A history of Japanese accounting reforms as a microfoundation of the democratic socio-economy: Accountics Part II

Immediately after WWII, unlike statisticians’ reforms, accountants failed to establish the Cabinet-controlled Accounting Committee and Accounting Law which were originally envisaged as the key to successful “Accountics”: the management of the socio-economy through standardized accounting (Part I). Nevertheless, July 1948 is regarded as the beginning of Japan’s accounting revolution, as academic accountants accomplished a series of fundamental reforms. Part II examines the process through which micro financial systems were swiftly developed as a microfoundation of the new “democratic” socio-economy. First, academics implemented new accounting for large companies in order to dilute the Zaibatsu- and Imperial-centred regime; followed by censored and standardized accounting education for SMEs and the public in order to change the public perception of the roles of businesses in society. The foci of examination are the political manoeuvres of reformers, the consequences of new accounting, and pragmatic philosophy of the academics in action. Towards the end of the paper, some implications of this history are considered in relation to the impacts of the IAS/IFRS on today’s international socio-economy.     

拉锯战：2009年亚洲经济展望

虽然亚洲仍然很容易受到全球衰退及金融危机的影响，但其经济基本面还是要好于其他地区。假以时日，亚洲必定会因大宗商品价格下跌而受惠。最重要的是，亚洲决策者有采取颇具扩张性的货币及财政政策的意图和空间。不过政策响应需要一些时间才能发挥效用，而经济的负反馈循环已在形成。在第二轮经济效应（如失业增加、不良贷款上升及存货堆积）的制肘下，     

Innovation in knowledge-based professional service firms. An integrated conceptual model*

ABSTRACT

The current paper offers a new conceptual model to understanding innovation processes in professional service firms, to make hidden relationships more explicit and to find out what are the issues still unexplored. The paper employs a systematic literature review, and draws upon original categorizations of extant literature, to identify main processes for each category of PSFs. It unveils connections among a wide range of factors setting a conceptual model for innovation pathways and highlighting neglected questions relevant from both the theoretical and the practical perspectives.     

Cloud computing in high tech startups: evidence from a case study

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on the implementation of cloud-based systems in startups to answer how and why hi-tech startups use cloud computing, an overlooked question to date. Thus, referring to an extended version of Ross and Blumenstein [2015. “Cloud Computing as a Facilitator of SME Entrepreneurship.” Technology Analysis & Strategic Management 27 (1): 87–101] framework, encompassing issues of context and culture following Spanò et al. [2019. “Context, Culture and Control: A Case Study on Accounting Change in an Italian Regional Health Service.” Journal of Management and Governance. doi:10.1007/s10997-019-09458-0], we analyse cloud adoption in startup firms and rely upon a case study of an Italian hi-tech startup. The case study allowed us to tap into the main issues relating to cloud implementation that is increased opportunities, reduced costs, scalability, access to global markets, and access to international venture capital. The results offer interesting insights to the literature on cloud computing, and also have some managerial implications in that they better unfold the effects played by context and culture.     

东亚2009：顺风和逆风的拉锯战

纷纷加入“衰退俱乐部” 我们曾在2008年11月初大幅下调了对2009年GDP增长的预期，但此后高频数据迅速恶化，我们不得不再次下调我们的预期。我们将2009年亚洲总体GDP增长预期从3．1％下调至2．3％，而2008年增长率的估计值是4．1％。2009年亚洲（日本除外）GDP的增长预期则从5．7％降至4．9％。     

The accounting figuration of business statistics as a foundation for the spread of economic ideas

The new accounting research has been devoted to illuminating the social and constitutive aspects of accounting. This has been done, however, in many cases, in the setting of micro managerial accounting. The effects of financial and macroeconomic accounting on modern economic society have not been examined in depth from an epistemological and critical viewpoint. This article attempts to develop a hypothesis that financial accounting (particularly, that of macro economic entities) has been centrally implicated in the process through which economic ideas and economic management have become ubiquitous in modern society. Accounting's power and the reason for its steady growth are sought in its various formalities rather than its representational capacity. Several factors that are considered to constitute the formalities form a self-perpetuating apparatus that facilitates the prevalence of accounting in modern economic society.     

Strategy making as iterated processes of resource allocation

Capitalizing on the Bower-Burgelman process model of strategy making in a large, complex organization, we investigate the multilevel managerial activities that lead firms facing similar new business opportunities to respond with different strategic commitments. Our field-based data provide evidence on (I) the role of ‘corporate contexts’ that reflects top managers' crude strategic intent in shaping strategic initiatives of business-unit managers; (2) the critical influence of early business development results on increasing or decreasing middle managers' enthusiasm to the new businesses and top managers' confidence in these middle managers in a resource allocation; (3) the escalation or deescalation of a firm's strategic commitment to the new businesses as a consequence of iterations of resource allocation. We conclude that it is useful to conceptualize strategy making in a large, complex firm as an iterated process of resource allocation.     

Information systems and information technologies as enablers of innovation and knowledge creation and sharing in professional service firms

ABSTRACT

This paper aims at exploring what are the factors enabling or threatening IT and IS innovation choices and how these factors interact to shape organisational change in accounting firms. Data have been collected through questionnaires concerning strategies related to IT and IS, to understand whether these strategies may enable innovation and knowledge creation and sharing. Insights are provided from the Italian setting, since its particular features of an ever-changing regulation and high competition. Findings show some additional insights to what stated by the literature, contending that some differences do exist relatively to firms’ size and localisation. In doing so, the paper provides interesting implications concerning IS and IT as enablers of innovation and knowledge sharing in PSFs.