Imperialismo occidental y contabilidad en Oriente: la historia del instituto de contadores de gestión autorizados de Sri Lanka

This is a study of the growth of the management accounting profession in Sri Lanka. This questions whether western management accounting practice can be effective without taking into consideration the local needs. This is a previously unresearched topic. The study is archival with semi structured interviews with founder members of the local Association and practitioners of management accounting. There is evidence of a gap between management accounting techniques used in the West and management accounting practice in the East. The paper suggests several reasons for this gap. The main reason is that the context is different. It follows therefore that the practices in the west would not suit the requirements of a postcolonial developing country. The theory relates to the west while the practice relates to the east. This contributes to the debate whether western imperialism and the accounting that was imposed is useful for the needs of the indigenous accounting community. The paper contributes to the literature in providing an understanding of the way in which an accountancy body merges.El documento es el resultado de una investigación sobre el crecimiento de la profesión contable en Sri Lanka. La pregunta orientadora del mismo es si las prácticas constables de gestión occidental pueden ser efectivas aún sin tener en cuenta las necesidades locales. Este es un aspecto sin antecedentes en la literatura. El estudio se desarrolló mediante la ejecución de entrevistas semiestructuradas a miembros fundadores del Instituto de contadores de gestión y algunos practicantes de Sri Lanka. Los resultados evidencian una brecha entre las técnicas de contabilidad de gestión utilizadas en Occidente y la práctica de la contabilidad de gestión en Oriente. El documento anota algunas razones para explicar esta brecha, encontrando que el contexto es diferente, seguido que las prácticas occidentales no se ajustan a las exigencies de desarrollo de un país post-colonial. Mientras la teoría sigue los planteamientos occidentales, la práctica sigue las exigencias de oriente. El artículo contribuye al debate sobre si el imperialismo occidental, la contabilidad y dinámica comunidades de las comunidades contables locales. Finalmente, el papel hace un aporte a los trabajos que debaten la forma como los cuerpos profesionales en contaduría se van estructurando

Development of a Fuzzy-based Multi-agent System for E-commerce Settings

AbstractIn this paper we present our experience in developing a fuzzy-logic based multi-agent e-commerce system capable of achieving a mutually beneficial deal for the seller and buyer using a negotiation process. We use fuzzy logic to assist users to express their preferences about a product in fuzzy terms such as low, medium and high. Our system evaluates offers based on a fuzzy utility function and feeds utility scores to a fuzzy inference system which then computes its next counter offer. Our paper presents issues involved in the development of a multi-agent system for e-commerce settings using the JADE platform - a modern agent development environment. In this paper our focus is on implementing agents of different types/roles engaged in activities usually encountered with buying and selling in an e-commerce environment. Our concluding remarks and future research are presented

Governance Framework for Cloud Computing

In the current era of competitive business worldand stringent market share and revenue sustenance challenges,organizations tend to focus more on their core competencies ratherthan the functional areas that support the business. However,traditionally this has not been possible in the IT management areabecause the technologies and their underlying infrastructures aresignificantly complex thus requiring dedicated and sustained inhouse efforts to maintain IT systems that enable core businessactivities. Senior executives of organisations are forced in manycases to conclude that it is too cumbersome, expensive and timeconsuming for them to manage internal IT infrastructures. Thistakes the focus away from their core revenue making activities.This scenario facilitates the need for external infrastructurehosting, external service provision and outsourcing capability.This trend resulted in evolution of IT outsourcing models. Theauthors attempted to analyse the option of leveraging the cloudcomputing model to facilitate this common scenario. This paperinitially discusses the characteristics of cloud computing focusingon scalability and delivery as a service. The model is evaluatedusing two case scenarios, one is an enterprise client with30,000 worldwide customers followed by a small scale subjectmatter expertise through small to medium enterprise (SME)organisations. The paper evaluates the findings and developsa governance framework to articulate the value propositionof cloud computing.. The model takes into consideration thefinancial aspects, and the behaviors and IT control structures ofan IT organisation

Cloud Computing Tipping Point Model

Recently a continuing trend toward ITindustrialization has grown in popularity. IT services deliveredvia hardware, software and people are becoming repeatableand usable by a wide range of customers and service providers.This is due, in part, to the commoditization and standardizationof technologies, virtualization and the rise of service-orientedsoftware architectures, and (most importantly) the dramaticgrowth in popularity/use of the Internet and the Web. Takentogether, they constitute the basis of a discontinuity that amountsto a new opportunity to shape the relationship between those whouse IT services and those who sell them. The discontinuity impliesthat the ability to deliver specialised services in IT can be pairedwith the ability to deliver those services in an industrialised andpervasive way. The reality of this implication is that users of ITrelatedservices can focus on what the services provide them, ratherthan how the services are implemented or hosted. Analogous tohow utility companies sell power to subscribers, and telephonecompanies sell voice and data services, some IT services suchas network security management, data centre hosting or evendepartmental billing can now be easily delivered as a contractualservice. This notion of cloud computing capability is gatheringmomentum rapidly. However, the governance and enterprisearchitecture to obtain repeatable, scalable and secure businessoutcomes from cloud computing is still greatly undefined.This paper attempts to evaluate the enterprise architecturefeatures of cloud computing and investigates a model that an ITorganisation can leverage to predict / evaluate the ‘tipping point’where an organisation can make an objective decision to investin cloud computing. Current research results are attempting tobuild a quantitative and qualitative service centric frameworkby mapping cloud computing features with ValIT and COBITindustry best practices