Big 4 audit fee premiums for national and office-level industry leadership in the United Kingdom

The pricing of Big 4 industry leadership Is examined for a sample of U.K. publicly-listed companies, and adds to the evidence from the Australian and U.S. audit markets that city-specific industry leadership commands a fee premium. There is a significant fee premium for city-specific industry leaders relative to other Big 4 auditors, but no evidence that either the top-ranked or second-ranked firm nationally commands a fee premium relative to other Big 4 auditors, after controlling for city-level industry leadership. We also test for Big 4 fee premiums relative to non-Big 4 auditors and the U.K. data suggest a three-level hierarchy based on audit fee differentials: (1) Big 4 city-specific industry leaders have the largest fees; (2) other Big 4 auditors (noncity leaders) and second-tier national firms have comparable fees that are lower than Big 4 city leaders but larger than third-tier firms; and (3) third-tier accounting firms have the lowest fees.

Uncertified absence from work and the Big Five:an examination of absence records and future absence intentions

Uncertified absence from work has traditionally been difficult to link to personality. The present paper argues that personality is best conceptualized as influencing an individual’s intention to be absent from work because of reasons that are within their control. This was investigated in an employed community sample of 128 individuals. These individuals used a self-report measure to express their future intentions to be absent from work as a result of several reasons. These reasons for absence were categorized as “being absent because of external pressure or commitment” (ABCo) and “being absence by choice” (ABCh). The Big Five personality factors were found to be unrelated to objective uncertified absence records and unrelated to ABCo. Three of the Big Five were related to ABCh. Agreeableness was negatively related to ABCh whereas Extraversion and Openness demonstrated a positive correlation. It was concluded that the results should be viewed tentatively, but that this study may provide a useful framework for conceptualizing the association of personality with uncertified absence.

Measuring the Big Five with single items using a bipolar response scale

The convergence on the Big Five in personality theory has produced a demand for efficient yet psychometrically sound measures. Therefore, five single-item measures, using bipolar response scales, were constructed to measure the Big Five and evaluated in terms of their convergent and off-diagonal divergent properties, their pattern of criterion correlations and their reliability when compared with four longer Big Five measures. In a combined sample (N?=?791) the Single-Item Measures of Personality (SIMP) demonstrated a mean convergence of r?=?0.61 with the longer scales. The SIMP also demonstrated acceptable reliability, self–other accuracy, and divergent correlations, and a closely similar pattern of criterion correlations when compared with the longer scales. It is concluded that the SIMP offer a reasonable alternative to longer scales, balancing the demands of brevity versus reliability and validity.

The Role of the big five personality traits, proactive behaviour, and socialisation influences in newcomer adjustment

During the early stages of employment, newly hired employees find out what their new organisations are like. Their first impressions are extremely important in determining the course of subsequent attitudes and behaviour. Recently, a considerable progress has been made towards the understanding of adjustment process, however, the literature remain divided along a number of fronts. Moreover, newcomer research has been conducted independent and irrespective of newcomer personality individual differences. This seems to be a critical oversight because there is overlap in predictions involving these constructs. The current research extended the previous one by examining these multiple antecedents, including Big Five personality traits of newcomer to the tandem process of adjustment as well as outcomes that immediate, or ?proximal? to the process of newcomer adjustment. Following a cross sectional pilot study of recent college graduate, a three- wave longitudinal study of newcomers in seven organisations examined Big Five personality traits, proactive behaviour, and socialisation influence (formal training, leaders, co-workers) as antecedents of proximal adjustment outcomes (group integration, political knowledge of organisation, and task performance). The main study results suggested that personality traits were related to proximal adjustment outcomes, specifically, Conscientiousness was positively related to all proximal adjustment outcomes. Openness to experience was related to task performance and political knowledge. Group integration is independently related to Agreeableness, Extraversion and Neuroticism. The socialisation influence moderate these relations, for example, leader socialisation moderate Conscientiousness as it relates to political knowledge and group integration, while co-worker moderate Extraversion as it relates to task performance. Finally, it was found that, the relationship between proximal adjustment outcomes and the personality dimensions Openness was mediated by proactive behaviour. Overall, the results suggested that individual differences have a role in newcomer adjustment as it facilitate the socialisation influence, and Big Five was one of the key determinants of newcomer adjustment.

Reducing dependence on big brother:Higher Education looks for innovative funding opportunities

This paper presents innovative programs that business schools can utilize to reduce dependence on public funds. A review of the literature shows the theoretical and empirical foundation of higher education funding dilemmas. While higher education is moving towards a global ambition, scarcity hinders governments to fully support programs long-term; thus, cost-sharing and cost-shifting measures must occur for higher education to support current programs. In this study, we examine two universities (one U.S. and one U.K.) and provide practical summaries of programs that have provided additional funds. We show that diversity of funding sources is essential for survival of higher education institutions. Market forces require competition to reduce higher education operational costs while providing students and corporate clients an a la carte educational experience.

Do little embryos make big decisions? How maternal dietary protein restriction can permanently change an embryo's potential, affecting adult health

Periconceptional environment may influence embryo development, ultimately affecting adult health. Here, we review the rodent model of maternal low-protein diet specifically during the preimplantation period (Emb-LPD) with normal nutrition during subsequent gestation and postnatally. This model, studied mainly in the mouse, leads to cardiovascular, metabolic and behavioural disease in adult offspring, with females more susceptible. We evaluate the sequence of events from diet administration that may lead to adult disease. Emb-LPD changes maternal serum and/or uterine fluid metabolite composition, notably with reduced insulin and branched-chain amino acids. This is sensed by blastocysts through reduced mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 signalling. Embryos respond by permanently changing the pattern of development of their extra-embryonic lineages, trophectoderm and primitive endoderm, to enhance maternal nutrient retrieval during subsequent gestation. These compensatory changes include stimulation in proliferation, endocytosis and cellular motility, and epigenetic mechanisms underlying them are being identified. Collectively, these responses act to protect fetal growth and likely contribute to offspring competitive fitness. However, the resulting growth adversely affects long-term health because perinatal weight positively correlates with adult disease risk. We argue that periconception environmental responses reflect developmental plasticity and 'decisions' made by embryos to optimise their own development, but with lasting consequences.

The big 4 in Bangladesh:caught between the global and the local

Purpose- This article explores the work practices of Big 4 firms in Bangladesh with the aim of exploring the extent to which Global Professional Service Firms can be thought of as being genuinely ‘global’. Methodology/Approach- Interviews were undertaken with the vast majority of Big 4 partners in Bangladesh. These interviews explored a number of themes related to the professional service work context in Bangladesh and the relationship between local and global firms. Findings- The central finding of this paper is that although the Big 4 have a long-established presence in Bangladesh, local societal factors heavily influence the realities of work for accountants there. In most cases the Big 4 firms establish correspondent firms (instead of full member firms) in Bangladesh and tend to offer restricted service lines. Additionally, the paper identifies professional, commercial and cultural barriers to greater Big 4 involvement in the local market. Conceptually, the chief contribution of this paper is to explore how the effects of globalising capitalism and standardised ‘best practices’ in global professional service work are mediated through the societal effects of Bangladeshi society, resulting in the Big 4 having only a tentative presence in the Bangladeshi market. Research implications- The findings cast doubt on the extent to which self-styled Global Professional Service firms are truly ‘global’ in nature. Future work examining the Big 4, or accounting more generally, in the context of globalization, would do well to pay greater attention to the experience of professionals in emerging markets. Originality/Value- Whilst there has been much work looking at accounting and accountants in the context of globalization, this work has tended to privilege ‘core’ western empirical settings. Very little is known about Professional Service Firms in ‘peripheral’ or emerging markets. Furthermore, this study extends the application of the System, Society and Dominance framework by mapping the interactions and dynamics of these three sources of influence in the setting of PSFs.

Benchmarking of distributed computing engines spark and GraphLab for big data analytics

In this paper we evaluate and compare two representativeand popular distributed processing engines for large scalebig data analytics, Spark and graph based engine GraphLab. Wedesign a benchmark suite including representative algorithmsand datasets to compare the performances of the computingengines, from performance aspects of running time, memory andCPU usage, network and I/O overhead. The benchmark suite istested on both local computer cluster and virtual machines oncloud. By varying the number of computers and memory weexamine the scalability of the computing engines with increasingcomputing resources (such as CPU and memory). We also runcross-evaluation of generic and graph based analytic algorithmsover graph processing and generic platforms to identify thepotential performance degradation if only one processing engineis available. It is observed that both computing engines showgood scalability with increase of computing resources. WhileGraphLab largely outperforms Spark for graph algorithms, ithas close running time performance as Spark for non-graphalgorithms. Additionally the running time with Spark for graphalgorithms over cloud virtual machines is observed to increaseby almost 100% compared to over local computer clusters.

Using knowledge management to give context to analytics and big data and reduce strategic risk

At the moment, the phrases “big data” and “analytics” are often being used as if they were magic incantations that will solve all an organization’s problems at a stroke. The reality is that data on its own, even with the application of analytics, will not solve any problems. The resources that analytics and big data can consume represent a significant strategic risk if applied ineffectively. Any analysis of data needs to be guided, and to lead to action. So while analytics may lead to knowledge and intelligence (in the military sense of that term), it also needs the input of knowledge and intelligence (in the human sense of that term). And somebody then has to do something new or different as a result of the new insights, or it won’t have been done to any purpose. Using an analytics example concerning accounts payable in the public sector in Canada, this paper reviews thinking from the domains of analytics, risk management and knowledge management, to show some of the pitfalls, and to present a holistic picture of how knowledge management might help tackle the challenges of big data and analytics.