The civil justice system and going concern audit reports: Comments on “Auditors’ decision-making under going concern uncertainties in low litigation risk environments: Evidence from Hong Kong”

Lam and Mensah [Lam, K., Mensah, Y.M., 2006. Auditors’ decision-making under going concern uncertainties in low litigation risk environments: Evidence from Hong Kong. J. Account. Public Pol. 25 (6), this issue] provide some valuable insight on auditors’ choice of going concern audit reports in an environment where the civil justice system affords, from the standpoint of the plaintiff, fewer remedies and is more difficult to file a complaint than it is in the US. Hence, from the auditor’s standpoint, this environment can appropriately be described as a “low litigation risk environment”. In this comment, I first question whether a disclaimer of an opinion is any indication of either a quality audit or professionalism. Secondly, three alternative explanations for the empirical regularities are discussed. The Gatekeeper Story suggests auditors are simply not willing to risk reducing their reputational capital by acquiescing to clients that are not likely to survive their own financial distress. The Herding Story suggests that, when auditors are faced with uncertainties or a gap in the authoritative literature, auditors will herd together to form a common response that mimic one-another. The Value of Incumbency Story holds that as the value of incumbency declines with the client’s inability to survive, auditors will have fewer incentives to incur the incremental costs to gather sufficient competent evidential matter necessary to support an unqualified opinion.     

Emerging technologies in emerging markets: Introduction to the special section

Emerging technologies have significant implications and profound consequences for firms, markets, government policy, and society as a whole. In emerging markets, however, social uncertainties are as important as technological and market uncertainties, and moreover are somewhat more complex. The papers in this special section offer views of how these important social uncertainties can be considered concurrently with technological and market uncertainties, particularly because they play a relatively larger role in emerging markets than in more advanced markets.     

Innovation pathways at the Base of the Pyramid: Establishing technological legitimacy through social attributes

Two challenging imperatives we face today are the amelioration of global poverty and reducing environmental impacts such as global climate change. This article discusses these challenges in the ‘Base of the Pyramid’ (BOP), impoverished socio-economic groups from underdeveloped regions that have traditionally been excluded from economic participation. Drawing on the BOP, global value chain and latecomer literature, we propose five innovation pathways for social and environmental improvement within poor communities. We extend Geel’s (2002) new socio-technical landscape framework, Hall et als' (2011) and Hall and Martin’s (2005) framework for innovative uncertainties and Aldrich and Fiol’s (1994) legitimization processes by proposing a ‘hurdles and levers analysis,’ suggesting that in addition to overcoming technological and commercial hurdles, social attributes play a key role in BOP innovation dynamics. Two illustrative cases are presented; an initiative to replace candles and kerosene lanterns with semiconductor white light-emitting-diodes (WLEDs) in various BOP locations; and the development of naturally colored cotton in poor regions of Brazil for sale locally and abroad. We argue that social uncertainties in particular may act as ‘levers’, compensating for initial technological and commercial deficiencies, thus providing technology developers time to improve. The paper concludes with implications for policy and future research.     

汽车模块化供应商的混合延迟策略

探讨了汽车模块化供应商实施混合延迟的具体策略。以一家汽车座椅供应商为例,通过对其面临的需求波动性以及生产供货流程的具体分析与研究,提出基于不同产品需求特点的混合延迟应用策略。混合延迟策略可以缓解生产企业在生产批量、柔性化以及订单完成周期上的矛盾,更好的应对供应链的不确定性。     

Impacts of precipitation and temperature changes on annual streamflow in the Murray–Darling Basin

The relationship between the interannual changes in streamflow, precipitation and temperature of the Murray–Darling basin is investigated by using a two-parameter climate elasticity of streamflow approach. The non-linear relationship between streamflow and both precipitation and temperature indicates a greater streamflow sensitivity to precipitation than to temperature but a more significant impact of temperature change on streamflow than previously reported. The physical mechanisms producing high streamflow sensitivity to temperature change are not well understood, but may relate to concurrent changes in sub-annual precipitation characteristics such as seasonality, spatial distribution and intensity. Thus these characteristics need to be assessed and accounted for when attempting to project how streamflow, and hence water availability, may change in a future warmer world.     

会计不确定性探析

会计不确定性是指会计信息系统内外各种随机因素所导致的会计计量结果的非唯一或会计事项发生与否的不可确知性,可分为外生性的不确定性和内生性的不确定性.该文把会计不确定性对货币计量和持续经营假设、会计原则、会计信息使用者、会计准则的影响做出了后果分析,指明了会计不确定性的控制目标与指导思想,并从会计人员业务素质、会计信息监督等五个方面提供了监控的基本思路和具体措施.     

Managing technological and social uncertainties of innovation: The evolution of Brazilian energy and agriculture

This paper explores how technological, commercial and social uncertainties shaped the development of Brazilian biofuels. Technological innovation allowed the country to emerge as a global leader, but Brazil continues to struggle with major social uncertainties due to poverty and environmental concerns common in many emerging economies. Contemporary approaches to development within the innovation literature focus primarily on overcoming technological and commercial uncertainties, but only peripherally explore social uncertainties. To fill this void, we draw on Martin and Hall's framework for managing innovative uncertainties, which is based on Kuhn and Popper's approaches to the evolution and methodology of science, and extend it with Aldrich and Fiol's concept of cognitive versus socio-political legitimacy. Based on qualitative data collected in Brazil, we outline the evolution of automotive fuel ethanol and flex-fuel technology, the development of Brazilian soybean production, and castor for socially inclusive biodiesel production. We show how innovation solved some technological and commercial uncertainties and generated new opportunities, but also created additional social uncertainties that are now being addressed. Through this process, Brazil has acquired capabilities in alternative energy technologies and more sustainable agriculture, becoming an exemplar for other emerging economies. We conclude with implications for policy and industry.     

论水工建筑物的可靠性设计

主要由于替代惯用的单一安全系数法的分项系数极限状态方法被混同于可靠度分析法,至今特别在水工结构设计业界对其应用都存有争议。单一安全系数法包含了非随机性的工程经验因素和各类随机的不确定性,但不能区别各类随机不确定性的程度。可靠度分析法可以对各类不同程度的随机不确定性综合评价其失效概率,但不能计入目前对水工结构仍相当重要的工程经验因素。本文对若干导致争议的概念上的混淆作了澄清。在分项系数极限状态方法中各分项系数不仅可以区别各类随机不确定性的不同程度,且引入了表征工程经验的结构系数γd。因而显然要比单一安全系数法更为合理。目前为保持规范的连续性,各分项系数的取值总体上仍需和传统的安全系数相适应,因而实质上为多安全系数法,在安全水平的设置上与单一安全系数法并无本质差异。但它完全不同于可靠度设计方法,因为各分项系数独立确定,与目标可靠指标无关,且引入了结构系数。因而并无可靠度设计方法中的复杂理论、术语和统计样本不足等困扰。最后,简述了分项系数极限状态方法在《水工建筑物抗震设计规范》中成功应用的实例。     

A Mixed Picture of AQUATIC PRODUCTS

Aquatic products constitute an important part of China＇s international trade in agricultural products with the strongest competitiveness for export. The aquatic products industry of apparent competitive edge has maintained a considerable trade surplus despite the general trend of trade deficit among agricultural products in recent years. Nevertheless, the great changes taking place in the global economic and trade pattern in late years have given rise to the increasing uncertainties of the supply and demand as well as the price in the international aquatic products market.     

Robust and stable multi-task manufacturing scheduling with uncertainties using a two-stage extended genetic algorithm

ABSTRACT

In cloud manufacturing (CMfg), unexpected uncertainties can occur in real-world manufacturing processes that could make the predetermined schedule infeasible. A new multi-objective proactive method is proposed in this situation to evaluate the proactive schedule. A novel two-stage extended genetic algorithm (2S-EGA) is proposed to generate proactive schedules that consider service interruptions. The experimental results confirmed that the obtained proactive schedule produces great performance when applied to multi-task scheduling problems with service interruptions. Furthermore, the results also showed that the proactive schedule obtained by the proposed approach is more robust and stable than other baseline algorithms taken from the literature.