On Predictability of Revisioning in Corporate Cash Flow Forecasting

Financial services within corporations usually are part of an information system on which many business functions depend. As of the importance of forecast quality for financial services, means of forecast accuracy improvement, such as data-driven statistical prediction techniques and/or forecast support systems, have been subject to IS research since decades. In this paper we consider means of forecast improvement due to regular patterns in forecast revisioning. We analyze how business forecasts are adjusted to exploit possible improvements for the accuracy of forecasts with lower lead time. The empirical part bases on an unique dataset of experts\u27 cash flow forecasts and accountants\u27 actuals realizations of companies in a global corporation. We find that direction and magnitude of the final revision in aggregated forecasts can be related to suggested targets in earnings management, providing the means of improving the accuracy of longer-term cash flow forecasts

The Goal of Forecasting – Predictability of Cash Flow Revisions in Corporate Finance

Accuracy of forecasts is essential for organizational units, such as accounting. The accuracy of business–related forecasts generally depends on individual and organizational biases. Biases, resulting from anchoring and adjustment heuristics, incentivization for earnings management as a personal objective, and company goals alter the forecaster’s opinion on the future outcome. Studies in business analytics suggest that detectable forecasting patterns occur, if these biases are present. This paper argues that a bias not only distorts forecast revisions, but –depending on the importance level of the bias– that the goal to produce accurate forecasts has a marginalized influence in the presence of the bias. Such a bias supersedes the previous goal and recommends a disentanglement of the forecasting process. Empirical analysis of judgmental cash flow forecasts in a business corporation supports the hypothesis for an organizational bias. Concealment of information goes along with this bias, alters forecast revisions, and has a substantial impact on the forecasting process. Therefore, incorporation of the findings into future organizational arrangements, strategic understanding, and accounting information systems is necessary

Ecosystem synergies, change and orchestration

This thesis investigates ecosystem synergies, change, and orchestration. The research topics are motivated by my curiosity, a fragmented research landscape, theoretical gaps, and new phenomena that challenge extant theories. To address these motivators, I conduct literature reviews to organise existing studies and identify their limited assumptions in light of new phenomena. Empirically, I adopt a case study method with abductive reasoning for a longitudinal analysis of the Alibaba ecosystem from 1999 to 2020. My findings provide an integrated and updated conceptualisation of ecosystem synergies that comprises three distinctive but interrelated components: 1) stack and integrate generic resources for efficiency and optimisation, 2) empower generative changes for variety and evolvability, and 3) govern tensions for sustainable growth. Theoretically grounded and empirically refined, this new conceptualisation helps us better understand the unique synergies of ecosystems that differ from those of alternative collective organisations and explain the forces that drive voluntary participation for value co-creation. Regarding ecosystem change, I find a duality relationship between intentionality and emergence and develop a phasic model of ecosystem sustainable growth with internal and external drivers. This new understanding challenges and extends prior discussions on their dominant dualism view, focus on partial drivers, and taken-for-granted lifecycle model. I propose that ecosystem orchestration involves systematic coordination of technological, adoption, internal, and institutional activities and is driven by long-term visions and adjusted by re-visioning. My analysis reveals internal orchestration's important role (re-envisioning, piloting, and organisation architectural reconfiguring), the synergy and system principles in designing adoption activities, and the expanding arena of institutional activities. Finally, building on the above findings, I reconceptualise ecosystems and ecosystem sustainable growth to highlight multi-stakeholder value creation, inclusivity, long-term orientation and interpretative approach. The thesis ends with discussing the implications for practice, policy, and future research.Open Acces

June 13-14, 2022, Ohio University Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes

Meeting minutes document the activities of Ohio University\u27s Board of Trustees

ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING THROUGH AGILE WORKING APPROACH

Although agile working has been widely accepted in software development practices in Thailand, the extended usage of agile working in non-development environments was still limited. The study aimed to understand the effects of agile working implementation in a small Thai organisation. The action research initially focused on investigating three impacts of agile working on reflective practices in the organisation, culture integration and ecosystem business model innovation. However, an integrated learning framework emerged from the meta- reflection process. The study informed that agile working helped the Company increase reflective practices in the organisation, evolve its culture, and innovate its ecosystem business model. Agile working did provide intended results and consequences of the actions, as power relation emerging as the critical factors stimulating both intended and unintended results. After 20 months, while the Company successfully stimulated reflective thinking among employees, expanded the sales ecosystem, and implemented the agile projects, the interactions from agile working unintendedly changed employees' motivation and sharing attitude, which the Company needed to manage after the thesis period. A vital outcome was developing an integrated learning framework to understand dynamic organisational development from agile working implementation. The integrated learning mechanism in an agile environment demonstrated how reflective practices and double-loop learning contributed to continuous organisational development. In addition, the integrated learning framework provided insights into how agile working facilitated second and third-person learning. As a result, the integrated learning mechanism of agile working helped the Company to sustain its organisation development. The study also suggested potential areas of studies to understand the meta-learning mechanism of agile working

Agile Market Engineering: Bridging the gap between business concepts and running markets

The agile market engineering process model (AMEP) is built on the insight, that market design and development is a wicked problem. Electronic markets are too complex to be completely designed upfront. Instead, AMEP tries to bridge the gap between theoretic market design and practical electronic market platform development using an agile, iterative approach that relies on early customer feedback and continuous improvement. The AMEP model is complemented by several supporting software artifacts

Strategizing as multi-modal and rhetorical discursive practice: a case study of the BHP Billiton's failed acquisition of Rio Tinto

This thesis took a discourse approach to analyze BHP Billiton’s failed acquisition of Rio Tinto in 2007-08 to better understand what happens during strategizing. The research highlighted the structure and dynamics of the discourse, as well as the role of time and context in the social construction of meaning in strategizing. In doing so, the thesis provided new insights into how actors were able to influence such important strategic events. The thesis adopted a multi-modal discourse analytic framework and analyzed media reports, corporate videos, press releases and communications to shareholders, as well as slides and full transcripts of key presentations by both BHP and Rio leadership. The analysis identified the main internal and external actors as either decision-makers (BHP’s leadership, shareholders, competition regulators) or influencers (Rio’s leadership, analysts, media, customers). It further identified a range of multi-modal discursive practices and rhetorical strategies that were brought to bear to negotiate the meaning of three key constructs that shaped the discourse, that is, the additional value pool, the fair share exchange ratio, and the impact on competition. Further, the findings showed how time and context were discursively constructed and influenced the meaning of the three key constructs. These findings enabled a number of contributions to the discourse and M&A literature. While most research into acquisition discourses has routinely ignored the pre-acquisition discourse, this thesis focused on the period preceding the transaction. An initial contribution was to show that, in a pre-acquisition discourse, external actors were not a passive audience but played a significant role as rhetor and audience. Also, while previous empirical studies of discourse have emphasized the role of language, this thesis considered multi-modal discursive practices, including speech, writing, imagery, location and calculative devices. The thesis made a further contribution by showing how actors worked to persuade each other through multi-layered rhetorical strategies that were also brought to bear through non-linguistic modes. This contribution was extended by showing how these practices functioned as transgression markers that signaled convergence or divergence of meaning of the key constructs. A detailed analysis of calculative devices enabled further contributions. An initial contribution was that it showed how calculative devices developed as boundary objects over four stages: identification, calculation, negotiation, and objectification. Further, the thesis showed how calculative devices were imbued with logos and ethos through, for example, the calculative logic, accounting standards and data sources that were woven together in the symbolic manipulations of the device. Lastly, the thesis showed how calculative devices acted as boundary objects, and made a contribution to theory by proposing a third criterion, legitimacy, to complement widely acknowledged criteria of adaptability and commonality. In addition to these dynamics, the thesis outlined a discursive epistemology of strategizing through its analysis of the role of time and context in the social construction of meaning in strategizing. While the role of time and context is widely acknowledged in organizational discourse, it remained unclear what was specific to strategizing. The thesis argued that the purpose of strategizing is to construct and negotiate new or improved options for a preferred future and the actions to bring this about, and made a contribution to a discursive epistemology of strategizing by showing how temporal and contextual work in strategizing extends the horizon of discourses that relate to the future and discourses that relate to the broader discourse. This reconstructs the tapestry of interwoven discourses that make up the local strategy discourse, and creates new strategic options

Strategizing as multi-modal and rhetorical discursive practice: a case study of the BHP Billiton's failed acquisition of Rio Tinto

This thesis took a discourse approach to analyze BHP Billiton’s failed acquisition of Rio Tinto in 2007-08 to better understand what happens during strategizing. The research highlighted the structure and dynamics of the discourse, as well as the role of time and context in the social construction of meaning in strategizing. In doing so, the thesis provided new insights into how actors were able to influence such important strategic events. The thesis adopted a multi-modal discourse analytic framework and analyzed media reports, corporate videos, press releases and communications to shareholders, as well as slides and full transcripts of key presentations by both BHP and Rio leadership. The analysis identified the main internal and external actors as either decision-makers (BHP’s leadership, shareholders, competition regulators) or influencers (Rio’s leadership, analysts, media, customers). It further identified a range of multi-modal discursive practices and rhetorical strategies that were brought to bear to negotiate the meaning of three key constructs that shaped the discourse, that is, the additional value pool, the fair share exchange ratio, and the impact on competition. Further, the findings showed how time and context were discursively constructed and influenced the meaning of the three key constructs. These findings enabled a number of contributions to the discourse and M&A literature. While most research into acquisition discourses has routinely ignored the pre-acquisition discourse, this thesis focused on the period preceding the transaction. An initial contribution was to show that, in a pre-acquisition discourse, external actors were not a passive audience but played a significant role as rhetor and audience. Also, while previous empirical studies of discourse have emphasized the role of language, this thesis considered multi-modal discursive practices, including speech, writing, imagery, location and calculative devices. The thesis made a further contribution by showing how actors worked to persuade each other through multi-layered rhetorical strategies that were also brought to bear through non-linguistic modes. This contribution was extended by showing how these practices functioned as transgression markers that signaled convergence or divergence of meaning of the key constructs. A detailed analysis of calculative devices enabled further contributions. An initial contribution was that it showed how calculative devices developed as boundary objects over four stages: identification, calculation, negotiation, and objectification. Further, the thesis showed how calculative devices were imbued with logos and ethos through, for example, the calculative logic, accounting standards and data sources that were woven together in the symbolic manipulations of the device. Lastly, the thesis showed how calculative devices acted as boundary objects, and made a contribution to theory by proposing a third criterion, legitimacy, to complement widely acknowledged criteria of adaptability and commonality. In addition to these dynamics, the thesis outlined a discursive epistemology of strategizing through its analysis of the role of time and context in the social construction of meaning in strategizing. While the role of time and context is widely acknowledged in organizational discourse, it remained unclear what was specific to strategizing. The thesis argued that the purpose of strategizing is to construct and negotiate new or improved options for a preferred future and the actions to bring this about, and made a contribution to a discursive epistemology of strategizing by showing how temporal and contextual work in strategizing extends the horizon of discourses that relate to the future and discourses that relate to the broader discourse. This reconstructs the tapestry of interwoven discourses that make up the local strategy discourse, and creates new strategic options