...136 Positive Accounting Theory and Science JCC Journal of CENTRUM Cathedra ™ Positive Accounting Theory and Science by M. Humayun Kabir Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Business Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand Abstract This paper examines the development of positive accounting theory (PAT) and compares it with three standard accounts of science: Popper (1959), Kuhn (1996), and Lakatos (1970). PAT has been one of the most influential accounting research programs during the last four decades. One important reason which Watts & Zimmerman (1986) have used to popularize and legitimize their approach is that their view of accounting theory is the same as that used in science. Thus, it is important to examine how far accounting has been successful in imitating natural science and how the development of PAT compares with the three standard accounts of science. This paper shows that accounting could not emulate the success of natural science. Further, the methodological positions of PAT conform to none of the standard accounts of science. Rather, PAT contains elements of all three. Finally, this paper identifies some methodological gaps in PAT. Keywords: Positive Accounting Theory, Philosophy of Science, Methodological Controversies Acknowledgements I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers of the journal for their helpful comments. Earlier versions of this paper benefited from comments from Lee Parker of the University of South Australia, Keith...
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...Research Paper ITK 463 TSP (Team Software Process) Index I. Introduction II. What is TSP II. A. The TSP launch process III. Why is TSP used? III. A. TSP improves Quality III B. TSP makes the company work professionally III C. TSP and CMM. IV Overheads due to TSP. V Risks Associated. VI. Does TSP actually work ? VII. Recommendation for the company IV. Annotated Bibliography V. Company Assumptions Introduction As quoted by the CIO journal December 2003 issue, “By the numbers available, the software quality stinks.” The Standish Group reported in 1999 that 74% of all projects were not successful.6 According to a survey by Standish Group in 2002, only 34 % of the software development is successful. Around 38 billion US dollars are lost every annum due to software failure [2] and one of the major reasons for this high failure rate is poor software quality. Typical software projects are often late, over budget, of poor quality, and difficult to track. Engineers often have unrealistic schedules dictated to them and are kept in the dark as to the business objectives and customer needs. They are required to use imposed processes, tools, and standards, and often take shortcuts to meet schedule pressures. Very few teams can consistently be successful in this environment. As software systems get larger and more complex, these problems only get worse. The best projects are an...
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...An evaluation of the relationship between Organisational Culture defined using The Competing Values Framework (1988) and Allen and Meyer’s (2000) Organisational Commitment types. Introduction to culture Organisational Culture is a topic that has been addressed by many theorists and defined in numerous different ways (Ostroff, Kinicki, & Tamkins 2003), with the most famous definition being “the way we do things around here” (M Bower 1966). However a more comprehensive, inclusive definition of culture would be: “the set of shared, taken-for-granted implicit assumptions that a group holds and that determines how it perceives, thinks about and reacts to its various environments” (Schein 1996). With this in mind, it is widely accepted that organisational culture not only has an impact on performance (Brown 2008; Andersen et al 2009) but has been described as one of the most powerful and stable forces operating in organizations (Lamond 2003). The Competing Values Framework This paper will use the Competing Values Framework (CVF, Figure 1) to address the aforementioned topic of corporate culture’s effect on organisational commitment, as it is regarded as the most popular approach for assessing the performance of a company (Gregory et al, 2009). The model itself is comprised of two main axis, the first reflecting the dimensions of change and stability within an organizations’ culture. One end of this axis represents a prominence towards flexibility and spontaneity, whereas...
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...Database Modeling Kelli Clipp Business Systems Analysis INF322 Arman Kanooni February 10, 2013 This paper discusses database modeling and one tool that can be used for the process. The tool I’ve chosen is based on the material in our textbook and article ‘Modeling for the future’. Database modeling is the process of software engineering which allows for the creation of an information system. In the article ‘Modeling for the future’, they compare database modeling to constructing a house (Carreon, Wang, & Watt, 1996). This comparison is based on the fact that one would use a blueprint when building a house and database modeling can be considered as the same concept. A data model is in essence a blueprint or a plan for the database and without it the database may not be very well built, as with any program, house or building you need a plan. There are several tools available for database designers to utilize and the key is choosing the tool which is right to be used that will meet all the requirements of the database to be created. In the article ‘Modeling for the future’ they discussed and compared products from 1996, and although this article appeared to cover the four key products for database modeling at that time, the market has changed...
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...Corporate Governance and Accounting Conservatism in China* Donglin Xiaa and Song Zhub,** b School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, China School of Economics and Business Administration, Beijing Normal University, China a Abstract A principal-agent relationship exists among creditors, shareholders and management, and information asymmetry among them leads to asymmetric loss functions, which induces conservative accounting. This paper investigates the determinants of accounting conservatism using accrual-based measures and data from 2001 to 2006 in China. We find that a higher degree of leverage, lower level of control of ultimate shareholders and lower level of management ownership lead to more conservative financial reporting. We also find that political concerns and pressures among state-owned enterprises are greater than those among non-state owned enterprises, which leads to more conservative financial reporting among the former. However, a decrease in such concerns leads to a decrease in accounting conservatism. Overall, we find that among the determinants of conservatism in China, debt is the most important, followed by ownership, and that board has little influence. JEL classification: G30; M41 Keywords: Information asymmetry; Agency problem; Accounting conservatism; Political concerns; Corporate governance * We thank George Yang from Chinese University of Hong Kong and participants at CJAR Summer Research Workshop for helpful comments....
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...palliative care and its association with a good death examined. The ensuing discussion relates to two EoLC documents. While acknowledging that much has been achieved it is argued that, despite the potential for promoting health and wellbeing, a professionally led, biomedical approach predominates, and in terms of promoting health and wellbeing at the end of life there is a pressing need for proactive advance care planning at an earlier point in the illness trajectory. Key words: End-of-life care l Care pathways l Terminal care l Health promotion Michael Allen is Staff Nurse, Chemotherapy Day Unit, Singleton Hospital, Abertawe Bro- Morgannwg University Hospital Board, Swansea, Wales; Tessa Watts is Senior Lecturer, Swansea University, Swansea, SA2 8PP, Wales Correspondence to: Tessa Watts t.watts@swansea.ac.uk End-of-life care (EoLC), a core component of palliative care, is concerned with pre- venting and easing suffering experienced by people facing death. As life draws to its close, the aim is to optimise the quality of living and dying and to facilitate effective family support and coping in bereavement. Thus, at...
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...in accounting practices (Basu, 1997). Over the centuries, many researchers have accomplished in-depth reports and thoughtful analysis regarding different focuses on conservatism. Literatures related are abundant and fruitful. In next section, this paper will firstly give a brief review on a number of related literatures. Follows that, some of the most significant motivations to adopt conservatism such as contracting demand, litigation pressure, agency problem, tax implication, regulation concern and political economy will be discussed in section three. For the purpose of construction, regression analysis, as the most commonly used research technique, are also analyzed in section four of this paper, which also includes a summary of the requirements in sample selection process. Meanwhile, another crucial aim of this paper is to introduce the empirical evidence of a positive relationship between information quality and conditional conservatism. In section five, this paper intends to explain the empirical findings of Iatridis (2011) that a high quality accounting information discloser will apply conditional conservatism but restrict unconditional conservatism. 2.0 Literature Review Researchers commonly characterize accounting conservatism as “asymmetric timeliness in recognition of accounting gains versus losses and systematic understatement of net assets” (Chi et al. 2009: 48). In other words, conservatism can be broadly described as the speed of good news...
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...JAN REVIEW PAPER Measurement of empathy in nursing research: systematic review Juping Yu & Maggie Kirk Accepted for publication 16 July 2008 Correspondence to M. Kirk: e-mail: mkirk@glam.ac.uk Juping Yu MSc PhD RN Research Fellow Faculty of Health, Sport and Science, University of Glamorgan, Wales, UK Maggie Kirk BSc PhD RN Head of Research/Leader Genomics Policy Unit and Lead Professional Specialist (Nursing Professions) NHS National Genetics Education and Development Centre Faculty of Health, Sport and Science, University of Glamorgan, Wales, UK YU J. & KIRK M. (2008) Measurement of empathy in nursing research: systematic review. Journal of Advanced Nursing 64(5), 440–454 doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2008.04831.x Abstract Title. Measurement of empathy in nursing research: systematic review. Aim. This paper is a report of a systematic review to identify, critique and synthesize nursing studies of the measurement of empathy in nursing research. Background. The profound impact of empathy on quality nursing care has been recognized. Reported empathy levels among nurses range from low to welldeveloped and there is clearly debate about what constitutes empathy and how it can be measured and improved. Data sources. Searches were made of the CINAHL, MEDLINE and PsycINFO databases, using the terms ‘empathy’, ‘tool’, ‘scale’, ‘measure’, ‘nurse’, and ‘nursing’, singly or in combination to identify literature published in the English language between 1987 and 2007. Methods...
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...Brothers: In its last reported financial statements before it went bankrupt, Lehman Brothers reported a loss of $US 2.4 billion for the first six months ended May 31, 2008 (vs. a net income of $US 2.4 billion for the first six months ended May 31, 2007). The shift of $US 4.8 billion in net income is largely driven by a dramatic fall of $US 8.5 billion in Lehman’s revenues from principal transactions, which include realized and unrealized gains or losses from financial instruments and other inventory positions owned. A significant portion of the downward shift in principal transactions revenues is actually explained by unrealized losses of $US 1.6 billion in the first semester of 2008 vs. unrealized gains of $US 200 million in the first semester of 2007. Thus, accounting at fair value for some financial assets amplified Lehman's downward earnings performance. Hence, it can be put forward that FVA, through its magnifying impact on earnings volatility, may have contributed to aggravate investors', regulators' and governments' perceptions with respect to the severity of the crisis, itself characterized by record volatility in the prices of many securities and goods. On a related note, the increased volatility brought forward by FVA is conducive to the use of equity-based compensation, especially stock options, which value is then enhanced (according to the Black-Scholes model, volatility is one of the key inputs in option valuation). Prior research 此前的研究 suggests that there is a strong...
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...virtual reality), the sport psychologist has the opportunity to help an athlete enhance their performance like no other time in history. Imagery conducted for sport performance is referred to as sport imagery, but can be used interchangeably with the broader term mental imagery (Taylor and Wilson, 2005). Several other terms including mental practice, mental rehearsal, and visualization have also been used to refer to various components of mental imagery in sport (Morris, Spittle, & Watt, 2005; Taylor and Wilson, 2005; Weinburg & Gould, 2007). Specifically, sport imagery can be defined as using all senses to re-create or create a sport experience in the mind with the goal of enhancing sport performance during training and competition (Morris, Spittle, & Watt, 2005; Vealey & Greenleaf, 2001; Weinberg & Gould, 2007). There is a large amount of empirical evidence that supports that mental imagery works (Liggett, 2000; Moran, 2002; Morris, Spittle, & Watt, 2005; Porter, 2003; Taktek, 2004; Taylor & Wilson, 2005; Vealey & Greenleaf, 2001; Weinberg & Gould, 2007). Anecdotal evidence is also plentiful, including several accounts from well-known athletes of various sports. For example, golfer Tiger Woods has acknowledged the importance of seeing and feeling desired shots in the mind prior to physically hitting the golf ball (Moran,...
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...To what extent is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) beneficial to a company’s performance? CSR—A double-edged sword for company’s performance Starting from the refined corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies issued by the European Commission in 2011, a stinging debate is being aroused on the influence of CSR to the whole society. The most influential critic is Noble Prize winner Milton Friedman, who regards CSR as a waste of stockholders’ money (1970). However, many other articles claim, opposite Friedman, that CSR actually improves companies’ financial performance in the long run (Bagnoli and Watts, 2003; McWilliams and Siegel, 2001). There are plenty of arguments on CSR’s influence on company’s performance. As far as I am concerned, CSR plays as a double-edged sword in company performance. The definition of CSR is quite easy to understand. According to Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), CSR is defined as “achieving commercial success in ways that honor ethical values and respect people, communities, and the natural environment.” McWilliams and Siegel (2001:117) describe CSR as “actions that appear to further some social good, beyond the interest of the firm and that which is required by law.” These suggest that a socially responsible corporation should take a step forward and adopt strategies and business practices that go beyond the profit requirements and contribute to some social-friendly activities. However, when companies choose to engage in CSR...
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...did a marvelous job at catching the city’s gritty side that was a reality in the 19th century. History professor Tyler Anbinder said in a book about historical aspects of the film that Scorsese’s visual recreation of 19th century New York couldn’t have been better. The great part of the film’s grimy look at the city is that it shows a strong contrast to the city today (DiGirolamo). Likewise, Detroit is portrayed fairly accurately in John Singleton’s Four Brothers, a movie about four adopted brothers who come together in their rough city to figure out who murdered their mother. In his review of the film, Peter Long wrote that, although there are nice parts of Detroit, the film does its job in not highlighting them. Four Brothers shows how tough the city of Detroit is through its scenes of petty violence and crime, not to mention its dilapidated buildings and run down city streets (“Review: Four...
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...of conservatism, with a final conclusion pertaining the relationship of information quality and financial reporting choices being ascertained. 2. Conservative Financial Reporting Conservatism is the differential verifiability required for the recognition of accounting gains versus losses that generates an understatement of net assets. (Basu, 1997) There has been evidence strongly suggesting that U.S companies had used conservative financial reporting practices since the last five decades. (Watts, 2003) It is argued that conservatism of financial reporting arises because of information asymmetry between firm managers and shareholders. While information asymmetry refers to a situation where one party has more or superior information compared to another, (Akerlof, 1970) theoretical researchers have found that managers do not have the same incentive as shareholders or investors, and can use their information advantages to transfer the wealth from shareholders to themselves. (Watts, 2003) Following that, managers tend to report good aspects of the financial statements so as to gain extra compensation that is frequently dependent on the...
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...The International Journal Of Engineering And Science (IJES) ||Volume|| 2 ||Issue|| 11 ||Pages|| 25-27 ||2013|| ISSN (e): 2319 – 1813 ISSN (p): 2319 – 1805 Electricity Generation from Speed Breakers 1 1, 2, 3 Aniket Mishra, 2Pratik Kale, 3Atul Kamble Department of Mechanical Engineering, Bharati Vidyapeeth college of engineering ---------------------------------------------------------ABSTRACT----------------------------------------------------------Energy is the primary need for survival of all organisms in the universe. Everything what happens in the surrounding is the expression of flow of energy in one of the forms. But in this fast moving world, population is increasing day by day and the conventional energy sources are lessening. The extensive usage of energy has resulted in an energy crisis over the few years. Therefore to overcome this problem we need to implement the techniques of optimal utilization of conventional sources for conservation of energy. My paper includes how to utilize the energy which is wasted when the vehicles passes over a speed breaker. Lots of energy is generated when vehicle passes over it. We can tap the energy generated and produce power by using the speed breaker as power generating unit. The kinetic energy of the moving vehicles can be converted into mechanical energy of the shaft through rack and pinion mechanism. Then, this mechanical energy will be converted to electrical energy using generator which will be saved...
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...International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS): Pros and Cons for Investors by Ray Ball* Sidney Davidson Professor of Accounting Graduate School of Business University of Chicago 5807 S. Woodlawn Ave Chicago, IL 60637 Tel. (773) 834 5941 ray.ball@gsb.uchicago.edu Acknowledgments This paper is based on the PD Leake Lecture delivered on 8 September 2005 at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, which can be accessed at http://www.icaew.co.uk/cbp/index.cfm. It draws extensively on the framework in Ball (1995) and benefited from comments by Steve Zeff. Financial support from the PD Leake Trust and the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago is gratefully acknowledged. 1 Abstract Accounting in shaped by economic and political forces. It follows that increased worldwide integration of both markets and politics (driven by reductions in communications and information processing costs) makes increased integration of financial reporting standards and practice almost inevitable. But most market and political forces will remain local for the foreseeable future, so it is unclear how much convergence in actual financial reporting practice will (or should) occur. Furthermore, there is little settled theory or evidence on which to build an assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of uniform accounting rules within a country, let alone internationally. The pros and cons of IFRS therefore are somewhat conjectural, the unbridled enthusiasm...
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