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Points out that the decline in international economic differentials makes country effects less important and sector effects more important in managing equity funds; but that there is little research on sector and sub‐sector specific risks. Presents a study of sector and sub‐sector volatility in the UK 1967‐2000, explains the methodology, plots the lagged 12‐month moving average of the annualized standard deviation for market, sector and sub‐sector returns; and relates it to economic events and the US pattern. Analyses further and finds that most of the time series variation in total variance is due to changes in market and sub‐sector variance. Compares the volatility of individual sectors and discusses the implications for portfolio risk and diversification. Considers consistency with other research, the underlying reasons for the findings and opportunities for further research.

The purpose of this paper is to make an empirical contribution by investigating the boundaries between external financial reporting and decision making through assessing the degree of differences among practitioners’ perspectives of financial reporting measurement attributes across two countries, and the impact of the “domestic” practice through cultural factors on the implementation of financial accounting and regulation.

The authors employ the method of triangulation by employing two research instruments, namely interviews and a questionnaire. Triangulation cuts across and within research strategies, as one of its features as a processual technique is to cross‐check results deriving from both quantitative and qualitative research. Cross‐national studies is a very useful tool that can provide a basis for competing explanations, identifying the importance of regional factors across a universally‐changing environment or discriminating between explanations that are country‐specific and those that are universally applicable.

This study provides evidence for a diverging perceived effectiveness and acceptance of IAS39 in two different banking markets (Greece and the UK), suggesting that culture and domestic configurations play an important part in shaping management perceptions and that given these differences, the choice of a measurement system can potentially also affect the (re)liability of managers that sign a firm's financial reports.

Topical settings can potentially influence the preferences and perceptions of managers with regards to particular measurement bases as part of the wider accounting framework instituted by international authorities, as well as raise significant barriers to harmonisation efforts.

This paper seeks to examine the chasm between regulation and accounting through the lens of topical/domestic configurations of accounting practice and its application. The reason for doing so is also because of the recent structural developments in the international finance arena, namely signs of creation of markets for impaired assets.

This paper aims to draw on the potential behavioural implications of the new (economic) measurement attributes initiated recently by the International Accounting Standard Board (IASB) in their efforts to reflect more relevant, “true” underlying economic values as opposed to historical.

Owing to lack of readily observable market prices (market values) for loans (retail and commercial operations) for statistical testing and initial conservatism on the part of banks for a survey to be conducted, 15 interviews were employed (from October 2005 to November 2006) with major bankers (CEOs and CFOs of major banks) and standard setters. The paper analyses the perceived benefits and costs associated with the application of two diametrically opposite measurement methodologies for banks. These can also have important implications for the “perceived” value/measurement profile of a bank – as argued in the concluding section – for bankers and their regulators, on the one hand, and accounting standard setters and investors, on the other.

The propositions constitute a significant departure from current accounting practices in that all financial assets and liabilities should uniformly be recognised and reported under a universally accepted “economistic” measurement framework.

The paper captures perceptions and attitudes as to the future “behavioural” direction of banks and provides a balanced argument between the rigours of historical cost accounting and fair value accounting.

This paper focuses on the need to revise the conceptualisation and measurement of evaluative style in future Reliance on Accounting Performance Measures (RAPM) research. Based on a review of the existing literature, we identify a number of issues in the conceptualisation and measurement of evaluative style and conclude that none of the existing measures is ideal for use in future research. We see two general dimensions of evaluative style that need specific attention in future research. The first dimension addresses the evaluative focus of the superior (e.g. budgets, other quantitative targets, short or long‐term targets, etc.). The second dimension addresses the superior’s way of handling the evaluation process (e.g. rigid or flexible, fixing blame, using it as a learning opportunity, etc.). Building on these two dimensions, there i a need for studies that assess how specific performance measures are used in different way within a particular organisational context, enabling a distinction between the design and the use of control tools. These conclusions suggest a need for qualitative indepth field studies within single organisations rather than quantitative survey research across organisations in future research on evaluative style and its behavioural consequences.

Humans have had to communicate with computers since the latter were invented but now it is also becoming important for the computers to be able to talk to each other. One way of providing these computer to computer links is to follow the developing Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) standards. Several organizations in North America have been developing initial links between their systems using these standards. This development has the general title of the Linked Systems Project (LSP).

Lockheed's Dialorder: document delivery at last. “From the early days of online database searching, we knew we were only wetting the appetites of users for information,” Dr. Roger Summit of Lockheed told Online Review. “As never before possible, users could rapidly search for and find references on a practically limitless number of topics. But the user was then very often frustrated at his or her inability to locate the original document in any reasonably convenient and effective manner. We believe Dialorder will go a long way toward satisfying user needs.”

This paper seeks to suggest ways of understanding the relationships between records and documents.

The paper reviews some of the statements made about records and documents in professional literature. It also offers some thoughts on the connections between records and documents in digital and pre‐digital environments and their intersections with other concepts such as “data”.

Although professionals have often seen records and documents as closely intertwined, this paper argues that the record and the document follow different logics. Documents are characterised by their format, records by their relation to activities, events or other temporal occurrents. Records need not be in documentary form, and can exist at multiple levels of aggregation. The notion that documents become records when they are “declared” is problematic. Capture and declaration do not determine record status, but if capture systems are robust they allow the power of the record to be harnessed to the fullest possible extent.

The paper seeks to explicate some basic concepts of the professional discipline.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

Over the years we have reported prosecutions where the defence has alleged, and with circumstantial support that the presence of a harmful foreign body in food was deliberate through the action of a single disgruntled employee or where the labour relations climate generally has been bad. It makes no difference to the manufacturer's responsibility—the offence is an absolute one—but occasionally courts have allowed it in mitigation. Sometimes, it has been the nature of the extraneous material, e.g. fragments of glass or metal, the like of which did not exist in the factory premises or plant. This may be taken as a symptom of the vandalism of the age, but more recently, two incidents have drawn attention to its dangers and provided a glimpse of the criminal mind which can inflict such injury on employers, and expose innocent consumers, of all ages, to possible harm.

The earliest law of the adulteration of food imposed divisions among the local authorities of the day in functions and enforcements; most of the urban and rural sanitary authorities possessed no power under the law. Provisions dealing with unfit food — diseased, unsound, unwholesome or unfit for human food — were not in the first sale of food and drugs measure and there duties were wholly discharged by all local authorities. Rural sanitary authorities were excluded from food and drugs law and boroughs and urban authorities severly restricted. Enforcement in the rural areas was by the county council, although local officers were empowered to take samples of food and submit them for analysis to the public analyst. Power to appoint the public analyst for the area was the main criterion of a “food and drugs authority”. The Minister had power to direct an authority with a population of less than 40,000 but more than 20,000 to enforce the law of adulteration.