Labor and costing: The employees\u27 dilemma

The paper analyzes the discordant reactions of labor to the introduction of uniform costing in the British printing industry during the early 20th century. The paper reveals that trade unions assisted employers in the quest for a costing-based solution to the inveterate problem of excessive price competition in the printing sector. At the same time, rank-and-file unionists were fearful of the exploitative potential of one element of the prescribed costing solution : time recording. It is shown that labor hostility was sited at the point where costing converged with scientific management in the organization. Evidence is presented which confirms the pertinence of economic-rationalist, labor-process, and Foucauldian approaches to the study of cost accounting history. It is suggested that different paradigms have particular relevance to the analysis of accounting discourses conducted both at the strategic macro-level and at the micro-level of the shop floor

The Balanced Scorecard Combined with an Alternative Costing System

This project investigated whether a strategy framework such as the Balanced Scorecard (BSC), linked to a Performance Management System (PMS), would, compared to a more standard model of strategic planning, improve focus and research output by botanic gardens worldwide. The focus of the project shifted as the opportunity arose to develop an objective costing system linked to the related PMS, which allowed the researchers to posit that the BSC framework could provide a more effective contribution to governance. The research output was based on an in-depth case study at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh employing documentary analysis and innovative action research techniques adopting a constructive approach. This paper has been adapted for Sibbaldia having previously been published by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) Research Project R220 (Macnab et al., 2010)

Engaging stakeholders in research to address water-energy-food (WEF) nexus challenges

The water–energy–food (WEF) nexus has become a popular, and potentially powerful, frame through which to analyse interactions and interdependencies between these three systems. Though the case for transdisciplinary research in this space has been made, the extent of stakeholder engagement in research remains limited with stakeholders most commonly incorporated in research as end-users. Yet, stakeholders interact with nexus issues in a variety of ways, consequently there is much that collaboration might offer to develop nexus research and enhance its application. This paper outlines four aspects of nexus research and considers the value and potential challenges for transdisciplinary research in each. We focus on assessing and visualising nexus systems; understanding governance and capacity building; the importance of scale; and the implications of future change. The paper then proceeds to describe a novel mixed-method study that deeply integrates stakeholder knowledge with insights from multiple disciplines. We argue that mixed-method research designs—in this case orientated around a number of cases studies—are best suited to understanding and addressing real-world nexus challenges, with their inevitable complex, non-linear system characteristics. Moreover, integrating multiple forms of knowledge in the manner described in this paper enables research to assess the potential for, and processes of, scaling-up innovations in the nexus space, to contribute insights to policy and decision making

Applying the SPoRT Paradigm to Transitioning the Near Real-Time MAG4 Solar Event Forecast Model into Space Weather Operations

No abstract availabl

The rise of the balanced scorecard! – Relevance regained?

This paper investigates whether the balanced score card has contributed to regaining practice relevance of management accounting research. The paper subscribes to Kaplan’s claim that accounting research should increase its relevance by directing more attention to accounting in contemporary business practice and strive to develop improvements for this practice. We also believe that Kaplan is fundamentally right when he states that even though efforts have been made to overcome the problem, the issue remains important for management accounting research. However, the paper is wondering why was the relevance gap not somehow covered by the widespread interest in and use of BSC?The increased demand for research that is relevant to managerial practice can be seen as an example of the traditional change of a profession from being a craft to becoming a scientific practice; a transition that has characterized all professions in modern society. Accordingly, the problem of relevance is not considered to be a limited technical problem, but it is seen as a general problem of incompatibility between the speech genres of managerial practice and scientific research. Therefore, we address the speech genre in use in the major works on BSC.Our analysis uncovers that the BSC is defined in a way that can provide management with some kind of generally overarching model, but the model lacks realistic scientific characteristics and favors some strong characteristics of myth. The extreme focus on cause-and-effect statements in BSC that makes everybody involved draw arrows in all directions seems especially arbitrary or mythical. The mythical nature of the BSC speech genre, on the one hand, may be handy to use in practice because it generates hypothetical managerial imperatives, but on the other hand it is incompatible with research and thereby it actually increases the relevance gap. Our analysis consequently points towards methodological issues that are to be solved especially with respect to the usage of cause-and-effect statements if research is to become more relevant and replace the use of somewhat unrealistic myth. To overcome this problem and regain research relevance the article recommends a more scholarly speech genre that pays more attention to various usages of inferential statements and specifically a pragmatic constructivist perspective for analyzing construct causalities

A longitudinal study of the adoption of an activity-based planning system in the crown prosecution service of England and Wales, United Kingdom

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the adoption of a time-based activity-based costing (ABC) information system in resource planning (ABP) in the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) of England and Wales, a public service organisation in the United Kingdom, for the period of 2000-2005. The aims of the study are to provide a technical review of the ABP application and to explore roles of the ABP system in achieving a “fairer” internal resource allocation and an improved understanding of business processes. Design/methodology/approach – The CPS's experience of adopting an ABP system is explained through the use of a case study involving interviews, observations, work shadowing and archival data over a period of six years, 2000-2005. The longitudinal nature of the study has enabled the researchers to align the outcome of ABP adoption with concurrent organisational changes. Findings – The study reveals that the growing understanding of the intrinsic links between business processes and the ABP information and its rationale, which remains unchanged throughout various phases of organisational changes, has promoted a sense of stability amongst CPS staff members. Practical implications – This study provides an in-depth understanding of the practical use of ABP and its evolving roles in the face of the changing organisational environment. Originality/value – This research discusses the prerequisite of the ABP system, a time-based ABC system, and the evolving roles of ABP from a cost-effective planning tool to a stability mechanism in face of constant organisational changes. This experience is invaluable to companies and practitioners seeking to implement a cost-effective planning tool

Toward reduction of artifacts in fused images

Most fusion satellite image methodologies at pixel-level introduce false spatial details, i.e.artifacts, in the resulting fusedimages. In many cases, these artifacts appears because image fusion methods do not consider the differences in roughness or textural characteristics between different land covers. They only consider the digital values associated with single pixels. This effect increases as the spatial resolution image increases. To minimize this problem, we propose a new paradigm based on local measurements of the fractal dimension (FD). Fractal dimension maps (FDMs) are generated for each of the source images (panchromatic and each band of the multi-spectral images) with the box-counting algorithm and by applying a windowing process. The average of source image FDMs, previously indexed between 0 and 1, has been used for discrimination of different land covers present in satellite images. This paradigm has been applied through the fusion methodology based on the discrete wavelet transform (DWT), using the à trous algorithm (WAT). Two different scenes registered by optical sensors on board FORMOSAT-2 and IKONOS satellites were used to study the behaviour of the proposed methodology. The implementation of this approach, using the WAT method, allows adapting the fusion process to the roughness and shape of the regions present in the image to be fused. This improves the quality of the fusedimages and their classification results when compared with the original WAT metho

Longitudinal changes in sedentary time and physical activity during adolescence

BACKGROUND: Low levels of physical activity and high time spent in sedentary activities have been associated with unfavourable health outcomes in adolescents. During adolescence, physical activity declines and sedentary time increases, however little is known about whether the magnitude of these changes differs within or between school-time, after-school time, or at weekends. METHODS: Adolescents (n = 363) participating in the PEACH (Personal and Environmental Associations with Children’s Health) project provided accelerometer data at 12 and 15 years of age. Data were collected in 2008/2009 and 2012/2013. Time spent sedentary (<100 cpm), in light physical activity (LPA (100-2295 cpm) and in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA: ≥ 2296 cpm) were generated for school-time, after-school time and for weekends using school-specific start and finish times. All data were analysed in 2014. RESULTS: The proportion of time spent sedentary significantly increased during school (+8.23%, 95% CI = 7.35 to 9.13), after-school (+6.99%, 95% CI = 5.91 to 8.07) and at weekends (+6.86%, 95% CI = 5.10 to 8.62). A parallel decrease was found in the proportion of time spent in LPA during school (-7.62%, 95% CI = -8.26 to -6.98), after-school (-7.01%, 95% CI = -7.74 to -6.28) and at weekends (-6.72%, 95% CI = -7.80 to -5.65). The proportion of time spent in MVPA remained relatively stable during school (-0.64, 95% CI = -1.11 to -0.18), after-school (0.04%, 95% CI = -0.58 to 0.67) and at weekends (-0.14%, 95% CI = -1.18 to 0.90). CONCLUSIONS: Objectively measured sedentary time increased between 12 and 15 years of age during-school, after-school, and at weekends, suggesting that interventions aiming to reduce the age-associated changes in sedentary time are needed in all three time contexts. Future work should identify which sedentary activities change more than others to inform interventions which aim to minimise the increase in time spent sedentary during adolescence

Do ridge-ridge-fault triple junctions exist on Earth? Evidence from the Aden-Owen-Carlsberg junction in the NW Indian Ocean

International audienceThe triple junctions predicted to be ridge^ridge^fault (RRF) types on the basis of large- scale plate motions are theAzores triple junction between theGloria Fault and theMid-AtlanticRidge, the Juan Fernandez triple junction between the ChileTransform and the East Paci¢c Rise and the Aden^ Owen^Carlsberg (AOC) triple junction between theOwen fracture zone (OFZ) and theCarlsberg and Sheba ridges. In the ¢rst two cases, the expected RRF triple junction does not exist because the transform fault arm of the triple junction has evolved into a divergent boundary before connecting to the ridges.Here, we report the results of a marine geophysical survey of the AOC triple junction, which took place in 2006 aboard the R/VBeautemps-Beaupre¤.We show that a rift basin currently forms at the southern end of theOFZ, indicating that a divergent plate boundary between Arabia and India is developing at the triple junction.The connection of this boundary with the Carlsberg and Sheba ridges is not clearly delineated and the triple junction presently corresponds to awidespread zone of distributed deformation.The AOC triple junction appears to be in a transient stage between a former triple junction of the ridge^fault^fault type and a future triple junction of the ridge^ridge^ridge (RRR) type. Consequently, the known three examples of potential RRF triple junctions are actually of the RRR type, and RRF triple junctions do not presently exist on Eart