Royal Ahold: A Failure of Corporate Governance and an Accounting Scandal

Royal Ahold (Koninklijke Ahold NV) was one of the major success stories in the 1990s and is one of the major failures, suffering a complete meltdown, in 2003.We investigate the strategy, accounting transparency and corporate governance of Ahold; elements which jointly drive the firm s performance over this period of time.In general, the corporate governance, accounting transparency, strategy and firm performance relationships are complex.There is not a fully specified model available to address the inter-relationships, including the endogeneity problem.The econometrics are difficult and constrained not only by the lack of a fully specified theory but also by data availability. Our clinical study overcomes these problems by providing an in-depth analysis of the inter-relationships among corporate governance, accounting transparency and strategy that lead to Ahold s downfall.We provide insights into these relationships and their complexity that present theory and empirical studies cannot address.international economics;financial economics;financial reporting;law and economics;corporate governance;regulation

Royal Ahold: A Failure Of Corporate Governance

Royal Ahold (Koninklijke Ahold NV) was one of the major success stories in the 1990s and is one of the major failures in corporate governance, suffering a complete meltdown in 2003. This clinical study analyzes Ahold’s growth strategy through acquisitions and isolates the cause of the failed strategy, i.e. the absence of internal as well as external oversight of management’s strategy. This study details the consequences of the strategy: bad acquisitions, an accounting scandal and the loss of investor confidence. It illustrates how initially a family and later professional management exploited the intent of the law and existing regulatory structures to maintain absolute control of the company. It analyzes in detail the applicable governance mechanisms of Ahold that were designed to hold the self-interest of the parties in check. It asks the reader to consider whether these governance mechanisms, properly implemented, might have helped prevent Ahold or a situation similar to Ahold

Royal Ahold:A Failure of Corporate Governance and an Accounting Scandal

Royal Ahold (Koninklijke Ahold NV) was one of the major success stories in the 1990s and is one of the major failures, suffering a complete meltdown, in 2003.We investigate the strategy, accounting transparency and corporate governance of Ahold; elements which jointly drive the firm s performance over this period of time.In general, the corporate governance, accounting transparency, strategy and firm performance relationships are complex.There is not a fully specified model available to address the inter-relationships, including the endogeneity problem.The econometrics are difficult and constrained not only by the lack of a fully specified theory but also by data availability. Our clinical study overcomes these problems by providing an in-depth analysis of the inter-relationships among corporate governance, accounting transparency and strategy that lead to Ahold s downfall.We provide insights into these relationships and their complexity that present theory and empirical studies cannot address.

Space Applications of Automation, Robotics and Machine Intelligence Systems (ARAMIS), phase 2. Volume 1: Telepresence technology base development

The field of telepresence is defined, and overviews of those capabilities that are now available, and those that will be required to support a NASA telepresence effort are provided. Investigation of NASA's plans and goals with regard to telepresence, extensive literature search for materials relating to relevant technologies, a description of these technologies and their state of the art, and projections for advances in these technologies over the next decade are included. Several space projects are examined in detail to determine what capabilities are required of a telepresence system in order to accomplish various tasks, such as servicing and assembly. The key operational and technological areas are identified, conclusions and recommendations are made for further research, and an example developmental program is presented, leading to an operational telepresence servicer

Modelling the effects of mall atmospherics on shoppers' approach behaviors [Brunel Business School Working Paper series: special issue on marketing, volume 2, 2005]

Despite previous work, researchers still do not fully understand the mechanisms by which environmental stimuli influence emotions and affect behavior. This paper attempts to address this knowledge gap by modelling the effects of a stimulus on emotions and behavior within the context of a shopping mall and retail stores. We evaluate a stimulus-response model based on the influence of perceptions on shoppers’ moods, which in turn influence approach behaviors. A structured questionnaire survey of actual shoppers in a real mall environment (n=315) was analysed by structural equation analysis. The exemplar stimulus consisted of a Captive Audience Network (CAN or private plasma screen network) – a topic that has been little researched to date. The influence of the CAN was small but significant. The findings have implications for practitioners as even small changes in image can have a substantial effect on profitability

Modelling the effects of mall atmospherics on shoppers’ approach behaviors

Despite previous work, researchers still do not fully understand the mechanisms by which environmental stimuli influence emotions and affect behavior. This paper attempts to address this knowledge gap by modelling the effects of a stimulus on emotions and behavior within the context of a shopping mall and retail stores. We evaluate a stimulus-response model based on the influence of perceptions on shoppers’ moods, which in turn influence approach behaviors. A structured questionnaire survey of actual shoppers in a real mall environment (n=315) was analysed by structural equation analysis. The exemplar stimulus consisted of a Captive Audience Network (CAN or private plasma screen network) – a topic that has been little researched to date. The influence of the CAN was small but significant. The findings have implications for practitioners as even small changes in image can have a substantial effect on profitability

Cutting out the middle man?: disintermediation and the academic library

Big Deals, open access, and digitisation increasingly mean that selection decisions are being removed from librarians and transferred to the end user. David Ball looks at the forces pushing towards this ‘disintermediation’ and considers the future role of the academic library

The New Public Management Reform in Municipal Governments as Crucial Catalyst for Transition to Grassroots Electoral Democracy in China

This research approaches public administration reform in China from a domestic perspective. Whereas recognizing that the mechanisms behind the nature differ from the principle of New Public Management (NPM) of Anglo-Saxon tradition, the reform initiatives are similar. Municipal governments were encouraged to carry out NPM Reform towards governance model since 1998 to serve dual-purpose. That is strengthening governmental organizational "3e" that economy, efficiency and effectiveness and strengthening political legitimacy and capacity of Chinese Communist Party. During the governance transition process in urban China, two interactive processes, political centralization and administrative decentralization, create tensions. This paper presents the process of administrative reform in municipal governments from a traditional bureaucratic public administration model moving towards a multi-agency, cross-sector, multi-level local governance manner. The paper identified key successful approaches of the NPM reform within municipal governments, and analyzed the new local governance model from debates of accountability, participation, transparency and responsiveness rather than effectiveness and efficiency debate. Further more, from theoretical and empirical aspects, this paper concludes that local electoral democracy is the necessary condition for governance model to produce consultative policy-making process under the autarchic regime. And this process is a "mutual security" way for political center and society for transitional stability