Small GAAP: a large jump for the IASB

In the last fifteen years, many national standard setters have introduced differential reporting for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Internationally, SMEs are a diverse and dynamic group which are described under broad characteristics in different countries. SMEs are not issuers or public sector entities and therefore frequently the qualitative criteria of not being publicly accountable may define these entities. Acceptance and imposition of International Accounting Standards (IASs) has reignited the debate on differential reporting, especially since the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) issued a discussion document in June 2004 on SME reporting. It is apparent the majority of national standard setters support an IASB-generated alternative reporting regime for SMEs, citing that IFRS developed specifically for listed entities are not relevant for SMEs. Benefits would include lower compliance costs for reporters who would face reduced disclosure due to simplified presentation. This would encourage continuing compliance to the IAS regime thus benefiting users when SMEs produce comparable financial information. It is the objective of this paper to provide a review of the diversity in jurisdictional approaches to resolve these issues. This includes a discussion of the two approaches: the ‘top-down’ or the ‘bottom-up’ approach, with examples of each. This research has been motivated by the absence in academic literature of sufficient studies examining the underlying issues fundamental to redefining the balance between the accountability and decision-usefulness functions of general purpose financial reporting. To achieve this objective, this paper considers relevant academic and practitioner literature before undertaking an analysis of the issues this literature raises. Unique SME factors, including close-knit agency relationships, and a tendency to aim for survival and stability over profit maximisation and growth suggest a distinctly different focus to the IASB conceptual framework is required. The prevalence of an unsubstantiated view that SMEs are ‘small entities on the way to becoming large entities’ overshadows the argument on whether and how SMEs should be offered relief from highly technical IAS. Some countries have regulation for SMEs already or are developing a Best Practice Guide for their SMEs. Exemptions may be based on a public accountability test (as in Canada), but Finland finds the Canadian example ‘too vague’ and New Zealand’s sector-neutral stance made the application of this definition too broad. The IASB may limit definition to broad qualitative and quantitative SME boundaries in its struggle to provide a useful suite of SME accounting standards to nation states. Managing different worldviews and the demands of both preparers and users who are unused to lobbying at a high level, will be challenging for the IASB. Although the IASB originally aimed for a single set of conceptually robust SME standards, they must revisit the specific stewardship focus of SME reporting to gain traction in this project. The SME debate appears as a crucible in which the resolution of such tensions may in time be resolved

Paying the price of the failure to retain legitimacy in a national charity: the CORSO story

The Council for the Organisation of Relief Services Overseas (CORSO), established in 1944, was dedicated to the relief of poverty overseas. It was a New Zealand organisation which acted to co-ordinate the activities of different national bodies; all of whom shared a vision of working towards such relief of the poverty. CORSO’s primary vision for such relief being organised “under one umbrella” attracted 50 member organisations by 1967. Legitimacy theory provides an undemanding theoretical frame for early CORSO. It also explains the period of crisis in relation to reduced legitimacy when, in the 1960s, CORSO began to focus increasingly on development to build foundations for impoverished peoples overseas to gain greater self-reliance. This change in strategic direction was insufficiently communicated to the general public, though it was generally accepted within the organisation. From the 1970s the increased politicisation of society impacted on CORSO’s membership, and Maori radicals became prominent in CORSO along with ‘leftist’ individuals and groups. The early strong coalition was progressively replaced with divisiveness from the mid-1970s amid growing public mistrust of CORSO; as it changed from an apolitical body to one increasingly focused on issues from an anticapitalist stance. Polarisation and the subsequent consequences are similar to other not-for-profit coalitions. Deterioration in budgeting was concomitant with CORSO’s declining Appeal proceeds. Without suggesting a central role for accounting in CORSO’s decline, the correlation of robust or deficient accounting processes respectively with economic good and poor health appears positive. Until the late 1960s, evidence indicates a robust accounting process which subsequently deteriorated, from the 1975 Treasurer’s Report onwards. In examining CORSO’s decline from 1970, until its ‘functional death’ in 1991, the causes of this decline provide a valuable illustration of the importance of political independence and integrity for charitable organisations’ survival. The data for this study is derived from primary and secondary sources including newspaper articles, annual reports, correspondence and opinion surveys. This research also analyses accounting data, evidencing a correlation of robust or deficient accounting processes respectively with economic excellent or poor health. To this extent the accounting data provides a ‘bio-marker’ of organisational health. Key to CORSO’s demise was a change in strategic direction brokered by governing members which resulted in a philosophical shift unsupported by many of its core orthodox member bodies, with ‘fatal’ consequences. CORSO from 1990 was not a broad-based coalition, but survives as a persistent, yet impaired, brand name employed by a small coalition of socialists and Maori radicals. CORSO failed to erect barriers to capture, or to recognise it. This historic perspective on the demise of such a giant in New Zealand charities provides a clear illustration of a failure to sense and adapt sufficiently to its dynamic political landscape, and illustrates how the not-forprofit sector is more dependant than other sectors on continuing legitimisation processes in its implicit contract with the society to which it offers its vision

Internet pathways for stakeholder engagement and accountability: universities in the United Kingdom and their donors

Paper presented to the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand Annual Conference, Sydney, Australia, July 2008Universities world-wide experiencing reducing government financial support are seeking to satisfy financial shortfalls through alternative funding such as that from private contributors (especially alumni). When private corporations search for new funding streams, they turn to the internet, however the unregulated nature of internet reporting has brought calls for higher standards in internet reporting practices (e.g. IASC, 1999). Little is known about the use or quality of internet financial reporting by universities to attract private contributions or to account for the stewardship to current contributors. The present research examined universities' current reporting practices, in order to understand more fully how contextual factors in the tertiary sector impact the availability and quality of universities' internet reporting. The research shows that the ease of accessibility of financial information on universities' websites is related to generic characteristics, such as the age and the financial status of universities. As well, quality of this unregulated internet financial varies widely. The research expands on the relevant issues emerging from this unregulated environment and highlights gaps that exist between stakeholder's expectations and current internet practice. This study recommends improvements in the standard and quality of reporting in order for universities to discharge their accountabilit

Necessity and the Unexpected: SoTL Student-Faculty Collaboration in Writing Program Research

This essay describes how a team of faculty members and undergraduate students worked together to investigate key questions about the experiences students at our campus face as they transition from high school to college. We describe the process we employed in starting our project, and we draw some conclusions about the unexpected positive outcomes of our SoTL student-faculty partnership

El labrador: Año II Número 40 - (27/09/23)

Health promotion interventions can be improved using methods from behavioural economics to identify and target specific decision-making biases at the individual level. In this context, prospect theory provides a suitable framework within which decision-making processes can be operationalised. Focusing on a trade-off between health outcomes and behaviour change incurred by chronic disease management (lifestyle change, or ‘self-management’), we are the first to measure the risk attitudes and quantify the full utility function under prospect theory of a patient population. We conducted a series of hypothetical elicitations over health outcomes associated with different self-management behaviours from a population of individuals with or without ‘manageable’ chronic disease (n = 120). We observed risk aversion in both the gain and the loss domains, as well as significant loss aversion. There seems to be an age effect on risk attitudes in this context, with younger people being on average less risk averse than older people. Our work addresses a need to better understand these decision-making processes, so that behaviour change interventions tailored to specific patient populations can be improved

Effects of Simple Carbohydrate vs. Carbohydrate-Protein Intake on Glucose Homeostasis Following Intense Exercise

Kluka, J., Baskerville, J., Clifton, K., Fisher, K., Marks, D., Weidner, C., Veerabhadrappa, P. and Braun, W.A. (FACSM), Shippensburg University, Shippensburg, PA. Purpose: To test the effects of simple carbohydrate (CHO) and the combination of CHO and protein on blood glucose (BG) clearance following intense anaerobic exercise. Methods: Eight members (age = 18.8 ± 1.4 years) of the Shippensburg University Football team participated in the study. On separate test days, subjects were given either a placebo (PL) drink, a CHO drink (74 g CHO in 473 ml), or a carbohydrate-protein (C-PRO) drink (58 g CHO and 16 g PRO in 473 ml), upon completing the exercise bout. Before exercise, baseline measurements were taken for BG and heart rate. The subject then completed a 90-sec modified Wingate protocol (resistance set at 70% of the individual’s Wingate protocol resistance). BG was tested post-exercise, and every ten minutes after ingestion of the solution for 60 min. Results: Neither total revolutions completed (PL = 123.0±5.0; CHO = 126.9±3.9; C-PRO = 125.4±2.8) nor post-exercise BG (mg.dl-1) differed across treatments (PL = 88.6±6.5; CHO = 93.1±4.0; C-PRO = 101.1±4.7). However, CHO elicited the highest (p\u3c0.05) mean BG during recovery and the lowest BG was found in the PL. Conclusion: While matching post-exercise energy intake, C-PRO elicited a smaller BG area than CHO but tended to be larger than that of PL (p=0.052). C-PRO may be a better choice for post-exercise intake if aiming to maintain glucose homeostasis during recovery

Seasonality in the migration and establishment of H3N2 Influenza lineages with epidemic growth and decline

Background: Influenza A/H3N2 has been circulating in humans since 1968, causing considerable morbidity and mortality. Although H3N2 incidence is highly seasonal, how such seasonality contributes to global phylogeographic migration dynamics has not yet been established. Results: Incorporating seasonally varying migration rates improves the modeling of migration. In our global model, windows of increased immigration map to the seasonal timing of epidemic spread, while windows of increased emigration map to epidemic decline. Seasonal patterns also correlate with the probability that local lineages go extinct and fail to contribute to long term viral evolution, as measured through the trunk of the phylogeny. However, the fraction of the trunk in each community was found to be better determined by its overall human population size Conclusions: Seasonal migration and rapid turnover within regions is sustained by the invasion of 'fertile epidemic grounds' at the end of older epidemics. Thus, the current emphasis on connectivity, including air-travel, should be complemented with a better understanding of the conditions and timing required for successful establishment.Models which account for migration seasonality will improve our understanding of the seasonal drivers of influenza,enhance epidemiological predictions, and ameliorate vaccine updating by identifying strains that not only escape immunity but also have the seasonal opportunity to establish and spread. Further work is also needed on additional conditions that contribute to the persistence and long term evolution of influenza within the human population,such as spatial heterogeneity with respect to climate and seasonalityComment: in BMC Evolutionary Biology 2014, 1

Symmetric Skyrmions

We present candidates for the global minimum energy solitons of charge one to nine in the Skyrme model, generated using sophisticated numerical algorithms. Assuming the Skyrme model accurately represents the low energy limit of QCD, these configurations correspond to the classical nuclear ground states of the light elements. The solitons found are particularly symmetric, for example, the charge seven skyrmion has icosahedral symmetry, and the shapes are shown to fit a remarkable sequence defined by a geometric energy minimization (GEM) rule. We also calculate the energies and sizes to within at least a few percent accuracy. These calculations provide the basis for a future investigation of the low energy vibrational modes of skyrmions and hence the possibility of testing the Skyrme model against experiment.Comment: latex, 9 pages, 1 figure (fig1.gif