...has been experiencing immense challenges. Given the current and historic success of Mayo, what does Mayo need to do from an HR perspective to maintain this standard of excellence? This case identifies the strategies used by Mayo to achieve excellence in employee and patient satisfaction. The case describes how this complex service organization fosters a culture that exceeds customer expectations and earns deep loyalty from both customers and employees. The role of HR is analyzed to explain how strategic HRM enables the organization to achieve its strategic business objectives. INTRODUCTION Mayo Clinic is the first and largest integrated, not-for-profit group practice in the world. Doctors of every medical specialty work together to care for patients, joined by common systems and a philosophy that "the needs of the patient come first." More than 3,300 physicians, scientists and researchers and 46,000 allied health staff work at Mayo Clinic, which has sites in Rochester, Minnesota, Jacksonville, Florida, and Scottsdale/Phoenix, Arizona. For many decades, Mayo Clinic has been ranked as one of the top medical institutions in the world. Over the past few years, the entire health care industry has been experiencing immense challenges. Mayo is not immune to these challenges and faces the risk of losing critical components of its culture and overall tradition of excellence that have been at the core of its success. Given the current and historic success of Mayo, what does Mayo need to...
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...bepress Legal Series Year Paper Enron and the Special Purpose Entity. Use or Abuse? The Real Problem - The Real Focus Neal F. Newman Texas Wesleyan Law School This working paper is hosted by The Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress) and may not be commercially reproduced without the permission of the copyright holder. http://law.bepress.com/expresso/eps/1165 Copyright c 2006 by the author. Enron and the Special Purpose Entity. Use or Abuse? The Real Problem - The Real Focus Abstract In December of 2001, Enron Corporation filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code; one of the largest corporate bankruptcy filings at that time. When the investigations commenced and the tangled Enron web was unraveled, it was discovered that Enron had perpetrated a very sophisticated form of accounting fraud through its repeated use of what are referred to as Special Purpose Entities (“SPEs”). In their most basic forms, SPEs are business entities formed for the purpose of conducting a well specified activity such as construction of a gas pipeline, or collection of a specific group of accounts receivable. However, because of their complex nature, SPEs can be used to manipulate a corporation’s financial results, which was the primary use for which Enron employed the SPE structure. As a result, the investment and financial community has cast a dark cloud over the special purpose entity, depicting the SPE as an inherently evil structure whose only purpose is to...
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...Economic Consequences of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 Ivy Xiying Zhang* William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration Carol Simon Hall 4-312 University of Rochester Rochester, NY 14627 zhangxi@simon.rochester.edu February 2005 I am grateful for the guidance of my dissertation committee, Bill Schwert, Charles Wasley, Ross Watts, and especially Jerry Zimmerman (Chairman). I also appreciate comments from Jim Brickley, Philip Joos, Andy Leone, Jerry Warner, Joanna Wu, Yan Cao, Ling Lei, Laura Liu, Tao Kuang, and workshop participants at the University of Rochester. All errors are my own. * Abstract This paper investigates the economic consequences of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act through a study of market reactions to legislative events related to the Act. I find that the cumulative abnormal return around all legislative events leading to the passage of the Act is significantly negative. The loss in total market value around the most significant rulemaking events amounts to $1.4 trillion. I then examine the private benefits and costs of major provisions of the Act by investigating the cross-sectional variation in market reactions to the rulemaking events. Regression results are consistent with the hypothesis that shareholders consider both the restriction of nonaudit services and the provisions to enhance corporate governance costly to business. The results also show that Section 404 of SOX, which mandates an internal control test, imposes significant costs on...
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...Berkeley Journal of International Law Volume 26 | Issue 2 Article 5 2008 Corporate Governance as Social Responsibility: A Research Agenda Amiram Gill Recommended Citation Amiram Gill, Corporate Governance as Social Responsibility: A Research Agenda, 26 Berkeley J. Int'l Law. 452 (2008). Available at: http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/bjil/vol26/iss2/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals and Related Materials at Berkeley Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Berkeley Journal of International Law by an authorized administrator of Berkeley Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact jcera@law.berkeley.edu. Gill: Corporate Governance as Social Responsibility: A Research Agenda Corporate Governance as Social Responsibility: A Research Agenda By Amiram Gill* In the post-Enron years, corporate governance has shifted from its traditional focus on agency conflicts to address issues of ethics, accountability, transparency,and disclosure. Moreover, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has increasinglyfocused on corporate governance as a vehicle for incorporating social and environmental concerns into the business decision-making process, benefiting not only financial investors but also employees, consumers, and communities. Currently, corporate governance is being linked more and more with business practices and public policies that are stakeholder-friendly. This ...
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...THE RISE OF ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES The impact of accounting reports on decision making may be the most challenging accounting issue of the 1970s. by Stephen A. Zeff Since the 1960s, the American accounting profession has been aware of the increasing influence of "outside forces" in the standardsetting process. Two parallel developments have marked this trend. First, individuals and groups that had rarely shown any interest in the setting of accounting standards began to intervene actively and powerfully in the process. Second, these parties began to invoke arguments other than those which have traditionally been employed in accounting discussions. The term "economic consequences" has been used to describe these novel kinds of arguments. By "economic consequences" is meant the impact of accounting reports on the decisionmaking behavior of business, government, unions, investors and creditors. It is argued that the resulting behavior of these individuals and groups could be detrimental to the interests of other affected parties. And, the argument goes, accounting standard setters must take into consideration these allegedly detrimental consequences when deciding on accounting questions.* The recent debates involving foreign currency translation and the accounting for unsuccessful exploration activity in the petroleum industry have relied heavily on economic consequences arguCopyright © 1978 by Stephen A. Zeff. *Ed. note: For the opinion of an accounting standard setter, see Oscar...
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...impact of crime on victims and also their needs for a better understanding of who they are and what can be done to help them. Particular attention is drawn to stereotypes associated with victims and constructions of the ideal victim. Secondly, the adversarial nature of English justice and implications for victims are discussed, as well as some tensions between the interests of the offender and the victim, and the opposed nature of the two. Procedural and service rights especially play an important role in defining whether victims are given appropriate attention. Many new initiatives favour the victim and pledge for its better treatment, but it will be shown that there are conflicts as to what can be done in reality and what is proposed. However, it cannot be disputed that support for victims has progressed significantly within the last decade. In the dissertation, it will be argued that the position of the victim, influenced by these...
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...The Tobin Tax And Its Effects On The Foreign Exchange Market International Business Thesis By Mark Hansen 290587-1563 & Nina Johansen 140988-1838 Advisor Niels Blomgren-Hansen 17.05.2010 Executive summary In this thesis a financial transaction tax in the form of the Tobin Tax is examined as a means to reduce volatility on the foreign exchange market. James Tobin original proposal is presented followed by his 1995 paper and Frankel’s contribution to the discussion. Frankel gives merit to Tobin’s line of reasoning on reducing stability by dividing investors into short-term speculators and long-term fundamentalists and defines the former’s activities as destabilizing and the latter as stabilizing. However, we find this segmentation problematic since it is not possible to divide the market participants into these categories in the foreign exchange market. Many of the short-term investors do not necessarily speculate or disregard fundamentals, but rather try to avoid risk. Accordingly, many of the short term market movements are instead stabilizing. Therefore, the Tobin Tax would not only deter the destabilizing transactions, but also the stabilizing ones. If the foreign exchange market is in fact excessively volatile as Tobin argues then the tax could possibly have a positive effect by throwing sand in the wheels and thereby slowing short-term reactions. Our findings suggest that the foreign exchange market is in fact highly volatile, but we find no convincing...
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...The Australian Financial System in the 2000s: Dodging the Bullet Kevin Davis* Abstract The global financial crisis (GFC) occupied only a quarter of the decade of the 2000s but, because of its severity and implications for future financial sector development, dominates the decade. The Australian financial system coped relatively well with the GFC, raising the question of whether there was something special about its structure and prior evolution which explains that experience. This paper reviews Australian financial sector performance and development over the decade, then provides a more detailed overview of the Australian GFC experience and its implications, and considers explanations for the Australian financial sector resilience. 1. Introduction The Australian (and global) financial system entered the first decade of the millennium preparing for a systems crisis, in the form of the Y2K computer scare, which on 1 January 2000 passed without event. But towards the end of the decade, the financial sector was faced with, arguably, its most serious systemic crisis ever, which the Australian financial system and economy weathered relatively well compared with advanced nations in the northern hemisphere.1 While the GFC occupied only one-quarter of the past decade (from mid 2007), it prompts the questions which this review must seek to answer. Was there something about the structure and evolution of the Australian financial system which explained its resilience in the face...
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...THE IMPACT OF PENSION SECTOR REFORMS ON THE FINANCIAL VIABILITY OF PENSION PLANS IN KENYA By Akwimbi Ambaka William March 12, 2011 Department of Business Administration, School of Business, University of Nairobi, Kenya Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1784297 TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration List of Tables List of Figures Appendices Abbreviation CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.0. 1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.4. 1.5. 1.6. Background of the Study The Conceptual Basis of Social Security Schemes The Kenyan Contextual Basis of Social Security Problem Statement Research Questions and Objectives Research Hypotheses Importance of the study 1 3 10 19 22 22 23 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.0. Introduction 2.1. Review of Theoretical Literature on Financial Viability of Pension Schemes 2.2. Review of Empirical Literature of Studies on the Solvency of Pension Schemes 2.3. Models for Evaluating the Financial Viability of Pension Schemes 2.4. A Summary of the Knowledge and Research Gaps 25 25 46 60 68 REFERENCES APPENDICES i Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1784297 GLOSSARY CAC CALPERS CAPSA CBS C-D CEO CGE CSR DB DC E.T.I EME ERISA FMA GASB GDP GSP INPFRS INSS IPD IRA IRBS KNAO KNBS LUPFUND NSE NSSF NYSCRF OECD OSFI PBGC PLC PPF PPR PROST PRPOPS PSPS PSSS RBA SAM SIPO SOX SSNIT SSS Commonwealth Authorities and Companies Act CEO California Public Employees Retirement System The Canadian Association of Pension Supervisory Authorities Central Bureau...
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...Handbook of Management Accounting Research Volume 3 Edited by CHRISTOPHER S. CHAPMAN Imperial College London, UK ANTHONY G. HOPWOOD University of Oxford, UK MICHAEL D. SHIELDS Michigan State University, USA AMSTERDAM – BOSTON – HEIDELBERG – LONDON – NEW YORK – OXFORD PARIS – SAN DIEGO – SAN FRANCISCO – SINGAPORE – SYDNEY – TOKYO Elsevier The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, UK First edition 2009 Copyright © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Rights Department in Oxford, UK: phone ( 44) (0) 1865 843830; fax ( 44) (0) 1865 853333; email: permissions@elsevier.com. Alternatively visit the Science and Technology Books website at www.elsevierdirect.com/rights for further information Notice No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for...
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...burden shifting, the Principle legitimately requires risk creators to research and justify the risks they impose on society. By exploring where the Principle already operates successfully in U.S. law—examples often overlooked by the critics—I highlight the Principle’s flexibility and utility in regulatory law. This Article uses chemical regulation as a case study in how the Principle can guide Congress in an ongoing controversy. Congress is considering a major overhaul of the flawed Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA), and this change could be one of the most significant developments in environmental law in a generation. This Article advocates implementing the Strong Precautionary Principle in a replacement statute for TSCA. Under my proposed licensing system, chemical manufacturers would carry the burden to demonstrate that their products do not pose significant risks to human health or the en* Associate Professor, University of Richmond School of...
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...A Blueprint for Corporate Governance Fred R. Kaen AMACOM AMERICAN MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION A Blueprint for Corporate Governance This Page Intentionally Left Blank A Blueprint for Corporate Governance Strategy, Accountability, and the Preservation of Shareholder Value Fred R. Kaen American Management Association New York • Atlanta • Brussels • Buenos Aires • Chicago • London • Mexico City San Francisco • Shanghai • Tokyo • Toronto • Washington, D. C. Special discounts on bulk quantities of AMACOM books are available to corporations, professional associations, and other organizations. For details, contact Special Sales Department, AMACOM, a division of American Management Association, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019. Tel.: 212-903-8316. Fax: 212-903-8083. Web site: www.amacombooks.org This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kaen, Fred R. A blueprint for corporate governance : strategy, accountability, and the preservation of shareholder value / Fred R. Kaen. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8144-0586-X 1. Corporate governance. 2. Corporate governance—United...
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...3122-prelims.qxd 10/29/03 2:20 PM Page i International Human Resource Management 3122-prelims.qxd 10/29/03 2:20 PM Page ii 3122-prelims.qxd 10/29/03 2:20 PM Page iii second edition International Human Resource Management edited by A n n e - Wi l H a r z i n g J o r i s Va n R u y s s e v e l d t SAGE Publications London l Thousand Oaks l New Delhi 3122-prelims.qxd 10/29/03 2:20 PM Page iv © Anne-Wil Harzing and Joris van Ruysseveldt, 2004 First published 2004 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, only with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. SAGE Publications Ltd 1 Olivers Yard London EC1Y 1SP SAGE Publications Inc 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd B-42, Panchsheel Enclave Post Box 4109 New Delhi 100 017 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 7619 4039 1 ISBN 0 7619 4040 5 (pbk) Library of Congress Control Number...
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...The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/1754-243X.htm Corporate governance theorising: limits, critics and alternatives Stephen Letza and James Kirkbride Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK Corporate governance theorising 17 Xiuping Sun Leeds Business School, Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, UK, and Clive Smallman Commerce Division, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand Abstract Purpose – This paper seeks to examine the mainstream theories of corporate governance in an attempt to suggest that their underlying assumptions and ideologies are misplaced and ought to give way to an emerging pluralistic view of the governing process in order to understand any governance contribution to the dynamics of the business environment. Design/methodology/approach – The paper engages with the traditional literature and views on governance models from law, business and organisational studies perspectives. It then considers the environment and changes in the environment and how those challenge the relevance of the traditional approach, drawing upon the impacts on the fluidity of management and governance perspectives and practices in the global economy. Findings – The reflections and analysis confirm the view that the underlying assumptions of existing models and regulatory frameworks for governance are misplaced and it is suggested, with reason, that a pluralistic view and framework are better than...
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... At the same time, global logistics systems are increasingly infrastructurally, economically and institutionally disconnected from the city-regions that host them. This disconnection raises a series of dilemmas for the host localities. This paper presents a conceptual framework for understanding the dilemmas that confront cities and regions that host national and continental logistics gateways. The framework, which is illustrated with examples from several seaport gateways, focuses on the land use, economic and community development impacts of gateways and corridors on the host city-region. It also pays attention to the differing scales at which these impacts occur; these range from the highly localized to the metropolitan scale. It is proposed that solutions to the local dilemmas of global logistics be evaluated in terms of sustainability criteria, namely efficiency, equity and environment. 1. INTRODUCTION While the economic benefits of global trade are enormous, the potential for differences in local and national perspectives when developing gateways and corridors are no less significant. Global logistics which connects widely dispersed producers and consumers are increasingly organized through gateways and corridors located in urban regions. These “system(s) of marine, road, rail and air transportation infrastructure of national significance for international commerce” (Canada, 2007) seek out urban locations precisely because of the accessibility and agglomeration advantages...
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