Big Data and Changes in Audit Technology: Contemplating a Research Agenda

This study explores the most recent episode in the evolution of audit technology, namely the incorporation of Big Data and Data Analytics (BDA) into audit firm approaches. Drawing on 22 interviews with individuals with significant experience in developing, implementing or assessing the impact of BDA in auditing, together with publicly available documents on BDA published within the audit field, the paper provides a holistic overview of BDA-related changes in audit practice. In particular, the paper focuses on three key aspects, namely the impact of BDA on the nature of the relationship between auditors and their clients; the consequences of the technology for the conduct of audit engagements and the common challenges associated with embedding BDA in the audit context. The study’s empirical findings are then used to establish an agenda of areas suitable for further research on the topic. The study is one of the first empirical accounts providing a perspective on the rise of BDA in auditing

Management and leadership in UK universities: exploring the possibilities of change

This paper considers the case for reform of management struc- tures in UK universities and offers proposals for change. The model of top-down, performance-led management that characterises many institutions is both outmoded and ill-suited to the chal- lenges of an increasingly turbulent higher education sector. Drawing on the experiences of a university that introduced a new scheme of performance management, I explore alternative approaches to leadership and management, collaborative or part- nership working designed to improve employee voice and the need to re-evaluate approaches to Human Resource Management. I conclude with a five-point model for change

The fate of carbon in a mature forest under carbon dioxide enrichment

Atmospheric carbon dioxide enrichment (eCO2) can enhance plant carbon uptake and growth1 5, thereby providing an important negative feedback to climate change by slowing the rate of increase of the atmospheric CO2 concentration6. Although evidence gathered from young aggrading forests has generally indicated a strong CO2 fertilization effect on biomass growth3 5, it is unclear whether mature forests respond to eCO2 in a similar way. In mature trees and forest stands7 10, photosynthetic uptake has been found to increase under eCO2 without any apparent accompanying growth response, leaving the fate of additional carbon fixed under eCO2 unclear4,5,7 11. Here using data from the first ecosystem-scale Free-Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) experiment in a mature forest, we constructed a comprehensive ecosystem carbon budget to track the fate of carbon as the forest responded to four years of eCO2 exposure. We show that, although the eCO2 treatment of +150 parts per million (+38 per cent) above ambient levels induced a 12 per cent (+247 grams of carbon per square metre per year) increase in carbon uptake through gross primary production, this additional carbon uptake did not lead to increased carbon sequestration at the ecosystem level. Instead, the majority of the extra carbon was emitted back into the atmosphere via several respiratory fluxes, with increased soil respiration alone accounting for half of the total uptake surplus. Our results call into question the predominant thinking that the capacity of forests to act as carbon sinks will be generally enhanced under eCO2, and challenge the efficacy of climate mitigation strategies that rely on ubiquitous CO2 fertilization as a driver of increased carbon sinks in global forests. © 2020, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited

The Gramscatho Basin, south Cornwall, UK : Devonian active margin successions

Deep marine deposits of the Gramscatho Basin of south Cornwall reflect two tectonic regimes; Early to Middle Devonian rifting of continental lithosphere with formation of oceanic lithosphere to the south, and Middle Devonian to earliest Carboniferous convergence along its southern margin. Sediments on thinned continental crust to the north and oceanic lithosphere to the south were juxtaposed in the Late Devonian when nappes of deep water flysch and olistostrome were thrust up on to the northern continental margin of the basin. Basin closure was accommodated by forward propagating thrust nappes, accompanied by penecontemporaneous sedimentation. The stratigraphical sequences of major nappes illustrate the progradation of flysch with climactic sedimentation of olistostrome in late Mid- to Late Devonian times. The Lizard Complex, including the Lizard ophiolite, within that nappe stack, constitutes part of one of the GCR sites which are largely in the allochthonous rocks. Many of those sites feature the olistostrome, Roseland Breccia Formation, with its great variety of sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic clasts (up to 1.5 km), and the association of ocean floor basalt and penecontemporaneous acidic volcanics indicative of the coming together of oceanic and continental plates. A site at the top of the parautochthonous continental margin succession displays the erosion products of the youngest nappe as it emerged and advanced across the sediment surface, marking closure of the oceanised Gramscatho Basin and continental collision

From authority to authenticity: the changing governance of biotechnology

In this paper, we suggest that the basis on which risk is publicly managed is presently in a process of transition from the demonstration of expert authority to that of public authenticity. That is, in today's contexts of contested trust, the achievement of an authentic persona has become an increasingly important representational objective for both institutions and individuals involved in risk management. The paper draws empirically on a recent controversy in biotechnology, xenotransplantation, the transplantation of tissues from animals to humans. Drawing on this case, we consider not only how risk is assessed (in the loose sense of weighing up, formally or informally, the risks and benefits associated with a particular development), but also how the riskiness of risk assessment is itself contained. That is to say, we explore how various actors engage not only, in one way or another, with the 'calculation of risks' associated with xenotransplantation, but also with the risks entailed in calculating risks, or what we might call 'meta-risk'. This meta-risk can be seen as an index of the erosion of scientific authority in the context of 'world risk society'. We suggest that one means of waylaying such meta-risk is the demonstration of 'transparency' in the process of rendering risk assessments. However, 'transparency' is itself highly problematic, not least because the criteria that make a decision-making process (such as risk assessment) 'transparent' are always open to query. Indeed, far from being a solution to the crisis in trust, it is very likely that we will see an additional crisis in transparency. We therefore examine our data in terms of the means by which the assessment of risk is 'anchored' and the need for further interrogation obviated. We suggest that the problems of 'meta-risk' and transparency are rhetorically waylaid by representations of authenticity, crucially signed by what we shall call the 'performance of suffering'. Drawing on recent work in the sociology of institutions and emotions, we suggest that there are emerging conventions by which 'suffering' evokes 'authenticity' in the effort to reach a decision (or assess a risk) and that this 'authenticity' is replacing 'authority' as the means by which a decision (or risk assessment) is rhetorically warranted