A Consulting Giant; a Disgruntled Client: a ?Failed? Attempt to Change Management Controls in a Public Sector Organisation

There has been very little research into management consulting interventions in public sector organisations especially in emerging economies. This paper aims to fill this void by narrating the empirics of a consulting assignment carried out by a large international consulting firm in a Pakistani public sector organisation. The paper found that consultants? recommendations of modern day management accounting and control practices, such as a modern performance measurement system and a ?state-of-the-art? information system, were rejected by the management, who stopped the balance of payment of the consultants? fee. Employing a theoretical perspective that focuses on the structural conditions facing both the client and the consultants, and the strategies adopted by the consultants and the client, the paper aims to explain the empirics of the case. Through identification of the structural conditions operating in emerging economies, this paper sheds light on the nature of the relationship between consultants and client in these settings. The consultants? strategies and what went ?wrong? with these strategies was also analysed. Client management counter-strategies and management?s reasons for implementing them were also explored. Thus, through structural and strategic analysis, this paper aims to enhance our understanding of the dynamics of management consulting in public sector organisations especially in emerging economies

Understanding Management Accounting Changes in a Family-Owned Company: A Greek Case Study

This study seeks to understand the changes to management accounting controls in a large Greek company in the context of the rapidly changing socio-economic environment. The paper investigates the case of FA (here anonymised), a Greek dairy company, as it has been transformed from a small family-run firm to one of the biggest companies in Greece. Familial and informal management controls have been transformed into a relatively formal and professional form of control over the years. The dynamics and nature of management accounting changes are understood by drawing on critical realism, a theoretical framework pioneered by Roy Bhaskar (1975, 1979). Our analysis revealed that a changed wider structural environment, changed control needs of owners and ?politics of control within capital? between competing management positions (Armstrong, 1989) precipitated the changes in the management control practices of the organization

Sensing Models and Its Impact on Network Coverage in Wireless Sensor Network

Network coverage of wireless sensor network (WSN) means how well an area of interest is being monitored by the deployed network. It depends mainly on sensing model of nodes. In this paper, we present three types of sensing models viz. Boolean sensing model, shadow-fading sensing model and Elfes sensing model. We investigate the impact of sensing models on network coverage. We also investigate network coverage based on Poisson node distribution. A comparative study between regular and random node placement has also been presented in this paper. This study will be useful for coverage analysis of WSN.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, IEEE Region 10 Colloquium and the Third ICIIS, Kharagpur, INDIA December 8-10, 200

Foreign bank subsidiaries’ risk-taking behavior: Impact of home and host country national culture

This paper examines whether the risk-taking behavior of foreign affiliates of multinational banks is more influenced by the national culture of their parent banks’ home country or the national culture of foreign affiliates’ host country. The study uses a dataset of 292 foreign affiliates (i.e., subsidiaries or branch operations) operating in 66 countries having parent banks in 26 countries for empirical analysis. National culture of both home and host countries is measured with four dimensions—uncertainty avoidance, individualism, masculinity and power distance—of Hofstede's framework of national culture. Findings suggest that the national culture of parent banks’ home country has higher impact on the risk-taking behavior of foreign affiliates of multinational banks than the national culture of their host country. Specifically, foreign affiliates’ risk-taking is higher if parent banks’ home country has low uncertainty avoidance, high individualism and low power distance cultural values. This study extends our understanding that how informal institutions, such as the national culture, influence the financial decisions in multinational banks

Tying Odysseus to the Mast: Evidence from a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines

We designed a commitment savings product for a Philippine bank and implemented it using a randomized control methodology. The savings product was intended for individuals who want to commit now to restrict access to their savings, and who were sophisticated enough to engage in such a mechanism. We conducted a baseline survey on 1777 existing or former clients of a bank. One month later, we offered the commitment product to a randomly chosen subset of 710 clients; 202 (28.4 percent) accepted the offer and opened the account. In the baseline survey, we asked hypothetical time discounting questions. Women who exhibited a lower discount rate for future relative to current tradeoffs, and hence potentially have a preference for commitment, were indeed significantly more likely to open the commitment savings account. After twelve months, average savings balances increased by 81 percentage points for those clients assigned to the treatment group relative to those assigned to the control group. We conclude that the savings response represents a lasting change in savings, and not merely a short-term response to a new product.Savings, commitment, hyperbolic preferences, microfinance, development economics, program evaluation, field experiment, self-control

Approximate Analytic Solutions for One-Dimensional Piston Problem with Radiating Transfer

We have considered the motion of a spherical, cylindrical or plane piston into a non uniform medium taking into account energy transfer by radiation. We have obtained approximate analytic solutions for the physical situation (i) when the medium is optically thin and (ii)when it is optically thick. We have made use of technique due to Chernyi in which the flow variables are expanded in series of powers of Epsional, the density ratio across the shock. Temperature distribution behind the shock front is depicted graphically for the limiting cases, mentioned above for a large number of cases including the situations when the medium ahead of the shock is homogeneous or otherwise