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An employee who is eligible to make a complaint for unfair dismissal has to prove that he has been dismissed by the employer if the employer contests that the employee has in fact been dismissed. If the dismissal is not contested, all the employee has to do is to show that he has been dismissed. This constitutes the first stage of the proceedings in an industrial tribunal.

With reference to IAS/IFRS, the purpose of this paper is to examine the value relevance of the two amortised cost/fair value measurement methods applied to loans, and test whether loan fair values are an incremental explanatory factor for a bank's stock price, beyond that provided by loan book values.

The value relevance of 83 European banks from 2005‐2008 is analyzed. The authors employ a regression model in which the stock price (dependent variable) is related to accounting variables typically affecting the firms' market value (book value and earnings).

Book values and earnings affect banks' market values. Investors appreciate the difference between loan book and fair values, and attribute to this difference an expected negative value. Furthermore, the control variable for banks headquartered in countries most affected by the financial crisis proves to be strongly significant as the crisis dummy variable itself.

The results have important implications for bank managers, who should consider the importance that financial markets attribute to loan fair values. There are also implications for regulators and standard setters, though these are less obvious.

This is the first study on the explanatory power of loan fair values in Europe. It addresses loan fair values, and the European market, while previous literature has mainly concerned the US market. In addition, the authors use an original dataset containing information on the loan fair values of European banks during a timeframe which covers both pre‐crisis and crisis periods.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a multi‐criteria bidding evaluation model based on Istanbul 2010 PR selection problem to strike a balance among conflicting criteria and to aggregate opinions held by a group of decision makers.

In the study, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) methodology was used to settle the conflict properly. The evaluation criteria were transformed into a hierarchical form and their relative weights were calculated and synthesized for the final ranking of the bidders. Then a linear interpolation‐based spreadsheet model was combined with findings of the AHP to fairly select best bidders.

The paper demonstrates that the hierarchical structure of the AHP methodology can successfully resolve the conflict among evaluation criteria and measure relative importance of the criteria by taking into account the preference of the decision makers. Moreover, a linear interpolation methodology can evaluate quoted bid prices fairly and can help to make the best decision.

In all areas of business management, there is a great need for fair bid evaluation systems. The method presented in the paper will help future studies in designing more intriguing systems and resolving conflicts in the area of bid evaluation.

Private certification systems (PCS) have emerged as governance tools for sustainable development, regulating social and environmental standards through global supply chains. PCS are seen as essentially private and market-driven, but governments have engaged with them in various ways. There are also substantial differences in the institutional design of PCS with regard to the standard-setting process, ex-ante conformity assessment and ex-post verification procedures. Consequently, what determines the institutional design of PCS has attracted growing attention. This article argues that governments, through public regulation, influence the design of PCS, which in turn affects their effectiveness. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

First, a review of academic literature, policy and legal documents presents how PCS have become institutionalized in government policy, focusing on sustainable public procurement (SPP) regulation. Second, the authors explore the link between effectiveness and the institutional design of PCS by empirically assessing the variations between institutional parameters conducive to effectiveness. Data from the Ecolabel Index database were used to assess the presence or absence of four institutional design parameters related to the rule-making and monitoring mechanisms of PCS.

Public procurement regulations are important drivers influencing the institutional design of PCS. The buying power and market share of government spending is a potential tool for policy-makers not only to stimulate the adoption of PCS, but also for shaping their design and effectiveness. However, the impact of such policies is highly dependent upon the market-share of public procurement within a given sector. In addition to public procurement frameworks, other factors drive the institutional evolution of PCS.

The article connects two themes within the study of non-state market regulation; the growing interaction of governments with PCS, and the institutional variety and development of these systems.

The daily valuation of portfolio securities can be one of the most onerous aspects of managing a registered investment company or mutual fund. The developing complexity of securities combined with the increasing influence of foreign markets and nonexchange‐traded holdings have made the accurate pricing of securities difficult at best. Mutual funds typically rely on a myriad of sources to price their portfolio holdings, including domestic pricing services, broker‐dealers, foreign custodians or pricing agents, matrix pricing, fair value committees, or any combination thereof (see Exhibit). While the pricing function is typically delegated, fund management and the board of directors or trustees have the ultimate responsibility to ensure that appropriate pricing procedures and supervisory activities are in place.

Since December 1998, the European Union (EU) has institutionalized its defence policy by implementing the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and realizing major improvements by way of a bigger investment of EU members. Nevertheless, since national capabilities are different and the incentives to contribute voluntarily are still weak, not all countries have followed the same pattern in financing the ESDP. Thus, what are the budgetary stakes for an effective and efficient ESDP? Before responding to this question, it seems important to provide an accurate definition of ESDP by putting forward the expected goals and the institutional design to achieve them. As Howorth (2007) notes, a flow of misleading allegations surrounds the ESDP. Among them, the idea that the ESDP corresponds to a European Army is very frequent in the press, when in fact, “each military or civilian mission mounted by ESDP has had its own terms of reference, its own volunteers from a range of EU members States (and indeed from a range of non-EU members states as well), its own logistics and command arrangements, and its own lifetime. When the mission is terminated, the resources, both human and material, initially assigned to it, revert to their national owners” (Howorth, 2007, p. 40).

In the United States, the increasing availability of hormone, antibiotic, and pesticide-free food is largely limited by price and proximity to the upper and middle classes. Similarly, the burgeoning of urban farmers’ markets and other direct marketing venues tend to benefit those who can afford locally raised food. Attempts to rectify this disparity are underway in the movement to link small farmers with residents of low-income neighborhoods in Louisville, Kentucky's largest city. Incipient commercialization and processing channels are intended to aid area farmers as they make the difficult transition out of tobacco dependency, and simultaneously to provide people living in Louisville's food deserts with affordable, locally produced foods. In this activist marketplace, symbiotic and trusting relationships are essential. I explore these issues through a case study of a new farmer–owner food distribution business, one designed to profit while growing the local food system.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it intends to assess the level of comparability of the fair value-based valuation criteria for biological assets of Portuguese dairy farms after the adoption of the Portuguese Accounting Standardization System. Second, it presents an innovative valuation model to assess the fair value of dairy herds.

The paper conducts a multiple case study at dairy farms in the central region of Portugal which had adopted the new Accounting Standardization System. Data were captured through interviews to assess how dairy farms were using the new valuation criteria required by this recent accounting frame of reference. A proposal for a model to measure fair value is presented.

Main findings indicate that market values for dairy production animals are inconsistent, reducing financial information comparability levels. To solve these problems, the authors propose a new model to assess fair value based on the net present value (NPV) of future cash-flows. This is a possible method to measure bovines that are in a breeding stage and it will assure the comparability of financial statements among dairy farms.

The study is confined to one case study and one country, not allowing generalization.

Results indicate the need to harmonize one possible method for measuring cattle that are in a breeding stage. In order to overcome these shortcomings, a model was designed to calculate the fair value of dairy production based on the NPV of future economic benefits.

Program heads are key players in governmental budgeting because they are involved both in formulating their program’s budget and ensuring the program’s activities comply with the budget. This paper synthesizes past research pertaining to two aspects of a government’s budgeting system-formal budgetary procedures fairness and budgetary procedures implementation fairness-that influence program heads’ attitudes and behaviors. Criteria are identified for each of the two forms of budgetary procedures fairness, as are specific types of attitudinal and behavioral reactions on the part of program heads. Reasons that program heads value fair budgetary procedures are also discussed. The paper concludes by presenting implications the research has for people involved in designing and implementing governmental budgeting systems and for governmental budgeting researchers.

This paper evaluates on a comparative basis three different property tax systems, British, French and Swedish. For this purpose an evaluation model, based on two criteria – namely efficiency and fairness – and on a number of sub‐criteria, is used. A comparison of the systems’ efficiency reveals that the French system is the least efficient while the Swedish system is the most efficient. A comparison of the systems’ fairness shows that, despite significant variations in the systems characteristics, all three systems can be evaluated as relatively fair.