Knowledge Sharing, Control Mechanisms and Intellectual Liabilities in knowledge-intensive firms

Intellectual capital (IC) and knowledge sharing (KS) are key elements for fostering firm value, especially in knowledge-intensive firms. Management Control Systems (MCSs) have been recognized as key knowledge integrators. Recently, this assumption has been called into question as there may exist negative and destructive effects in both IC and KS fostered by a misuse of MCSs. Through a case study of 'Engineering Ltd.", this paper examines the 'dark side' issues associated by improperly implementing knowledge sharing and by imposing rules and constraints on behavior. The subject of our study, “Engineering Ltd.” , is a consultancy company with 10,000 employees. The case study is used to scrutinize the major risks of knowledge sharing and to introduce possible solutions

International Consensus Statement on Rhinology and Allergy: Rhinosinusitis

Background: The 5 years since the publication of the first International Consensus Statement on Allergy and Rhinology: Rhinosinusitis (ICAR‐RS) has witnessed foundational progress in our understanding and treatment of rhinologic disease. These advances are reflected within the more than 40 new topics covered within the ICAR‐RS‐2021 as well as updates to the original 140 topics. This executive summary consolidates the evidence‐based findings of the document. Methods: ICAR‐RS presents over 180 topics in the forms of evidence‐based reviews with recommendations (EBRRs), evidence‐based reviews, and literature reviews. The highest grade structured recommendations of the EBRR sections are summarized in this executive summary. Results: ICAR‐RS‐2021 covers 22 topics regarding the medical management of RS, which are grade A/B and are presented in the executive summary. Additionally, 4 topics regarding the surgical management of RS are grade A/B and are presented in the executive summary. Finally, a comprehensive evidence‐based management algorithm is provided. Conclusion: This ICAR‐RS‐2021 executive summary provides a compilation of the evidence‐based recommendations for medical and surgical treatment of the most common forms of RS

Management control in a business network: new challenges for accounting

Purpose – This paper focuses on the implications for management accounting of “connectivity” amongst modern enterprises. It seeks to illustrate how practical guidance for management accountants who work in business networks can be gleaned from analogies out of traditional management accounting. Design/methodology/approach – The paper explores four avenues that demonstrate linkages between accounting formats in centrally coordinated systems and network accounting, namely: cost budgets and cost design; collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment; multi-stage performance-monitoring; and accounting for transaction costs. Findings – Highly interconnected business transforms management accounting into an activity that requires concepts to coordinate (partially) independent management systems. The concepts of distributed decision-making and trust building through reliable reporting nicely fit this environment. Even though such concepts are widely accepted, as are the notions of transaction cost and collaborative performance monitoring, practical guidance on this is not abundantly at hand in academia or in professional outlets. The study shows how a “tool kit” might be developed to provide methods for decision support, and management control, for each stage of a business network's development. Research limitations/implications – It would be desirable that this exposition be supplemented by research concerning the common experiences and practices of accountants who operate in business networks. Originality/value – The exposition applied in this paper could enable a new type of access to the issues of inter-organisational management.Management accounting, Target costs, Transaction costs, Trust

Shifting the paradigm of return on investment: a composite index to measure overall corporate performance

Purpose – This paper seeks to present a model which connects performance measurement at the business level to the concept of public goods usage, and thus incites a linkage between the micro- and macro-economic aspects of sustainability. Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents the essentials of a public goods cost perspective in order to agitate discussion between statisticians, standard-setters for business reporting and practitioners who wish to explore new approaches in the topic of building performance indicators. Findings – The paper illustrates what has been achieved in measuring the outcomes of sustainable development efforts and what still needs to be done in order to arrive at aggregate values for national and global commons. Research limitations/implications – The viability of the concept will depend on the co-operation of businesses and national statistics which test the feasibility of the proposed micro-macro-link through numerical studies. As the paper is published, efforts are under way with a piloting group to initiate a pertinent study, but the results have yet to be attained. Practical implications – For practitioners in both the statistics profession and management accounting who are concerned with measurement of socioeconomic and environmental phenomena, this attempt at integrating sustainable development indicators to the managerial control system of companies might provide a valuable proposition. It also is a helpful contribution to the ongoing debate about the value and credibility of sustainability reporting. Social implications – If businesses make no attempts to exhibit numerically how they contribute to preserve and expand the societal commons, they will be confronted with ever-growing agitation from pressure groups and they might be bypassed in the discussion on the issue of sustainability parameters that those groups are advocating. Originality/value – This is the first academic paper that demonstrates a reporting model that unites business accounts and national accounts

Eco-Social Business in Developing Countries: The Case for Sustainable Use of Resources in Unstable Environments

Despite recent interest in the ‘new’ social enterprise movement, the issue of how to connect this successfully to ecological concerns has not yet found widespread interest. There is much development in the relations between business and social ventures: for example, there is an extensive history of nonprofits using fees for services and other revenue-raising techniques in order to supplement or complement their mission activities (Alter, 2007). Over more recent years, many nonprofits have formed closer ties with corporate sponsors, and they have adopted more business-like procedures. Drawing on a survey of nonprofit activity around the world, SustainAbility (2003: 51) believes that the nonprofit sector is gearing towards more market-based solutions, mechanisms and dynamics. On the other hand, businesses in general have assumed social responsibilities in a broad array of their activities, as well as responsibilities for the natural environment and natural resource consumption. We have also seen the rise of an organization type in an apparently new hybrid space, which combines social and economic goals. The literature most commonly identifies this as a ‘social enterprise’. Alter (2007) sees the pioneer social entrepreneurs as: John Durand, who began the first ‘social firm’ with disabled employees in 1964; Mimi Silbert, who established Delancy Street social businesses for recovering addicts in the 1970s; and Mohammad Yunus, who popularized microfinance with the Grameen Bank in 1976. There is no clear, consensual definition of ‘social enterprise’ in the literature – much less so for eco-social business. As far as social enterprise is concerned, it appears that each discipline or field defines in its own image. The Nonprofit Good Practice Guide (2009), for example, defines a social enterprise as ‘a nonprofit venture that combines the passion of a social mission with the discipline, innovation and determination commonly associated with for profit businesses’. Alter (2007) takes a more market-oriented definition: ‘A social enterprise is any business venture created for a social purpose – mitigating/reducing a social problem or a market failure – and to generate social value while operating with the financial discipline, innovation and determination of a private sector business’. The literature is virtually silent on developing-country-based and -financed social enterprises (Chikandi, 2010), apart from micro-finance, which is used as an exemplar of social entrepreneurship. Our contribution enlarges these consolidated research fields, offering a theoretical framework that tries to put in a more holistic vision the topic of eco-social business in developing countries. The model analyzes this topic, focusing on the main aspects that should be considered for supporting the sustainable development of emergent countries. The literature recognizes several variables that influence the effectiveness of a sustainable use of resources in a developing country, but we did not find a consolidated definition of social business. There also is no clear definition of social entrepreneurship. Although entrepreneurship has long been recognized as a fundamental institution of economic growth, it has only recently begun to receive attention by development economics, which has historically favored top-down, planning-oriented strategies to poverty alleviation (McMullen, 2011). But if entrepreneurs are an important factor for developing countries, the sustainability issue requires a clear analysis of why responsible investment is made. There are three main approaches that deal with responsible investments in emerging nations: the ‘bottom or base of the pyramid’ approach, the ‘social business’ approach and the ‘public purpose capitalism’ approach. Even though all the approaches, to some extent, consider the ‘eco-business’ issue – that is, responsible care and sustainable use of local natural resources within a strategy or a set of strategies – it is thought that the sustainability perspective warrants a more encompassing view. So we offer an extended association among these approaches and some other ‘ingredients’ to the issue. Based on the above, we develop a model that could lead to explaining and expounding eco-social business formation in the developing world. We will show the role of entrepreneurs and of what is known as the ‘factor-four strategy’ for developing eco-social businesses. Connecting this to emerging markets, the main aim is to find how this can progress in an environment with limited economic resources, scarce employment opportunities, abundance of unskilled labor, low levels of technological know-how and insufficient governmental capabilities. The answer would lie in a combined effort of integrating strategies developed by all the actors of an emergent country

A stimulus for sustainable growth and development: Construing a composite index to measure overall corporate performance

Various methods have been developed to measure sustainability. When it comes to measuring whether sustainability issues are integrated in overall corporate performance, companies broaden their reporting from economic performance to ‘sustainability performance’ and there are various frameworks around for benchmarking sustainability outcomes. A major emphasis, however, is on technical data. The main efforts have been consolidated in the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Each of the indicators prudently measures a well-determined set of facts. However, one major discussion point is whether the reporting frameworks do really reflect the link between sustainability and economic value, and how they would properly connect to the information used by management for running the business on a day-to-day basis. This article tries to point out that one way out of the disconnected ness might be through expanding the concept of ‘Economic Value Added’ (EVA). EVA measures overall corporate performance by claiming that shareholders gain when the return from the capital employed in a corporation is greater than the cost of that capital. From there it is a short way to proclaiming that all stakeholders gain when the value created by a corporation is greater than the cost of the capital employed in the corporation and the capital employed in whichever commonly available resources outside the corporation are used by its business. The expansion of EVA that is envisaged would be to enlarge the cost of capital by the costs that are caused by that part of ‘Public Goods’ that is available to a corporation. There is one political and one theoretical obstacle in this: the argument is quite radical and complying with it would require some leadership from ‘big corporations’; and valuing public goods is a research field that has not yet reached the stadium of generally accepted applicability, at least with regard to aggregative monetary value. However there are new initiatives under way, by the GRI, which will join forces to reach a breakthrough. The article also reflects on the effects the new indicator would stimulate for businesses, their markets and their stakeholders