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1 – 10 of over 6000A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balanceeconomics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary toman′s finding the good life and society enduring…
Abstract
A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.
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A.M.I. Lakshan, Mary Low and Charl de Villiers
The international integrated reporting framework encourages organisations to disclose material information that affects their ability to create value. This paper aims to…
Abstract
Purpose
The international integrated reporting framework encourages organisations to disclose material information that affects their ability to create value. This paper aims to investigate the challenges and techniques preparers of integrated reports use to determine the materiality of non-financial information.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses an exploratory interpretive thematic analysis and an archival research approach. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with 55 integrated reporting (IR) preparers in 12 publicly listed companies, supported by the perusal of the companies’ integrated annual reports over a three-year period.
Findings
IR preparers find materiality determination for non-financial information challenging. This study found that preparers convert challenges into opportunities by using materiality disclosures as image-enhancing marketing tools, which causes concerns regarding weak accountability and a deviation from the International Integrated Reporting Council’s objective of improving information quality. This study found that IR preparers use various techniques in conjunction to determine materiality levels, as well as whether to disclose non-financial information in their integrated reports. The institutional isomorphism lens used in the study highlighted the issues IR preparers faced in their determined efforts of IR materiality levels under mimetic and normative isomorphism pressures.
Research limitations/implications
The challenges and techniques identified can contribute to the development of a framework for materiality level determination for non-financial information.
Practical implications
Regulators who are concerned with ensuring sufficient information to improve investor decision-making will be interested in the techniques IR preparers use to determine materiality levels for non-financial information, to improve their regulations and frameworks.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature regarding challenges with materiality level determination in integrated reports and techniques used by IR preparers. The application of an institutional isomorphism lens led to greater insight and understanding of IR preparers’ challenges and techniques in materiality determination. This paper makes a number of significant contributions to the IR literature. First, it identifies the usefulness of material information for decision-making and the influence stakeholders have on the materiality determination of non-financial information, which have not been mentioned in the prior literature. Second, the literature is silent on how organisations relate materiality to value creation for the purposes of determining the materiality content of an integrated report; this research provides empirical evidence of the use of value creation criteria in materiality determination. Third, the study highlights that materiality is a combination of efforts that involves everyone in an organisation. Further, the strategy should be linked to IR and preparers have indicated that integrated thinking is required for materiality determination.
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The purpose of this paper is to develop guidelines of what award winning companies, leading practice in integrated reporting (IR) disclose in their integrated reports about…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop guidelines of what award winning companies, leading practice in integrated reporting (IR) disclose in their integrated reports about material issues and their materiality determination processes. Also, to provide insight into what they disclose about their perception of materiality.
Design/methodology/approach
A content analysis was conducted to investigate what the top 10 South African companies of the 2015 Ernst and Young Excellence in Integrated Reporting Awards disclosed in their 2014 and 2015 integrated reports about their materiality determination processes, material issues and what materiality means to them. Thematic analyses were conducted in developing guidelines.
Findings
All except one company applied the International Integrated Reporting Framework. The materiality determination processes, material issues and companies’ descriptions of materiality are diverse. Material issues most companies identified relate to employees, social and environmental issues, customers and sustainable performance.
Practical implications
The proposed guidelines will provide useful strategies for organisations embarking on the IR journey about what issues could be considered as material and therefore included in integrated reports. It also proposes activities companies can undertake to identify, evaluate and prioritise material issues and execute their materiality determination process.
Originality/value
This paper is the first to develop guidelines of material matters and materiality determination processes. It also adds to existing literature on IR practice and the application of materiality.
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Natasja Steenkamp and Roslyn Roberts
This paper aims to explore how advanced integrated report preparers internalise and operationalise material value creation information to manage the generation of such information…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore how advanced integrated report preparers internalise and operationalise material value creation information to manage the generation of such information for the integrated report.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopts a qualitative approach using in-depth semi-structured interviews to examine how information about material value creation matters in six South African organisations are managed.
Findings
The findings will be useful to integrated reporting adopters as to how they might implement appropriate processes and systems to determine, communicate, collect and process information about matters that substantively affect their value creation.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the body of knowledge by providing insight on how material value creation matters are determined, communicated internally and information about such matters generated.
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This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and…
Abstract
This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and economic democracy, which centres around the establishment of a new sector of employee‐controlled enterprises, is presented. The proposal would retain the mix‐ed economy, but transform it into a much better “mixture”, with increased employee‐power in all sectors. While there is much of enduring value in our liberal western way of life, gross inequalities of wealth and power persist in our society.
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Investigates the differences in protocols between arbitral tribunals and courts, with particular emphasis on US, Greek and English law. Gives examples of each country and its way…
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Investigates the differences in protocols between arbitral tribunals and courts, with particular emphasis on US, Greek and English law. Gives examples of each country and its way of using the law in specific circumstances, and shows the variations therein. Sums up that arbitration is much the better way to gok as it avoids delays and expenses, plus the vexation/frustration of normal litigation. Concludes that the US and Greek constitutions and common law tradition in England appear to allow involved parties to choose their own judge, who can thus be an arbitrator. Discusses e‐commerce and speculates on this for the future.
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The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act…
Abstract
The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:
Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely…
Abstract
Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.
Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some…
Abstract
Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.
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In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of…
Abstract
In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.
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