Search results

The importance of tourism for France's economy and society means that proper knowledge of tourism flows is essential. But designing a measuring system and periodic gathering of statistical data raise several difficulties. First, tourism is, by definition, based on movement, and all phenomena involving movement are difficult to measure. Second, there are many different forms of tourism, including holidays and business trips, short and long stays and so forth. Third, the notion of tourism flows has different meanings for those in charge of road, rail or air traffic management, and for those in charge of tourist visits.

This paper first discusses the ambiguities of the notions used in tourism studies. It emphasises the distinction between tourist flows along transportation routes and those in specific places. It then reviews the proper calculation rules for each of the geographical objects used for measuring tourism phenomena, which are primarily lines and areas. It also addresses some of the problems raised by the failure to comply with these rules in published information.

Third, this paper presents the various systems used to measure tourist flows and inflows, and discusses their usefulness and limitations, before discussing some new developments in the field.

Finally, it examines the potential value of modern communication technologies for mobility studies. More specifically, it raises the issue of striking the right balance between statistical accuracy and individual freedom.

Sustainable development and the enhancement of justice and security globally are predicated on the existence of sufficient and appropriately deployed assets. Mindful of this, and of the misuse of both public and private wealth, UN Sustainable Development Goal 16.4 (SDG 16.4) seeks to ‘…significantly reduce illicit financial … flows’. This chapter critiques how this aim of SDG 16.4 has been operationalised. We argue that the choice and placement of the term ‘illicit’ is crucial: it can relate to the finances, the flows, or both, as well as to the people involved, as facilitators or protagonists, and is expansive enough to encompass criminal, unlawful and ostensibly legal but illegitimate or harmful assets, acts and actors. Moreover, this chapter explores why the movement of assets is significant, within and between jurisdictions, and how these transfers and transactions impact on sustainable development and can worsen inequalities. Our attention is on the conceptualisation, measurement and operationalisation of illicit financial flows (IFFs) in particular and the corresponding implications for available policy responses in the form of situational interventions as a more plausible route to understanding and reducing IFFs in the context of promoting SDG 16.4.

The competence-based management approach has shed light on how firms represent open systems that link assets, strategic logic, and capabilities in order to create new competences. Nonetheless, we find that there are too few empirical studies that illustrate how competences are distributed within an industry. The following case study is based on an in-depth analysis of innovation and standards-formation in industrial automation. Two examples, the standard-setting community PROFIBUS and the field bus-related sensor consortium IO-Link are used to analyze partnership arrangements and competence-distribution patterns.

This study is based on qualitative interviews and it uses patent data to judge competences of a standard-setting community's partner firms. Referring to the empirical case of IO-Link, we show how the integrator firms’ competence-leveraging can be significantly affected by new technology approaches that reason a novel deployment of capabilities. It seems that the deployment of resources depends not only on industry segmentation, but also on the firms’ coordinated agenda concerning innovative, new functionality of a given standard. Our patent analysis also mirrors the variety of knowledge within a standard-setting community. Furthermore, we develop a concept of layered business systems, that is, a terminology of knowledge, organizational, and technology domains. Standard-setting communities bundle complementarity assets, they make their member firms create both proprietary and open technology, and they integrate knowledge across industry boundaries.

Purpose – Focusing on reporting for financial instruments, the paper tries to capture the role that regulations play within the complex mechanism of capital markets. The outcome of financial reporting represents useful information for decision making. Meanwhile the mechanisms of the capital markets determine reactions on behalf of accounting regulatory bodies who take action through standard setting. It is these standards that will have a big influence on the aforementioned outcome of financial reporting. Beside, there are other influential factors such as accounting practices, the accounting profession, national history, culture, and economy acting at different levels. It was this reasoning that motivated this research demarche of achieving a complete diagnosis of two emergent capital markets, shaped into a SWOT analysis for financial instruments’ reporting and the current financial crisis.

Design/methodology/approach – A special emphasize is put on analyzing formal harmonization on issues related to financial instruments by performing an empirical study. Moreover, the analysis is completed by a descriptive approach of the influential factors such as economic, cultural, and political background of the two nations. The paper also comparatively positions the foresights of the national, European, and international referential. Statistical indicators help quantifying the similarity and dissimilarity degree.

Findings – In times of financial crisis, when everybody is trying to point his finger on somebody else, an empirical analysis of national accounting regulations proving a high level of formal harmonization with and among the international referential and European directives proves an interesting point. The results make us think twice before designating a scapegoat.

Research limitations/implications – The paper only creates the framework proving that individual experiences should be put into good use especially in an area that is continuously exposed to financial engineering. Further developments completing the study focusing on accounting regulations with accounting practices should indicate more precise actions to be taken.

Practical implications – Findings show a significant similarity level between the two national accounting standards, and most importantly between the international referential and the European accounting regulations, and should determine us to furthermore rationally approach the accounting regulation process instead of impulsive reacting to the current financial crisis.

Original aspects – The originality of the paper consists in offering insights on the specific case of Romania and Czech Republic, correlating the state of facts with the foresights of national accounting regulations, by reference to the international referential and the current financial crisis.

The advent of new enabling technologies and the surge in corporate scandals has combined to increase the supply, the demand, and the development of enabling technologies for a new system of continuous assurance and measurement. This paper positions continuous assurance (CA) as a methodology for the analytic monitoring of corporate business processes, taking advantage of the automation and integration of business processes brought about by information technologies. Continuous analytic monitoring-based assurance will change the objectives, timing, processes, tools, and outcomes of the assurance process.

The objectives of assurance will expand to encompass a wide set of qualitative and quantitative management reports. The nature of this assurance will be closer to supervisory activities and will involve intensive interchange with more of the firm s stakeholders than just its shareholders. The timing of the audit process will be very close to the event, automated, and will conform to the natural life cycle of the underlying business processes. The processes of assurance will change dramatically to being meta-supervisory in nature, intrusive with the potential of process interruption, and focusing on very different forms of evidential matter than the traditional audit. The tools of the audit will expand considerably with the emergence of major forms of new auditing methods relying heavily on an integrated set of automated information technology (IT) and analytical tools. These will include automatic confirmations (confirmatory extranets), control tags (transparent tagging) tools, continuity equations, and time-series cross-sectional analytics. Finally, the outcomes of the continuous assurance process will entail an expanded set of assurances, evergreen opinions, some future assurances, some improvement on control processes (through incorporating CA tests), and some improved data integrity.

A continuous audit is a methodology that enables independent auditors to provide written assurance on a subject matter, for which an entity’s management is responsible, using a series of auditors’ reports issued virtually simultaneously with, or a short period of time after, the occurrence of events underlying the subject matter.

• –

  CICA/AICPA Research Study on Continuous Auditing (1999)

CICA/AICPA Research Study on Continuous Auditing (1999)

Companies must disclose certain information on a current basis.

• –

  Corporate and Auditing Accountability, Responsibility, and Transparency (Sarbanes-Oxley) Act (2002)

Corporate and Auditing Accountability, Responsibility, and Transparency (Sarbanes-Oxley) Act (2002)

We analyze the quality of accounting information reported by public firms in Latin America and United States of America.

To reach our objective, an exploratory and descriptive research was developed. To analyze the dimensions of accounting information quality, the operational model present in literature were applied which assess the persistence in earnings (Dechow & Schrand, 2004), the level of conservatism (Ball & Shivakumar, 2005), accounting earnings management (Pae, 2005) and accruals quality measurement (Dechow & Dichev, 2002), in a sample composed of publicly traded companies in the markets of Latin America and the North America (represented by USA), totaling 2,526 companies, from 2005 to 2011.

Our results evidenced that financial reporting of Latin-American companies are less conservative (except for Brazilian companies) and has similar level of earnings management in comparison to the North-American ones. Concerning to the quality of accruals it was observed that there are significant differences especially related to accruals of Brazilian companies.

Our results suggest differences in the quality of accounting information, originated by the economic environment where the company is inserted. So, investors must be careful when they are comparing firms between these markets, because the results were different for some cases, which may lead the investors to make misallocation of his resources.

We expanded previous literature by the use of various proxies for accounting quality, comparing firms on emerging markets with the major capital market (USA), and the crises period of time.