Management Accounting Practices and Discourses Change: The role and use of Management Accounting Systems

This paper aims to trace the development of management accounting systems (MAS) in a Portuguese bank, where an activity based costing system (ABC) has been trialled for implementation over the past few years, as a means to improving the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of employee activity. This initiative can be located in a wider cultural change in Portuguese banking towards global (i.e. US derived) strategies and processes, but within an organizational world where older traditions remain powerful. The research undertaken here is a longitudinal case study of organisational change in one institution based on a criticalinterpretive model. Although drawing on the interpretive tradition since it is concerned with actors’ perceptions, interpretations and beliefs, it also draws on a more historically focused Foucault-inspired critical framework of the kind developed in the work of Hoskin and Macve (e.g. 1986, 1988, 1994, 2000), and in the research into the financial sector undertaken by Morgan and Sturdy (2000). The particular model developed here is designed to enable the exploration of the effect of accounting practices on change across time from three perspectives – changing structures, changing discourses and the effect of both of these processes on power relations. The research highlights the increase in visibility and perceived importance of accounting in the banking sector, and how accounting is significant beyond its technical roles. The study provides new insights into how management accounting practices, along with other organisational systems, play an important role questioning, visualising, analysing, and measuring implemented strategies. As the language and practice of management have shifted towards strategy and marketing discourses, patterns of work, organisation and career are being restructured, in often under-appreciated ways, by accounting practices.

International partnerships of women for sustainable watershed governance in times of climate change

This chapter describes and assesses collaborative research with women actively engaged in local and global community engagement processes for water management in times of global climate change. As an equity-focused response to climate change, the interrelated networks and initiatives described in the chapter involve organizations and individuals in Brazil, Mozambique, South Africa, Kenya, and Canada. These collaborations are focused on strengthening low-income women's voices, and legitimizing their knowledge and action within water management institutions and processes. The chapter draws from what people learned through two international projects, the Sister Watersheds project with Canadian and Brazilian partners, and a Climate Change Adaptation in Africa project with partners in Canada, Kenya, Mozambique, and South Africa. The methods and approach of the Sister Watersheds project proved to be applicable to climate change education and organizing in Canada as well as in Brazil. The chapter summarizes that women are working together on climate education and water governance, helping to inspire and generate related strategies.This research was supported by the International Development Research Centre, grant number IDRC GRANT NO. 106002-00

Perspectives on Human Nature and Their Implications for Business Organizations

Employing psychological principles to reform the structure and agendas of business organizations increases employee fulfillment. This Essay proposes changes in corporate structure in order to nurture employee\u27s mental health in a way that also benefits companies by resulting in greater employee productivity. This Essay argues that the decentralization of business organizations and greater employee involvement in decision-making will improve both quality of life and the environment

Open agent systems???

E-institutions are envisioned as facilities on the Internet for heterogeneous software agents to perform their interactions and thus forming truly open agent systems. We investigate how these heterogeneous agents can determine whether an institution is one in which they can participate. We propose a layered approach which is supported through a (traditional) middle agent that is part of the environment. Starting with a basic compatibility of message types, each extra layer ensures a higher degree of compatibility, but requires also extra sophistication in both the information required and the matching algorithms. In this paper, we describe reasoning about how an agent should take on a specific role, message matching, and protocol compatibility. We explore the issues in the context of an actual accommodation agent built in JACK, and a travel agency institution built in ISLANDER

Integrating Diplomacy and Social Media: A Report of the First Annual Aspen Institute Dialogue on Diplomacy and Technology

This report is a result of the first annual Aspen Institute Dialogue on Diplomacy and Technology, or what we call ADDTech. The concept for this Dialogue originated with longtime communications executive and Aspen Institute Trustee Marc Nathanson. Since his tenure as Chairman of the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), Nathanson has been concerned with how American diplomacy could more rapidly embrace the changing world of social media and other technologies. He is also a graduate of the University of Denver where former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's father, Josef Korbel, namesake of the Josef Korbel School of International Relations there, was his professor. Thus, Albright, another Institute Trustee, was a natural partner to create the first Dialogue on Diplomacy and Technology. The cast is ably supplemented with Korbel School Dean and former U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill and Aspen Institute President Walter Isaacson, who himself was also recently the chair of the BBG.The topic for this inaugural dialogue is how the diplomatic realm could better utilize new communications technologies. The group focused particularly on social media, but needed to differentiate among the various diplomacies in play in the current world, viz., formal state diplomacy, public diplomacy, citizen diplomacy and business diplomacy. Each presents its own array of opportunities as well as problems. In this first Dialogue, much of the time necessarily had to be used to define our terms and learn how technologies are currently being used in each case. To help us in that endeavor, we focused on the Middle East. While the resulting recommendations are therefore rather modest, they set up the series of dialogues to come in the years ahead

The role of a firm's absorptive capacity and the technology transfer process in clusters: How effective are technology centres in low-tech clusters?

This paper analyses how the internal resources of small- and medium-sized enterprises determine access (learning processes) to technology centres (TCs) or industrial research institutes (innovation infrastructure) in traditional low-tech clusters. These interactions basically represent traded (market-based) transactions, which constitute important sources of knowledge in clusters. The paper addresses the role of TCs in low-tech clusters, and uses semi-structured interviews with 80 firms in a manufacturing cluster. The results point out that producer–user interactions are the most frequent; thus, the higher the sector knowledge-intensive base, the more likely the utilization of the available research infrastructure becomes. Conversely, the sectors with less knowledge-intensive structures, i.e. less absorptive capacity (AC), present weak linkages to TCs, as they frequently prefer to interact with suppliers, who act as transceivers of knowledge. Therefore, not all the firms in a cluster can fully exploit the available research infrastructure, and their AC moderates this engagement. In addition, the existence of TCs is not sufficient since the active role of a firm's search strategies to undertake interactions and conduct openness to available sources of knowledge is also needed. The study has implications for policymakers and academia