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This short poem seeks to encapsulate a cynical view of the value of risk assessment.

The poem was written at the time of the collapse of the banks, despite their elaborate risk assessments. It juxtaposes modern belief in risk assessment with other historical and fallible means of prediction. The poem is a triolet, a medieval French form comprising one eight‐line stanza with a regular rhyming scheme and repetition of lines. It is concise, with nursery rhyme simplicity, and a refrain that sinks into the conscious.

The images of runes, the tarot, and astrology counterbalance the scientific language and basis of risk assessment and the hard‐nosed, factual business of insurance.

The poem reminds us that the greatest risk is the one that is impossible to foresee.

The poem is unique in its use of a medieval French form to examine a modern phenomenon.

This poem was written as a protest after I had been told that my staff team complained too much. I wanted to reflect the positive qualities of complaining.

Complainsong is written in ballad form – in quatrains of loose iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, with a refrain or chorus. It has the narrative quality of a ballad, but with unusual direction. As it developed, I realised I had in my mind Pastor Martin Niemoller's Second World War poem which begins “First they came for the Jews.”

The rather jolly ballad rhythm sets up expectations of a humorous poem, which is undermined by the very serious “message” of the ending. The nonsensical images of doormats blowing whistles and sheep rocking boats in the chorus, take familiar phrases to create tongue in cheek humour that heightens the contrast with the final stanza.

This poem uses an unexpected form to come to a “twist in the tale” ending that, hopefully, is strengthened by the surprise. The title is a play on the “plainsong” of monks and complaining.

This poem aims to reflect the almost universal embrace of over‐work culture, complaining about its negative aspects and – with some surprise – acknowledging its positive qualities.

This is a free verse poem structured in five triplets, perhaps to echo the five working days of the week. Each triplet takes a different image for work, cold water, a ship, the Minotaur, astronauts' boots, bread and gravy, and sets them against one another as the demands of working lives may be set against one another. The simplicity of the language reflects the everydayness of work itself.

The “turn” in line 12 (as with a sonnet, though this is not a sonnet) brings us to the ending, the positive, distracting aspects of work. It was not known until well into the writing and drafting process that the poem would turn in this way and celebrate both positive and negative aspects. The title followed this final turn of angle.

Having to go to work is a mixed blessing.

The poem is unique in its form, the choice of language, and the range of images chosen to represent (and exaggerate) the impact of work on people's lives.

This poem aims to use the language of accounting and auditing to examine how we deal with the loss of a loved one. It also aims to juxtapose the vocabulary of a budgeting seminar with the world outside, and the way the “you” of the poem deals with his grief on the first anniversary of his father's death.

This is a free verse poem that uses longish lines of long, heavily punctuated sentences to reflect the slow passage of time in a budgeting seminar, and the waste of the first day of spring, particularly when we consider mortality. The interior description and language counterbalances the activity and brightness of the world outside. The poem deliberately references Naming of Parts by Henry Reed, on the futility of army exercises on a beautiful spring day. It is designed to end with hopefulness.

The poem uses a newly encountered vocabulary to connect frustration at being cooped up and a partner's grieving. Auditing terminology combines with concrete images of the spring world to convey the movement, growth and vitality outside the room.

It is possible to mould the language of accountancy into a poem about spring and about grief.

The poem uses accounting jargon, which seems at first disconnected with the subject matter, to emphasise and underscore the timeless poetic theme of mortality.

This poem aims to capture the sense of being overwhelmed when returning to work after a vacation.

This is a free‐verse poem, reflecting both the modernity of the theme and the undisciplined sense of disorder. However, it is arranged in couplets that perhaps resemble waves running in across sand.

The use of the sustained metaphor of a tsunami‐like tide suggested the story of King John (of England) and the loss of his jewels. Imagining the horses and spears gave additional vigour to the language about the sea.

This poem aims to take a fresh angle on a universal experience.

Firms in different countries operate in different business environments and prepare financial statements following, by necessity, their own countries' accounting standards. Benchmarks for assessing financial ratios of firms in different countries are likely to be different. In conducting financial ratio analyses, each country's unique cultural, business, financial, and regulatory characteristics have to be taken into consideration, for these external factors may exert significant effects on measurements of financial data. This study aims to investigate challenges in comparing financial ratios between Japanese firms and Chinese firms.

This study compares ten major financial ratios of 75 Chinese firms with financial ratios of 75 matched sample Japanese firms to determine if a common benchmark for each of the financial ratios can be applied to firms in both countries.

The results show significant differences in liquidity, solvency, and activity ratios between firms from these two countries. Further examination of differences in accounting standards, economic, and institutional environments between these two countries suggests that these external factors have significant effects on financial ratios and may have contributed to the observed differences.

This study is among the first to investigate the comparability of ratios between Japanese firms and Chinese firms to uncover potential challenges and warn investors of such challenges.