Knowledge actors and the construction of new governing panoramas:The case of the European Commission’s DG Education and Culture

RESUMO: Este artigo aborda o tema da governança da educação na Europa. Esse espaço da política tem sido dominado por grandes interesses e organizações transnacionais, entre as quais se destacam a Organização para a Cooperação e Desenvolvimento Econômico (OCDE) e a Comissão Europeia (CE). Este artigo procura explorar e explicar quais são os efeitos constitutivos que as práticas sistemáticas de 'medição' e de estandardização têm na intensificação da convergência entre a Direção-Geral de Educação e Cultura da CE e a OCDE, a qual, por meio do PISA e de outros testes internacionais, tornou-se um ator influente na política educativa em uma escala global. O artigo pretende identificar os feitos do 'governo pelos números' nas interdependências criadas entre as duas organizações internacionais

Intangible Assets and Internal Controls in Global Companies

The effectiveness of corporate governance processes on global markets entails the adoption of ramified internal control systems, and the adaptation of the variables that are significant to this end to respond to the evolution of surrounding conditions. Analysis of the changes that have taken place in the main variables on which global companies concentrate their attention and their controls reveals, in particular, a growing need to evolve from the dominance of tangible components to a situation that takes intangible assets into due consideration. We refer to the corporate culture and the information system which represent both elements on which the effectiveness of governance processes is based and factors to be monitored with suitable internal control procedures

Evaluating accounting information systems that support multiple GAAP reporting using normalized systems theory

This paper uses a mixed methods approach of design science and case study research to evaluate structures of Accounting Information Systems (AIS) that report in multiple Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), using Normalized Systems Theory (NST). To comply with regulation, many companies need to apply multiple GAAP. In case studies we identify AIS structures for multiple GAAP reporting. AIS need to cope with changes in GAAP and regulation in an evolvable way, the impact of the changes needs to be bounded. Since NST provides guidelines to design modular structures (in software) with an ex-ante proven degree of evolvability [1], we use NST to evaluate the identified AIS structures. We list violations of NST principles (combinatorial effects) and describe their manifestation in the cases. This application of NST in accounting demonstrates its relevance in non-software-specific domains. Moreover this is the first evaluation of an AIS with respect to evolvability

Transnational governance spirals: the transformation of rule-making authority in internet regulation and corporate financial reporting

Transnational regulation involves profound changes in the ways rules are set today. Based on two case studies on Internet governance and the regulation of corporate financial reporting, we show that transnational governance is best understood as a dynamic, non-linear process. In both fields, regulatory institutions are constantly renegotiated between public and private actors, a process which gives rise to new, hybrid, forms of authority. The hybridization of authority challenges the common distinction between public and private authority in transnational regulation. We propose to characterize the ongoing dynamics as transnational governance spirals. Our comparative analysis follows a research strategy of causal reconstruction. To that end, we identify three mechanisms serving as analytical tools to explain transnational institution building and the observed governance spirals: integration, authorization and formalization