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Finance, accountancy, auditing.

Supports information systems audit (ISA), auditing practises and controls, corporate governance and internal controls and financial management modules, business administration and MBA programmes.

The case study focuses on the implementation of ISA and information technology in the highly responsible task of executing financial audits The case emphasises on the fact that the advantages of ISA can only be reaped when they are amalgamated with an auditor's scrutiny, sharp eye, extensive knowledge of auditing systems and accounting principles and a rich experience of the auditing function. The suggested synergy also facilitates a reduction of around 60 per cent, in the cost of executing the audits and the man-hours required to complete the audit, as in the case of Jain Chowdhary & Company.

The case helps students to comprehend the relevance of audit trail. It emphasises on the importance of identifying the source of information and tracking raw data backward. It familiarises the students with the complexities involved in a real audit and emphasises on the role of logic, intelligence, diligence, patience and farsightedness while performing the auditing function. It is important for them to understand how White collar crimes take place in real business economy. This case, hence exposes students to these nuances and can make a student, from a non-commerce background, understand the key elements of efficient auditing. (Elaborate teaching objectives are appended in the teaching note.)

Teaching note.

Due to the increasing population and prosperity, the generation rate of municipal solid waste (MSW) has increased significantly, resulting in serious problems on public health and the environment. Every single person in the world is affected by the municipal solid waste management (MSWM) issue. MSWM is reaching a critical level in almost all areas of the world and seeking the development of MSW strategies for a sustainable environment. This paper aims to present the existing global status of MSW generation, composition, management and related problems.

A total of 59 developed and developing countries have been grouped based on their gross national income to compare the status of various MSWM technologies among them. A total of 19 selection criteria have been discussed to select appropriate MSWM technology(s) for a city/town, which affects their applicability, operational suitability and performance. All risks and challenges arising during the life cycle of the waste to energy (WtE) project have also been discussed. This paper also gives a comparative overview of different globally accepted MSWM technologies and the present market growth of all WtE technologies.

It was found that most developed countries have effectively implemented the solid waste management (SWM) hierarchy and are now focusing heavily on reducing, reusing and recycling of MSW. On the other hand, SWM has become very serious in low-income and low-middle-income countries because most of the MSW openly dumps and most countries are dependent on inadequate waste infrastructure and the informal sector. There are also some other major challenges related to effective waste policies, availability of funds, appropriate technology selection and adequacy of trained people. This study clears the picture of MSW generation, composition, management strategies and policies at the worldwide context. This manuscript could be valuable for all nations around the world where effective MSWM has not yet been implemented.

This study clears the picture of solid waste generation, composition, management strategies and policies at the worldwide context. This manuscript could be valuable for all nations around the world where effective MSWM has not yet been implemented. In this study, no data was generated. All supporting data were obtained from previously published papers in journals, the outcomes of the international conferences and published reports by government organizations.

This paper aims to examine the interrelationships between subnational conflicts in Myanmar and other variables of interests from the following four major domains: economic, human security and vulnerability of people, aggressiveness or militancy of the armed forces and global and regional climates.

Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach has been applied on annual data from 1960-2017, to deal with the problems of autocorrelation and non-stationarity of key variables.

First, an increase in crop yield, cereal productivity, food productivity and per capita availability of arable land unequivocally and significantly lower the severity of conflict in Myanmar in the long run. Second, the authors uncover strong evidence that the intensity of conflicts bears a positive relationship with the vulnerability of the people of Myanmar. Third, the authors detect that both regional and global climate variables have limited and rather inconsistent impacts on subnational conflicts in Myanmar. Finally, the authors find that the aggressiveness (militancy index) of the armed forces has significant impacts upon subnational conflicts and economic variables of Myanmar in the long run.

This paper is completely data-driven and explains the long-term dynamics of the intensity of the civil war in Myanmar. ARDL bounds testing approach has been used to examine the interrelationships between subnational conflicts in Myanmar and other variables of interests. It is a novel approach, which overcomes the problems of autocorrelation and nonstationarity and offers reliable results.

The primary objective of this article is to examine current procurement, inventory control and management practices in modern healthcare, with a particular focus on the procurement and management of surgical supplies in a prominent public, highly specialized healthcare sector.

This study was conducted in three phases. In Phase 1, the study team interacted with various hospital management stakeholders, including the surgical hospital store, examined the current procurement process and identified challenges. Phase 2 focused on selecting items for a detailed study and collected the qualitative and quantitative details of the store department of the healthcare sector chosen. A detailed study analyzed revenue, output/demand, inventory levels, etc. In Phase 3, a decision-making framework is proposed, and inventory control systems are redesigned and demonstrated for the selected items.

It was observed that the demand for many surgical items had increased significantly over the years due to an increase in disposable/disposable items, while inventories fluctuated widely. Maximum inventory levels varied between 50 and 75%. Storage and availability were important issues for the hospital. It is assumed the hospital adopts the proposed inventory control system. In this case, the benefits can be a saving of 62% of the maximum inventory, 20% of the average stock in the system and optimal use of storage space, improving the performance and productivity of the hospital.

This study can help the healthcare sector administration to develop better systems for the procurement and delivery of common surgical items and efficient resource allocation. It can help provide adequate training to store staff. This study can help improve management/procurement policies, ordering and delivery systems, better service levels, and inventory control of items in the hospital business context. This study can serve as a pilot study to further investigate the overall hospital operations.

This study can help the healthcare sector administration develop better systems for procuring and delivering common surgical items and efficient resource allocation. It can help provide adequate training to store staff. This study can help improve management/procurement policies, ordering and delivery systems, better service levels and inventory control of items in the hospital business context. This study can serve as a pilot study to further investigate the overall hospital operations.

This study is an early attempt to develop a decision framework and inventory control system from the perspective of healthcare inventory management. The gaps identified in real hospital scenarios are investigated, and theoretically based-inventory management strategies are applied and proposed.

Economic and financial integration (hereafter, economic integration) among economies has been a fertile area of research. Yet, what we argue is that economic integration needs new thoughts to adequately model the recent challenges to the global economy by developing a new index/measure of economic integration. The new index will not only shed invaluable insights into the drivers of economic integration between Australia and the Middle East but will also help craft economic, trade, and commercial policies to achieve the desired type of integration with Australia's trading partners. Our analysis is undertaken on a cross section of 140 countries for the year 2011, to understand the causes and indicators of integration. Our model combines changes in real GDP, per capita GDP, percentage of educational expense, and gender inequality as causal factors to explain integration as a latent variable. We use three indicators of integration: (1) a standard measure of economic integration, (2) exports and imports as a percentage of GDP, (3) flows of foreign direct investment. We then explore the linkages between these indicators, or manifestations of integration, and a number of its possible causes. In terms of the new index we rank 140 nations and note that Australia is ranked among the top 20 nations in terms of integration with the global economy. Except Israel and Oman, Australia's trade partners in the Middle East have little integration with the global economy. In a similar vein, we also find that Australia's northern neighbors – especially Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, India – are yet to get well-integrated with the global economy. As a result, we argue, Australia can lead these countries from Southeast Asia and the Middle East to form closer ties with the global economy via Australia and, by doing so, Australia can create unprecedented economic and social benefit.

This chapter seeks to assess if there is any evidence that overseas development assistance (ODA), through its influence upon the climate-resilient grants and development grants, has impacted Fiji's developmental goals and climate resilience as a Small Island Development State (SIDS). To broaden the framework, it develops and applies two indicators of development and climate resilience for Fiji and seeks to establish – from the time series analysis – if these indicators bear a long-term and equilibrium relationship with the ODA for Fiji. By exploiting a suitable data set, it brings three important insights into the literature on climate shocks from global warming for SIDS. There are three critical elements found from the study: first, ODA did not play any role in reducing underdevelopment (DVIT) in Fiji. Secondly, ODA played an important role in increasing sustainability, or resilience, in Fiji: an increase in ODA by 1% increased sustainability, or resilience measured by the sustainability index SUS, by 0.24% at 1% level of significance. Finally, it is noted that oil price hikes compromised Fiji's resilience or sustainability. In the short-run, both ODA and OILP compromised the sustainability of Fiji.