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Large agricultural producers often demand seed with high yielding genetics along with specialty traits specific to their particular needs. Dairyland Seed Company prides itself on its superior genetics and a research program that adds specialty traits while retaining the qualities of the original variety. Dairyland sources specialty trait technology from two competing suppliers – DuPont and Monsanto. Each of these suppliers is currently pursuing a strategy of forward integration through aggressive marketing programs and acquisitions. The implications for access to future technologies and long‐term survival are profound, and leave Dairyland and other smaller seed companies with strategic decisions to make. This paper examines a channel of distribution for agricultural biotechnologies and the decisions faced by a small, reputable seed company when dealing with its large multinational biotechnology suppliers. Who should Dairyland be partnering with, and can Dairyland balance supplier dependency in an attempt to avoid being eliminated from the channel?

This monograph contains abstracts from the 2005 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, 6‐7th September 2005

The paper seeks to present a novel conceptual framework that integrates the strategic dynamics of the firm with changes in its governance systems.

The agency research agenda is extended to include other corporate governance roles, such as resource and strategy functions, alongside monitoring and control functions. Theoretical arguments are supported by empirical data related to the founder‐manager/IPO, IPO/maturity, maturity/decline and reinvention thresholds.

The paper shows that corporate governance parameters may be linked to strategic thresholds in the firm's life‐cycle. Successful transition over a threshold is accompanied by a rebalancing in the structure and roles of corporate governance compared with each previous stage in the cycle.

In the absence of longitudinal data relating to firms as they pass through all life‐cycle stages the study has been restricted to reporting illustrative data from different studies regarding each strategic threshold. Further research might usefully undertake detailed long‐term case studies using a combination of archival and interview data to trace the evolution of firms across the four thresholds.

This paper develops a novel conceptual framework that integrates the strategic dynamics of the firm with changes in its governance systems. It rejects the notion of a universal governance template and argues that corporate governance parameters may be linked to transitions from one stage to another in the firm's life‐cycle. Accordingly, it argues that changes in a firm's strategic positioning may be associated with rebalancing between the wealth‐protection and wealth‐creation functions of governance.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theory of intertemporal stewardship that incorporates stewardship, based on a foundation of spirituality, into financial decision‐making models.

Argues that stewardship, which shares some common ground with sustainable development, must become an integral component of financial decision‐making. Using agency theory as a point of departure, discusses the Anglo‐American and Continental European‐Japanese models of financial decision‐making, and how they can be reformulated to embrace stewardship and the spiritual foundation upon which stewardship is based. The key to linking spirituality and stewardship is our concept of self‐fullness – the simultaneous pursuit of reasonable self‐interest and reasonable concern for the common good of all human beings. The reformulated model of financial decision‐making is labeled intertemporal stewardship theory.

The merger of spirituality, stewardship, and financial decision‐making is crucial for the survival and prosperity of businesses and the people they serve. The failure of businesses in the new economy can be traced to the loss of values regarding spirituality and stewardship.

Empirical research must be conducted to test the validity of the proposed intertemporal stewardship theory.

It is essential that managers base their decisions on internalized spiritual and stewardship values that they do not “park at the door” when they arrive at work. Managers should never lose sight of these values, and their decisions should always be grounded in these values. Without such grounding, it is very possible that once again managers will be caught in a cycle of “irrational exuberance”. Therefore, it is critical that these values become not only an integral part of financial decision‐making but also an integral part of education for financial decision‐making.

The financial bottom line is that financial decision‐making can no longer be devoid of spiritual and stewardship considerations if an organization is to survive and prosper over the long term. Neither can business organizations deny spirituality and stewardship considerations if they are to be socially responsible members of society, contributing to and upholding a moral existence for all humanity. In this sense then, the conception of intertemporal stewardship theory that is offered in this paper takes a step toward realizing these greater goals.

This historical study explores accounting’s association with processes of cultural hybridisation involving themes such as image-(un)making, alliance-formation and norm-setting as part of Britain’s civilising mission during the era of modern globalisation. In doing so, the purpose of this paper is to examine the manner in which accounting may be implicated in micro-practices through which multi-layered socio-political relations of inequality are produced.

Archival materials enable an accounting understanding of the historical processes of image-(un)making, norm-setting and formation of a hybrid form of rule through elite indigenous alliances.

The study finds that the British Empire’s colonial project on civilising the indigenous peoples in British Fiji involved: the (un)making of indigenous identities and their moralities; and the elaboration of difference through ambiguous, partial and contradictory application of accounting in attempts to support the globalised civilising course. The globalising challenges indigenous peoples faced included accounting training to change habits in order to gain integration into the global imperial order. The study also finds that the colonised indigenous Fijians had emancipatory capacities in their negotiation of and resistance to accounting.

The paper identifies avenues for further accounting examination of such processes in the context of post-colonialism and current forms of neo-liberal globalisation.

By investigating accounting’s association with processes of cultural hybridisation, this paper makes a significant contribution by providing the detail on the role of accounting records kept by the British Empire to facilitate Britain’s domination and control over the colony of Fiji and its residents.