A Longitudinal Study of Identifying and Paying Down Architectural Debt

Architectural debt is a form of technical debt that derives from the gap between the architectural design of the system as it "should be" compared to "as it is". We measured architecture debt in two ways: 1) in terms of system-wide coupling measures, and 2) in terms of the number and severity of architectural flaws. In recent work it was shown that the amount of architectural debt has a huge impact on software maintainability and evolution. Consequently, detecting and reducing the debt is expected to make software more amenable to change. This paper reports on a longitudinal study of a healthcare communications product created by Brightsquid Secure Communications Corp. This start-up company is facing the typical trade-off problem of desiring responsiveness to change requests, but wanting to avoid the ever-increasing effort that the accumulation of quick-and-dirty changes eventually incurs. In the first stage of the study, we analyzed the status of the "before" system, which indicated the impacts of change requests. This initial study motivated a more in-depth analysis of architectural debt. The results of this analysis were used to motivate a comprehensive refactoring of the software system. The third phase of the study was a follow-on architectural debt analysis which quantified the improvements made. Using this quantitative evidence, augmented by qualitative evidence gathered from in-depth interviews with Brightsquid's architects, we present lessons learned about the costs and benefits of paying down architecture debt in practice.Comment: Submitted to ICSE-SEIP 201

Risk management: understanding why is as important as understanding how

The management of risk is a key area within a number of ACCA papers, and exam questions related to this area are common. It is vital that students are able to apply risk management techniques, such as using derivative instruments to hedge against risk, and offer advice and recommendations as required by the scenario in the question. It is also equally important that students understand why corporations manage risk in theory and in practice, because risk management costs money but does it actually add more value to a corporation? This article explores the circumstances where the management of risk may lead to an increase in the value of a corporation

The political economy of decarbonisation: exploring the dynamics of South Africa’s electricity sector

South Africa’s coal-dominated electricity sector, a key feature of the country’s minerals-energy complex, is in crisis and subject to change. This offers potential opportunities for decarbonisation. Despite positive examples of decarbonisation in South Africa’s electricity sector, such as a procurement programme for renewable energy, there are structural path dependencies linked to coal-fired generation and security of supply. Decarbonisation goes far beyond what is technologically or even economically feasible, to encompass a complexity of political, social and economic factors. Meanwhile, decision-making in electricity is highly politicised and lack of transparency and power struggles in the policy sphere pose key challenges. Such power struggles are reflected in national debates over which technologies should be prioritised and the institutional arrangements that should facilitate them

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) and financial ratios : a pro-stakeholders’ view of performance measurement for sustainable value creation of the wind energy

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to explore business performance in a rather sensitive sector that equally combines economic, environmental and social dimensions. The paper investigates the efficiency of wind farm companies, in a framework of pursuing more diverse stakeholders’ interests Design/Methodology/Approach: Ratios and DEA approaches are combined to measure economic efficiency among the DMUs of a sample of wind farms, using data from their financial statements. Findings: Productivity and effectiveness comprise the performance measured by the economic efficiency. We show that by choosing inputs and outputs that are closely related in forming an appropriate financial ratio, it helps to design and explain more fully the impact of a policy intervention aiming at improving economic efficiency. DEA supplements ratios to design, implement and assess a strategy of benchmarking towards bolstering performance, that favors a wider range of stakeholders. Originality/Value: The study provides an in-depth insight into using Data Envelopment Analysis and financial ratios to study economic efficiency. The approach combines economic, social and environmental dimensions (indirectly) of performance, and the composite ratio Return on Total Assets (ROTA). The analysis caters the specific features of the sector renewable energy and their diverse stakeholders.peer-reviewe

A systematic review of the influence of taxation on corporate capital structure

Purpose: The aim of this paper is a systematic review of the corporate finance literature on tax and capital structure since the complexity of legislation on taxation. It is a challenge for to researchers to understand the influence of this legislation on corporate financing. Approach/Methodology/Design: A systematic review is a useful and important tool to check what has being studied and what are the gaps on the specific subject. Therefore, the study provides an examination of a sample of 33 most cited articles in the period from 2013 to 2017 that have been published in the main international financial journals. It is assumed that this analysis is sufficiently robust to support and contribute to the knowledge gaps identification. Findings: It presents the most relevant papers about the influence of taxes on corporate capital structure, classifies and codifies the various characteristics of these articles, describes the strengths and the weaknesses of the studies in the available literature, and provides an agenda and a research framework to address the key gaps in the current knowledge on the theme. Practical Implications: The study will contribute positively to the understanding of foreign direct investment for the governments, world organizations, academia, companies and investors. Originality/Value: To the best of the authors´ knowledge, this is the first systematic review identifying what is missing in the literature on taxation and capital structure.peer-reviewe

Technical Debt Prioritization: State of the Art. A Systematic Literature Review

Background. Software companies need to manage and refactor Technical Debt issues. Therefore, it is necessary to understand if and when refactoring Technical Debt should be prioritized with respect to developing features or fixing bugs. Objective. The goal of this study is to investigate the existing body of knowledge in software engineering to understand what Technical Debt prioritization approaches have been proposed in research and industry. Method. We conducted a Systematic Literature Review among 384 unique papers published until 2018, following a consolidated methodology applied in Software Engineering. We included 38 primary studies. Results. Different approaches have been proposed for Technical Debt prioritization, all having different goals and optimizing on different criteria. The proposed measures capture only a small part of the plethora of factors used to prioritize Technical Debt qualitatively in practice. We report an impact map of such factors. However, there is a lack of empirical and validated set of tools. Conclusion. We observed that technical Debt prioritization research is preliminary and there is no consensus on what are the important factors and how to measure them. Consequently, we cannot consider current research conclusive and in this paper, we outline different directions for necessary future investigations

Performance of Different Institutional Units in the Czech Republic and the Role of External Financing

The paper analyses the relationship between the financial structure of the different institutional units in the Czech Republic and their performance, by testing several theoretical hypotheses. It employs Data Envelopment Analysis to estimate separately corporate and individual farms' technical efficiency, and investigates the effect of indebtedness on efficiency in a second stage, accounting for potential endogeneity. No substantial differences were detected between individual and corporate farms. For both groups higher long-term indebtedness negatively affects farm performance (agency theory and adjustment hypothesis), while the latter is used for appraising loan applications (credit evaluation). Case studies to banks and farms confirmed these findings.corporate farms, credit, Czech Republic, individual farms, technical efficiency, Agribusiness,

Performance-Based Specifications: Exploring When They Work and Why

There is extensive research and attention on innovation and sustainable public procurement (SPP) in the European Union at present, with the 2014 revision of the Procurement Directives, the Innovation Union strategy and other European Union policy initiatives. This report seeks to contribute to this discussion through the investigation of the use of performance based specifications (PBSs) in public procurement in the European Union and the United States. The report outlines the benefits and limitations of the use of PBSs, even in the most "progressive" public procurement environments, such as the Netherlands, particularly around their ability to support sustainable development goals and deliver environmental benefits for a procuring authority, such as energy and resource efficiency. Additionally, this report aims to identify the sectors in which the enabling conditions for the successful use of PBSs in public procurement are in place and to understand what policies and regulations are needed to promote the use of PBSs in public tenders and public procurement framework agreements

The Vittel Payments for Ecosystem Services: A Perfect PES Case?

This paper describes and analyses the PES programme developed and implemented by Vittel (Nestlé Waters) in north-eastern France. In order to address the risk of nitrate contamination caused by agricultural intensification in the aquifer, the world leader in the mineral water bottling business is financing farmers in the catchment to change their farming practices and technology. The paper examines the methodology used by Vittel, and the tenyear process that was necessary to transform conflict into a successful partnership.The paper's main conclusion is that establishing PES is a very complex undertaking, one that requires the consideration of scientific but also social, economic, political, institutional, and power relationships. The ability to maintain farmers' income level at all times and finance all technological changes was an important element of success, but primary reasons for the programme's success were not financial. Trust-building through the creation of an intermediary institution (locally based and led by a "champion" sympathetic to the farmers' cause); the development of a long-term participatory process to identify alternative practices and a mutually acceptable set of incentives; the ability to link incentives to land tenure and debt cycle issues and to substitute the old technical and social support networks with new ones, were all fundamental conditions of success