COMPREHENSIVE INCOME IN EUROPE: VALUATION, PREDICTION AND CONSERVATIVE ISSUES

The IASB comprehensive income project extends the ââ¬Ëfair value’ measurement conceptfrom the balance sheet into the income statement. This article extends prior research, primarilybased on Anglo-Saxon countries, by using a comprehensive data set of 56,700 European firm yearsover sixteen countries. We find that other comprehensive income provides incremental informationto investors ââ¬â due to unrealised available-for-sale securities component ââ¬â and affects analysts’decision to revise price estimates. On the other hand, traditional operating net income dominatesaggregated comprehensive income as a valuation metric and in predicting cash flows. Results arerobust to pooled and country specific regressions, controls for non-linearities, impact of reportingincentives, and the underlying accounting framework (local GAAP, US GAAP, IFRS). We also findthat aggregated comprehensive income switches the conservative attributes of income towards amore timely recognition of good news over bad news, reducing the conservative agency contractingrole. One possible explanation is the mixing of different concepts of operating capital incrementswith unrealised gains and realised historic net income. An agenda item for the IASB is how incomereporting should be disaggregated with a clear delineation on capital increments, conservativeoperating income, and unrealised financial gains. This is especially important in ContinentalEurope which relies to a greater extent on debt capital and has an under-developed corpus ofequity financial analysts.comprehensive income, value relevance, analyst forecast revisions, European IFRS, accountingconservatism

The development of a culture-based tool to predict team performance

The effect of national culture on the performance of teams is becoming an increasingly important issue in advanced western countries. There are many interlinked reasons for this, including the increasing globalisation of companies and the use of joint ventures for the development of expensive platforms. A further issue relates to the export of complex sociotechnical systems, where a culture clash between designer/manufacturer and user can lead to significant problems. This report describes research work that was carried out to analyse the cultural factors that influence the performance of teams (including researchers, designers, operators and crews), and to determine whether these factors could be captured in a tool to provide assistance to team managers and team builders. The original point of interest related to the development of increasingly complex sociotechnical systems, for example nuclear power stations, oil refineries, offshore oil platforms, hospital systems and large transport aircraft. Answers that might be sought, in particular by the senior managers of global companies, include (1) the best teams (or best national locations) for fundamental research, industrial research & development, product/system improvement and other key activities, and (2) the implications for system performance and, as a result, for system design, of targeting an eastern Asian market, a South-American market, etc. A literature review was carried out of the effects of culture on team performance, of culture measures and tools and of task classifications; in addition, empirical evidence of the validity of measures and tools was sought. Significant evidence was found of the effects of culture on teams and crews, but no national culture-based team performance prediction tools were found. Based on the results of the literature review, Hofstede's original four-dimension cultural framework was selected as the basis for the collection and analysis of empirical data, including the results of studies from the literature and the researcher s own empirical studies. No team or task classification system was found that was suitable for the purposes of linking culture to team performance, so a five-factor task classification was developed, based on the literature review, to form the basis of the initial modelling work. A detailed analysis of results from the literature and from the author s pilot studies revealed additional culture-performance relationships, including those relating to cultural diversity. Three culture-performance models were incorporated into software tools that offered performance prediction capabilities. The first model was primarily a test bed for ideas; the second model incorporated a task/behavioural approach which achieved limited success; the third and final model was evaluated against a range of team and crew performance data before being tested successfully for acceptability by users. The research results included the discovery that the effects of cultural diversity must be sought at the individual cultural dimension level not at the composite level, that the effects of national culture on team performance are consistent and strong enough to be usefully captured in a predictive culture tool and that the relation¬ship between culture and behaviour is moderated by contextual factors

An economic analysis of trading on private information by external administrators: international comparisons

This paper examines the regulation of trades in listed securities by external administrators (EAs), such as trustees in bankruptcy, liquidators, receivers, and administrators on the basis of private information. We consider the economic policy issues associated with such trades. The principal considerations counsel in favour of taking a permissive approach. These are: the difficulties of associating trades with insider information, given the EA's necessarily short expected holding period, the asymmetric application of the insider trading prohibition to sales (rather than decisions not to sell), the market incentives not to misuse private information that apply to EAs, and the unlikelihood that the EA has monopolistic access to the information in question. We consider these considerations by reference to a number of hypothetical scenarios. The paper argues that the law should regulate the subject by coupling a broad exemption for EAs with a "goiod faith" proviso, a continuous disclosure obligation, and a requirement to sell "all or nothing" of a holding of listed securities

THE CHANGING ROLE OF ACCOUNTANTS IN A TRANSITION ECONOMY – EVIDENCE FROM ROMANIA

Recently a number of interventions have impacted the Romanianaccounting system, such as the harmonization with the European Directives,International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), and an increased move towardsmodern information technologies such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)software. In this study we directly explore these influences by applying job offeranalysis as a reflection of current and future organizational practices (Bollecker,2000). We determine the competencies expected from accountants in Romanianbusinesses and ask whether financial accounting and management accounting areseparate specialized positions in Romania, or are they developing into hybrid monistpositions? We conclude that the state of the Romanian accounting profession is one oftransition with some alignment with recent global trends. However, our inter-temporal analysis also suggests a degree of intransience with management andfinancial accountants, whilst sharing some common competencies, still maintaining anumber of attributes associated with the two-cycle accounting system. Finally, weshow that ERP competencies are the more important drivers of the hybridization ofaccountants in Romania.accountants in transition, hybridization of accounting roles, Romanian accountingprofession, two-cycle accounting system, enterprise resource planning, job-offer analysis

Who\u27s Zoomin\u27 Who?: Comments on Liability for Pharmaceutical Products in Canada

A collection of papers from the ninth Fulbright Colloquium held in September 1989. The papers compare legal practices and procedures in North America and Europe and the barriers to drug development caused by increased litigation in cases involving pharmaceutical products

Going Concern Audit Opinions: Good News for Corporate Insiders?

We report that corporate insiders are able to profit from conservative first time going concern audit opinions (GCOs). GCOs comprise a high percentage of Type I error that transforms into a going concern opinion withdrawal (GCOW) within one year. We conjecture and affirm that the anticipatory trading of corporate insiders, who have access to firm based private information, drives positive abnormal returns before a GCOW and this increased trading volume is associated with firms that have audit determined financial issues. The degree of economic significance is highlighted by constructing arbitrage hedge portfolios that follow the trading of all corporate insiders in GCOW firms, by returning abnormal profits of 25.36% over 60 days

Robust video/ultrasonic fusion based estimation for automotive applications

We describe how object estimation by a stationary or a non-stationary camera can be improved using recently-developed robust estimation ideas. The robustness of vision-based systems can be improved significantly by employing a Robust Extended Kalman Filter (REKF). The system performance is also enhanced by increasing the spatial diveristy in measurements via employing additional cameras for video capture. We describe a normal-flow based image segmentation technique to identify the object for the application of our proposed state estimation technique. Our simulations demonstrate that dynamic system modelling coupled with the application of a REKF significantly improves the estimation system performance, especially when large uncertainties are present.<br /

Evaluating the effects of culture on military operations

Evaluating the effects of culture on military operation

Effects of temperature and salinity on the standard metabolic rate (SMR) of the caridean shrimp Palaemon peringueyi

The standard metabolic rate (SMR) of the caridean shrimp Palaemon peringueyi to changes in temperature (15–30 °C), salinity (0–45‰) and a combination thereof was investigated. The rate of oxygen consumption of the shrimp was determined using a YSI oxygen meter. At a constant salinity of 35‰ the respiration rate of P. peringueyi increased with an increase in temperature and ranged between 0.260 and 0.982 μl O[subscript 2] mg wwt[superscript −1] h[superscript −1]. The Q[subscript 10] value over the temperature range 15–25 °C was estimated at 3.13. At a constant temperature of 15 °C the respiration rate of P. peringueyi also increased with an increase in salinity and ranged between 0.231 and 0.860 μl O[subscript 2] mg wwt[superscript −1] h[superscript −1]. For combination experiments the absence of any significant difference in the respiration rate of P. peringueyi at the four temperatures over the salinity range 15–35‰ suggests that the shrimp is well adapted to inhabiting environments characterised by variations in salinity and temperature such as those encountered within the middle and lower reaches of permanently open estuaries with substantial freshwater inflow. On the other hand, the total mortality of the shrimp recorded at salinities 35‰ suggests that the shrimp may experience osmotic stress in freshwater deprived permanently open and intermittently open estuaries where hypersaline conditions may develop

Evaluating the cultural aspects of complex systems

As technologies improve, system components are becoming more reliable and are delivering higher performance levels. However, most complex systems incorporate humans, and human performance issues are becoming relatively more important. In particular, individuals' and groups' cultures are increasingly recognized as major performance-affecting factors. In civilian aircraft systems, companies such as Boeing are finding that culture is now the key differentiating factor in aviation safety. A similar situation appears to exist across ostensibly similar military air forces. Accident rates vary greatly across cultures, even when comparing near-identical modern aircraft fleets. This paper examines the background to cultural issues; it presents a brief description of culture and cultural factors and, as an illustrative example, describes the effects of cultural variation on performance in aviation. It examines cultural bias in systems engineering standards, and comments on the lack of culture-sensitive systems engineering tools. The paper also describes a culture-based modeling tool that has been developed by the authors to evaluate the cultural match of individuals and groups to particular environments and, potentially, to complex systems. It concludes that human error and culture are closely linked and that culture must be formally considered in the systems engineering of complex systems