Perspectives on multiple stakeholders and management control systems. Institutional and stakeholder theory: Friend or foe?

Organisations are increasingly being pressured by stakeholders to acknowledge and manage their interests (Phillips 2003; Freeman 1984). However, conflicts can arise where multiple stakeholders have differing interests, especially if certain stakeholder groups are prioritised above others when decisions are made about the allocation of scarce resources. The management accounting literature is limited in explicitly dealing with how multiple stakeholder objectives manifest in the management control systems of organisations. This paper discusses the conceptual overlaps and tensions between intuitional theory and stakeholder theory in an attempt to provide greater depth of analysis on how multiple and potentially conflicting stakeholder objectives manifest in management control systems. The paper is a conceptual. It first problematises the issues of multiple stakeholder objectives with management control system design and use. The paper then reviews three management accounting papers (Abernathy and Chua, 1996; Brignall and Modell, 2000; Mueller and Carter, 2007) which have adopted institutional perspectives for this analysis to highlight the limitations of institutional theory. Finally, the paper reconciles several terms used by the respective theories and develops a framework for management accounting researchers to draw from both institutional and stakeholder theories simultaneously to better inform future research design and findings. The framework draws heavily on the model of stakeholder identification and salience developed by Mitchell et al. (1997) and tested by Agle et al. (1999) to connect stakeholder characteristics to the design and use of management control systems

Budget participation and budget emphasis in low uncertainty conditions - Considering alternative reasons to budget

This case study investigates how lower budget participation may be better suited to firms with a high budget emphasis, in lower uncertainty conditions. The organisation studied generates greater benefits when budget participation is low, though it has a high budget emphasis. This result is opposite to that found in Lau, et.al. (1995). The reason for this difference is shown to arise because budget emphasis in the case firm is not primarily related to performance evaluation as defined in prior budget research (Hopwood, 1972). Instead, the main reason for budgeting is operational planning (Hansen and Van der Stede, 2003), and this difference is shown to lead to the opposing findings. When budgets are used primarily for operational planning, their relationships to organisational antecedents appear to be different than when used for performance evaluation

Controlling newly established foreign subsidiaries in transition economies

This paper invest igates the management control system choices exercised by a multinational corporation headquarters to control a newly established wholly owned foreign subsidiary located in a t ransition economy. Specifically t his paper aims to identif y what the core ch allenges of establishing and operating subsidiaries in transition economies are and how these are addressed t hrough the mult inational headquarters' management control systems. A case study is conducted of an Eastern European based subsidiary owned and controlled by a multinational corporation origi nating from South-East Asia. The challenges of operating the subsidiary in the transition economy are reported, which primarily ent ail cultu ral differences, lack of experience, lack of external integration and recruitment issues. Preliminary f indings indicate that the management control system primarily util ises personnel and results controls, which appear to address operational and management challenges

Organisational characteristics, alternative reasons to budget and two budget forms

This study examines contingency relationships between organisational characteristics and four alternative operational reasons to budget, across two budget forms (fixed budget and rolling forecasts). Furthering the work of Hansen and Van der Stede (2004), results show that contingency relationships between organisational characteristics and the importance of operational reasons to budget were different for performance evaluation reasons, in comparison to operational planning reasons

An interdimensional correlation framework for real-time estimation of six degree of freedom target motion using a single x-ray imager during radiotherapy

© 2017 Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine. Increasing evidence suggests that intrafraction tumour motion monitoring needs to include both 3D translations and 3D rotations. Presently, methods to estimate the rotation motion require the 3D translation of the target to be known first. However, ideally, translation and rotation should be estimated concurrently. We present the first method to directly estimate six-degree-of-freedom (6DoF) motion from the target's projection on a single rotating x-ray imager in real-time. This novel method is based on the linear correlations between the superior-inferior translations and the motion in the other five degrees-of-freedom. The accuracy of the method was evaluated in silico with 81 liver tumour motion traces from 19 patients with three implanted markers. The ground-truth motion was estimated using the current gold standard method where each marker's 3D position was first estimated using a Gaussian probability method, and the 6DoF motion was then estimated from the 3D positions using an iterative method. The 3D position of each marker was projected onto a gantry-mounted imager with an imaging rate of 11 Hz. After an initial 110° gantry rotation (200 images), a correlation model between the superior-inferior translations and the five other DoFs was built using a least square method. The correlation model was then updated after each subsequent frame to estimate 6DoF motion in real-time. The proposed algorithm had an accuracy (±precision) of -0.03 ± 0.32 mm, -0.01 ± 0.13 mm and 0.03 ± 0.52 mm for translations in the left-right (LR), superior-inferior (SI) and anterior-posterior (AP) directions respectively; and, 0.07 ± 1.18°, 0.07 ± 1.00° and 0.06 ± 1.32° for rotations around the LR, SI and AP axes respectively on the dataset. The first method to directly estimate real-time 6DoF target motion from segmented marker positions on a 2D imager was devised. The algorithm was evaluated using 81 motion traces from 19 liver patients and was found to have sub-mm and sub-degree accuracy

Directing Differentiation of Pluripotent Stem Cells Toward Retinal Pigment Epithelium Lineage

Development of efficient and reproducible conditions for directed differentiation of pluripotent stem cells into specific cell types is important not only to understand early human development but also to enable more practical applications, such as in vitro disease modeling, drug discovery, and cell therapies. The differentiation of stem cells to retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) in particular holds promise as a source of cells for therapeutic replacement in age-related macular degeneration. Here we show development of an efficient method for deriving homogeneous RPE populations in a period of 45 days using an adherent, monolayer system and defined xeno-free media and matrices. The method utilizes sequential inhibition and activation of the Activin and bone morphogenetic protein signaling pathways and can be applied to both human embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells as the starting population. In addition, we use whole genome transcript analysis to characterize cells at different stages of differentiation that provides further understanding of the developmental dynamics and fate specification of RPE. We show that with the described method, RPE develop through stages consistent with their formation during embryonic development. This characterization- together with the absence of steps involving embryoid bodies, three-dimensional culture, or manual dissections, which are common features of other protocols-makes this process very attractive for use in research as well as for clinical applications. SIGNIFICANCE: This report describes a novel method of directed differentiation to generate retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells from pluripotent stem cells. The employed method is based on adherent monolayer culture using xeno-free conditions and manipulation of the Activin and bone morphogenetic protein signaling pathway using small molecules and recombinant proteins. Whole genome microarray analysis was performed to characterize the differentiation process and understand the developmental path of RPE generation in vitro. This method can be applied for generation of RPE for research as well as for clinical applications

Dose reconstruction including dynamic six-degree of freedom motion during prostate radiotherapy

© Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd. An in-house developed program for real-time reconstruction of motion-induced dose errors, DoseTracker, was extended to handle rotational target motion in addition to the previously implemented translational motion, and applied offline for prostate VMAT treatments. For translational motion, the motion-induced errors of DoseTracker were in good agreement with ground truth dose reconstructions performed in a commercial treatment planning system. For rotational motion, no ground truth was available, but DoseTracker showed that the VMAT dose is highly robust against static interfractional rotations but quite sensitive to dynamic intrafraction rotations due to interplay effects between target motion and machine motion

Corrigendum: Solar cycles or random processes? Evaluating solar variability in Holocene climate records

This is the final version of the article. Available from Springer Nature via the DOI in this record.The article to which this is the corrigendum is in ORE at http://hdl.handle.net/10871/21766A coding error in the Monte Carlo procedure for the determination of critical values in running correlation analysis (presented in Supplementary Data S8) has been brought to the attention of the authors.[...

Role of a functional polymorphism in the F2R gene promoter in sarcoidosis

Sarcoidosis is a multisystem granulomatous disease of unknown aetiology characterized by increased inflammation, and results from gene-environment interactions. Proteinase-activated receptor-1 mediates the interplay between coagulation and inflammation. The rs2227744G > A promoter single nucleotide polymorphism has been linked to inflammation, cardiovascular disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbations. Using a case-control study (184 cases with sarcoidosis and 368 controls), we show that the rs2227744A allele significantly associates with protection from sarcoidosis (P = 0.003, OR = 0.68 (0.52-0.88))

Western Australian public opinions of a minimum pricing policy for alcohol: study protocol

Background: Excessive alcohol consumption has significant adverse economic, social, and health outcomes. Recent estimates suggest that the annual economic costs of alcohol in Australia are up to AUD $36 billion. Policies influencing price have been demonstrated to be very effective in reducing alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harms. Interest in minimum pricing has gained traction in recent years. However, there has been little research investigating the level of support for the public interest case of minimum pricing in Australia. Objective: This article describes protocol for a study exploring Western Australian (WA) public knowledge, understanding, and reaction to a proposed minimum price policy per standard drink. Methods: The study will employ a qualitative methodological design. Participants will be recruited from a wide variety of backgrounds, including ethnic minorities, blue and white collar workers, unemployed, students, and elderly/retired populations to participate in focus groups. Focus group participants will be asked about their knowledge of, and initial reactions to, the proposed policy and encouraged to discuss how such a proposal may affect their own alcohol use and alcohol consumption at the population level. Participants will also be asked to discuss potential avenues for increasing acceptability of the policy. The focus groups will adopt a semi-structured, open-ended approach guided by a question schedule. The schedule will be based on feedback from pilot samples, previous research, and a steering group comprising experts in alcohol policy and pricing. Results: The study is expected to take approximately 14 months to complete. Conclusions: The findings will be of considerable interest and relevance to government officials, policy makers, researchers, advocacy groups, alcohol retail and licensed establishments and organizations, city and town planners, police, and other stakeholder organizations