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To describe concurrent engineering, one must remember the old story of blind individuals attempting to characterize an elephant by feeling different body parts. The issue seems not to be just R&D cycle times, but the entire innovation cycle time process from conception of an idea ~ often in marketing not R&D -, to its final delivery to a customer - often through down-stream firms not under the R&D company's control. From the recency of many sources in the literature, this shift to a time orientation is itself rather recent. Two threads seem to have emerged: First, there is a need to address cycle-time reduction on existing products and services, both in manufacturing and administration, as an implementation management issue relating to the order-to-delivery cycle, in which engineering may be a limited associate. Also, necessary is the innovation management issue of reducing the cycle time from marketing concept to proquct introduction into the implementation process, which is the main thrust of concurrent engineering. In late 1991, a survey was conducted, first, to seek to establish a better working definition of cycle time within the two overall areas of current operations and new product development, and second, to determine the relationships between cycle time so defined and company size or profitability. The survey questionnaire was mailed to 99 medium-to-large high technology manufacturing companies in Connecticut, and yielded 48 responses, with 35 of them usable. The results confirmed the impression given by the literature that the concept was better established in current operations than in innovation management. While some do use the concept of cycle time in their new product development sub-cycles, most do not track time spent on either end of the cycle, from idea to design on the near end, or at the far end through shipment and subsequent service to the customer. Measures of size did not correlate with any of the development measures, while they did with some of the operations measures. Thus, while in concept, concurrent engineering appears to be a goal of multi-functional co-operation, a survey of the manner in which a limited number of firms actually operate seems still focused on functional specializations. © 1992 IEEE.

This study investigates audit effectiveness (or the lack thereof) of audit opinions issued by auditors preceding company bankruptcies. Data from all 26 bankrupt UK financial institutions were used to determine if auditor appropriately issued opinions other than unqualified, as signs of non-going concern determine any differences in audit-opinion effectiveness between international and domestic audit firms. Results show that unqualified opinions issued was significantly higher than other opinions prior to bankruptcy. While international audit firms were less likely to issue unqualified opinions than their domestic counterparts no firm issued adverse or disclaimer of opinions in any given year, despite serious warning signals from return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and current ratios. © 2004 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Utilizing archival materials as well as personal interviews and correspondence with personnel of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and International Accounting Standards Committee /Board (IASC/B), including former Board chairmen and staff members, this paper examines the development of the working relationships between the FASB and the IASC/B from their earliest interactions in 1973 through the transformation of the IASC into the IASB and the Convergence Program rooted in the 2002 Norwalk Agreement up to 2008. © 2012, Academy of Accounting Historians. All rights reserved.

Through 1975, the shareholder annual reports of publicly-owned U.S. railroads were exempt from the Securities and Exchange Commission’s accounting regulations, audit and disclosure rules because railroads were common carriers subject to the rules and regulations of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). Pub-liclyowned Class railroads voluntary began to away from ICC-type towards GAAP-type accounting and disclosures in their shareholder reports just after World War II.1 This paper reviews early industry practices with respect to internal and external audits. Using a sample of major Class I railroads from 1946 to 1975, the paper shows: the extent to which certain railroads voluntarily presented audited finan-cial statements before being required, the extent to which particular CPA firms were involved with the railroad industry, and the types of audit reports that issued to these railroads during this period. © 2016, Academy of Accounting Historians. All rights reserved.

This paper analyzes the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as intermediaries in encouraging the European Union (EU) to adopt International Accounting Standards (IAS). Our analysis begins with the 1973 founding of the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC), and ends with 2002 when the binding EU regulation was approved. We document the many pathways of interaction between European supranational, governmental bodies and the IASC/IASB, as well as important regional NGOs, such as the Union Européenne des Experts Comptables, Économiques et Financiers (UEC), the Groupe d’Etudes des Experts Comptables de la Communauté Économique Européenne (Groupe d’Etudes), and their successor, the Fédération des Experts Comptables Européens (FEE). This study investigates, through personal interviews of key individuals involved in making the history of the organizations studied, and an extensive set of primary sources, how NGOs filled key roles in the process of harmonization of international accounting standards. © 2016, American Accounting Association. All rights reserved.

As we are all well aware, health care expenditures in the United States are out of control and growing at epic proportions. Since private industry shoulders a significant burden of paying these rising health care costs, the huge and ever increasing sum paid by these corporations continues to impact the US economy translating into higher prices of services and manufactured goods and reduced job opportunities when companies outsource jobs or locate manufacturing facilities to avoid paying health care benefits for workers. As a result, health care expenditures have become a centerpiece of an enormous public policy debate as Congress is currently working on several versions of a bill to completely revise health care from the ground up. This research project was accomplished to examine the effectiveness of one approach to control rising health care costs and contain corporate financial responsibility--the establishment of wellness and health risk screening programs to improve the health of employees. Total health care cost per insured individual was gathered through an online survey directly from health care benefit administrators. The survey also asked information about wellness and health risk screening programs and the related responses were used to determine if there were a relationship between health care costs and health prevention programs. While statistical analysis was hampered in the current study because of the small sample size, some valid conclusions were reached. The study was successful in identifying a benchmark of Average Total Health Care Cost per Individual from $5,100 to $5,800 for 2005 through 2007. This is especially interesting in light of the fact that an average of $7,026 was spent on health care per person in 2006 in the United States. The study was also able to contribute an estimate of the increase realized in these expenditures of 6 percent in 2007 over 2006, and 4 percent in 2006 over 2005, which were in fact similar to the national average. The final contribution of the study is to suggest an explanation for the costs which appear to be holding their own in terms of the national average. While this cannot be statistically verified, it does seem that the active participation of these companies in wellness programs could be a factor. Wellness programs were very popular in this sample of companies as 82 percent of the respondents answered "YES" when asked if the company funds their own employee wellness program. This is an impressive number of companies that have recognized wellness programs as a potential means to reduce employee health care costs. In regards to specific programs, at least 50 percent of respondents answered that they have smoking cessation, employee fitness, counseling, health risk screening, and bio-metric screening programs. The existence of health screening variables show an impressive 73 percent of respondents do practice some sort of health care screening, 50 percent offer biometric screening while 18 percent have onsite clinics and 23 percent run annual employee fairs.

Due to steep declines in charitable support and reduced demand for traditional hospital services, economic goals are increasingly important to not-for-profit hospitals. Effects of efficient management and effective pursuit of not-for-profit status (for example, levels of Medicare, indigent patients, and unprofitable services) on financial viability are explored. While previous research compared hospitals of different ownership status, not-for-profit hospital operations before acquisition by for-profit hospital chains are investigated--"neutral ground" relative to ownership. Results suggest minor links between efficiency and long-term profitability despite effectiveness in pursuit of non taxable status.

Over the last decade, investor-owned hospital corporations have grown primarily by acquiring other for-profit hospital chains or stand-alone for-profit institutions. Between 1990 and 1995, however, these corporations also acquired nearly 50 not-for-profit hospitals and converted them to for-profit status. An examination of the long-term financial condition of 39 not-for-profit hospitals acquired by various investor-owned hospital corporations between 1992 and 1996 was conducted using free-cash-flow accounting valuation. The results suggest that, initially, only not-for-profit hospitals in dire financial straits were candidates for acquisition and conversion to for-profit status. More recent acquisitions increasingly have involved more successful not-for-profit hospitals.

Studies of innovation management effectiveness pinpoint specific practices that will allow companies to increase customer satisfaction and pursue a strategy of speedy R&D-without compromising profitability. The two practices that accomplish this end, when used moderately (although not universally), are Quality Function Deployment for project selection and Stage-Gate Tracking for controlling development. Companies that use Internal Rate of Return as a criterion for project selection have also been found to be move profitable.

The present study compared work commitments, overall job satisfaction, intrinsic and extrinsic rewards satisfactions, and organizational and professional turnover intentions of 718 male and female accounting professionals at different career stages. Career stage was measured by professional tenure. The results indicate that there are some differences in work attitudes across career stages for male accounting professionals. Job involvement, organizational commitment, and intrinsic and extrinsic rewards satisfaction are positively related to professional tenure. Organizational turnover intentions are negatively related to professional tenure for male accounting professionals. There are no significant differences in work attitudes across career stages for female accounting professionals, An examination of reasons for differences in work attitude patterns between male and female accountants suggests the need for research to determine whether later career stages (advancement and maintenance) differ for men and women. The results also suggest that future research should consider defining career stage in terms of the overlap between stages defined using alternate career stage measures.

Survey research on measuring customer satisfaction using an index, market share and a lead user confirms that satisfaction must be with the firm as an innovator well as with the innovative service or product. The customer is defined as not only the end user or consumer but as a downstream counterpart of R&D in the same company or in other parts of the distribution chain. For an overall indication of customer satisfaction, measure the firm's responsiveness, its technology (capabilities and products) and product quality/reliability.

As companies increasingly try to do more with less, one of the key prescriptions in the literature has been to employ practices that shorten time to market, including the time taken in R&D. This article reports on survey research that links cycle times and financial performance, and records executives reactions to the results. The main finding is that the reduced costs of faster cycles fail to show up in improved earnings, and suggests several reasons why this occurs. For companies forced by competition to speed up their cycles, several management methods are given for reducing time with minimal financial impairment.

The paper empirically investigates the extent to which environmental factors affect the intermediation performance of the financial superstructure in Nigeria. A number of intermediation-environmental models were constructed and estimated against annual Nigerian data from 1970 to 2000. Among the various environments of financial intermediation, the socio-political environment, the regulatory environment, and the eco-financial environment exert very great influences on the operations of the financial superstructure. This is based on the evidence from the results, which revealed the socio-political index, regulatory index, and foreign exchange market variables as the most critical predictors of the financial intermediation-output-related index. Other factors such as inflation, taxation, financial market imperfection, and the growth rate of the economy appear not to exert statistically significant effects on the intermediation operations of the financial superstructure. Generally, the utility of the specified models was satisfied as indicated by the results of the global statistics. © 2004 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rigths reserved.