equivalent net returns from stubble and fallow cropping averaged 64 percent for the three-year wheat rotation and 76 percent for the continuous wheat rotation. Annual income variability was greatest for the continuous crop rotations and lowest for the two-year wheat rotation. Cette étude résume l'analyse économique de douze rotations de cultures jugées viables dans le Sud-Ouest de la Saskatchewan. Les résultats suggérent que les producteurs de cette région ont avanlage à considérer un systéme de production plus intensif que de par le passé. Les meilleurs revenus nets anticipés pour la plupart des suppositions raisonables des coúts de production et des prix des den rées furent accomptis avec la rotation de trois ans jachére-blé-bléfertilisée selon les recommendations en S et P. Les revenues nets anticipés avec la rotation traditionnelle de blé de deux ans (jachére-blé) et la rotation de blé continu furent en moyenne approximativement 24 pour-cent plus bas que la meilleure rotation. L'emploi d'engrais azotés aux taux recommendés augmenta le revenu net anticipé de 6,6 pour-cent pour la rotation de blé de trois ans et de 10.5 pour-cent pour la rotation de blé continu. L'amendement du sol en phosphate augmenta le revenu net anticipé de 20.6 pour-cent dans la rotation de blè de trois ans. Les coúrts deproduction augmentirènt à mesure que la proportion de Ierre en jachire duns la rotation diminuait. Les taux d'èquilibre des rendemenis chaume/jachire produisant des revenus nets equivalentr pour la culture sur le chaume el la jachire furenl en moyenne 64 pour-cent pour la rotation de blè de trois ans et 76 pour-cent pour la rotation de blè continu. La variabilite du revenu annuel fut la plus grande pour les rotations de culiures continues el la plus foible pour la rotation de blè de deux ans.     

A French model of craft training: its strategic relevance and recruitment issues for a UK firm

This paper is a study of the recruitment to the first version of the International Journeyman Programme (IJP), a project to recruit and train young workers from the north-east of England for a craft and technician training programme in engineering organized by a French trade guild, Les Compagnons du Devoir (CdD). The initial version of the project was unsuccessful and the paper highlights the role played by UK state agencies and institutions in the recruitment process in the project's lack of success. The paper examines the strategic relevance of a model of French craft training to a UK firm, describes that system of training and development, and analyses the recruitment difficulties faced by the IJP organizers when they attempted to launch the programme. The study finds that key elements of the UK VET system have severe problems in delivering high-skills training, and that there are in-built structural barriers that limit the extent to which such training can be easily imported.     

Impact of Network Position and Knowledge Diversity on Knowledge Creation: The Empirical Setting of Research Communities

We examined the role of network position and knowledge diversity as related to new knowledge creation within a network of 239 academics from business administration departments at four universities. Analyses of their 1,827 publications involving 1,541 coauthors between 1986 and 2008 revealed an inverse U‐shaped relationship between network centrality and knowledge creation. Moreover, knowledge diversity positively moderated the association between centrality and the quality of the knowledge created, but negatively moderated the centrality‐knowledge quantity relationship. Copyright © 2012 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Leaning Tower of Pizza: A Business Start‐up

The following take‐out pizzeria restaurant simulation highlights the information sources that an entrepreneur can use to prepare a cash budget and financial forecast for a new business venture. Based on the information contained in this simulation, students make a capital budgeting decision and prepare pro forma financial statements.     

Does the origin of a succession CEO matter in the market value of innovation? Disentangling the origin of internal CEOs

This study complements previous research regarding CEO origin and family businesses by incorporating upper echelons theory with the perspective of family effect as well as disentangling CEO origin to provide a better understanding of how external, unrelated internal, and family succession CEOs affect innovation performance. We further reveal how a family founder helps improve the value of innovations undertaken by family heirs. The results show that firms with unrelated internal succession CEOs experience higher (lower) stock market reactions to innovation announcements than those with family (external) succession CEOs. Founders serving on the board reduce the negative effect between family heirs and innovation performance. Copyright © 2016 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Information Quality of Interim Financial Statements

Expressing concern about the Canadian capital market environment, Boritz (2006) suggested that the accounting and auditing profession may be paying limited attention to quarterly reports. This study investigates whether fourth‐quarter adjustments are significantly different from the previous three, thereby limiting the reliability or faithful representation of the firms' results for each quarter. This study includes four years (2003–2006) of quarterly financial information of 353 Canadian public companies. Our results indicate that the volatility of net income in each of the first three quarters is considerably lower than in the final quarter. While lower volatility can improve predictability, the resulting relevance may be limited. The low volatility of reported earnings in the first three quarters suggests that either earnings management is taking place or that management may not be exercising sufficient care at the end of each of the first three quarters on the measurements that generally accepted accounting principles call for and readers of financial statements expect. This could result in quarterly financial statements that do not faithfully represent the underlying resources and obligations of the reporting firms at the end of the quarter, or the firm's performance during the quarter. Our findings support Boritz's proposition for increased audit requirements for interim reports and changes in the approach to the annual audit to integrate it more closely with interim financial reporting.     

Evidence of Manager Intervention to Avoid Working Capital Deficits

We study managers’ interventions in financial reporting by examining working capital deficits, measured as current ratios less than 1.0. Current ratios represent important balance sheet liquidity indicators to lenders and creditors, and have an identifiable and naturally occurring reference point at 1.0, analogous to the profit/loss income statement reference point. We find that distributions of reported current ratios of both U.S. and non‐U.S. firms exhibit a discontinuity at 1.0. For U.S. firms, we find that the discontinuity increases with exogenous increases in the cost of credit in the economy, and that determinants of the likelihood to achieve a given current ratio are diagnostic precisely at the 1.0 discontinuity location but not at other nearby locations in the current ratio distribution. U.S. firms that avoid working capital deficits report lower proportions of inventory and higher proportions of accounts receivable in current assets and, when credit is tight, higher proportions of cash, consistent with managers increasing sales volume so as to capitalize profit margins and thereby increase current assets. For non‐U.S. firms, the discontinuity is more pronounced for observations from common law countries, a proxy for jurisdictions where financial reports are more intended to provide decision‐useful information. The evidence suggests that managers intervene to achieve a balance sheet reporting objective that stems from stakeholder use of reference points.     

U.S. tourist destinations: A history of desirability

This study supplies a ranking of the most desirable tourist destinations for US travelers from 1907 through 1980, as gauged from a content analysis of travel-related advertisements appearing in two national magazines; Harper's Monthly and National Geographic. The amount of advertising space that features each destination is calculated, and from these totals the rankings of desirable destinations are derived. Maps and accompanying narrative give external validity to the content analysis, while use of consistent coding forms provides reliability. Listings of frequently visited areas accompany each map and narrative, and these in turn generally agree with those developed from the advertisements.