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Outlines the development of duration as a risk management tool for fixed income securities, shows how it is calculated and gives examples to illustrate its use in assessing risk exposure and immunizing bond portfolio returns against interest rate risk. Cites research confirming its effectiveness and goes on to discuss the application of duration gaps to balance sheet hedging (macrohedging) by financial institutions and the New Zealand government. Considers some complications of duration analysis due to convexity, stochastic process risk and default risk.

Research in nonprofit accounting is steadily increasing as more data is available. In an effort to broaden the awareness of the data sources and ensure the quality of nonprofit research, we discuss archival data sources available to nonprofit researchers, data issues, and potential resolutions to those problems. Overall, our paper should raise awareness of data sources in the nonprofit area, increase production, and enhance the quality of nonprofit research.

This paper provides a review and synthesis of past research regarding financial disclosure management by nongovernmental nonprofit organizations and suggests directions for future study. The primary purpose of this review is to summarize the evidence on financial disclosure management to help regulators and other stakeholders understand why, how, and to what extent nonprofits engage in this behavior. The paper begins by defining disclosure management in nonprofit organizations and exploring the motivations for why it might occur. Next is a survey of the nongovernmental nonprofit financial reporting environment: objectives, common practices, and the informational needs of users of nonprofit financial reports. Research exploring the motives, methods, and consequences of disclosure management is summarized. The evidence suggests that nongovernmental nonprofit managers have a variety of incentives to manage reported numbers and that they do in fact alter spending decisions, choose accounting methods, and design cost allocations to achieve certain performance benchmarks. Furthermore, this review sheds light on the consequences of disclosure management and what can or should be done to limit it.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent of voluntary disclosures in UK higher education institutions’ (HEIs) annual reports and examine whether internal governance structures influence disclosure in the period following major reform and funding constraints.

The authors adopt a modified version of Coy and Dixon’s (2004) public accountability index, referred to in this paper as a public accountability and transparency index (PATI), to measure the extent of voluntary disclosures in 130 UK HEIs’ annual reports. Informed by a multi-theoretical framework drawn from public accountability, legitimacy, resource dependence and stakeholder perspectives, the authors propose that the characteristics of governing and executive structures in UK universities influence the extent of their voluntary disclosures.

The authors find a large degree of variability in the level of voluntary disclosures by universities and an overall relatively low level of PATI (44 per cent), particularly with regards to the disclosure of teaching/research outcomes. The authors also find that audit committee quality, governing board diversity, governor independence and the presence of a governance committee are associated with the level of disclosure. Finally, the authors find that the interaction between executive team characteristics and governance variables enhances the level of voluntary disclosures, thereby providing support for the continued relevance of a “shared” leadership in the HEIs’ sector towards enhancing accountability and transparency in HEIs.

In spite of significant funding cuts, regulatory reforms and competitive challenges, the level of voluntary disclosure by UK HEIs remains low. Whilst the role of selected governance mechanisms and “shared leadership” in improving disclosure, is asserted, the varying level and selective basis of the disclosures across the surveyed HEIs suggest that the public accountability motive is weaker relative to the other motives underpinned by stakeholder, legitimacy and resource dependence perspectives.

This is the first study which explores the association between HEI governance structures, managerial characteristics and the level of disclosure in UK HEIs.

Prior research has shown that many donors utilize charity ratings for decisions and they give more to higher rated charities. Because ratings are partly or completely based on financial information, the financial reporting quality of highly rated charities is more critical to donors than that of the poorly rated ones. In this study, we examine whether the financial reporting quality of charities systematically varies with charitable ratings. Examining a sample of human service charities, we find that highly rated organizations are more likely to underreport fundraising expenses and overstate program ratios. Highly rated organizations appear to be exercising accounting discretion to achieve this desirable outcome. Collectively, our findings suggest that stakeholders should be cautious when they use the rating information.

1. INTRODUCTION The recent proliferation of literature on the problems inherent in inflation, unemployment and incomes policy does not lag far behind the rate of inflation that initially prompted it. Before we get into the discussion of incomes and prices policies, it will be advisable to (a) present some evidence on the wage‐price‐unemployment behaviour in selected industrialised countries and (b) discuss theoretical and empirical results which have led to the conclusion that monetary and fiscal policies will not be adequate to meet the current inflationary problems. The first should provide substance to the claim that inflation has increased over time and has now become a more critical problem; the second should throw some light on the nature of current controversy on inflation and why mixed economies should need to supplement monetary and fiscal policies by other policies to provide themselves with a better trade‐off between inflation and unemployment. Accordingly, we will (1) describe recent wage‐price‐unemployment experience in selected industrialised countries, (2) discuss theoretical and empirical issues involved in the study of wage‐price‐unemployment behaviour, and (3) present the rationale advanced for an incomes policy, and discuss the past experiences of countries which have experimented with incomes policies and conclude with the suggestion that incomes policy and manpower policy be considered as complementary.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate donor responses to discretionary accounting information consolidation. Nonprofit (NP) financial statement consolidation discretion significantly impacts program ratio reporting, the primary NP performance measure. Stakeholders are misled to allocate limited resources inefficiently. While some NPs file group Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 990 returns with their affiliates, effectively providing consolidated statements, others choose to file independently of their affiliates.

The authors use OLS regression analysis and panel data for 5,697 NP-year observations for the period 2009-2011 retrieved from the National Center for Charitable Statistics Form 990 database.

The authors find evidence that consolidation discretion substantially impacts donor decisions. NP managers have incentive to utilize consolidation discretion to influence charitable giving.

The authors urge the IRS and the Financial Accounting Standards Board to reconsider the consolidation guidance for NP organizations, to develop performance measures beyond the widely used program ratio, and to require program ratio segment reporting to allow for better comparability among NPs irrespective of consolidation status. Further, the authors caution stakeholders to consider supporting organization transactions in their resource allocation decisions.

The authors are the first to use NP supporting organization information to investigate consolidation discretion and its impact on donor responses.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

The purpose of the article is to investigate relationship quality in retail relationships as influenced by its antecedents (loyalty programme quality and personal interaction quality) and resulting in customer loyalty to the retailer. The focus is on loyalty programme members' perceptions and differences between segments of consumers with different levels of involvement in the product category.

The method used was a consumer survey. Two waves of cross‐sectional telephone interviewing with 116 and 410 members of a retail loyalty club were conducted. Structural equation modelling served for the estimation of relationships in an integrated conceptual framework among constructs of loyalty programme quality, personal interaction quality, relationship quality and loyalty, relevant to the development of retail relationships.

The findings suggest that loyalty programme quality is important for relationship quality; however, efforts to assure personal interaction quality with customers are needed to improve relationship quality as well as customer loyalty. The study deepens knowledge of relationship quality's antecedents and consequences in the retail environment with regard to segments of customers with different levels of product category involvement.

The research is limited to members of a selected DIY retailer's loyalty programme, not accounting specifically for membership in multiple loyalty programmes. Future research could use different methodologies such as longitudinal studies to examine dynamic relationships among the constructs in the study.

In the retail context, practical implications of the impact of loyalty programme quality and of personal interaction quality on relationship quality and customer loyalty are considered.

The paper contributes to the understanding of members' perceptions and responses to relationship quality as well as to some mechanisms underlying customer loyalty in loyalty programmes.

The influential Sainsbury Centre report, Making Recovery a Reality (Shepherd et al, 2008), talks about clinical and social aspects of recovery. The issue of psychological recovery is not discussed at length, although other workers have put forward a psychological model of recovery (Andresen et al, 2003). While there are numerous definitions of recovery, the one developed by Gordon, the focus of this profile, is unlikely to be matched for its parsimony. Gordon describes recovery as ‘coping with your illness and trying to have a meaningful life’ (McManus, 2008). In this paper, he outlines his background. He is then interviewed by Sarah Morgan about his life, illness and recovery. Finally, Jerome gives an appreciation of his contribution to our developing understanding of recovery.