Search results

Provides a general guide to the process of appealing against assessments in the 1990 rating list. Describes the form and content of proposals, action by the valuation officer, the six‐month time‐limit, referencing, basis of measurement, inspection, the locality, rental evidence, lease analysis, rent adjustment, negotiation, and the valuation officer. Summarizes that while rental value forms the basis of rating valuation, the valuer′s tone will significantly affect the outcome.

The purpose of this viewpoint paper is to provide an overview of three papers included in a Special Issue of the Journal of Information Communication Ethics and Society, entitled Ethics in the Virtual World.

The papers were chosen because they reflect three key themes in computing, ethics and society. These are: the explosion in the number of opportunities for accessing sensitive data in the health sector; the risks inherent in designing information systems through technical procedures that fail to address the human character of the environments they are intended to serve; and the need to teach computing ethics to students of computing. All three articles draw on philosophical approaches to ethics and well as technical aspects of system use, system design and pedagogy, respectively.

The papers demonstrate the interdisciplinary nature of computing ethics and the contested political issues at stake in using and designing information systems.

This editorial viewpoint paper presents the hypothesis that the ethical issues once embodied in socio‐technical systems theory have a particular salience for the contemporary ethical debates concerning computing ethics.

Pharmacy sales of over‐the‐counter medicines in the UK represent an economically significant and important mechanism by which customers self‐medicate. Sales are supervised in pharmacies, but this paper seeks to question whether patients' electronic health records (EHRs) – due to be introduced nationally – could be used, ethically, by pharmacists to ensure safe medicines sales.

Using theoretical arguments, three areas of ethical concern are identified and explored in relation to pharmacists' access to EHRs‐consequentialsim, analogies and confidentiality/privacy.

Consequentialist arguments include positive benefits to customer's welfare and control of medicine of abuse, but negative economic healthcare burdens and consequences due to potentially increased or paradoxically, decreased presentation of patients to doctors. Socially accepted analogous practices – credit checks, existing pharmacy access to information and hospital treatment – are then argued to be ethically relevant and supportive of access. Privacy and confidentiality are then considered as reasons not to allow EHR access. A contrasting view is that pharmacy access to EHRs is another form of surveillance and hence the question of pharmacists' assess to EHRs may be answered negatively by empirical research that locates pharmacy customers as expert users and identifies confidentiality and privacy concerns about information technology in healthcare more generally.

This paper offers a unique and valuable contribution to the debate about healthcare professionals' role‐based access to patients' medical records and offers a reflection on the ethical concerns surrounding patient information and the rival concerns of patient qua customer autonomy and safety.

It is well recognised that the UK commercial property market has traditionally used nominal market benchmarks such as the all‐risk yield based on the assumption that rents are received annually in arrears. Obviously, the reality of the market is that rents are invariably received quarterly in advance and it has been suggested that valuers should move towards valuation techniques that reflect the actual timing of the cash flow. The Investment Property Forum issued a paper in September 1999 promulgating the use of quarterly in advance valuations. Parry’s Tables provides quarterly in advance formulae that reflect the reality of rental income and indicates that an annual effective yield should be used instead of a nominal yield to compensate for the subsequent compounding resulting from an income received quarterly. However, as will be shown, the effective yield formula provided by Parry’s does not reflect quarterly payments that are received in advance so compromising the accurate transition from annually in arrears to quarterly in advance formulae based valuations. Tables produced by the IPF have rectified this problem in part as they correctly work on the premise that capital values will not change as the profession changes to a quarterly approach. It is the yield which will be expressed differently. The use of an all risk yield technique for valuation is actually a comparative method. The way in which the yield is expressed is not the critical issue, it is the multiplier against the rent which will determine value. This paper provides the formula required to accurately transfer annually in arrears data into quarterly in advance data together with the formulae required for contemporary growth explicit discounted cash flows (DCF).

This article reviews the history of international coordination in the supervision of financial institutions noting why cooperation developed first and has been most extensive in oversight of banks relative to securities firms and insurance companies. It also poses the question of whether the extent of international coordination can be sustained or may even diminish.

The history of international coordination is used to illustrate the hypotheses that cooperation is more likely: the broader the international consensus on policy objectives and the potential gains from cooperation, the wider the international consensus on policy objectives and the potential gains from cooperation, the deeper the international agreement on the probable consequences of policy alternatives, the stronger the international institutional infrastructure for decision-making and the greater the domestic influence of experts who share a common understanding of a problem and its solutions.

All five of these factors that have enabled deepening and broadening of international cooperation have diminished in strength so that international cooperation is not likely to expand and may even be in retreat.

This article clarifies the factors that facilitate international cooperation and highlights the key obstacles to sustaining international cooperation.

Discusses business process re‐engineering, the latest paradigm to enter the management lexicon, which seeks to combine a processes orientation with an edict for radical change. Propose that BPR has now passed through the stage of euphoria, characterized by extravagant claims about the benefits to be gained, and into the maturity phase of the management theory life cycle where there is debate over its true worth with 60‐80 per cent of projects failing to achieve their goals. Presents the results of a survey of consultancy practices in an attempt to evaluate the methods which consultants are actually using. Contrasts with most current BPR research which is based on literature reviews. Concludes that BPR is regarded as a vague concept and most projects labelled as BPR are simply normal business process improvement activities which are unlikely to change an organization radically. Suggests that the future of BPR is uncertain but that it is serving a purpose now by highlighting the need for companies to manage their strategic alignment and to integrate strategy, processes, people and technology.

We are requested to publish the following Manifesto:—

The purpose of this paper is to explore the propensity of some researchers within the accounting research community (and elsewhere) to ignore potentially rich insights available from other paradigms, and the implications this has for the advancement of knowledge both from an educational and a social perspective.

The analysis is based on a review of a paper published in the Australian Journal of Management by Benson et al. (2015) together with a synthesis of other work which cautions against dismissing conflicting “world views”.

The analysis suggests that the propensity of some accounting researchers to dismiss, or ignore, research undertaken by researchers outside of their paradigm is still apparently “alive and well” within today’s accounting research community. The implications associated with ignoring or dismissing rich interdisciplinary insights are highlighted.

The implications of the research are that many rich insights are apparently being ignored by a segment of the accounting research community and this has implications for the advancement of knowledge, education and society. The limitations of this commentary are that the views are based on personal opinion which by its very nature is biased and based on the political views of the author.

The practical implications are that in highlighting a propensity to ignore potentially valuable research from alternative paradigms the commentary encourages researchers to consider other world views, as well as the political foundations inherent in their own work. This can have positive implications for the advancement of knowledge, and of society.

By highlighting the propensity of some researchers to potentially dismiss entire areas of research as not being “notable” it is hoped that there will be a revision of this tendency and this will have possible implications for the advancement of knowledge.

The commentary highlights how certain elements of the accounting research community continue to appear to have a propensity to forget/ignore that potentially useful insights are available from people who undertake research beyond the confines of their research paradigm.

This paper presents the results of a study designed to gather empirical data about countertrade activity by US firms. The focus of the study was to determine the number of firms engaging in countertrade, their general characteristics, their motivations for countertrading, and their expected future level of involvement in countertrade.