Activity-based Management in France: A focus on the information systems department of a bank

The aim of the paper is to describe the Activity-based Costing and Management methods applied in France. For that purpose, we use a literature review and a case study. In a first time, we analyse the origins of the methods and their diffusion. Then we present the French situation. Finally, we propose a case study that takes place in a French bank. Our paper shows that the ABC and ABM methods are as developed in France as in the Anglo-Saxon countries and that the methods are strategically oriented.Activity based costing; activity-based management; case study; bank

The balanced scorecard as a knowledge management tool: a French experience in a semi-public insurance company

In this paper we present the Balanced Scorecard, a Strategic Control tool, which is quite famous all around the world and in the European countries. Its principle objective is to articulate planning decisions with control ones thanks to non-financial indicators. The Strategic Control and the Agency Theories constitute the foundation of this tool. But in Northern Europe, some specific Balanced Scorecard have been designed in the framework of the Knowledge Management Theory. To work, the Balanced Scorecard needs a sophisticated information system support. Using two theoretical backgrounds, the Strategic Control approach and the Knowledge Management Theory, we analyse the relevance of the Balanced Scorecard. More particularly, we present the French situation. First, we show that the French managers believe that the Balanced Scorecard is a relevant management instrument to drive the firm's objectives. Second, we describe the Balanced Scorecard of a semipublic French insurance company.Balanced Scorecard; Strategic Control; Non-financial Indicators; Knowledge Management; French Experience

Rental Housing Spot Markets: How Online Information Exchanges Can Supplement Transacted-Rents Data

Traditional US rental housing data sources such as the American Community Survey and the American Housing Survey report on the transacted market—what existing renters pay each month. They do not explicitly tell us about the spot market—i.e., the asking rents that current homeseekers must pay to acquire housing—though they are routinely used as a proxy. This study compares governmental data to millions of contemporaneous rental listings and finds that asking rents diverge substantially from these most recent estimates. Conventional housing data understate current market conditions and affordability challenges, especially in cities with tight and expensive rental markets

The activity-based costing method developments: state-of-the art and case study

This paper analyses the management accounting applications which try to improve the Activity-based Costing method. In the first part, we describe them using the Strategic Management Accounting stream. Then, we present the main features of these applications. In the second part, we examine in details two of these features: The widening of the analysis perimeter and the relevant level of details to analyse the costs. Then, we analyse several proposals: Customer Profitability Analysis (CPA), Interorganizational Cost Management (IOCM), Resource Consumption Accounting (RCA) and Time-driven ABC (TDABC). Finally, we describe an experience observed in the IT supply European division of an international group. This group experiments what we call at the end a supply chain ABC tool to manage its interorganizational relations.Activity-based Costing, Strategic Management Accounting, Time-driven ABC, Case study.

Why has (reasonably accurate) Automatic Speech Recognition been so hard to achieve?

Hidden Markov models (HMMs) have been successfully applied to automatic speech recognition for more than 35 years in spite of the fact that a key HMM assumption -- the statistical independence of frames -- is obviously violated by speech data. In fact, this data/model mismatch has inspired many attempts to modify or replace HMMs with alternative models that are better able to take into account the statistical dependence of frames. However it is fair to say that in 2010 the HMM is the consensus model of choice for speech recognition and that HMMs are at the heart of both commercially available products and contemporary research systems. In this paper we present a preliminary exploration aimed at understanding how speech data depart from HMMs and what effect this departure has on the accuracy of HMM-based speech recognition. Our analysis uses standard diagnostic tools from the field of statistics -- hypothesis testing, simulation and resampling -- which are rarely used in the field of speech recognition. Our main result, obtained by novel manipulations of real and resampled data, demonstrates that real data have statistical dependency and that this dependency is responsible for significant numbers of recognition errors. We also demonstrate, using simulation and resampling, that if we `remove' the statistical dependency from data, then the resulting recognition error rates become negligible. Taken together, these results suggest that a better understanding of the structure of the statistical dependency in speech data is a crucial first step towards improving HMM-based speech recognition

LES TABLEAUX DE BORD STRATEGIQUES : UNE INSTRUMENTATION DU CONTROLE DE GESTION STRATEGIQUE CONCEPTS, INSTRUMENTATION ET ENQUETE

Après avoir expliqué que les développements autour de la notion de Contrôle de Gestion Stratégique sont à l'origine des Tableaux de Bord Stratégiques, nous présenterons les résultats d'une enquête. Celle-ci, constituée d'un volet quantitatif et d'un volet qualitatif, témoignera de l'intérêt des managers français pour de nouvelles approches en contrôle de gestion.Contrôle de gestion stratégique ; Tableaux de bord stratégiques ;Balanced Scorecard ; Navigator ; Processus interactifs

LES TABLEAUX DE BORD DU CAPITAL INTELLECTUEL

Cet article a pour objectif de présenter et d'analyser les tableaux de bord du capital intellectuel qui constituent un modèle alternatif au Balanced Scorecard. Dans une première partie, nous retraçons les origines et les fondements des tableaux de bord du capital intellectuel. Puis dans une seconde partie, nous décrivons les différentes façons d'appréhender le capital intellectuel pour dans une troisième partie analyser des exemples de tableaux de bord du capital intellectuel.Tableaux de bord; Capital intellectuel; Balanced Scorecard

Le déploiement d'un pilotage stratégique des coûts dans les services informatiques de deux groupes internationaux : perspective instrumentale et analyse comparative

Cet article analyse le pilotage stratégique des coûts dans une perspective instrumentale et au travers de deux études de cas. Il s'agit de montrer en quoi les dispositifs de pilotage à base d'activités s'inscrivent dans une optique stratégique du contrôle de gestion et de tester si l'ABC est un outil pertinent de pilotage stratégique des coûts. La première partie revient sur les développements en pilotage stratégique des coûts et leurs liens avec les évolutions de l'ABC. La seconde partie présente une grille de lecture des motifs d'usage des dispositifs à base d'activités et explore le potentiel stratégique de plusieurs applications. Dans une troisième partie, nous confrontons nos développements théoriques et instrumentaux à la réalité du terrain au travers de deux études de cas.Pilotage stratégique des coûts, Dispositifs à base d'activités, Etudes de cas

GESTION DES RISQUES ET DES INCERTITUDES L'EMERGENCE D'UN CONTRÔLE DE GESTION " PAR EXCEPTION "

Le thème de la gestion des risques a été peu abordé en contrôle de gestion et le fonctionnement des outils traditionnels comme les budgets postulent une maîtrise des risques et des incertitudes. L'émergence de nouvelles approches en contrôle de gestion montre une évolution sur ce point.Budgets à base d'activités ; Gestion sans budget ; Gestion par exception ; contrôle de gestion interactif.

Systemic classification of concern-based design methods in the context of enterprise architecture

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a relatively new domain that is rapidly developing. "The primary reason for developing EA is to support business by providing the fundamental technology and process structure for an IT strategy” [TOGAF]. EA models have to model enterprises facets that span from marketing to IT. As a result, EA models tend to become large. Large EA models create a problem for model management. Concern-based design methods (CBDMs) aim to solve this problem by considering EA models as a composition of smaller, manageable parts—concerns. There are dozens of different CBDMs that can be used in the context of EA: from very generic methods to specific methods for business modeling or IT implementations. This variety of methods can cause two problems for those who develop and use innovative CBDMs in the field of Enterprise Architecture (EA). The first problem is to choose specific CBDMs that can be used in a given EA methodology: this is a problem for researchers who develop their own EA methodology. The second problem is to find similar methods (with the same problem domain or with similar frameworks) in order to make a comparative analysis with these methods: this is a problem of researchers who develop their own CBDMs related to a specific problem domain in EA (such as business process modeling or aspect oriented programming). We aim to address both of these problems by means of a definition of generic Requirements for CBDMs based on the system inquiry. We use these requirements to classify twenty CBDMs in the context of EA. We conclude with a short discussion about trends that we have observed in the field of concern-based design and modelin