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Job and worker flows in the Finnish business sector are studied during a deep recession in the early 1990s. The data set covers effectively the whole work force. The gross job and worker flow rates are fairly high. The evidence suggests that the adjustment of labor input has happened through a reduced hiring rate rather than through an increased separation rate. However, during the recession the group of declining plants included more and larger plants than before, which led to reduced employment. Excess worker turnover (churning) and excess job reallocation have been low during the recession. The evidence of the countercyclicality of job reallocation is mixed. The flows are calculated both for the whole business sector, and for seven main industries. Services have clearly higher flow rates than manufacturing, but the cyclical changes in the flows are fairly similar in all industries. To test the sensitivity of the results to data sources, job flows are calculated from three different statistics.

The purpose of the paper is to illustrate the complexity surrounding the meaning of the terms “economic reality” and “neutral representation” as these terms are applied to the resolution of financial accounting issues.

The paper examines the concept of epistemological objectivity in financial reporting through an analysis of issues raised by the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) with respect to accounting for internet activities and the concomitant manner in which the US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) approached these issues.

An analysis of communications between the SEC and the FASB pertaining to accounting for internet activities reveals that, while these bodies seek to resolve issues in a manner that is neutral and objective, they often employ subjective reasoning in pursuing their regulatory purpose, thus raising questions about the extent of their concern with neutral representations of economic reality.

The paper adds to the criticisms of efforts which claim to be neutral representations of economic reality.

Despite the growing diversity of lease structures in different global economies, the existing literature related to property service charge mechanisms has been largely confined to the UK property market. This study aims to examine tenants’ perceptions, experiences and satisfaction with being responsible for service charges in New Zealand, where major office submarkets are dominated by alternative forms of leases with different service charge responsibilities.

The study uses a structured survey of 107 major tenants of New Zealand’s listed property trust-owned properties located in Auckland (where net leases dominate) and Wellington (where gross leases dominate) complemented by ten in-depth interviews with senior property managers of tenant organisations. The collected data were analysed using various statistical tests and thematic analysis.

The results identify that tenants who are directly responsible for service charges are significantly more dissatisfied with their operating expenses (OPEX) responsibilities than tenants who do not have direct service charge responsibilities. They are dissatisfied with the interpreting, budgeting, calculating, accounting, allocating and auditing processes in the service charge management process. Tenants who are directly responsible for service charges are significantly more dissatisfied with the operation and maintenance procedures of their buildings and have weaker relationship strengths with landlords. Tenant perceptions of being responsible for service charges vary with their power relationship with the landlord, lease expectations and priorities, financial constraints, willingness to take part in the management of the premises and trust in the landlord.

This research highlights the importance of understanding the complexity of service charge mechanisms in countries where there are no regulations or codes of practice governing them and their impact on tenant leasing behaviours, experiences and satisfaction. Here, the importance of developing more widely applicable codes of practice representing countries with different lease environments is highlighted. The findings also emphasise the importance of understanding the dynamics of key market agents that actively create lease environments and how they interact and behave within these contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to re‐visit the problems of taxation consequences of sinking fund in the UK and to look at what is believed to be the only rational reason for using the dual rate adjusted for tax method variant.

The structure of this paper is: valuing a freehold and a leasehold interest by the single rate gross and net of tax approaches to show the logic that works with freehold valuation interest may not work with leasehold valuation; exploring the tax impacts on sinking fund; resolving the taxation issue of sinking fund; demonstrating the solution to the “double sinking fund problem” by the Greaves method and the single rate net of tax approach; and exploring the future of the dual rate theory.

The paper confirms that the traditional method is not satisfactory, even after the modifications made by the various methods mentioned above. The single rate net of tax approach is proved to meet all expectations and can be regarded as a more rational approach to the dual rate method.

Valuers of the “UK School” might consider that not only should dual rate valuation be regarded as defunct, but also that the more appropriate approach might be to move to a net of taxation approach.

This paper is the original work of the authors.

When individual or household incomes are collected for administrative or scientific surveys, the accounting period is sometimes a month, sometimes a quarter, and sometimes a year. The accounting period likely affects the shape of the income distribution and the level of measured inequality. The present study systematically explores the sensitivity of inter-temporal and inter-regional inequality comparisons to the length of the accounting period.

Recent public policy initiatives seek greater transparency in financial reporting through an honest, balanced and thorough management discussion of company performance in the annual report. Management’s discussion invariably includes key performance indicators, such as financial ratios, relevant to external stakeholders. We model the impact of accounting estimates, assumptions, choices and errors on the risk of misleading financial ratios. This framework is illustrated through good and bad examples of financial reporting practices and by simulation of financial data of public companies. We provide a structured approach to inform policymakers, auditors and other stakeholders of the incremental financial reporting risk that accompanies current regulatory efforts.

New developments in the manufacturing industries require reexamining both the performance evaluation techniques and the concept of performance itself. As to evaluation, the return on investment model (ROI), popular during the 1950s throughout the 1970s, has faced much criticism that in the 1980s and the 1990s new financial and nonfinancial performance evaluation methods gained popularity. On a world‐wide basis, the increasing adoption of automation and the trend toward more centralization have changed the concept of performance. No longer based on motivating and directing the labor force, performance now aims to obtain the best results out of robotic assets and flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), which require new managerial attention and attitude. These factors have made the concept of performance more vague and difficult to define and measure. After comparing and contrasting how multinational and domestic companies evalu‐ate corporate performance, the study reconstructs the concept of performance, bringing forth fundamental propositions (axioms) of the long‐run dimension of measurement and utilization as the core of performance. Developing utilization as a dynamic concept with constantly changing components, a long‐term discounted‐cash‐flow return on investment (DCF‐ROI) model is developed and exhibited as a comprehensive measure of utilization. The DCF‐ROI model fits harmoniously into the mechanisms of the new cost reduction techniques of target and kaizen costing. Kaizen, a Japanese term, is translated into English as “improvement,” i.e., a continuous accumulation of betterment activities over the long run. Target and Kaizen costing are conditioned by top management's target profit which can take the form of a DCF‐ROI objective. This kaizen‐oriented DCF‐ROI is demonstrated as a moving average ratio that captures the dynamic utilization through its progression over ten years. Limitations of the model and recommendations for further research are also presented.

We analyze reactions to the U.S. government-led repression of WikiLeaks in late 2010 by actors such as Anonymous and the Pirate Parties to argue that the potential for backlash, which has been so prominent offline, is also a potential repercussion of repression online. In doing so, we use existing research to identify different ways in which bystanders might be pulled into conflicts, and examine our case for evidence of any of these forms of backlash. We also hypothesize that the net observed effect of repression is really the result of competing and/or amplifying backlash and deterrence effects; when this net effect is in favor of backlash, we call it a “net backlash effect” to indicate that there was more backlash than deterrence. We argue that net backlash occurs when repression recruits more bystanders into a conflict than it is able to deter in terms of already active participants. We also argue that backlash is a very likely outcome when Internet activism is repressed.