The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between changes in water efficiency, profit and risk for firms in the global Consumer Packaged Goods industry. This study…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between changes in water efficiency, profit and risk for firms in the global Consumer Packaged Goods industry. This study also aims to consider the moderating effect of operational efficiency on those relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a sample of 155 firms with annual corporate social performance and financial performance data from Bloomberg for the years 2010–2019, this study employs first-differencing panel regression models to obtain our results.
Findings
This study finds strong evidence that operational efficiency moderates the relationships between water efficiency, profit and risk. For operationally efficient firms, increasing water efficiency increases profit and reduces risk. But for firms that are not operationally efficient, this study finds the opposite effects. These findings suggest a threshold level of operational efficiency that firms should achieve before they can reap financial benefits from increases in water efficiency.
Originality/value
Despite the increasing importance of water efficiency as a measure of corporate social performance, its effects on financial performance are not well studied. The relationship between operational efficiency and water efficiency has also not been examined. This work provides empirical evidence to better understand these important relationships. The major implication for managers is that operational efficiency is a foundational capability that should be developed before focusing on efforts to improve water efficiency. For operationally efficient firms, improvements in water efficiency can be an important mechanism to increase profitability and reduce risk.
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In the periods, following the First and Second World Wars, colonial states across the British empire underwent waves of reforms that were geared toward improving human well-being…
Abstract
In the periods, following the First and Second World Wars, colonial states across the British empire underwent waves of reforms that were geared toward improving human well-being, from enhancing social conditions, such as health and education, to expanding opportunities for economic and political engagement. The literature on the colonial state typically traces these state-building efforts to the agency of European colonial officials. However, evidence from a historical analysis of Trinidad and Tobago reveals a different agent driving state reform: the colonized. A local labor movement during colonialism forced the colonial state to construct a number of state agencies to ameliorate the economic, political, and social conditions in the colony, thereby resulting in an increase in state capacity. This study, therefore, provides critical intervention into the colonial state literature by showing that the agency of the colonized, as opposed to just the colonizers, is key to state-building, and specifying the mechanisms by which the subaltern constrained colonial officials and forced them to enact policies that improved colonial state capacity.
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BRIAN VICKERY and ALINA VICKERY
There is a huge amount of information and data stored in publicly available online databases that consist of large text files accessed by Boolean search techniques. It is widely…
Abstract
There is a huge amount of information and data stored in publicly available online databases that consist of large text files accessed by Boolean search techniques. It is widely held that less use is made of these databases than could or should be the case, and that one reason for this is that potential users find it difficult to identify which databases to search, to use the various command languages of the hosts and to construct the Boolean search statements required. This reasoning has stimulated a considerable amount of exploration and development work on the construction of search interfaces, to aid the inexperienced user to gain effective access to these databases. The aim of our paper is to review aspects of the design of such interfaces: to indicate the requirements that must be met if maximum aid is to be offered to the inexperienced searcher; to spell out the knowledge that must be incorporated in an interface if such aid is to be given; to describe some of the solutions that have been implemented in experimental and operational interfaces; and to discuss some of the problems encountered. The paper closes with an extensive bibliography of references relevant to online search aids, going well beyond the items explicitly mentioned in the text. An index to software appears after the bibliography at the end of the paper.
This paper aims to explore how accounting is entwined in the cultural practice of popular music. Particular attention is paid to how the accountant is constricted by artists in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore how accounting is entwined in the cultural practice of popular music. Particular attention is paid to how the accountant is constricted by artists in art and the role(s) the accountant plays in the artistic narrative. In effect this explores the notion that there is a tension between the notion of the bourgeois world of “the accountant” and the world of “art for art's sake”.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on the cultural theory of Pierre Bourdieu to understand how the character of the accountant is constructed and used by the artist. Particular attention is paid in this respect to the biography and lyrics of the Beatles.
Findings
Accounting and accountants play both the hero and the villain. By rejecting the “accountant villain”, the artist identifies with and reinforces artistic purity and credibility. However, in order to achieve the economic benefits and maintain the balance between the “art” and the “money”, the economic prudence of the bourgeois accountant is required (although it might be resented).
Research limitations/implications
The analysis focuses on a relatively small range of musicians and is dominated by the biography of the Beatles. A further range of musicians and artists would extend this work. Further research could also be constructed to more fully consider the consumption, rather than just the production, of art and cultural products and performances.
Originality/value
This paper is a novel consideration of how accounting stereotypes are constructed and used in the field of artistic creation
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Brian C. Briggeman, Keri L. Jacobs, Phil Kenkel and Gregory Mckee
The purpose of this paper is to explore the recent financial trends affecting grain and farm supply cooperatives.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the recent financial trends affecting grain and farm supply cooperatives.
Design/methodology/approach
Review of and descriptive analysis of current cooperative finance topics.
Findings
In recent years three important trends have become apparent among grain marketing and farm supply cooperatives. These farmer-owned firms have been rapidly investing in infrastructure, reformulating profit distribution and equity strategies, and have pursued consolidation with other cooperatives.
Originality/value
Grain and farm supply cooperatives are changing at a rapid clip to meet the needs of their evolving and growing farmer-owners. New research is needed to help these cooperatives meet these needs, and this paper identifies new areas of research in cooperative finance.
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Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).
Ted D. Englebrecht and W. Brian Dowis
Worker classification continues to be a highly litigated area of taxation. That is, the status of a worker as an employee or independent contractor remains a topic closely…
Abstract
Worker classification continues to be a highly litigated area of taxation. That is, the status of a worker as an employee or independent contractor remains a topic closely scrutinized by the Internal Revenue Service. This study examines factors that the judiciary deems relevant in ruling whether a worker is an employee or independent contractor. A backward stepwise logistic regression model is implemented to categorize the factors that best predict the court’s decision on whether a worker is either an employee or independent contractor pursuant to the factors in Revenue Ruling 87-41 (1987-1 CB 296), judge gender, and political affiliation. The results indicate three factors (supervision/instructions, continuing relationship, and the right to discharge) are capable of accurately predicting 93 percent of the decisions made by the US Tax Court. Other findings support notable statistical differences between male and female judges rendering decisions and reaching conclusions. Also, there is a statistically significant difference based on the type of industry. Political affiliation appears to have no significant impact on judicial rulings.
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The aim of this chapter is to investigate the potential of the disruption brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic to break the stagnation in the field of comparative and…
Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to investigate the potential of the disruption brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic to break the stagnation in the field of comparative and international education, detected on many fronts of the field by various scholars in the field. The chapter commences with a survey of the historical evolution of the field of comparative and international education, showing how the field has historically come to be defined by contextually induced discourse. At the same time, the historically trodden furrows have resulted in the field becoming trapped by historical forces, resulting in some stagnation in the field. It is argued that impediments to progress in the field of comparative and international education are the severance from practice, the “black box” syndrome of paying more attention to the societal context than to education, the tenacious attachment to the nation-state as the sole geographic level of analysis, the lack of an autochthonous theory, persistent Northern hegemony, and the regression of space and infrastructure at universities. Thereafter, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact thereof on education are discussed. In conclusion, the potential of the disruption brought about by the pandemic for the revisitation of comparative and international education is assessed.
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The purpose of this paper is to cover problematic issues concerning context, culture, strategy and processes affecting the development of performance management in the City of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to cover problematic issues concerning context, culture, strategy and processes affecting the development of performance management in the City of Stoke‐on‐Trent local strategic partnership (LSP) between 2005 and 2007.
Design/methodology/approach
The author consulted LSP stakeholders and drew on selected literature on strategy and aspects of soft systems methodology (SSM).
Findings
The paper enables the appreciation of performance management as involving various strategic‐related business processes. The development of such processes, in response to central government, represented a rationalising and corporate approach to management.
Originality/value
The paper draws upon different but complementary research approaches and provided an SSM‐style conceptual model of a partnership and its focal management set within a complex context.