Examining product differentiation within the big 4 in the Australian audit market

This study examines vertical product differentiation within the Big 4 audit firms in the Australian audit market and potential pricing effects resulting from this differentiation. Assuming a competitive Big 4 audit market, systematically higher prices pertaining to one particular Big 4 audit firm is indicative of utilisation of a product differentiation strategy. A firm-wide premium implies existence of vertical product differentiation or quality differentiation. I single out PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as the firm which is most likely to be using vertical product differentiation as its predecessor firm Price Waterhouse is historically considered to be the most prestigious of the Big N firms. In particular, I investigate if there is evidence of a PwC premium relative to the other Big 4 audit firms. Using a sample 5,686 observations over the period 2000 to 2009, I find evidence of a PwC audit fee premium in Australia on average and in specific years. Over this period, after controlling for client attributes, Ernst and Young (EY), KPMG and Deloitte (DT) have 9.7%, 10.8% and 12% lower audit fees than PwC, respectively. I also explore the alternative explanations of location, office size, and auditor industry specialisation in assessing the robustness of these findings. Using size and industry matched samples and propensity score matched samples, I further find that the PwC premium identified is a result of PwC being differentiated as a firm rather than having differentiated clients. My findings are of interest to audit researchers, regulators, auditors and auditees because pricing differentiation by PwC poses implications for future audit research, audit regulation and auditor selection. The identification of a PwC premium highlights a new dimension of product differentiation (vertical or quality differentiation) within the Big 4 audit market

Feasibility of breast crawl in a tertiary care teaching institute

Background: Early initiation of breastfeeding has many beneficial effects for both the mother and the baby. The breast crawl has been established as the ideal method for promoting early skin-to-skin contact and early initiation of breastfeeding. Objective: The objective of the study was to assess the feasibility of breast crawl in a busy tertiary care institute. Materials and Methods: An observational study was performed including 50 mother-baby pairs, admitted to the labor room of Sassoon General Hospital, Pune, from January2018 for 6 months. Observations were made on patient and nurse attitude and behavior and were further analyzed. Results: Of the total subjects, 23 (46%) mothers had not received any counseling about breastfeeding during the antenatal period and none of them were familiar with the idea of breast crawl from the antenatal period. Of the 50 mothers, 27 mothers (54%) were concerned about privacy, 8 (16%) were concerned about environmental cold, 6 (12%) were worried about exposure, and 9 mothers (18%) were concerned about the baby, whereas 6 mothers (12%) had no concerns and 6 mothers had more than one concern. The attitude of the nursing staff was favorable (enthusiastic) 19 times, indifferent 23 times, reluctant 6 times, and unfavorable (uncooperative) 2 times. Conclusion: While it is highly desirable to implement breast crawl as a routine practice, there are several roadblocks such as lack of antenatal counseling, lack of awareness and motivation, lack of specific guidelines and instructions, skewed staff-to-patient and bed-to-patient ratio, and lack of privacy

A coherent feed-forward loop drives vascular regeneration in damaged aerial organs of plants growing in a normal developmental context

Aerial organs of plants, being highly prone to local injuries, require tissue restoration to ensure their survival. However, knowledge of the underlying mechanism is sparse. In this study, we mimicked natural injuries in growing leaves and stems to study the reunion between mechanically disconnected tissues. We show that PLETHORA (PLT) and AINTEGUMENTA (ANT) genes, which encode stem cell-promoting factors, are activated and contribute to vascular regeneration in response to these injuries. PLT proteins bind to and activate the CUC2 promoter. PLT proteins and CUC2 regulate the transcription of the local auxin biosynthesis gene YUC4 in a coherent feed-forward loop, and this process is necessary to drive vascular regeneration. In the absence of this PLT-mediated regeneration response, leaf ground tissue cells can neither acquire the early vascular identity marker ATHB8, nor properly polarise auxin transporters to specify new venation paths. The PLT-CUC2 module is required for vascular regeneration, but is dispensable for midvein formation in leaves. We reveal the mechanisms of vascular regeneration in plants and distinguish between the wound-repair ability of the tissue and its formation during normal development.Peer reviewe

Problems and development issues of SMEs in Fiji

The small and medium enterprise (SME) sector in Fiji is still at a developing stage. This sector has the potential for growth through use of extensive marketing strategies. There are some success stories but in general this sector still faces some problems and challenges. SMEs in Fiji have been recognised as an essential tool in the development of a sustainable economy. Therefore, this research studies the factors affecting their development in Fiji. Performance of a small firm is influenced by many factors and one of them is its ability to respond to competition by way of adopting appropriate strategies to combat the threats. This research has found that pricing of goods, fixed cost related to businesses and competition from bigger businesses are three major challenges for SMEs in Fiji

Innovation and entrepreneurial activities of SMEs in Fiji

Small businesses may benefit from innovations in terms of structure, supply or markets, as producers of complementary products or in serving specialist niches. In addition, small firms may enjoy comparative advantage in industries that serve smaller, fragmented markets, where consumers value variety and where manufacturing flexibility carries a premium. This research highlights the present status of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Fiji and attempts to identify the strategies that help enhancing their competitiveness through innovation. Results of this study reveal that there is positive relationship between customer orientation and entrepreneurial activity and the correlation results are significant in explaining the linear association. The interesting result of this research shows that entrepreneurial growth in Fiji is not dependent on technological innovation

International Audit Quality and Global Audit Firm Networks

This thesis examines the role and ability of global audit firm networks (GAFNs), which are defined as networks that have the capacity to provide integrated audit services by coordinating member firms across countries, to provide international audits of high quality. In Studies 1 and 2, I evaluated GAFN audit quality at the client-level by examining the impact on audit quality and pricing of multiple audit firms participating in the same group audit over the period 2007-2013. In Study 1, I found that multi-firm group audits conducted by auditors from the same GAFN were of higher quality, as indicated by lower proportion of financial statement restatements, compared to group audits conducted by unrelated audit firms. However, audits are costlier when conducted by firms related through membership of a network. In Study 2, I replicated and extended Dee, Lulseged, and Zhang (2015), which utilised the same data source as Study 1, and did not find evidence of lower audit quality in either the replication or extended samples using performance-matched discretionary accruals. Considering consolidated findings of Studies 1 and 2, when the principal auditor and other auditors have common network membership, audit quality issues that can arise when multiple firms work together are potentially moderated but are more expensive. In Study 3, I evaluated GAFN audit quality at the firm-level by using the GAFN member-level disclosures pertaining to defects in firms’ audit quality control procedures. By constructing a firm-level audit quality determinant model, I examined whether GAFN members learned from prior negative inspection outcomes of their member firms around the world. I reviewed 2,474 audit firm inspection reports from 44 countries over the period 2004-2015 and found no evidence of a systematic knowledge transfer between GAFN member firms. This thesis extends the theory of network structure in the global auditing industry and provides evidence that individual GAFN member firms work together across jurisdictions in multinational group audits and coordinate shared quality control systems for consistency within their respective GAFNs. These results are of interest to users of audited group financial reports, audit regulators and international clients with multinational operations

The New Indian Renaissance: An Exploration of Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger

The image of contemporary India had become so popular in the media, and its achievements had become so widely publicized, that the plight of the great majority of the poor, both in rural and urban India, went unnoticed. India’s economic, intellectual, and scientific development have earned it a new label in the country’s major narratives. This picture of a prosperous India distorts the plight of the poor and the socio-economic issues that impede the country’s advancement. The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga’s Booker Prize-winning book, is about the shifting status of the fiercely contested “proletarian self.” The proletarian self” is as much mandated as imprinted in and recorded by human and metropolitan geographies, which have been termed the “New India” as a socio-historically established idea, one would argue. This article explains how land ownership, poverty, a poorly equipped school system, inadequate health facilities, government corruption, issues of contemporary society and moral degradation have exacerbated the poor’s miseries and slowed the nation’s progress

Management Education in the Era of Globalisation: Challenges, Prospects & the Way Forward for the South Pacific Region

While internationally scholars have surveyed “management education in the era of globalisation” with reference to challenges and prospects within the context of HEIs, there is unquestionably a dearth of research investigation in the Pacific. The purpose of this paper is to discover the interconnection between globalisation and management education and draw from the review of the literature and the theoretical underpinnings, present the way forward in the milieu of a developing island state

CAR-T-Cell Therapy in Multiple Myeloma: B-Cell Maturation Antigen (BCMA) and Beyond.

Peer reviewed: TrueAcknowledgements: The authors are grateful to the platform—Biorender for creating descriptive figures.Publication status: PublishedSignificant progress has been achieved in the realm of therapeutic interventions for multiple myeloma (MM), leading to transformative shifts in its clinical management. While conventional modalities such as surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy have improved the clinical outcomes, the overarching challenge of effecting a comprehensive cure for patients afflicted with relapsed and refractory MM (RRMM) endures. Notably, adoptive cellular therapy, especially chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy, has exhibited efficacy in patients with refractory or resistant B-cell malignancies and is now also being tested in patients with MM. Within this context, the B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) has emerged as a promising candidate for CAR-T-cell antigen targeting in MM. Alternative targets include SLAMF7, CD38, CD19, the signaling lymphocyte activation molecule CS1, NKG2D, and CD138. Numerous clinical studies have demonstrated the clinical efficacy of these CAR-T-cell therapies, although longitudinal follow-up reveals some degree of antigenic escape. The widespread implementation of CAR-T-cell therapy is encumbered by several barriers, including antigenic evasion, uneven intratumoral infiltration in solid cancers, cytokine release syndrome, neurotoxicity, logistical implementation, and financial burden. This article provides an overview of CAR-T-cell therapy in MM and the utilization of BCMA as the target antigen, as well as an overview of other potential target moieties