Coping with coopetition—Facing dilemmas in cooperation for sustainable development: The case of the Dutch smart grid industry

This paper is amongst the first to examine coopetition strategy for sustainable development at the network level. Companies who want to successfully implement complex innovative technologies that support sustainable development need to collaborate with other actors of the innovation ecosystem, including their competitors, so that they can develop standards, interoperable products, pool knowledge, and resources and bundle forces to compete against other technologies. Collaboration with competitors brings benefits, but also many risks. We investigated how firms cope with these risks when establishing an innovation ecosystem to implement a new technology in society. We conducted research in the Dutch smart grids sector and explored how these firms minimize inherent risks of coopetition. We found that system‐building actors in the Dutch smart grid field not only minimize inherent risks, but from the start of their collaboration they implement so‐called enablers to prevent these risks upfront.     

Environmental reporting within the forest and paper industry

Research on environmental reporting within individual sectors and industries is limited. Generic studies have typically focused on the reporting practices of the world's largest corporates. Some industries and sectors are under‐represented within these studies, limiting the potential for industry‐ or sector‐specific analysis. Forest and paper is one industry frequently under‐represented. This study examines environmental reporting amongst the top 100 forest and paper companies. The scale of environmental report publication is investigated, and the breadth and depth of reporting on the key industry issues of forest management and fibre procurement examined. The results show reporting is more prevalent amongst larger corporates but marked regional variations are evident. Most noticeably, Scandinavian companies are reporting more extensively, both in terms of the number of levels at which they report and the depth of information included on forest management and fibre procurement. Reasons for the marked regional variations in reporting are considered and markets for forest products and preferences within those markets for specific certification schemes identified as potential influencing factors. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Komplexität erfolgreich steuern — 27. Österreichischer Controllertag in Wien

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Critical thinking and communication skills: Integration and implementation issues

This article describes issues associated with implementing an integrated approach to critical thinking and communication skills within accounting courses. The article builds on the work of Hirsch and Collins (1988) and discusses the following issues: (a) the collaboration of accounting and English faculty, (b) types of assignments, (c) assignment design, (d) the feedback process, (e) revisions in courses to accommodate a communication skills program, and (f) resources and motivation. The examples offered are from management/cost accounting courses, but our experience suggests that such an integrated approach to teaching critical thinking and both oral and written communication skills works well within most accounting and other business courses. However, individual programs will need to be tailored in order to address the issues defined here in ways that best fit their mission, goals, and resources.     

Dimensions of quality upgrading

The impact of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) economies’ trade integration with European markets on CEE trade structures has been studied extensively. These studies frequently observe a quality upgrading of CEE exports. In this paper we consider three dimensions of quality upgrading: upgrading across industries, upgrading across different quality segments within industries and, finally, product upgrading within quality segments inside industries. For the analysis we partition industries into quality segments based on EU‐15 import unit values. The results for ten CEE countries (comprising the CEE‐5, the Baltics and South East Europe) and thirteen industries suggest fundamental differences, both across country groups and across the three different notions of quality upgrading. The CEE‐5 show no evidence of entering a ‘low‐quality trap’ in all three dimensions. By contrast, while there is a general catching‐up process across industries and inside quality segments, the second notion of low‐quality specialization may be applicable within the high‐tech industries to the performance for the Baltics and South East Europe as a group.     

Fiscal Consolidation and Decentralisation: A Tale of Two Tiers*

This paper contributes to the established literature on fiscal consolidations by investigating the distinct behaviour of central and sub‐central tiers of government during general government consolidation attempts. In the light of different degrees of decentralisation across OECD countries, and the different responsibilities devolved to sub‐central tiers, we believe that this approach offers an illuminating insight into the analysis of fiscal consolidations and their success. We show that the involvement of the sub‐central tiers of government is crucial to achieving cuts in expenditure, particularly in relation to the overall size of the government wage bill. In addition, central governments appear to exert a strong influence on the expenditure of sub‐central tiers through their grant allocations, and control of these allocations appears to have a considerable impact upon the overall success of consolidation attempts. Finally, we demonstrate that there is a skewness in cuts towards sub‐central capital expenditure both when central governments cut grant allocations and when sub‐central governments engage in lone consolidation attempts.     

Der neue Standard zur bilanziellen Abbildung von Versicherungsverträgen (IFRS 17) – Eine kritische Analyse der Auswirkungen auf die Versicherungsbranche

The new standard for the accounting of insurance contracts (IFRS 17) will entail substantial changes for the insurance industry. In the following article the new standard is critically analyzed. First and foremost the coming valuation model, the so-called building block approach, is presented which will be the basis for all insurance contracts within the scope of IFRS 17. (For certain insurance contracts, especially those with direct participation features, or for less complex or short-term insurance contracts, there are some modifications.) To be more precise, IFRS 17 introduces an enterprise-specific valuation approach that is grounded on the so-called fulfilment value. This fulfilment value is determined by four separate building blocks (fulfilment-cashflow, discount rate, risk margin and contractual service margin), which will be addressed in detail. Finally, major changes in performed accounting practices that insurance enterprises are confronted with and will have to adapt to in their financial statements and accounts are pointed out.