379 research outputs found
Professional body building
What is a professional, and what makes a good professional body
Heated debates and cool analysis: thinking well about financial ethics
Not for the first time, the banks and other financial institutions have got themselves â and the rest of us â into a mess, this time on an unprecedented financial and geographical scale. It is no surprise that opinions about causes, consequences and cures abound with ethical issues, as well as technical and economic concerns, a focus of attention. It is to be hoped that useful lessons for the future will be learned.
In this chapter, however, we step back from a direct engagement with the stated ills of the financial system itself, whether actual or perceived, chronic or acute. Our starting point is that crisis in the financial system not only makes us stop and think; but it might also, particularly under conditions of moral panic, prevent us from thinking well. Our contention is that a further impediment to thinking well about financial crises is the lack of a substantial body of academic knowledge that might be termed âfinancial ethicsâ â a corpus of well developed conceptual insights and appropriate empirical evidence. We identify some of the reasons for this situation and proffer some suggestions regarding what might be done to remedy it â including the development of knowledge that is as relevant to everyday practices during periods of normality as it is to providing perspectives on crisis. The chapter is structured as follows: the next section provides a perspective on debate during times of crisis; the middle section seeks to explain why academic financial ethics is not a significant constituent element of debate on the financial crisis post-2007; and the final two main sections explore ways in which an academic agenda for financial ethics might be constructed. In a curious way this chapter echoes some of the themes and especially the conclusion of David Bevanâs chapter in this work (chapter18) although the reasoning to the conclusion that finance ethics is an empty set follows a rather different Badiou-inspired path in chapter 18
Corporate Social Reporting in Libya: A Research Note
Purpose Not enough is known about social accounting disclosure practices in developing countries. This research note adds strength and depth to the few other studies that take Libya as a point of departure to understanding the dynamic between disclosure practices and the context in which they are performed.
Design/methodology/approach A sample of 270 annual reports from 54 companies, both public and private across a range of sectors and covering a five year period (2001-2005) were analysed using content analysis to ascertain patterns and trends in corporate social reporting by Libyan companies.
Findings Libyan companies generally disclose some information related to social responsibility but at a low level compared with developed countries and only in certain areas. This situation changed little over the five year period under scrutiny.
Research limitations/implications During the five year period examined, CSR remained largely unresponsive to significant changes in the political scene that occurred over a much longer period of time. This suggests further research is needed to illuminate the role and influence of societal culture and to understand the impact of organisational subculture on disclosure and responsibility practices.
Originality/value Libya provides a point of departure for further research into other transitioning or developing economies, particularly those in the Arab world. It also offers unique insights and the possibility for comparative studies between them due to its particular character. This note augments and adds depth to other studies in the area
Reasons for adopting different capacity levels in the denominator of overhead rates: a research note
There has been criticism of the use of
budgeted capacity as the denominator of
overhead rates. Prior questionnaire-based
research has analysed which type of
capacity is used in the denominator of
overhead rates, but it has not assessed why
these capacity levels are used. This paper
uses grounded theory techniques to analyse
50 interviews with British management
accountants about why a particular
capacity level is used to determine the
denominator of overhead rates. The results
reveal that budgeted capacity is used
because the calculation of the denominator
is regarded as part of the budgeting
process. Practical capacity and normal
capacity are used to ensure that products
are not under or overcosted
Responding to the Revised Code on corporate governance: UK audit committees
Purpose: The audit committee is one of the most prominent sub-committees of the board of directors, having a potentially important role to play in ensuring sound corporate governance. The purpose of this paper is to examine and discuss the behaviour of companies following the most recent revisions to the UKâs Revised Code.
Research design/methodology/approach: A variety of annual report data from a sample of 50 UK companies, stratified according to size, is collected and analyzed.
Findings: General compliance with many provisions of the Code was found. All but one company had an audit committee, comprising solely non-executive directors. However, in about a quarter of cases the chairman was a member, and in some case directors were not âindependentâ according to the definition of the Code. Many companies exceeded the minimum stipulated requirements, for example the number of non-executive directors on the audit committee or the number of meetings held. Nevertheless, some companies did not follow recommended practice, particularly regarding the disclosure of information, and some explanations for non-compliance seemed weak.
Implications: Compliance with disclosure demands regarding audit committees could be improved, as could the quality of explanations when the recommendations of the Code are not followed. Given the resistance of many companies to corporate governance regulation and accusations of âbox tickingâ, future research should probe why many companies do more than is required or recommended. The research should be repeated when further revisions to the Code are made in respect of audit committees, and practice in countries other than the UK should be researched to provide comparative insights
Giving credit where itâs due â but no more: an ethical analysis of trade credit
In spite of its commercial importance and signs of some concern by some commentators, trade credit has not been subjected to serious ethical analysis. This is especially important in the current financial crisis, given that credit from banks is in short supply, leading to increasing pressure on trade credit. In addition to identifying trade credit as a topic of ethical significance, this paper develops an analysis of the ethics of trade credit grounded in an understanding of its purpose. Making a distinction between âoperatingâ trade credit and âfinancialâ trade credit, it provides an account of the maximum period for which it is appropriate for one company to delay payment to another from which it has purchased goods or services. This has implications not only for companies that take credit but also for external commentators who seek to rate companies according to their speed of payment. The responsibility of suppliers not to extend excessive credit, and thus act as a quasi-bank, also follows from the analysis developed
Do we research the right things?
The amount of academic research being conducted and published on business ethics has expanded greatly. I believe this is a good thing. However, such is the importance of business and the ethical challenges that it faces, our work as academics will never be done. There will always be a need for further research â of course! In fact, impressive though the advances have been, the business ethics scholarly community is still small compared to many cognate areas, whether they be academic disciplines (such as economics) or particular fields within management (such as marketing). Our capacity is still very limited when set against what needs to be done, so we need to be wise about how we allocate our scarce resources. A piece of research might be of some value, but does it come at a high opportunity cost
El crédito comercial y la crisis crediticia: un anålisis descriptivo en Europa; Reino Unido y España
El uso de crĂ©dito comercial como forma de financiar el corto plazo ha aumentando en los Ășltimos años, las
grandes empresas utilizan mĂĄs dĂas del que necesitan para realizar los pagos a las pequeñas empresas, lo que
provoca fatales consecuencias financieras para los proveedores. Estos problemas financieros no son nuevos, pero
con la restricción pronunciada del crédito los problemas se agudizan debido a que el uso masivo del crédito
comercial repercute negativamente en los proveedores cuya insolvencia y riesgo de quiebra aumentan. En este
trabajo se revisan de forma descriptiva el uso del crédito comercial en la crisis crediticia. Las principales
contribuciones de la ponencia son dos. En primer lugar, mostrar las consecuencias financieras por la utilizaciĂłn
del crédito comercial y, concretamente, en la crisis crediticia, y cómo el gobierno de Reino Unido desarrolla
polĂticas pĂșblicas de pago para reducir el efecto negativo de los impagados. En segundo lugar, estudiar y
comparar la situaciĂłn de los paĂses europeos en tĂ©rminos de pago a los proveedores y, en particular, el caso de
Reino Unido, pero también el caso Español.The use of trade credit as a short-term financing is increasing in the last years; large firms use more days to pay
small firms than they need, which causes financial fatal consequences to suppliers. These financial problems are
not new, but with the credit crunch they are coming up because the massive use of the trade credit impacts
negatively on suppliers whose insolvency and bankruptcy risks increase. In this paper we review in a descriptive
way the use of trade credit in the credit crunch. The main contributions of the paper are two. Firstly, we show the
financial consequences of the use of trade credit, and specifically in credit crisis, and how UK government
develop public payment policies to reduce the negative effect of delete payments. Secondly, we study and
compare the situation of European countries in terms of payment to suppliers, and in particular the case of UK,
but also Spanish case
Predicting the effectiveness of hepatitis C virus neutralizing antibodies by bioinformatic analysis of conserved epitope residues using public sequence data
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a global health issue. Although direct-acting antivirals are available to target HCV, there is currently no vaccine. The diversity of the virus is a major obstacle to HCV vaccine development. One approach toward a vaccine is to utilize a strategy to elicit broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) that target highly-conserved epitopes. The conserved epitopes of bNAbs have been mapped almost exclusively to the E2 glycoprotein. In this study, we have used HCV-GLUE, a bioinformatics resource for HCV sequence data, to investigate the major epitopes targeted by well-characterized bNAbs. Here, we analyze the level of conservation of each epitope by genotype and subtype and consider the most promising bNAbs identified to date for further study as potential vaccine leads. For the most conserved epitopes, we also identify the most prevalent sequence variants in the circulating HCV population. We examine the distribution of E2 sequence data from across the globe and highlight regions with no coverage. Genotype 1 is the most prevalent genotype worldwide, but in many regions, it is not the dominant genotype. We find that the sequence conservation data is very encouraging; several bNAbs have a high level of conservation across all genotypes suggesting that it may be unnecessary to tailor vaccines according to the geographical distribution of genotypes
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