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Ever‐rising marketing budgets are becoming an explosive issue. On advertising alone, companies spend fortunes: Nestlé, $11 billion; Unilever, $8 billion; General Motors, $4.7 billion; Procter & Gamble, $3.8 billion; Sony, $3.4 billion; and Coca‐Cola, $1.7 billion. With no end in sight to escalating marketing outlays, many executives are asking two questions: “Is our company spending the right amount on marketing?” and “Are we spending it in the right places and on the right activities?” To get more bang for your buck, the authors suggest setting aside the first question and focusing on the second.

In this article, the authors explore the limitations of current approaches to setting marketing budgets and then outline five factors that should drive how companies allocate their marketing budgets, namely: the profitability that new revenue from a business unit or product would generate; the responsiveness of customers to marketing; the revenue growth potential of a market; the marketing responses of competitors; and the degree to which a particular type of investment builds longer‐term growth in addition to near‐term impact.

The new approach described in this article produces four main benefits: It provides a more objective, factual basis for determining annual marketing budgets; it improves the quality of discussions and decisions around marketing allocations; it can be applied at all levels throughout the organization; and it can identify the new marketing capabilities a company needs.

The article offers a new, simpler approach to thinking about marketing allocation that helps big companies shift their marketing budget debate from “how many dollars to spend altogether?” to “where to spend those dollars?” While companies should continue their quest to answer the first question with rigor, until they get there, answering the second question can create substantial value.

This paper aims to compare the readability of narrative annual report disclosure pre- and post-International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption using a computational linguistics programme to determine if annual report disclosures have become more difficult or easier to read following the adoption of IFRS.

This paper empirically measures narrative annual report disclosure readability pre- and post-IFRS adoption using a computational linguistics programme. In this analysis, the authors control for variables that have been identified as relevant to the understanding of financial disclosures, such as size, business volatility, financial leverage and industry.

Significant relationships have been identified between IFRS adoption and reduced readability indicators using readability formulas, and also using other factors such as increased length of annual report disclosures and increased use of tables. Findings suggest that the adoption of IFRS has added complexity and resulted in reduced readability of annual report disclosures.

Academic backing to claims of IFRS’s negative implications for financial statements and their ultimate users should encourage action on the part of standard setters and report preparers to address the negative impacts of IFRS adoption.

This paper is the first to provide evidence that New Zealand equivalents to IFRS adoption have resulted in not only longer disclosures but also more complicated disclosures.

A look at the background of the robotic ideas company, Oxford Intelligent Machines, generally known as OxIM and at some of their current products such as a rehabilitation work cell for disabled people, a toolchanger and Robofish, for robotic handling in fish processing.

LeaRonal (UK) plc of Buxton, Derbyshire, have announced management changes within their organisation.

This chapter describes two change efforts involving participatory action research within the pharmacy operations division of Kaiser Permanente. Focus is on a parallel learning mechanism that has been used to support communications and change during two large-scale information technology interventions. It begins with basic background information on participatory action research in organizations. Since the case setting is Kaiser Permanente, the chapter provides some information on the U.S. healthcare industry context and then shifts to Kaiser’s communication forum, a learning mechanism that has been in place for 35 years. Cognitive, structural, and procedural aspects of the learning mechanism are explored, and the chapter features interviews with some of the key forum players. Both in the forum’s infancy and in its current more institutionalized state, the pharmacy organization has been in crisis. Implications for the use of parallel learning structures on a long-term basis to support long-term participatory action research are explored along with contributions to theory on insider/outsider action research.

This article outlines a model for gauging the quality of a partnership approach to research that was developed for use in a Research Centre in West Sweden. The Äldre Väst Sjuhärad Centre has as its main goal the promotion of partnerships between older people and their families, service providers and researchers. In pursuing these goals the Centre adopts a broadly‐constructivist approach to undertaking research that is ‘authentic’ and meaningful to those who take part. In order to make judgements about the quality of its activity the Centre has adapted the authenticity criteria originally suggested by Guba and Lincoln (1989), so that they are more readily understood by older people, carers and service providers. These criteria can be applied at all stages of research activity, and it is suggested here that they can be utilised more widely in order to make inferences about the effects of partnership working in other contexts.

Changes to the auditor’s report have been proposed and issued internationally to provide more relevant information to users and enhance the perceived value of financial statement audits. This paper aims to investigate the impact of audit reporting changes on audit quality and audit fees in the New Zealand context.

The authors examined audit quality measured by absolute abnormal accruals and audit fees for New Zealand listed companies.

The evidence suggests the enhanced audit reports were followed by an improvement in audit quality as proxied by a reduction in absolute abnormal accruals upon the adoption of the new audit reporting requirements. There was also a significant increase in audit fees.

Although the new auditor reporting requirements are associated with improvements in audit quality, such benefit does not come without cost.

The study provides evidence about the impact of this recent substantial reform to auditing.