...open and constructive dialogue in order to contribute to the work of government and regulators and by generating practical ideas for further enhancing confidence in the independent audit. The initial focus of the Forum was to improve audit transparency and support shareholder involvement in the audit process. At its meeting in May 2005 the Forum agreed to explore a broader agenda which will examine the relationships between shareholders, boards, auditors, regulators and other stakeholders in the audit. Anyone interested in providing feedback on this paper should send their comments to louise.maslen@icaew.co.uk. Further information on the Audit Quality Forum, the current work programme and how to get involved is available at www.icaew.co.uk/auditquality or contact 020 7920 8493. © December 2005 Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales Dissemination of the contents of this paper is encouraged. Please give full acknowledgement of source when reproducing extracts in other published works. No responsibility for any person acting or refraining to act as a result of any material in this document can be accepted by the ICAEW, the Audit and Assurance Faculty or authors. ISBN 1 84152 404 2 AuditQuality a Q Agency theory and the role of audit CONTENTS 3 Contents Page Executive summary Introduction Principal-agent relationships What is an agency relationship? Agency theory Motives of agents and...
Words: 5389 - Pages: 22
...Identify legal and ethical requirements of property management to complete agency work CPPDSM4007A Assignment 2 STUDENT NAME OTEN NUMBER Please read the “Guide to completing and submitting assignments” before you begin this assignment. What you need to do To successfully complete this assignment you must answer the following questions to demonstrate your knowledge. The assignment will be granted a result of “Competent” if the learning outcomes are achieved or “not yet competent” if not. If a result of “Not Yet Competent” is achieved you will be given the opportunity to resubmit your assignment. Your Task This task is designed for you to demonstrate your understanding of the core legal and ethical requirements associated with property management. This includes awareness of the legislation dealing with the leasing and management of property, the role and responsibility of agency personnel in property management, the recording of property management transactions and the completion of property management documentation. Part 1 – Knowledge assessment |No. |Question and answer | | |Q. 1 |List five (5) duties of a property manager describing each in detail. | | | | ...
Words: 3185 - Pages: 13
...Introduction 1 The 1989 Merger Regulation, Neofunctionalism and Spillover 2 M&As at the National and EC level 1983-1990 5 The Need for an Additional Approach: Regulation 1/2003 and New Institutionalism 6 Conclusion 9 Bibliography 10 Introduction Competition policy is a major policy area within the European Union (EU), and it has been a core executive function for the European Commission since 1962. Being an area of exclusive competence of the EU and with the Directorate-General of Competition (DG Competition) firmly in power, it constitutes an interesting case for understanding the European integration process and the contemporary consequences for business. Two major policy changes, in 1989 and in 2003, make it possible to investigate how to accurately explain the development in the area. I argue that until 2003, neofunctionalism offers the best analytical tools for understanding the process, as it accurately explains and predicts the expansion of the policy competences of the DG Competition through a variety of spillover-effects, mainly from the Single Market. But while neofunctionalism is analytically advantageous at the macro-level, it is applicable only to a point, as it cannot explain the apparent decentralization of executive power taking place with the introduction of Regulation 1/2003. Here more power was delegated to the national competition authorities (NCAs) at the surface, but at the same time, the Commission significantly increased their relative power position...
Words: 4498 - Pages: 18
...Principal-agent problems arise through the misalignment of interests between individuals or groups within an organisation. They can occur in various parts of an organisational structure, for instance in Labour; between an employer and an employee, Franchises; the franchisor and franchisee, Regulation; the regulator and the regulated company through to Investors; between the Shareholders and company Executives (Fingleton, J. 2012) The strength and alignment of these relationships are vital for the smooth successful operation of organisations, problems can occur in both the public sector in healthcare through doctor-patient-pharmaceutical company relationships and also in government, whilst more commonly known in the private sector through labour and investor related problems. This report will evaluate the effects of the principal-agent problem within firms by considering real world examples of where they may have occurred and what methods organisations use to address the issue. Empirical Evidence Empirical evidenceThere is however considerable empirical evidence of a positive effect of compensation on performance (although the studies usually involve “simple” jobs where aggregate measures of performance are available, which is where piece rates should be most effective). In one study, Lazear (1996) saw productivity rising by 44% (and wages by 10%) in a change from salary to piece rates, with a half of the productivity gain due to worker selection effects. Research shows...
Words: 1571 - Pages: 7
...Market Solutions to the Agency Problem in Periodic Financial Reporting Edgar Carlos Duarte Aguilar “The statesman, who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be as dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.” Adam Smith Introduction Enron’s bankruptcy in 2001 was a milestone in recent times as far as corporate governance regulations it is concerned. Besides the executives, the external auditors were accused and found guilty as accomplices in distorting the accounting information the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) required from them as a public company that traded its securities in the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). US Government’s reaction was to increase the regulation on the activities performed by all public companies by issuing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOA) and creating the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). It was now required that the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of each company signed a statement on the effectiveness of the Company’s internal control and that the external auditors issued a report on this management’s statement, besides their previously required report on the fair presentation of its financial statements....
Words: 3726 - Pages: 15
...Research Proposal: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS ON THE IMPLICATIONS AND EFFECTS OF CORRUPTION IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN ECONOMY AND HOW IT CAN BE MANAGED About the writer: Tyson Thamsanqa Sibanda Rosebank College South Africa: Bachelor of Business Administration 3 (2015) Contact details; Tyson.msimanga@gmail.com 0027786500000 / 0027815993434 BACKGROUND AND ORIGIN Corruption in South Africa has been so widespread that, unless it is decisively tackled in this presidential term, there is a real danger that it will become embedded as a ‘normal’ aspect of life in our country. Once it becomes part of the ‘culture’ of our society, it will be almost unmanageable to uproot. Corruption is generally defined as the abuse of public office for private gain. It usually comes in two forms. Firstly, the alleged ‘big-time’ corruption which take place when public officials bend the rules to channel patronage to relatives, friends and associates, or accept bribes; as well when private agents bribe public officials to give them exclusive advantages or privileges. Secondly, there is the quiet corruption, which occurs when public servants purposefully neglect their duties to provide public services or goods. Quiet corruption may not involve an exchange of money, but involves providers of public services such as teachers, nurses or other government officials, twisting the rules for their own private welfares. This includes, for example, public servants, such as a minister or nurses not turning up for work when...
Words: 5145 - Pages: 21
...called principals, hire one or more other individuals, called agents, to perform some service and then delegate decision-making authority to the agents. The primary agency relationships in business are those (1) between stockholders and managers and (2) between debtholders and stockholders. These relationships are not necessarily harmonious; indeed, agency theory is concerned with so-called agency conflicts, or conflicts of interest between agents and principals. This has implications for, among other things, corporate governance and business ethics. When agency occurs it also tends to give rise to agency costs, which are expenses incurred in order to sustain an effective agency relationship (e.g., offering management performance bonuses to encourage managers to act in the shareholders' interests). Accordingly, agency theory has emerged as a dominant model in the financial economics literature, and is widely discussed in business ethics texts. Agency theory in a formal sense originated in the early 1970s, but the concepts behind it have a long and varied history. Among the influences are property-rights theories, organization economics, contract law, and political philosophy, including the works of Locke and Hobbes. Some noteworthy scholars involved in agency theory's formative period in the 1970s included Armen Alchian, Harold Demsetz, Michael Jensen, William Meckling, and S.A. Ross. CONFLICTS BETWEEN MANAGERS AND SHAREHOLDERS Agency theory raises a fundamental problem in organizationself-interested...
Words: 17274 - Pages: 70
...PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 4 III. THE PUBLIC MANAGEMENT MODEL 6 IV. PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AND GOVERNANCE 8 V. PRINCIPLES THEORIES OF PUBLIC MANAGEMENT 9 Public Choice Theory 10 Transaction Cost Economics 11 Principal–Agent Theory 11 Microeconomic Theory 12 The New Economic Sociology 13 VI. PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AS CRAFT 14 VII. PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AS STRUCTURE 16 VIII. PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AS INSTITUTION 17 IX. NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES 21 CONCLUSION 24 INTRODUCTION Public management is the subject of a rapidly growing literature that is international in scope a multifarious in content. The common sense of public management is relatively straightforward. Good public managers, whatever their particular positions or responsibilities, are men and women with the temperament and skills to organize, motivate, and direct the actions of others in and out of government toward the creation and achievement of goals that warrant the use of public authority. Few public laws and policies are self-executing, and, in their formulation, all might benefit from managerial insight and experience. Under virtually any political philosophy or regime, then, the achievement of good government requires the responsible and competent use of public authority by a government’s managers. Common sense obscures issues that have been at the heart of public management from its inception as a field of study and practice, however. What if the...
Words: 7451 - Pages: 30
...INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the Study Problem Sound Economic Governance is essential for the achievement of the desired reduction in poverty levels and improvements in economic growth in Tanzania. Good Public Financial Management (PFM) is important for efficient, effective and equitable utilization of scarce national resources (REF). Whilst the extent to which policy makers are held accountable to their constituents is an excellent indicator of good governance. Accountability and transparency go hand in hand in developing open and participatory decision-making processes. In 2005, the government of Tanzania reviewed the financial management practices and processes at the central government level. In 2006, the focus has shifted to local government, which now accounts for an increasing proportion of expenditures and is primarily responsible for service delivery in sectors such as primary education and primary health (URT, 2004). This kind of study is therefore wanting to provide a snapshot of how the resource allocation, resource management and control, resource utilization and accountability processes take place in primary schools of Tanzania and to make recommendations for improving the local Public Expenditure management (PEM) framework, institutional performance and capacity building(URT,2010) In February 2004, Cabinet decided to move towards a formula-based system of sectoral block grants, where the level of grants that each local government authority receives for the various...
Words: 14395 - Pages: 58
...can mitigate the risk involved in doing business in Facebook. Violence and suffering is often continuous in a media culture. This can sometimes cause an indifference to the vision of human suffering (Chacksfield, 2009). A legally astute marketing manager can acquire the data, consumer feedback and reactions which represents moral concerns. Collaborative efforts of the marketing manager can be made to create sites that represents standards of how society’s behavior should be and drive all aspects of a management teams. The legally astute marking manager seeks legal counsel, advice, and guidance and is proactive in addressing the legal dimensions of business. All concerns should be addressed in ways that are effective, efficient, and legally permissible (Bagley, 2009, page 13). Legal advice in all aspects of the business allows a legally astute manager to be proactive as opposed to being reactive in legal issues and guidelines which allows less time for corrections and a greater emphasis on effective planning which decreases unforeseen problems. This component can mitigate the risks involved in dealing with Facebook. Facebook has a proactive approach in dealing with legal issues and regulations. Facebook has created policy and procedure which can be read and is posted for all...
Words: 1358 - Pages: 6
...POVERTY REDUCTION STRATEGY PAPER ANALYSIS INTRODUCTION Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) were introduced in 1999 by the World Bank and the IMF as a new framework to enhance domestic accountability for poverty reduction reform efforts (Web.worldbank.org). The initial Structural Adjustment Programme failed, as pointed out by Rapley, 2007, almost every country that has implemented structural adjustment programme has seen its own share of strikes and riots in response to deteriorating living standards and rising unemployment. Donors acknowledged that, lack of government commitment or “ownership” was a main factor for the failure of structural adjustment policies (Driscoll et al, 2004). As a result, the IMF and World Bank restructured their terms of engagement. They promoted PRSPs as being “country owned”, participatory and as taking a universal approach to poverty (Bradshaw and Linneker, 2003). However, whether these arguments reflect the reality is open for debate. Through in-depth analysis of various PRSPs articles and civil society reports, the report will analyse the concept of PRSPs for the purpose of enlightening a British based development Non- Governmental Organisation. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES • Analyse the significant change in policy and discuss what PRSPs actually entails. • Provide a clear and balanced analysis to the British based development NGO before they promote the participation of national civil actors in the PRSP design process. Finally, the report...
Words: 2025 - Pages: 9
...management theory is a collection of ideas which set forth general rules on how to manage a business or organization. Management theory addresses how managers and supervisors relate to their organizations in the knowledge of its goals, the implementation of effective means to get the goals accomplished and how to motivate employees to perform to the highest standard. Nexus-of-Contracts Theory Nexus-of-Contracts Theory argues that the firm, or the modern corporation, is a complex adaptive system comprised of definable subsystems, called stakeholders. A stakeholder is any individual or group of individuals that either benefits or suffers as a result of the actions of that corporation. Therefore, the modern corporation is essentially a set of contracts or agreements between various stakeholder groups. The corporate stakeholder groups, engaged in this bargaining process typically include: stockholders, employees, consumers, suppliers, financiers, and local communities. The interests of these various groups are often represented by “agents.” An agent is a person possessing technical knowledge that is paid by someone else to serve their interests In order for the Nexus-of Contracts Theory to be useful it must be both descriptive and prescriptive; that is, it must describe how the classes of stakeholders (stockholders, consumers, managers, employees, consumers etc.) bargain in the real world, AND prescribe how those stakeholders ought to bargain. It must also describe and prescribe...
Words: 1707 - Pages: 7
...value as a way of understanding government activity, informing policy-making and constructing service delivery. In part this represents a response to the concerns about ‘new public management’, but it also provides an interesting way of viewing what public sector organisations and public managers actually do. The purpose of this article is to examine this emerging approach by reviewing new public management and contrasting this with a public value paradigm. This provides the basis for a conceptual discussion of differences in approach, but also for pointing to some practical implications for both public sector management and public sector managers. Key words: new public management, public value, role of managers Public sector reform has been a common experience across the world despite its different forms and foci (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004). Commonly as scholars and practitioners we refer to the reforms of the last few decades as ‘new public management’ (NPM) which, for Hood (1991), represented a paradigmatic break from the traditional model of public administration. During this era several countries became exemplars of NPM, in particular New Zealand and Australia which undertook significant public sector change to break from the bureaucratic paradigm of public administration.1 More recently, however, cracks have appeared and the search for a new way of thinking about, and enacting public management practice has begun, in part to address the supposed weaknesses of NPM. This...
Words: 8523 - Pages: 35
...Hours: Wednesday11:00AM-12:00Noon 1 Course Description The fundamental objective of this course is to introduce to managers the important economic concepts and tools to improve their decision-making and to achieve managerial goals. The course will emphasize the economic way of thinking, and will enable managers to better understand the economic environment in which business decisions are made. Developing innovative solutions to business problems will be encouraged throughout the course. Learning Objectives Ø Apply the tools and theories from microeconomics to perform demand and supply analyses. Ø Identify different market structures. Formulate different pricing strategies under different market structures or consumer characteristics. Ø Apply basic game theoretic models to formulate business strategies such as pricing. Ø Understand the main issues faced by companies and what are the possible solutions suggested by economic theory. For example, the principal-agent problem and how incentive contracts can be used to address the issue. Ø Understand the key behavioral biases that can affect decision-making in business setting. Brief Course Outline The following table lists the approximate schedule and topics of the classes....
Words: 985 - Pages: 4
... assess how business leaders use managerial economics to make business decisions indicating how profits may be impacted. Analyze the principal-agent problem to determine how the relationship could be less adversarial. Provide support for your rationale. ECO 550 Week 1 DQ2 "Fundamental Economic Concepts" Please respond to the following: Pick a recently released good or service. Then, determine the factors that must be evaluated regarding the product’s supply and demand. Analyze how these factors impact the decision to supply the product indicating the significance of each in the decision-making process. Using the same product example above, analyzing how the risk tolerance factors play in supplying the good or service and how this should influence management’s decisions ECO 550 Week 2 DQ1 "Demand Analysis" Please respond to the following: From the e-Activity, if you were a manager in a tobacco company, analyze the elasticity of demand for tobacco products. Evaluate the factors involved in making decisions about pricing tobacco products indicating which would be the most influential. Using the same scenario above, discuss how the elasticity influence the short-term and long-term decisions of the company and the impact to the decision made related to profitability. ECO 550 Week 2 DQ2 "Estimating Demand" Please respond to the following: Provide an example when it would be appropriate to conduct a time-series or cross sectional data. Discuss the potential problems that may...
Words: 1799 - Pages: 8