Performance management in the United States and France:four case studies in the retail and airline industries

The profusion of performance measurement models suggested by Management Accounting literature in the 1990’s is one illustration of the substantial changes in Management Accounting teaching materials since the publication of “Relevance Lost” in 1987. At the same time, in the general context of increasing competition and globalisation it is widely thought that national cultural differences are tending to disappear, meaning that management techniques used in large companies, including performance measurement and management instruments (PMS), tend to be the same, irrespective of the company nationality or location. North American management practice is traditionally described as a contractually based model, mainly focused on financial performance information and measures (FPMs), more shareholder-focused than French companies. Within France, literature historically defined performance as being broadly multidimensional, driven by the idea that there are no universal rules of management and that efficient management takes into account local culture and traditions. As opposed to their North American brethren, French companies are pressured more by the financial institutions that fund them rather than by capital markets. Therefore, they pay greater attention to the long-term because they are not subject to quarterly capital market objectives. Hence, management in France should rely more on long-term qualitative information, less financial, and more multidimensional data to assess performance than their North American counterparts. The objective of this research is to investigate whether large French and US companies’ practices have changed in the way the textbooks have changed with regards to performance measurement and management, or whether cultural differences are still driving differences in performance measurement and management between them. The research findings support the idea that large US and French companies share the same PMS features, influenced by ‘universal’ PM models.

Can psychometric testing be used to explain, predict and measure behavioural competences and the funding resource orchestration of the entrepreneur?

Financing is a critical entrepreneurial activity (Shane et al. 2003) and within the study of entrepreneurship, behaviour has been identified as an area requiring further exploration (Bird et al. 2012). Since 2008 supply side conditions for SMEs have been severe and increasingly entrepreneurs have to bundle or ‘orchestrate’ funding from a variety of sources in order to successfully finance the firm (Wright and Stigliani 2013: p.15). This longitudinal study uses psychometric testing to measure the behavioural competences of a panel of sixty entrepreneurs in the Creative Industries sector. Interviews were conducted over a 3 year period to identify finance finding behaviour. The research takes a pragmatic realism perspective to examine process and the different behavioural competences of entrepreneurs. The predictive qualities of this behaviour are explored in a funding context. The research confirmed a strong behavioural characteristic as validated through interviews and psychometric testing, was an orientation towards engagement and working with other organisations. In a funding context, this manifested itself in entrepreneurs using networks, seeking advice and sharing equity to fund growth. These co-operative, collaborative characteristics are different to the classic image of the entrepreneur as a risk-taker or extrovert. Leadership and achievement orientation were amongst the lowest scores. Three distinctive groups were identified and also shown by subsequent analysis to be a positive contribution to how entrepreneurial behavioural competences can be considered. Belonging to one of these three clusters is a strong predictive indicator of entrepreneurial behaviour – in this context, how entrepreneurs access finance. These Clusters were also proven to have different characteristics in relation to funding outcomes. The study seeks to make a contribution through the development of a methodology for entrepreneurs, policy makers and financial institutions to identify competencies in finding finance and overcome problems in information asymmetry.

Knowledge management in support of enterprise risk management

Risk management and knowledge management have so far been studied almost independently. The evolution of risk management to the holistic view of Enterprise Risk Management requires the destruction of barriers between organizational silos and the exchange and application of knowledge from different risk management areas. However, knowledge management has received little or no attention in risk management. This paper examines possible relationships between knowledge management constructs related to knowledge sharing, and two risk management concepts: perceived quality of risk control and perceived value of enterprise risk management. From a literature review, relationships with eight knowledge management variables covering people, process and technology aspects were hypothesised. A survey was administered to risk management employees in financial institutions. The results showed that the perceived quality of risk control is significantly associated with four knowledge management variables: perceived quality of risk knowledge sharing, perceived quality of communication among people, web channel functionality, and risk management information system functionality. However, the relationships of the knowledge management variables to the perceived value of enterprise risk management are not significant. We conclude that better knowledge management is associated with better risk control, but that more effort needs to be made to break down organizational silos in order to support true Enterprise Risk Management.

Privatisation and accountability in a “crony capitalist” Nigerian state

Nigeria is richly endowed with oil and gas resources, but the country’s continued reliance on loans from international financial institutions raises questions about the transparency and accountability of its utilisation of the huge revenues resulting from these two resources. In order to attract international capital to bolster its revenues from sales of oil and gas, a huge proportion of which continues to be used corruptly, the World Bank has encouraged the Nigerian government to subscribe to neoliberal economic policies by enlisting accounting firms and privatising state-owned enterprises. Key justifications for this have included enhancing accountability, reducing public-sector corruption, promoting market efficiency and attracting international capital. However, this paper presents evidence of the role of accounting in the undervaluation of assets, concealment of possible malpractice, and subversion of the accountability that it should have delivered in the privatisation process. The assumption that accounting will enhance accountability, reduce public-sector corruption and promote market efficiency in privatisation, and ultimately attract investment into a crony capitalist Nigerian state, appears to be an illusion created partly through the apparent legitimacy of accounting.

Social and financial efficiency of Islamic microfinance institutions:a Data Envelopment Analysis application

Microfinance has been developed as alternative solution for global poverty alleviation effort in the last 30 years. Microfinance institution (MFI) has unique characteristic wherein they face double bottom line objectives of outreach to the poor and financial sustainability. This study proposes a two-stage analysis to measure Islamic Microfinance institutions (IMFIs) performance by comparing them to conventional MFIs. First, we develop a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) framework to measure MFIs' efficiency in its double bottom line objectives, i.e. in terms of social and financial efficiency. In the second stage non-parametric tests are used to compare the performance and identify factors that contribute to the efficiency of IMFIs and MFIs.

Do institutions have a greater effect on female entrepreneurs?

This paper compares the impact of institutions on individual decisions to become entrepreneurs in the form of new business start ups by males and females across 44 developed and developing economies between 1998 and 2004. We test four hypotheses; that women are less likely to undertake entrepreneurial activity in countries where the rule of law is weaker; where the state sector is larger; where the informal financial sector is weaker and where the formal financial sector is weaker. We use data from the Global Enterprise Monitor survey (GEM) which covers at least 2,000 individuals annually in each of up to 44 countries, merged with country-level data, from the WB WDI and Heritage Foundation. We start with a spectrum of institutional variables and by utilizing factor analysis prior to regression estimation models, we are able to obtain results that are more robust and address multicollinearity between the institutional measures. We find that women are less likely to undertake entrepreneurial activity in countries where the state sector is larger, and demonstrate that this result applies to both high aspiration and low aspiration entrepreneurship. We also find that women benefit more from the larger informal financial sector.

Interactive data in financial reporting:the construction of the non-professional investor

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States and in particular its immediately past chairman, Christopher Cox, has been actively promoting an upgrade of the EDGAR system of disseminating filings. The new generation of information provision has been dubbed by Chairman Cox, "Interactive Data" (SEC, 2006). In October this year the Office of Interactive Disclosure was created(http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2007/2007-213.htm). The focus of this paper is to examine the way in which the non-professional investor has been constructed by various actors. We examine the manner in which Interactive Data has been sold as the panacea for financial market 'irregularities' by the SEC and others. The academic literature shows almost no evidence of researching non-professional investors in any real sense (Young, 2006). Both this literature and the behaviour of representatives of institutions such as the SEC and FSA appears to find it convenient to construct this class of investor in a particular form and to speak for them. We theorise the activities of the SEC and its chairman in particular over a period of about three years, both following and prior to the 'credit crunch'. Our approach is to examine a selection of the policy documents released by the SEC and other interested parties and the statements made by some of the policy makers and regulators central to the programme to advance the socio-technical project that is constituted by Interactive Data. We adopt insights from ANT and more particularly the sociology of translation (Callon, 1986; Latour, 1987, 2005; Law, 1996, 2002; Law & Singleton, 2005) to show how individuals and regulators have acted as spokespersons for this malleable class of investor. We theorise the processes of accountability to investors and others and in so doing reveal the regulatory bodies taking the regulated for granted. The possible implications of technological developments in digital reporting have been identified also by the CEO's of the six biggest audit firms in a discussion document on the role of accounting information and audit in the future of global capital markets (DiPiazza et al., 2006). The potential for digital reporting enabled through XBRL to "revolutionize the entire company reporting model" (p.16) is discussed and they conclude that the new model "should be driven by the wants of investors and other users of company information,..." (p.17; emphasis in the original). Here rather than examine the somewhat illusive and vexing question of whether adding interactive functionality to 'traditional' reports can achieve the benefits claimed for nonprofessional investors we wish to consider the rhetorical and discursive moves in which the SEC and others have engaged to present such developments as providing clearer reporting and accountability standards and serving the interests of this constructed and largely unknown group - the non-professional investor.

Institutions, policies, and arguments:context and strategy in EU policy framing

Studies of framing in the EU political system are still a rarity and they suffer from a lack of systematic empirical analysis. Addressing this gap, we ask if institutional and policy contexts intertwined with the strategic side of framing can explain the number and types of frames employed by different stakeholders. We use a computer-assisted manual content analysis and develop a fourfold typology of frames to study the frames that were prevalent in the debates on four EU policy proposals within financial market regulation and environmental policy at the EU level and in Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The main empirical finding is that both contexts and strategies exert a significant impact on the number and types of frames in EU policy debates. In conceptual terms, the article contributes to developing more fine-grained tools for studying frames and their underlying dimensions.

Institutions matter: essays on the determinants and consequences of socio-political institutions

ONLY AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTATION AT ASTON UNIVERSITY LIBRARY WITH PRIOR ARRANGEMENT This thesis seeks to contribute to the socio-political literature. It comprises of three individual chapters examining the determinants and consequences of different social-political institutional factors. Specifically, the first study combines game theoretical and empirical techniques to examine how bureaucrats favour other agents within their social group and the effects this will have on the level of corruption in the economy. To this end, I develop a simple model of allocation of time between economic activities and leisure (time spent building social network ties), to illustrate the underlying causal mechanism between social network and corruption. It shows that large social networks and low levels of economic activities provides the condition for high levels of corruption. However, the ability of the government to punish corruption through well-established laws and property rights enforcement acts as a deterrent to corruption. he second work also combines game theoretical and empirical techniques. It aims to clarify the relationship between the degree of competition and political influence of firms, paying particular attention to the level of government regulations that exist in the countries in which the firms operates. The interplay between economic and political institutions is vital to any analysis on understanding the workings of political influence. The third study is purely empirical. It examines the role of two types of business network, namely, political connections and business group affiliations on a firm’s performance. Evidence was provided on Chinese firms’ performance during the 2008 financial crisis.