Finnish perceptions on management accounting systems: towards an upgraded sophistication model

This study is based on a large survey study of over 1500 Finnish companies’ usage, needs and implementation difficulties of management accounting systems. The study uses quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods to answer the research questions. The empirical data used in the study was gathered through structured interviews with randomly selected companies of varying sizes and industries. The study answers the three research questions by analyzing the characteristics and behaviors of companies working in Finland. The study found five distinctive groups of companies according to the characteristics of their cost information and management accounting system use. The study also showed that the state of cost information and management accounting systems depends on the industry and size of the companies. It was found that over 50% of the companies either did not know how their systems could be updated or saw systems as inadequate. The qualitative side also highlighted the needs for tailored and integrated management accounting systems for creating more value to the managers of companies. The major inhibitors of new system implementation were the lack of both monetary and human resources. Through the use of mixed methods and design science a new and improved sophistication model is created based on previous research results combined with the information gathered from previous literature. The sophistication model shows the different stages of management accounting systems in use and what companies can achieve with the implementation and upgrading of their systems.

Accounting treatment for intangible assets acquired in a business combination under IFRS

The role of intangible assets and the amount of business combinations have increased significantly during the last decades which has caused the need to reform and harmonise the accounting treatment for acquired intangible assets. The aim of this study is to find out how the new accounting standard for business combinations, IFRS 3, has affected the accounting treatment for identifiable intangible assets and goodwill in the examined media companies between 2005 and 2014. The most significant reforms introduced by IFRS 3 have been goodwill impairment test and the fair value accounting for acquired intangibles. This study is conducted by using a descriptive analysis and the empirical data consists of financial statement information of listed Finnish and international media companies. The main objectives of IFRS 3 have been to reduce the amount of acquisition cost allocated to goodwill and allow companies to recognise new intangible assets separately from goodwill. The results of this study show that the amount of the acquisition cost allocated to goodwill has decreased during the examined period and due to the fair value accounting, business acquisitions have made new intangible assets visible that otherwise would have not met the recognition criteria under IAS 38. The application of IFRS has revealed a big amount of invisible assets in the balance sheets but at the same time this has reduced the comparability between companies.

Internationalization of a Finnish accounting firm to Russian markets

Despite the unstable situation at the moment in Russia, the Russian market and St. Petersburg have been a very attractive from the point of view of Finnish companies. The objective of this research was to define how a Finnish accounting firm should perform its market entry to Russian markets as a part of its internationalization process. In addition, the special characteristics that support the internationalization to Russia were examined together with the implications from the behavior of potential customers at the market. The actual market entry mode was developed based on the theories of Uppsala model, transaction cost economics and the network approach. Additional emphasis was given for the service point of view. The primary data in this research was collected through semi-structured interviews with professionals from the Russian market. The results of this research show that there exists potential especially at the accounting markets in Russia. However, the current unstable situation and sanctions in Russia have led to situation where the price-sensitivity among customers is high, and costs savings are searched from multiple processes in organizations. Therefore, the accounting company should perform its market entry in small incremental steps to decrease the risks involved, and to gain specific market knowledge before committing more resources into Russian markets. A simplified process was developed to evaluate the suitable market entry mode. As a result, the level of commitment and market knowledge affect the final entry model of the firm, as well as defined goals for the particular market.

The role of management accounting systems and venture capital investors for start-up firms

The role of star-up firms in economy and the importance of venture capital investors for the growth of start-up firms have been highlighted in recent years. The growth challenges of start-up firms consist of fast changing environment, the availability of venture capital funding and the development of firm management in the growth phase. A growing number of studies have focused on management accounting systems and venture capital in start-up and growth firm context. In this thesis the role of management accounting systems and venture capital investors is considered in the growth phase of firm development. The theoretical objective of this thesis is to construct a theoretical framework in order to describe the importance of management accounting systems and venture capital investors in start-up firms. The practice orientated objective of this thesis is to study the application of management accounting systems and management accounting based information in start-up firms in high-technology industry as well as the impact of venture capital for management accounting system design. In addition, the growth challenges of start-up firms are studied in order to understand the context in which management accounting systems are used. The research approach of theoretical part is conceptual as the theoretical framework is constructed by combining literature on firm growth, management accounting and venture finance in order to analyse the phenomenon. The action-orientated research approach is appropriate for analysing and describing of the studied phenomenon through empirical evidence. The empirical evidence was collected through interviews with three experts in start-up firm accelerator centers, four representatives of start-up firms and one venture capital investor. The results indicate that the growth challenges of stat-up firms are not related to the development of management accounting systems. Managers of start-up firms expressed a positive attitude towards management accounting systems that improve efficiency of operations. In start-up firms flexible and adjustable management accounting practices, such as budgets, cash flow calculations and future-orientated analysis tools, are applied that support planning and coordination of operations. The results indicate that venture capital investors affect the provision and the quality of management accounting information during the investment process. In addition, venture capital investors enhance the use of management accounting information for internal coordination in start-up firms. By applying the theoretical framework in the analysis, it can be stated that by acting as support function management accounting systems facilitate start-up firms development.

Grassroots Charity in China: Case Analysis of a Charity Project Organised by Jane Zhang Fan Club

As unregistered grassroots charities do not appear in official statistics in China, they tend to remain unnoticed by scholars. Also as they operate unofficially and avoid publicity, their work is usually not reported by the media. In this research I explore the grassroots charity activity of one pop music fan club from the viewpoint of trust as a sociological concept. I will also establish the general situation on charity in China. By using textual analysis on internet blogs and discussion forums I map the charity project from the discussion of the original idea to the execution and follow up phase. I study the roles the fan club members assume during the project as anonymous participants of internet conversations, as well as concrete active charity volunteers outside of the virtual world. I establish parties, other than the fan club, which are involved in the charity project. Interviews with one of the participant of the project in 2010, 2014 and 2015 bring valuable additional information and help in distributing the questionnaire survey. A quantitative questionnaire survey was distributed among the fan club members to get more detailed information on the motives and attitudes towards official and unofficial charity in China. Because of the inequality in China, the rural minority areas do not have similar educational opportunities as the mostly majority inhabited urban areas, even though the country officially has a nine year compulsory education. Grassroots charities can operate in relative freedom taking some of the government’s burden of social responsibilities if they are not criticizing the authorities. The problem with grassroots charity seems to be lack of sustainability. The lack of trust for authorities and official charities was the reason why the Jane Zhang fan club decided to conduct a charity case unofficially. As a group of people previously unknown to each other, they managed to build mutual trust to carry out the project transparently and successfully, though not sustainably. The internet has provided a new and effective platform for unofficial grassroots charities, who choose not to co-operate with official organisations. On grassroots level charities can have the transparency and trust that lack from official charities. I suggest, that interviewing the real persons behind the internet aliases and finding out what happened outside the discussion forums, would bring a more detailed and outspoken description of the project concerning of the contacts with the local authorities. Also travelling to the site and communicating with the local people in the village would establish how they have experienced the project.

Information Asymmetry and Accounting Conservatism under IFRS Adoption

LaFond and Watts (2008) provide evidence that information asymmetry might be a determinant of accounting conservatism. One implication of their paper is that regulators trying to reduce information asymmetry by lowering the level of accounting conservatism might be wrong. However, there is a trend in moving away from conservative accounting. The typical example is IFRS adoption. Therefore, this paper studies information asymmetry and accounting conservatism under IFRS adoption. The results show that the level of accounting conservatism decreases after mandatory IFRS adoption, but the adoption of IFRS is likely to weaken the relationship between information asymmetry and accounting conservatism. Moreover, this paper investigates how the change of accounting conservatism under IFRS is related to the change in information environment. The finding shows that accounting conservatism increases information environment, supporting the idea that, by providing comparatively credible information, conservative accounting is beneficial to the information environment.

Accounting for Human Rights Violations Risk: Conflict Minerals Mandatory Disclosures under the Dodd Frank Act

This paper examines the equity market response to firms’ disclosure of human rights violation risk with regard to conflict mineral usage as required by Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act (the Act). This paper assesses the aggregate equity market response to regulatory events leading to the passage of the Act, the equity market reaction to voluntary early disclosures and mandatory disclosures of conflict mineral information in Form SD, as well as the determinants of the equity market response. Using a sample of 4,399 US registrants from January 1, 2008 to September 30, 2014, we document a significant negative stock market reaction to the passage of the Act and to conflict minerals disclosures on Form SD. The equity market reaction is more negative and limited to companies that source their minerals from conflict zones, companies with human rights violations, and companies with ambiguous disclosures. Taken together, the results of this study provide an economic justification for companies with poor conflict minerals practices to improve in order to avoid high costs that will arise if firms are forced to disclose human rights abuses. This paper also provides preliminary evidence that Form SD is successful in reducing the governance gap that exposes investors to unnecessary sanction, litigation and reputation risk from firms’ activities in conflict minerals usage.

Readings in motivation accounting management... comp. por Ma. deJesús Martínez Cadena y otros

UANL

Accounting and managemnt concepts

UANL

Accounting and management concepts

UANL

Labor's shares - aggregate and industry: accounting for both in a model of unbalanced growth with induced innovation

The relative stability of aggregate labor's share constitutes one of the great macroeconomic ratios. However, relative stability at the aggregate level masks the unbalanced nature of industry labor's shares – the Kuznets stylized facts underlie those of Kaldor. We present a two-sector – one labor-only and the other using both capital and labor – model of unbalanced economic development with induced innovation that can rationalize these phenomena as well as several other empirical regularities of actual economies. Specifically, the model features (i) one sector ("goods" production) becoming increasingly capital-intensive over time; (ii) an increasing relative price and share in total output of the labor-only sector ("services"); and (iii) diverging sectoral labor's shares despite (iii) an aggregate labor's share that converges from above to a value between 0 and unity. Furthermore, the model (iv) supports either a neoclassical steadystate or long-run endogenous growth, giving it the potential to account for a wide range of real world development experiences.

Impacto financiero de la unificación del plan obligatorio de salud subsidiado (pos-s) en las empresas sociales del estado (ese) de mediana complejidad de Cundinamarca

A partir de la Ley 100 de 1993, el sistema de salud en Colombia ha presentado una serie de trasformaciones que buscan mejorar la prestación de los servicios y lograr cubrimiento de la población no favorecida y excluida del Plan Obligatorio de Salud (POS). Sin embargo, las Empresas sociales del Estado (ESE), en aras de dar cumplimiento a las disposiciones y normatividades que exige la ley, funcionan y prestan sus servicios acorde con los objetivos corporativos planteados por ellas mismas, a pesar de tener una gran cartera por parte de las Entidades Promotoras de Salud (EPS). El propósito de esta investigación es evaluar el impacto financiero en una muestra de cuatro hospitales públicos de Cundinamarca (las ESE San Rafael de Facatativá, Fusagasugá, Cáqueza, y el Salvador de Ubaté), luego de la aplicación del Acuerdo 032 del 2012 de la Comisión de Regulación en Salud (CRES). Se seleccionaron cuatro hospitales públicos de mediana complejidad de Cundinamarca, por ser uno de los departamentos más representativos en hospitales de este tipo. Se encontró una mayor convergencia en términos de estructura administrativa y financiera, lo que hace posible que la información obtenida sea comparable y útil para la medición en términos de presupuesto y liquidez. El incremento de la cartera y la disminución de la rotación de la misma, con la afectación respectiva de la liquidez y la rentabilidad, dificultan el logro de las instituciones como lo son la sostenibilidad y perdurabilidad. El cambio del pagador después de la aplicación de la norma incidió directamente en lo anterior; igualmente, traspasar la población no cubierta al régimen subsidiado eliminó el desembolso por parte de la Secretaría de Salud y lo trasladó a las EPS subsidiados, afectando directamente los tiempos de rotación de cartera como se documenta en el análisis.

Effects of innovative teaching methods on students??? academic performance : an empirical study on financial accounting

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