Educating digital natives for the future: accounting educators’ evaluation of the accounting curriculum

The global digital revolution has irrevocably transformed societies and industries. The accounting profession is predicted to experience a significant change in the future, due to technological developments. Practices will be automated and related positions obsolete, thus accounting graduates need to be educated for new and different tasks and positions. The current study focussed on these expected changes and how accounting profession, practice and, consequently, education will be affected and adjusted to these new technologies in an evaluation approach. A qualitative methodology was employed, investigating accounting educators’ perceptions of these developments. Semi-structured interview data and online accessible empirical data, such as podcasts, were analysed in two coding cycles. The findings illustrate that while significant changes are expected, participants’ opinions vary regarding the necessity of adjusting the accounting curriculum. Supportive changes include amending respective courses to emphasise classic skills, such as problem-solving, and contemporary skills, such as new technologies, to illustrate developments practically.     

在进一步解放思想中深化改革

纵观世界历史,人类社会的进步总是由思想解放引领的。从思想的形成过程和人类自身的认知规律来看,人的思想总是会受到“内因”和“外因”的束缚,因此,需要打破阻碍或束缚人们准确认识客观现实的各种藩篱,使思想和实际相符合,使主观和客观相一致。中国四十年的改革开放史就是一部思想解放史。因为实现了“三个确立”,并且正在冲破“三个思维定势”,我们得以为中国经济起飞和持续发展提供不竭动力。进入新时代,解放思想必须实实在在地落到解决深层次问题上,需重点关注三个方面：一是推动中国理论体系发挥重大作用,二是完善符合中国实践的公平正义保障体系,三是发展构建命运共同体需要的新国际交往思维。     

银保协作、风险自留与银行信用风险补偿——基于银保信贷系统的分析视角

在分析风险自留的内生逻辑基础上,进一步分析风险自留实现银行信用风险补偿的内在机理。研究表明：银保信贷系统通过对贷款企业个体风险与事先设定的平均代偿风险的匹配性甄别,实现对银行信用风险的分级补偿功能。针对银行超预期信用风险,先行实施银行风险拨备机制对银行平均代偿风险进行补偿,然后实施超额风险自留机制对超过平均代偿风险的银行超额风险部分再次进行补偿,超额风险自留补偿基金将由银行与担保机构依据各自的风险均衡配置阈值占比共同筹集,以此来实现银行信用风险分级补偿目标。并以此为依据,设计了银保信贷系统风险自留机制。     

再谈环境保护税设置——基于两类竞争制造企业环保技术创新策略的演化博弈

利用演化博弈模型分析处在竞争的两类制造企业(在位企业和进入企业)的环保技术创新策略问题,考量以环境保护税为主体的环保规制如何科学设置才能更好地促进制造业企业的环保创新.研究发现:创新效应和市场需求均影响企业创新策略演化的均衡结果,并在两阶段博弈分析的基础上,得出市场需求和创新效应共同作用下两类制造企业的生产策略选择方案.因此,环境保护税的改革与实施应注意掌握好时点,税率的设置应充分考虑不同行业环保创新效应和产品市场需求,进行区别化的、动态的税率设置,并加大其他税种对环境保护税的支持.     

供应链金融利益主体的多阶段博弈研究

现代经济中,金融在资源配置方面发挥的作用明显不足,出现严重的资源浪费和供需错配现象,加剧了中小企业面临的融资难问题.本文从供应链金融的内涵切入,建立以利益相关者为主体的融资量化模型,利用多阶段博弈理论对企业不同模式下的成本收益进行检验,结果表明:供应链金融在实现上、下游各利益相关者个体的最优化的同时,也可有效促使供应链整体的利益最大化、实现高效运作和价值增值,全面实现链上企业间的资源共享、互利共赢.     

Ownership concentration and bank risk: international study on acquisitions

This paper explores the effects of different types of bank ownership concentration on changes in bank risk during acquisition years. Using multi-country data from 2000 to 2006, during which market failures caused by various crises and government interventions are less influential to acquisition decisions, we collect 505 banking acquisition deals from 23 countries to examine which type of ownership concentration (such as financial intermediary, capital investor, non-financial, and state ownership) brings larger changes to an acquirer’s risk from pre-acquisition year to post-acquisition year (including non-performing loans, capital adequacy ratio, loan loss reserve, and credit rating). The empirical analyses show that acquirer banks with a concentration of shares owned by financial intermediaries and non-financial firms experience larger risk changes during acquisition years. In contrast, the risk changes of acquirer banks with a concentration of capital investors and state ownership are lower. Robustness checks from the random effect estimation, instrumental variables model, reverse causality, and different subsamples of (non-)U.S. or different levels of regulation enforcement confirm these results.     

Sociology,risk and the environment: a material-semiotic approach

Abstract

Sociology has made significant contributions to the conceptualisation of risk and critique of technical risk analysis. It has, however, unintentionally reinforced the division of labour between the natural/technical and social sciences in risk analysis. This paper argues that the problem with conceptualisations of risk is not a misplaced emphasis on calculation. Rather, it is that we have not adequately dealt with ontological distinctions implicit in both sociological and technical work on risk between material or objective risks and our socially mediated understandings and interpretations of those risks. While acknowledging that risks are simultaneously social and technical, sociologists have not, in practice, provided the conceptual and methodological tools to apprehend risk in a less dualistic manner. This limits our ability both to analyse actors and processes outside the social domain and to explore the recursive relationships between risk calculus, social action and the material outcomes of risk. In response, this paper develops a material-semiotic conceptualisation of risk and provides an assessment of its relevance to more sociologically informed risk governance. It introduces the ideas of co-constitution, emergent entities and enactment as instruments for reconciling the material and social worlds in a sociological study of risk. It further illustrates the application of a material-semiotic approach using these concepts in the nuclear industry. In deconstructing social–material dualisms in the sociology of risk, this paper argues that a material-semiotic conceptualisation of risk enables both technical and social perspectives on risk not only to coexist but to collaborate, widening the scope for interdisciplinary research.     

Investments,Credit, and Corporate Financial Distress: Evidence from Central and Eastern Europe

Although they are instrumental for economic development, productivity-enhancing corporate investments may increase the financial vulnerability of companies, especially in an economic and financial crisis. We employ an instrumental probit model with the aim of finding evidence for the investment and credit patterns that led companies into financial distress during the global financial crisis 2009–2010. The company-level micro-data for our study on three Central and East European countries—Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and two Baltic countries, Latvia and Lithuania—originates from two independent surveys, the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey conducted in 2008 and the Financial Crisis Survey conducted in 2009/2010. Both were carried out jointly by the EBRD and the World Bank. Our results emphasize a substantial adverse impact from investment intensity and debt financing on company financial soundness during a crisis. On top of that, we discover a strong non-linear pattern in the sensitivity of company distress to its investment-financing nexus.     

Globalization and Outward Foreign Direct Investment

While recent research into foreign direct investment (FDI) has focused on examining the importance of institutions, corruption, money laundering, and tax havens, the role of globalization on FDI has not yet been explored. This research investigates the impacts of globalization on outward FDI. We find that both overall globalization and its economic and social dimensions significantly positively influence outward FDI flows. We also demonstrate that beyond the level of globalization, corruption, money laundering, and the status of a country as a tax haven, cross-country similarity also plays an important role. Accordingly, policies specifically designed to increase the transparency of outward FDI flows should be required to address money laundering and the existence of tax havens.     

Export Sophistication: A Dynamic Panel Data Approach

In this article, we analyze export sophistication based on a large panel dataset (2001–2015; 101 countries) and using various estimation algorithms. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we evaluate the bias properties of estimators and show that GMM-type estimators outperform instrumental-variable and fixed-effects estimators. Based on our analysis we document that GDP per capita and the size of the economy exhibit significant and positive effects on export sophistication; weak institutional quality exhibits negative effect. We also show that export sophistication is path-dependent and stable even during a major economic crisis, which is especially important for emerging and developing economies.