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This paper aims to explore the reasons for the apparent failure of many UK firms to achieve the competitive advantages indicated in largely positivist literature through the management of their trade credit positions.

The paper utilises data from a set of semi-structured interviews with trade credit managers in firms and is the first substantial qualitative study of the intra-firm aspects of trade credit management in the UK. Through this approach, we explore the reasons why the theoretical promise of trade credit may or may not be realised.

The principal findings relate to the importance of three organisational attributes (skills/awareness, communication and structural position of the activity in the firm). That is, trade credit management should be regarded as a relational activity and not merely a narrow technical function. The paper finds that there is no generic formulation of these attributes that can deliver on the promise of trade credit identified in the extant literature. Rather, individual firms must adapt themselves to suit their circumstances.

This paper will be of interest to and is relevant for companies, accounting professionals and policymakers. Trade credit represents a significant area of commercial risk, and the problems experienced with its effective management have previously proved somewhat intractable.

This paper reports on the first substantial piece of UK work to look at the actualities of how trade credit is managed within firms and what the implications of this are.

The supply of trade credit by small‐ to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) is the product of both customer demand and the possibility of strategic advantage, but is subject to risk. In the current financial climate the demand for trade credit may be heightened, leading to further increased risk. This paper seeks to evaluate current risk mitigation measures in the UK and considers how these might be improved.

The supply of and demand for trade credit and the inherent risks are explained by reference to the literature. Then, using both the academic and grey literature and data from a large‐scale questionnaire, the paper highlights the limitations of both regulatory and management approaches to mitigate the risks in the context of UK SMEs. Finally, the paper considers the prospects for improved management.

Trade credit may be a product of market demand or a desire to extract strategic advantage. Both regulatory measures and internal management regimes have failed to mitigate risks in the UK for SMEs extending trade credit.

The paper concludes that current UK regulatory regimes are unlikely to prove effective and that better management of trade credit may be imperilled by the power imbalances between SMEs and larger firms. The paper suggests areas for the improvement of trade credit management under the headings of policies, people, processes and practices within SMEs.

The paper demonstrates why, despite the risk, UK SMEs offer trade credit and consider how those risks might be mitigated.

This paper seeks to challenge a tacit, but nevertheless prevalent, notion that a robust corporate governance framework will, as a matter of course, engender good corporate social responsibility and, thereby, ‘ethical’ decision-making. It does so by drawing, in the first instance, on an example of apparent good corporate social responsibility and exposing the possibly unethical dimensions of the incident. The paper suggests that corporate governance always has a subjective ethical dimension and that such regimes are best understood as ‘regimes of practice’ – actions, actors and discourses – that shape and mould both thinking and action. Such regimes, it is posited, can best be explored by looking at actual instances or events of significance and analysing these. The paper then offers the example of international pharmaceutical companies’ HIV/AIDS drugs pricing policies, especially in South Africa, as such a critical incident and interrogates it using the ‘analytics’ approach outlined by Dean (1999). The principal aims of the paper are to demonstrate that corporate social responsibility and corporate governance regimes are not neutral processes but aspects of ‘governmentality’ and to offer a technique, analytics, by which such processes can be explicated.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the issues raised by and the possible long-term significance of the judicial review obtained by the pressure group UK Uncut into HM Revenue and Customs’ decision to forgive £10 m of interest payable by the investment bank, Goldman Sachs.

Using Lukes’ (2005) three dimensions of power as a conceptual framework, the paper compares this case with a similar case from the 1980s in order to discuss the importance of democratic oversight of the way in which public bodies discharge their duties, the extent to which this should override the principle of taxpayer confidentiality and the extent to which legal rules and procedures permit such oversight.

The comparison shows that, by permitting the review to proceed, greater weight was given to the importance of democratic oversight in the UK Uncut's case, but the rejection of both cases demonstrates that the tax authority is permitted very wide administrative discretion. However, whilst UK Uncut's challenge ultimately failed, it exposed aspects of the tax authority's relationship with large taxpayers to public gaze. This has contributed to demands for changes in the taxation system, which legislators might eventually feel forced to heed.

This paper reminds that any significant shift in public attitudes must always have a beginning, and that, even if the challenge fails, it might be the first tangible evidence of a demand for greater transparency in the administration of the tax system which might lead to future changes.

There has been increasing engagement with Annual General Meetings (AGMs) in the UK during the past decade by both private investors and protesters. At the same time, proposals have been mooted to allow companies to not hold such meetings. When examined from an agency theory perspective, AGMs appear largely redundant. This paper reports a qualitative investigation of such meetings and considers their relevance both as sites for the expression of stakeholder issues and also as a means for management to (re)confirm their power and status. The paper utilises Lukes (1974) three‐dimensional model of power as an alternative to the conceptualisation of power inherent in agency theory as a means of analysing the dynamics of power at AGMs

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which UK equity prices reflect shareholder level taxation on dividends (dividend tax capitalisation). Despite an extensive theoretical and empirical literature controversy exists.

Using a sample of UK firm year ends from 1991 to 2007 archival accounting and share price data are used to test for the presence or otherwise of dividend tax capitalisation.

The paper finds evidence of equity values reflecting shareholder level dividend taxation. In particular, a significant reduction in the valuation of retained earnings, a measure of dividend paying potential, is observed around the July 1997 abolition of the repayment of dividend tax credits to tax exempt shareholders. This suggests a link between shareholder level taxation of dividends and firms’ cost of capital.

The analysis focuses on share prices and is therefore subject to an underlying assumption of shareholders’ understanding tax and other potential relevant information.

The taxation of dividends is an important issue because of the potential for it to influence firms’ cost of capital and therefore investment decisions. Further, non-tax costs may be incurred to the extent that attempts are made to mitigate any “adverse” tax effects.

The results indicate that taxation of dividends and share prices are associated and therefore also indirectly firms’ cost of capital. This linkage has implications for investment appraisal and the allocation of capital between competing demands.

In using an asset valuation approach the limitations of alternate methods of examining shareholder level taxation of dividends are avoided, e.g. analysis of dividend drop of ratios.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential effect of busy season resource constraints on the selection of a new auditor, conditioned upon the status of the prior auditor.

The paper employs multivariate logistic regressions for a sample of firms that changed auditors between 1979 and 2005 to explore the empirical correlations between having a December fiscal year-end (FYE) and non-lateral switches.

The paper finds that non-BigN clients with December FYEs are less likely to switch to BigN auditors than those with non-December FYEs prior to the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). This trend subsides after SOX. For firms with BigN predecessor auditors, fiscal year-end appears to have insignificant influence on auditor switching.

The findings suggest that upwardly mobile clients face greater audit supply constraints compared to clients already being audited by a BigN firm during the traditional busy season. However, the curbing influence on switching upwards erodes after SOX.

This study is to show the impact of supplier capacity constraints on audit production and structural changes within the auditing profession.

The findings can further the understanding of the determinants of auditor-client realignment, given that the paper identifies and explores the effects of having a December FYE on subsequent auditor appointments, conditioned upon the status of the prior auditor.

The technology of so‐called new public management (NPM) in the UK encompasses a broad range of approaches to the reform of public services based loosely around notions of downsizing the State, cost‐cutting, marketisation, competition and emphasis on the reform of accounting within the Government. NPM has been utilised in the reform of the old public sector science and technology laboratories. This paper sets out the reasons why the provision of science and technology services may be a discrete area of public service, not necessarily amenable to NPM. It then charts the development of policy and practice in this area, using actual examples of agencification and privatisation. Finally it offers a tentative evaluation of the manifestations of NPM in this area concentrating on ownership, control and accountability; markets and customers; and financial costs and rewards.

Both, the UK and Japan abolished the tax credit system for foreign source dividends in 2009 in favour of the exemption system. With the move towards a dividend exemption system the governments intended to enhance the international tax competitiveness of their countries. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the implications of substituting the credit system for the exemption system in the UK and Japan on cross-border transaction prices when competing for international acquisitions.

The paper uses an economic model under certainty to analyse the changes in cross-border marginal purchase and seller prices as a result of the introduction of the newly introduced dividend exemption system.

Shifting to an exemption system has ambiguous effects on the ability to compete for foreign acquisitions: investors from both countries are able to pay higher prices in the course of acquisitions, but while investors from the UK become more competitive, the relative competitive position for Japanese investors hardly changes and remains relatively constrained, independent of the form of double taxation relief. Thus the author verifies that the international tax regime is not the only determinant influencing the competitive position, ranking second to, e.g., the interaction with international tax rate differentials.

The international tax reforms in UK and Japan in 2009 offer a unique opportunity to study the impact of international tax policy on the international tax competitiveness of multinational firms in the course of foreign acquisitions. Evidence from this paper is not exclusively applicable to the UK and Japan setting. The observed effects shed new light on the intensified debate in the USA of changing the international tax system by analysing the impact on the bidding situation in international acquisitions in a real-world transition scenario.