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The case for stock reduction in manufacturing has been argued by engineers who emphasise the productive benefits. Western management accounting does not provide an adequate indication of the costs of holding stock. This article constructs a framework for identifying and measuring the financial benefits of stock reduction. Within this framework, the financial benefits of stock reduction in Japanese manufacturing in the 1960s are estimated and the productive preconditions for successful stock reduction are identified. The case of British manufacturing where stock levels have not been reduced is considered. Financial savings from stock reduction cannot be realised in Britain because the productive preconditions are not satisfied when output growth is slow and management has poor control over the production process.

The purpose of this paper is to report the outcome of an interdisciplinary discussion on the concepts of profit and profitability and various ways in which we could potentially problematize these concepts. It is our hope that a much greater attention or reconsideration of the problematization of profit and related accounting numbers will be fostered in part by the exchanges we include here.

This paper adopts an interdisciplinary discussion approach and brings into conversation ideas and views of several scholars on problematizing profit and profitability in various contexts and explores potential implications of such problematization.

Profit and profitability measures make invisible the collective endeavour of people who work hard (backstage) to achieve a desired profit level for a division and/or an organization. Profit tends to preclude the social process of debate around contradictions among the ends and means of collective activity. An inherent message that we can discern from our contributors is the typical failure of managers to appreciate the value of critical theory and interpretive research for them. Practitioners and positivist researchers seem to be so influenced by neo-liberal economic ideas that organizations are distrusted and at times reviled in their attachment to profit.

Problematizing opens-up the potential for interesting and significant theoretical insights. A much greater pragmatic and theoretical reconsideration of profit and profitability will be fostered by the exchanges we include here.

In setting out a future research agenda, this paper fosters theoretical and methodological pluralism in the research community focussing on problematizing profit and profitability in various settings. The discussion perspectives offered in this paper provides not only a basis for further research in this critical area of discourse and regulation on the role and status of profit and profitability but also emancipatory potential for practitioners (to be reflective of their practices and their undesired consequences of such practices) whose overarching focus is on these accounting numbers.

Using the example of capital charging in UK hospitals, this paper shows how new public policy initiatives are justified through forms of persuasion without numbers and can be challenged with empirics. A reading of official and academic texts shows how the official problem definition focuses on poor asset utilisation. Hospital accounts are then reworked to show that, although poor asset utilisation was never a major problem, the introduction of capital charges could disrupt service provision. The conclusion is that the operation of NHS hospitals should be understood in terms of distributive conflict, rather than inefficiency. Through practical demonstration, the authors of this article aim to encourage accounting researchers to use numbers to challenge public policy definitions.

Explains how and why the household should, and could, be an object of analysis for a new social accounting. It shows that the household has been neglected in national income accounting, which generally tends to represent it as a black box. It also shows how the data from national income accounting can be reworked to demonstrate the importance of the household at macro and meso levels. The reworking shows that 84 per cent of GDP passes through the household just as, at the meso level, there are important differences between households in how they pool, spend and save income.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature, roles and dynamics of change of management accounting systems (MAS), in processes of continuous organisational learning and transformation. By studying the interaction between the accounting (and finance) function and the implementation of a Six‐sigma initiative, as the engine for organisational change, the authors seek to uncover the potential of measurement‐based systems of management for aligning business processes with corporate strategies. Such systems sustain continuous processes of transformation by infusing organisational culture with financial and non‐financial metrics of accountability.

The research is based on a longitudinal case study in which one of the authors had the opportunity to exercise what Schein called the clinical perspective; i.e. combining the role of researcher with that of helper‐consultant. There is mutual interdependence in the relationship between the authors' theoretical framework and the authors' longitudinal case study. While, on the one hand, the case research contributed to the search for an institutional explanation of the evidence experienced and collected, on the other hand, the empirical data are illuminated by the theoretical insights gained from that framework.

After first discussing cultural change, the authors rely both on the “clinical” position of one of the authors as researcher/helper‐consultant and on the insights provided by Schein's work on organisational culture and Giddens' structuration theory to develop an institutional framework for interpreting the ways in which routinised systems of accountability bind the ongoing processes of cultural transformation across time and space.

Possible limitations are: the conceptualisation of organisational culture as a shared and institutional phenomenon does not take account of wider anthropological aspects (such as the influence of national culture); the role of helper‐consultant as well as researcher may have influenced some of the authors' interpretations; the authors' analysis does not consider macro‐economic variables; and only a small percentage of shop‐floor workers were interviewed.

The paper sheds light on the role of management accounting within organisational processes of transformation far beyond their mere visible enactment. As a result, the authors develop an institutional framework to interpret the linkages between the cognitive dynamics which characterise organisational culture (viewed as shared cognitive schemas) and the behavioural and structural modalities through which they are drawn upon and reproduced by organisational members.

This paper aims to review the challenges of urban foresight via an analytical method: apply this to the city demonstrations on the UK Foresight Future of Cities: and explore the implications for ways forward.

The methodology is based on the principles of co-evolutionary complex systems, a newly developed toolkit of “synergistic mapping and design”, and its application in a “synergy foresight” method.

The UK Foresight Future of Cities is work in progress, but some early lessons are emerging – the need for transparency in foresight method – and the wider context of strategic policy intelligence.

The paper has practical recommendations, and a set of propositions, (under active discussion in 2015), which are based on the analysis.

The paper aims to demonstrate an application of “synergy foresight” with wide benefits for cities and the communities within them.

For the past twenty‐five years or so, the writings of George Orwell — especially his final novel 1984 — have been a popular topic for student research. From junior high through graduate school, interest in Orwell has been consistent. Book reports, term papers, and even seminars on Orwell are common‐place in the national curriculum. Now, as the year 1984 arrives, librarians at all levels — public, school, academic — must brace themselves for a year‐long onslaught of requests for biographical and critical material on Orwell.

This article aims to shed more light on seemingly contradicting labour market outcomes of lesbians: they were found to have similar unemployment rates as straight women but their unemployment spells are significantly shorter. No such contradiction is observed for gays who seem to have on average a higher unemployment rate and longer unemployment spells compared to straight men.

The main hypothesis is that lesbian and gay employees spend ceteris paribus shorter time working for a given employer (employer tenure) than comparable straight people. This hypothesis is tested on EU Labour Force Survey data using multi-level regression model.

Consistently with the predictions, lesbians and gays were found to have significantly shorter employer tenure than their straight counterparts. These differences remained significant after controlling for individual, workplace and occupational characteristics. The results suggest that shorter employer tenure of lesbians and (possibly) gays is driven by labour demand factors.

To author's knowledge this is the first large-scale quantitative study that compares the employer tenure between lesbians, gays and comparable heterosexuals. The study provides additional insight into mechanisms that lead to (lack of) differentials in unemployment probability between these groups.

An interesting issue little explored in the celebrity endorsement literature is whether or not the activities of a celebrity endorser affect company performance. We examine the impact of Tiger Woods’s tournament performance on the endorsing firm’s value subsequent to the contract signing. We do not find a relationship between Tiger’ss tournament placement and the excess returns of Fortune Brands (parent of Titleist). This is likely due to Titleist being a very small contributor to the total market value of Fortune Brands. We also fail to find a significant relationship for American Express suggesting the market does not view a golfer endorsing financial services as credible. We do, however, find a positive and significant impact of Tiger’s performance on Nike’s excess returns suggesting that the market values the additional publicity that Nike receives when Tiger is in contention to win.

Two trends, the decline in funding for information science research and the accelerating contention between the public and private sectors in the information field, pose a threat to government institutions that conduct and support information science research. The appropriateness of the activities of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) in particular has been questioned by the private sector. NLM, which has heretofore been a leader in information science research and development and in serving the health professional community (as mandated by law) is threatened. Private sector opponents should bear in mind that the contributions made by the Government both directly through contracts and indirectly through education and spinoff from research efforts have paved the way and laid the groundwork for the online information industry. Continued growth of the industry will require continued research.