"Working hard is for cows" - on enjoyable learning

Student A: I do not know how to do this and that for your course study....
Professor B: You need  to work hard..



But "Working hard is for cows".....When applied to study  and intellectual learning, you  are using the transmission model.

My advice: Adopt enjoyable learning and keep enjoying life by learning with an enjoyable experience. Figure out how intellectual learning can fit into your life goal and career aspiration to achieve life-long quality of life.

The transmission model of learning requires "hard work" and "sacrifice"; it creates "unhealthy stress" in the process of intellectual learning with this model. This model of learning is not effective, relying too much on "short-term" memory to make short-term academic achievement.

The problematic tertiary education system

The  problematic tertiary education system exhibits the following worrying symptoms:


Symptoms: lots of students' complaints; poor academic performance, especially on dissertation projects; severe and widespread plagiarism; poor course content and teaching quality, etc..


Underlying  factors:

1. Dominance of the transmission metaphor in education shared by students and education institutes;

2. Students suffer from time poverty and life stress from work and non-work sources;

3. Low existing intellectual competence and intellectual curiosity of students;

4. Perceived low relevance of intellectual knowledge to address real-life problems and concerns;

5. Inappropriate education policy and priority of the government;


Overall, the existing education system is wrongly designed; the problematic education system symptoms and underlying factors are inter-related such that education problems are systemic, controversial and conflictual in nature.

Many people are asking: "how to do things right in a wrong system?". The problem is: doing things right or more efficiently in a wrong system leads to poorer overall short-term and long-term outcome(s).

Study note on budgeting in management accounting

Study note on budgeting in management accounting

References with extracted contents

Mathew Tsamenyi PhD , Jennifer Mills PhD & Ven Tauringana PhD (2002) A Field Study of the Budgeting Process and the Perceived Usefulness of the Budget in Organizations in a Developing Country-The Case of Ghana, Journal of African Business, 3:2, 85-103, DOI: 10.1300/J156v03n02_05.

"This paper reports on a field study undertaken to investigate the budgeting process in four large-scale organizations in Ghana. The perceived usefulness of the budget within these organizations was explored using data collected from questionnaires and interviews with forty-eight managers in the four organizations. This examination of the budgeting process suggests that the managers have minimal participation in budget decisions. Furthermore, the budget was minimally perceived as a planning and control device. The managers perceived the budget’s resource allocation role as its most useful purpose";

Pieter Bleyen, Daniel Klimovský, Geert Bouckaert & Christoph Reichard (2017) Linking budgeting to results? Evidence about performance budgets in European municipalities based on a comparative analytical model, Public Management Review, 19:7, 932-953, DOI: 10.1080/14719037.2016.1243837.

"PBs [performance budgets] are linking financial resources allocated in the budget period with some kind of information about the expected results of policies. This type of budgeting requires information about strategic planning regarding the mission and objectives of an organisation and requests quantifiable data together with the allocation of resources providing meaningful information about program outcomes (Jordan and Hackbart 1999). The degree of linkage between financial resources and performance may differ in PBs between very loose coupling and a strict ‘mechanical’ connection between both sides";

"Various governments around the world have introduced PBs at national as well as at subnational and local level during the last decades. The scientific debate about PB dealt primarily with the design of PBs, with experiences implementing such concepts and – more recently – with the use of PBs during the budget cycle for budget planning and for monitoring budget execution .... Most of these publications focus at the managerial function of budgeting whereas the allocative and particularly the external accountability functions of the budget seem to be less developed in research (Schick 2009; Anessi-Pessina et al. 2016)";

Paul J. Speaker & A. Scott Fleming (2010) Benchmarking and Budgeting Techniques for Improved Forensic Laboratory Management, Forensic Science Policy & Management: An International Journal, 1:4, 199-208, DOI: 10.1080/19409044.2010.491894.

"Budgeting provides a tool in the planning process that connects an organization’s mission to its strategic plan and offers specific metrics to highlight the laboratory’s progress toward meeting that mission. Properly implemented, the budgetary process becomes an integral part of a forensic laboratory’s business plan. The process helps to organize a measurable plan, offers control and monitoring mechanisms, provides the necessary metrics for internal and external communication of performance, and has a built-in feedback mechanism for continuous performance improvement";

"Budgeting is a management tool used to plan for both financial and operational purposes over a specified period of time. Hagen and Harden (1995, p. 772) describe the budget as “a list of revenues and expenses during a certain period of time . . . It is the answer to the question, who does what, when, and how in the preparation and the implementation of the budget.” Additionally they note that the budget is a process to reduce uncertainty, can be used as a device for commitment to fiscal discipline, and that the rules used in the budgetary process affect fiscal performance. Often considered to be solely a planning device, the budget also assists in the control, evaluation, and communication of performance";

"Different methods exist for developing a budget. Incremental budgeting uses the prior period, usually the prior fiscal year, as the foundation and incrementally adds resources to become the new budget. Zero-based budgeting, on the other hand, is a budgeting method where each budget is developed and justified from scratch each year. This method is generally considered to be more comprehensive but also more time consuming. Research into the effectiveness of each method is mixed";

Amans, P., A. Mazars-Chapelon and F. Villesèque-Dubus. 2015. "Budgeting in institutional complexity: The case of performing arts organizations" Management Accounting Research 27, Elsevier: 47-66.

"When organizations are confronted with multiple logics, budget uses are likely to be influenced by these logics. The various uses of the budget have been largely developed in the management accounting literature. Two types of uses, some of them rather instrumental, others more symbolic, have been distinguished, in particular by Meyerand Rowan (1977), Burchell et al. (1980) and Covaleskiand Dirsmith (1983, 1986, 1988a,b)";

"Our research about budgeting is built on the socio-logical approach to management accounting mentioned by Covaleski et al. (2007) ..... According to Covaleski et al. (2007), budgets were explored from this perspective, furthering the workof Argyris (1952, 1953), by March and Simon (1958) in early sociology-based studies through organizational theories. The sociological perspective of budgeting is very broad, and works including contingency theories are well developed in accounting literature (Chapman, 1997; Chenhall,2003). Covaleski et al. (2007) also highlight several studies based on contingency theories .... that have been developed, following the work of Hopwood (1972) and Otley (1978, 1980). Even if these theories consider organizational heterogeneity, all these studies have been carried out in order to characterize the fit between contingencies and organizational variables, rather than to explain accounting processes";

Stephen C. Hansen (2011): A Theoretical Analysis of the Impact of Adopting Rolling Budgets, Activity-Based Budgeting and Beyond Budgeting, European Accounting Review, 20:2, 289-319.

"Although budgeting is an important control system for most organizations (Simons, 1995; Armstrong et al., 1996; Ekholm and Wallin, 2000), many managers are dissatisfied with their current systems and are actively considering changes (Comshare, 2001; Neely et al., 2001). One aspect of budgeting complicates the evaluation of potential alternatives. The budgeting system is used for many different purposes, and each organization designs their system to address its most important problems. For instance, a steel mill’s budgeting process may focus on operational planning, whilst a telemarketing organization’s process may focus on performance evaluation";

"Rolling budgets generate improved forecasts and change the forecasting function (Comshare, 2001; Serven, 2002).  Beyond budgeting switches employee compensation from budget-based to relative performance contracts (Ekholm and Wallin, 2000; Hope and Fraser, 2003) and changes the performance evaluation function. Finally, activity-based budgeting increases the sophistication of the operational planning system .... and changes the operational planning function";

"Since the budgeting system may perform multiple functions, and different alternatives focus on changing different functions, an important question is: How will introducing a specific budgeting alternative affect the individual functions of the organization? For instance, if rolling budgets improve the forecasting/ planning function, will it lead to an improvement or a decline in the operational planning function?";

Player, S. 2003. "Why some organizations go "Beyond Budgeting"" The Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance March/April : 3-9.

"For most organizations, the annual budgeting process results in a fixed performance contract between superiors and subordinates. It typically does the following: • Sets fixed targets; • Attaches incentives to those targets; • Sets out a detailed plan and budget that must be followed; • Spells out the resources available to meet the budget; • Includes any commitments that must be met across the organization; and • Contains details about how performance will be evaluated and which reports must be produced";

"The budgeting process assumes that managers can “predict and control” their way to the future. It provided a rational and coherent approach to managing performance when market conditions were relatively stable, capital was the primary constraint on growth and improvement, strategy and product lifecycles were lengthy, and the management behavior required was one of compliance with plans and procedures. But in the competitive climate in which most organizations operate today, it is no longer effective";

"Implementing strategic management models such as the balanced scorecard is  another approach taken by an increasing number of firms that are trying to shift their emphasis from being “budget focused” to being “strategy focused” organizations. But the full power of the balanced scorecard is constrained by the short-term performance drivers of the annual budget"; 

Study note on technology venture

Study note on technology venture

References with extracted contents

Podoynitsyna, K., M. Song, H.v.d. bij and M. Weggeman. 2013. "Improving new technology venture performance under direct and indirect network externality conditions" Journal of Business Venturing  28, Elsevier: 195-210.

"Among entrepreneurial firms, new technology ventures (NTVs) represent a special case, requiring as they do extensive research and development effort under uncertainty, i.e. unpredictability of the venture payoffs..... Researchers traditionally distinguish among uncertainty related to technology, customers, and other market players ..... While a relatively high level of technology uncertainty is common for NTVs (McGrath, 1997), the levels of other types of uncertainty may differ substantially from one venture to another. One possible source of this variation is network externalities, which represent a set of unique and increasingly important challenges for the ventures";

"With technological advancement, people become increasingly connected, transforming a variety of traditional markets into markets with network effects (Stremersch et al., 2010; Wuyts et al., 2010). At the same time, Goldenberg et al. (2010a) reported that in more than 80% of the cases the discounted profit of a new product was 25% less in markets with network externality effects compared to markets without these effects. Thus, more and more markets will show network externality effects, and those effects can have substantial destabilizing influences on the economic value of the venture's products, and thus on their financial performance and survival. It is therefore important to understand how NTVs [new technology ventures] can manage the direct and indirect network externalities";

"Direct network externalities arise when the benefits a customer derives from using a product increase with the number of other users employing the same product, as in the case of fax machines, Internet instant messaging programs, or social networks (Katz and Shapiro, 1986; Schilling, 2002). However, before this takes place, the product's number of users must attain critical mass.... Indirect network externalities arise when complementary products or services are of importance for the value of the product, ....  The efforts of an NTV [new technology venture] to bring out complementary products and services for its main product are typically not sufficient. Not having complementary products from third parties signals lack of support to potential customers thereby lowering the probability of adoption";

Berardino, D.D. 2016. "Corporate governance and firm performance in new technology ventures" Procedia Economics and Finance 38, Elsevier: 412-421.

"Academic spin-off (ASO) is a specific type of new technology venture, that involve stakeholders and resources of both public and private nature and which are given the ambitious function of promoting local development by national research policies. Some authors identify a spin-off as the result of a parent organization active in research and development, such as Universities, University Research Centres, laboratories and private research organizations (Wright et al., 2007). ASO is an autonomous structure, nor a subsidiary of the parent organization, that exploit knowledge produced by academic research in a profit perspective, excluding non-profit organizations (Pirnay et al., 2003 Shane, 2004). These firms, in contrast to others original start-ups, represent an innovative way of transfer of research results to a productive and independent business (Robert and Malone, 1996), in which university provides, in the start-up phase, specialized services, expertise, technical equipment, financial resources";

"Literature distinguishes the product-oriented spin offs from research spin offs as a subcategory of new technology ventures and makes a distinction between firms able to attract management capabilities in the founding team and firms founded by individual researchers. In this last case, the managerial style and the objectives are the results of personal interests of academic inventor, who wants, first of all, to complete their research project and to increase their independence within scientific community";

"Different conditions can explain the low degree of growth: sometimes the business idea is linked to a weak technology or a contingent research, that make difficult to identify different applications useful for the market; some business are not able to attract financial resources, especially the venture capitalists, who don’t prefer to invest in companies where the managerial team is formed only by researchers without business experience (Mustar et al., 2006); often ASOs [academic spin-offs] tend to establish scientific collaborations that don’t contribute to sales growth and to business idea development";

Chitsaz, E., D. Liang and S. Khoshsoroor. 2017. "The impact of resource configuration on Iranian technology venture performance" Technological Forecasting & Social Change, Elsevier: 186-195.

"Technology is a pivotally important factor in optimal performance and growth of the enterprises, and leader firms invest heavily in acquisition of new technology. In these technological ventures firms must identify, decipher, hold, and improve resources to achieve superior performance ..... Technology ventures should identify and develop advantageous competencies through the ownership of valuable, rare, inimitable, and nonsubstitutable resources";

"Entrepreneurship research indicates that discovering opportunities (Shane and Venkataraman, 2000) and engaging in business development efforts (Nerkar and Shane, 2003) are carried out first by individuals and then by groups within the firm (Schumpeter, 1947). Firms with differing abilities with regard to timing and learning (Tsai and Li, 2007) can have performance differences even when they have similar capacity endowments. This notion builds on the argument that processes are an organizational-level construct that is critical for opportunity exploitation";

Munari, F., M. Sobrero and L. Toschi. (in print). "The university as a venture capitalist? Gap funding instruments for technology transfer" Technology Forecasting & Social Change, Elsevier.

"National governments and regional authorities have increasingly focused on the development of technology transfer (TT) activities in order to facilitate the flow of ideas from universities into industry. Unfortunately, the lack of private funding sources to support such activities in their different forms—the so-called funding gap—constitutes a major barrier to the effective commercialization of university technologies .... To address this challenge, various universities and public research organizations (PROs) have formally invested in the creation of internal financial mechanisms (i.e., “gap funding” instruments) in order to support translational research and fuel the growth of academic spin-offs, often in collaboration with public institutions .... In recent years, two complementary instruments have received increasing attention in policy debates and academic literature, namely, proof-of-concept (POC) programs .... and university seed funds (USFs)";

"USFs [university seed funds], instead, are early-stage VC [venture capital] funds that have the deliberate and explicit mission of investing in university and PRO start-ups to support TT [technology transfer] and the commercialization of university and public research endeavors. This general definition contains some features that define the nature of the USFs and differentiate them from other types of VC seed funds and from POC [proof-of-concept] programs. Compared with other types of VC funds, USFs explicitly focus on investment in university and PRO start-ups because they are either activated and managed directly by the university/ PRO, are partly funded by universities/PROs as limited partners, or involve formal partnerships or collaborations with universities/ PROs";

Dominique R Jolly & François Thérin (2007) New venture technology sourcing: Exploring the effect of absorptive capacity, learning attitude and past performance, Innovation: Management, Policy & Practice, 9:3-4, 235-248.

"Over the years, modes of technology sourcing have dramatically diversified, due to the growth of mergers and acquisitions as well as inter-firms alliances. Companies face, for example, difficulties in transferring one technology from one organization to another. Integrating a high-tech start-up after a take-over in a large company is also a well known difficulty that companies have to face. In the case of technological alliances, most of the companies report to be disappointed with the performance of technology consortia";

"Technology sourcing includes technological partnerships with competitors, with suppliers, with customers ......, as well as consortia .... This covers also technology acquisition with simple license acquisition or more complex take-over of other companies (Roberts and Liu 2001). Technology sourcing also frequently relies on R&D sub-contracting with universities and with public research centers"; 

Study note on life cycle costing

Study note on life cycle costing

References with extracted contents

Raymond J Cole & Eva Sterner (2000) Reconciling theory and practice of lifecycle costing, Building Research & Information, 28:5-6, 368-375, DOI: 10.1080/096132100418519.

"Life-Cycle Costing (LCC) has traditionally been  considered as the means by which initial and operating costs are combined into a single economic figure to then be used as the basis for making informed and effective decisions. LCC provides a basis for contrasting initial investments with future costs over a specified period of time. The future costs are discounted back in time to make economic comparisons between different alternatives strategies possible";

"....  life-cycle costing has only found significant application in owner occupied facilities but, as Bordass alludes, in the rapidly changing global marketplace, this is a `diminishing client base’ for new commercial buildings (Bordass, 2000). In the absence of a LCC analysis, the initial cost remains as the sole litmus test dictating the economic acceptability of competing design strategies. The limited adoption of LCC appears to be fairly universal";

"LCC was first developed in the mid-1960s to assist the US Department of Defence in the procurement of military equipment. Later in the 1970s, it was used to assess and compare relative benefits of alternative energy design options in buildings and its principal current building application remains in this role. LCC involves the systematic consideration of all `relevant’ costs and revenues associated with the acquisition and ownership of an asset";

Marcel C. Smit (2012) A North Atlantic Treaty Organisation framework for life cycle costing, International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, 25:4-5, 44-456, DOI: 10.1080/0951192X.2011.562541.

"LCC [life cycle cost] analysis is recognised as an important part of the acquisition approach. Therefore, a number of nations have derived a national approach to cost analysis. E.g. United States use the Cost Analysis Guidance and Procedures (DoD 5000.4-M, 1992), United Kingdom published the forecasting guidebook (Ministry of Defence, 2009) and the Netherlands have a guideline for application of LCC analysis in defence acquisition projects (Aanwijzing. . ., 1998)";

"LCC is used in different ways, and the LCC approach applied by analysts and decision makers have necessarily an impact on its definition";

"Linked costs are costs that can be associated to the acquisition, operation, support and disposal of the system....  Non-linked costs are costs that cannot be readily associated to the system. Examples of non-linked costs are the costs for medical services, ceremonial units, basic general training (not related to a specific equipment), headquarters and staff, academies, recruiters, etc. Direct costs are costs referring to activities that can easily be allocated to a system or product. ..... Indirect costs are costs referring to activities that can be associated to several systems and cannot easily be distributed between them...... Variable costs are costs that are affected by the existence of the system. They fluctuate with a characteristic of the system. ..... Fixed costs are costs that do not vary because of the existence of the system. ";

M. van den Boomen, R. Schoenmaker & A.R.M. Wolfert (2017): A life cycle costing approach for discounting in age and interval replacement optimisation models for civil infrastructure assets, Structure and Infrastructure Engineering, DOI: 10.1080/15732479.2017.1329843.

"The international standard on infrastructure asset management (ISO, 2014) and the British Institute of Asset Management (IAM, 2015) both stress the importance of life cycle cost optimisation at a desired service level. The application of infrastructure life cycle costing (LCC) in practice is supported worldwide by several standards and guidelines";

"Although, LCC concepts are well-known, LCC analyses are still far from satisfactory in many fields in practice. Korpi and Ala-Risku (2008) only found 55 international LCC cases studies suitable for analysis out of a total of 205 potential articles. The authors concluded an overall unsatisfactory level of the execution of LCC analyses and specifically addressed the deterministic nature of most LCC case studies";

Andrés Navarro-Galera , Rodrigo I. Ortúzar-Maturana & Francisco Muñoz-Leiva (2011) The Application of Life Cycle Costing in Evaluating Military Investments: An Empirical Study at an International Scale, Defence and Peace Economics, 22:5, 509-543, DOI: 10.1080/10242694.2010.508573.

"According to ISO 15288, there are six life cycle phases of any investment in capital goods: concept, development, production, utilization, support and retirement. Nevertheless, the distribution of the total cost of a national defence investment project is concentrated in the utilization and support phases";

"Masiello (2002) held that with LCC analysis it is possible to identify the most significant cost generators and thus obtain the best combination of resources, while Ferrín and Plank (2002) claimed that LCC evaluation provided a long-term view, giving management a more accurate assessment of acquisitions";

Singh, D. and R.K. Tiong. 2005. "Development of life cycle costing framework for highway bridges in  Myanmar" International Journal of Project Management 23, Elsevier: 37-44.

"Life cycle costing is an economic assessment of an item, area, system or facility considering all costs of ownership over an economic life, expressed in terms of equivalent dollars [3]. It takes into account time value of money and reduces a flow of running costs over a period of time to a single current value or present worth (PW)";

"Life cycle costing can be used as a management tool or as a management system [4]. As a management tool it can be used intermittently throughout the economic life of the structure, whenever different options are available, to determine the alternative with the lowest LCC. On the other hand, as a management system in continuous operation it can be used to actively manage the asset throughout its service life";

"The main motivation to use LCCA [life cycle costing analysis] is to increase the possibility of cost reductions during operation and maintenance even if that means spending somewhat more during planning and development"; 

FBPs on cost and management accounting

Facebook Pages on cost and management accounting


1. Responsibility accounting
2. Transfer pricing
3. Activity-based costing
4. Life cycle costing
5. Target costing
6. Environmental management accounting
7. Budgeting
8. Process costing
9. Job order costing
10. Overhead accounting
11. Standard costing
12. Variance analysis
13. Costing for short-term decisions
14. Learning curve analysis
15. Manufacturing cost
16. Management Accounting



A related e-resource is on financial ratios

Study note on innovation network

Study note on innovation network

References with extracted contents

Wenyan Song, Jintao Cao & Maokuan Zheng (2016) Towards an integrative framework of innovation network for new product development project, Production Planning & Control, 27:12, 967-978, DOI: 10.1080/09537287.2016.1167980.

"The rapid growth of the global market drives companies to further invest in new product development (NPD) to remain competitive. NPD increasingly holds a critical position in the business agenda (Kahn 2012). However, the complexity of products and radical changing environment lead companies towards collaboration in order to share risks, reduce time to market and costs, increase innovation capacity, improve quality and benefit from complementary knowledge throughout the NPD process (Harmancioglu 2007). External sourcing is increasingly seen as important for obtaining new and valuable knowledge and resources for value co-creation and co-innovation in NPD (Romero and Molina 2011)";

"Recent literature highlights the importance of innovation network (IN) and many researchers discuss its applications under various concepts such as networks of companies, dynamic networks, customer-supplier collaboration, extended enterprises, virtual organisations, and strategic alliances (Chapman and Corso 2005). However, when it comes to the specifics of innovation network framework, little is known on the NPD project level";

"The concept of ‘innovation network’ appears decades ago, but it is very recently, during the past few years, when this concept begins to be researched in volume. Innovation network being highly dynamic, virtual organisations could provide an ideal foundation for distributed innovation processes (Eschenbächer, Seifert, and Thoben 2011)";

Tobias Buchmann & Andreas Pyka (2015) The evolution of innovation networks: the case of a publicly funded German automotive network, Economics of Innovation and New Technology, 24:1-2, 114-139, DOI: 10.1080/10438599.2014.897860.

"Innovation networks are considered as a means to share increasingR&Dcosts, gain access to scarce resources and – most importantly – to manage complex innovation processes, cope with technological uncertainty and create learning opportunities (Pyka 2002; Buchmann and Pyka 2012a)";

"The knowledge of a firm is its key resource (Grant 1996; Das and Teng 2000). A firm can thus be described as a ‘repository of productive knowledge’ (Winter 1988, 171). Lane and Lubatkin (1998) find that in an increasingly knowledge-based competition firms need to be able to transform knowledge into processes and products and to manage their knowledge and capabilities like other physical assets (Buchmann and Pyka 2012b). Firms respond to an increased competitive pressure (Teece 1992) by forming alliances in which the abilities to learn and exchange knowledge are vital";

"The door opener to access external knowledge is cooperation. A suitable way to analyze such firm interactions is the network perspective. Networks are characterized by a specific structure which is the result of an evolutionary process, i.e. of the emergence and dissolution of ties between firms over time (Wasserman and Faust 1994). Network ties serve as channels for knowledge flows between actors and allow for knowledge diffusion and mutual learning in the network .... The process of network tie formation and dissolution ... constitutes the evolution of the network and is a function of the actors’ characteristics and their socially driven behaviors and interaction patterns";

Maarten H. Batterink , Emiel F.M. Wubben , Laurens Klerkx & S.W.F. (Onno) Omta (2010) Orchestrating innovation networks: The case of innovation brokers in the agri-food sector, Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 22:1, 47-76, DOI: 10.1080/08985620903220512.

"In recent years EU, national and regional policy makers have focused on enhancing the innovativeness of their economies by stimulating inter-organizational cooperation by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) ....  SMEs often lack essential resources and capabilities to successfully innovate exclusively by means of in-house activities (Narula 2004; Nooteboom 1994), making inter-organizational networks essential for SMEs that want to innovate. Nevertheless, when they want to establish and benefit from innovation networks, SMEs face several obstacles";

".... management literature has also focused attention on network orchestration processes aimed at innovation ..... These studies typically take the position of the commercial firm as the focal actor in knowledge acquisition processes and in the establishment of R&D consortia ..... Nevertheless, research still has to ‘tease out the unique contributions a ‘‘network orchestrator’’ makes, despite its lack of hierarchical authority’.";

"Innovation networks can be viewed as cooperative relationships between companies and other actors who seek innovation. ..... Dhanaraj and Parkhe (2006) ....defined ‘network orchestration’ as the set of deliberate actions undertaken by a network orchestrator as it seeks to create value with and extract value from the network";

Harold Paredes-Frigolett & Andreas Pyka (2017) A model of innovation network formation, Innovation, 19:2, 245-269, DOI: 10.1080/14479338.2016.1276411.

"A comprehensive body of work in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship shows that the success of processes of entrepreneurship and innovation in knowledge-intensive industries is not only determined by the entrepreneur alone, as originally assumed by Schumpeter, but also by the multiple interactions among other nodes in a heterogeneous innovation network ..... From an innovation policy perspective, these findings suggest that the characterization and execution of innovation network formation strategies aimed at increasing the complexity of innovation networks should have a high priority in order to overcome the lack of absorptive capacities often found in developing and transition countries";

"The lack of complexity of emerging innovation networks in developing and transition countries is one of the main reasons for their lack of global competitiveness ...) While there is ample agreement upon the need of developing and transition countries to increase the complexity of their underlying innovation networks, fewer contributions have addressed the problem of how these countries can deal with the gaps that pervade their national innovation systems and hinder their global competitiveness in knowledge-intensive industries";

Christian Omobhude & Shih-Hsin Chen (2017) Mixed-method approaches to studying innovation networks in developing countries, African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development, 9:4, 367-379, DOI: 10.1080/20421338.2017.1322798.

"Innovation is widely recognized as a social process, involving the networking of actors, and is driven by relationships, learning, knowledge and collaborations (Freeman 1991). Those collaborations often involve research organizations, regulators, capital providers, customers, clients and research institutions (Manley 2002). Building innovation networks in these innovation systems would be helpful to foster knowledge diffusion and enable diffusion of knowledge (Branscomb and Auerswald 2002)";

"Baregheh, Rowley, and Sambrook (2009) conducted a literature review and content analysis study which integrated the widespread diverse definitions of innovation. The outcome of the study positions innovation based upon: stages of innovation; social context; means of innovation; and aim of innovation";

Jarvenpaa, S.L. and A. Wernick. 2011. "Paradoxical tensions in open innovation networks" European Journal of Innovation Management 14(4), Emerald: 521-548.

"Paradoxical tensions are “cognitively and socially constructed polarities that mask simultaneity of conflicting truths. Unlike continua, dilemmas, or either/or choices, paradoxical tensions signify two sides of the same coin”, such as autonomy vs dependence, reason vs imagination (Lewis, 2000, p. 761). The tensions are seen as paradoxical when they reveal contradictory yet interconnected “things” that may deal with perspectives, feelings, messages, demands, identities, interests and practices (Lewis, 2000) The tensions are brought by constant changes and by complex, multifaceted relationships both inside and outside organizations";

"Open innovation networks provide the opportunity to extend the current literature on paradox management beyond the team ....as well as beyond the organization ..... Open innovation networks introduce highly complex and multifaceted inter-organizational relationships. Cooperation in such networks requires a complex repertoire of behaviors in that member organizations need to learn to mitigate the downside risks stemming from the other’s opportunism but also to avoid lapses in their respective knowledge-sharing that can impede scientific and commercial breakthroughs"; 

Study note on transfer pricing

Study note on transfer pricing

References with extracted contents

Mário Marques & Carlos Pinho (2016) "Is transfer pricing strictness deterring profit shifting within multinationals? Empirical evidence from Europe", Accounting and Business Research, 46:7, 703-730 [DOI: 10.1080/00014788.2015.1135782].

"Intra-company prices must be subordinate to the arm’s length principle. This principle requires that transfer prices between associated companies should be the same as if the companies involved were unrelated, not part of the same corporate group. Transfer prices, and consequently taxable income, are adjusted for tax purposes if the prices are not arm’s length prices. Most countries adhere to this approach in order to mitigate double taxation and also to curb losses of tax revenue";

"There is extensive literature that provides indirect evidence of significant cross-border profit shifting activities (for surveys, see e.g. Hines 1999, Devereux 2006, Heckemeyer and Overesch 2013). Huizinga and Laeven (2008), for instance, found that the ratio of profit shifting to the tax base is estimated to be 13.6% in Germany and 4.8% in Portugal";

"The widespread use of tax-planning strategies with serious implications for the erosion of the tax base has been moving up political agendas and has led governments to increase their scrutiny of tax avoidance by multinational companies. Many countries have introduced anti-tax-avoidance regulations to prevent multijurisdictional companies from strategically reporting earnings in lower-tax countries. The anti-avoidance measures that have been enacted include transfer pricing regulations, rules limiting the tax deductibility of internal debt (e.g. thin-capitalization, earnings-stripping rules and allocation rules) and provisions to prevent multinationals from shifting highly mobile passive income to lower-tax countries";

Alessandro Mura & Clive Emmanuel (2010) "Transfer pricing: early Italian contributions" Accounting, Business & Financial History, 20:3, 365-383 [DOI: 10.1080/09585206.2010.512717].

"In the Anglo-Saxon literature the attention towards the subject of transfer pricing first intensified during the 1950s, in the field of both accounting and economics (Cook 1955; Dean 1955; Hirshleifer 1956, 1957). The catalyst behind this interest was generated by the managerial innovations introduced into large American companies at that time (Dearden 1967, 99; Sharav 1974, 56). The adoption of decentralization – which implies the establishment of operating activities as profit centres – coupled with the delegation of autonomy to managers, raised the need for new managerial control systems. The point was to assess the performance of both profit centres and their managers, while guaranteeing decisions made at a divisional level were in line with corporate interest: the so called goal and behavioural congruence";

"In Villa’s view, the objective of record keeping is ‘to follow all movements and changes in net assets and to know the amount of the expected revenues and expenses which are effectively collected and paid during the administrative period’ (1853, 133). This broad perspective enabled Villa to become aware of the organizational and accounting issues peculiar to divisionalised enterprises, at least at an embryonic level, even though the Italian economy of the time was mainly based on agricultural and mercantile activities, there being very few cases of industrialization, except in the northern regions (Amaduzzi 2004, 143; Basini 1999, 115–23), and with a limited use of decentralization";

Cecchini, M., R. Leitch and C. Strobel. 2013. "Multinational transfer pricing: A transaction cost and resource based view" Journal of Accounting Literature 31, Elsevier: 31-48.

"Multinational enterprises (MNEs), by their very nature, have advantages and disadvantages. A major advantage (and thus major motivation) is that operating in many countries provides the opportunity to exploit structural market imperfections for competitive advantage. However, this potential advantage can only be realized if the entities that comprise the MNE are well-coordinated. In cases where coordination is not achieved, a MNE can become unwieldy, providing limited advantage. Transfer pricing policy can help a MNE take advantage of complex international market imperfections while managing costs and risks";

"Transfer pricing refers to the prices placed on goods, services, and intangibles as they move between economic entities of a MNE. Transfer pricing policy is particularly difficult for a MNE because they need to not only determine a transfer price that is in the best interest of the organization and the individual entities in the value chain, but also one that will satisfy the regulatory requirements of host countries where foreign divisions are located. This problem is compounded by the decision of where to locate worldwide resources in order to exploit market imperfections and maximize the organization’s value chain. These decisions will be determined by the nature of the product created, market structure, environmental factors including tax policies, relative power and dependence among entities, governance procedures, socioeconomic and geopolitical risks, transaction risk, and the nature of the resources used to create value";

Peter J Buckley & Jane Frecknall Hughes (1997) "Japanese transfer pricing policy: a note" Applied Economics Letters, 4:1, 13-17 [DOI: 10.1080/758521824].

"In the past three years, the financial press has devoted a good deal of coverage to the alleged use of transfer pricing policies by multinationals to gain a tax advantage. Such a tax advantage accrues because different countries may constitute tax havens or because the overall tax may be lower for a variety of reasons, thus resulting in higher profits (and taxes) in the home country of the parent/holding company or a third country, which thereby benefit from the use of another country's resources";

"The issues of pricing in a decentralized uni-national company are well known and are analysed by Hirshleifer (1986). The problem occurs when a company taxable under one jurisdiction (company 1) allegedly sells products at an inflated price to another company under common control (company 2), this latter company being taxable under a different jurisdiction. Company 2 thus pays a higher price than it would if it had purchased the same products from an external unconnected third party, and consequently makes lower profits, and company 1's profits are therefore higher..... The concern of the Revenue authorities is that the payment of any inflated purchase price siphons profits back to an overseas jurisdiction";

Sikka, P. and H. Willmott. 2010. "The dark side of transfer pricing: Its role in tax avoidance and wealth retentiveness" Critical Perspectives on Accounting 21, Elsevier: 342-356.

"Since costs and overhead allocation mechanisms are highly subjective corporations enjoy considerable discretion in allocating them to particular products/services and geographical jurisdictions. Such discretion can enable them to minimise taxes and thereby swell profits by ensuring that, wherever possible, most profits are located in low-tax or low risk jurisdictions";

"Given the importance of transfer pricing in relocating corporate profits, facilitating tax avoidance and the flight of capital, and its implications for the distribution of wealth and public goods ..., the Head of the US Inland Revenue Service (IRS) has described transfer pricing as “one of [its] most significant challenges” (The Times, 12 September 2006). Arguably, there is significantly more to transfer pricing than refinements of techniques and a study of US corporations concluded that “transfer pricing may be playing an important role in aggregate national accounting, potentially reducing the reported value of exports and the current account (and thus GDP)"; 

Study note on executive coaching

Study note on executive coaching

References with extracted contents

Kombarakaran, F.A., J.A. Yang, M.N. Baker and P.B. Fermandes. 2008. "Executive coaching: It works!"Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research 60(1): 78-90.

"The phenomenon of executive coaching has mushroomed in recent years. The need for competent managers and the reported success of coaching have prompted corporations to adopt this strategy to improve executive performance. Coaching may be popular because it provides needed expertise, an objective viewpoint, and is integrated into the executive’s routine (Lary, 1997)";

"Executive coaching is a short-term interactive process between a coach and a manager to improve leadership effectiveness by enhancing self-awareness and the practice of new behaviors. The coaching process facilitates the acquisition of new skills, perspectives, tools and knowledge through support, encouragement, and feedback in the organizational context. Executive coaching has become a method of choice for leadership development because of its unique position in helping modify perspectives and behavior without sacrificing competence and self-esteem (Strickland, 1997)";

"Coaching is often used to help an executive transition from the role of a project manager to people manager (Hayes, 1997). Transition challenges include adjusting personal style and approaches to people and learning the rules and expectations of the new role. Coaching may also focus on a specific content area to provide the leader with specific knowledge and skills. Coaching may also be recommended for problematic attitudes and behaviors. Executives may need coaching to understand their new role with its implicit style, rules, and expectations";

Sherman, S. and A. Freas. 2004. "The Wild West of Executive Coaching" Harvard Business Review 82(11) November: 82-90, 148.

".... companies that use coaches to help their top executives become more effective must chart their own courses. No one has yet demonstrated conclusively what makes an executive coach qualified or what makes one approach to executive coaching better than another. Barriers to entry are nonexistent—many self-styled executive coaches know little about business, and some know little about coaching";

"The growing popularity of executive coaching is a response to compelling needs. Many of the new business practices that so greatly improved productivity in recent decades also introduced contradictions into the relationships between corporations and their top executives. The most bedeviling of these has been a gradual warping of the traditional alignment of companies and their leaders. Developing more fruitful ways for businesses and executives to work together has become a priority and a new source of economic value";

"Unlike most business processes, which tend to reduce information to abstractions, executive coaching engages with people in customized ways that acknowledge and honor their individuality. It helps people know themselves better, live more consciously, and contribute more richly. The essentially human nature of coaching is what makes it work—and also what makes it nearly impossible to quantify";

Feldman, D.C. and M.J. Lankau. 2005. "Executive Coaching: A Review and Agenda for Future Research" Journal of Management 1(6), Sage: 829-848.

"Although executive coaching has been defined in a variety of ways by different authors, researchers typically define it as a short- to medium-term relationship between an executive and a consultant with the purpose of improving an executive’s work effectiveness (Douglas & McCauley, 1999; Feldman, 2001). In the past decade, the prevalence of executive coaching in corporations has risen dramatically as an alternative to conventional executive training";

"At its broadest level, coaching is generally defined as a “process of equipping people with the tools, knowledge, and opportunities they need to develop themselves and become more effective” (Peterson&Hicks, 1995: 41). The notion of coaching as a developmental activity in the management literature is not a new phenomenon. In early studies on managerial roles (Mace & Mahler, 1958; Mintzberg, 1973, 1990, 1994; Yukl, 1994), coaching was primarily viewed as a technique that managers could use to correct deficiencies in employees’ task performance";

"An adviser is an individual who shares his or her business acumen or functional expertise with executives to assist them in planning or executing specific organizational actions. Advising relationships typically focus on strategic or operational issues in the organization, such as how to take a company public (Sperry, 1993). In contrast, executive coaches do not assume the role of technical expert, are not contracted for traditional business consulting, and do not provide recommendations on specific business initiatives";

Angélique du Toit, (2005) "A guide to executive coaching: Advice to managers and their organizations" Development and Learning in Organizations: An International Journal, Vol. 19 Issue: 2, pp. 11-12 [https://doi.org/10.1108/14777280510580672].

".... the following are the key characteristics of coaching as it applies to organizations: * a reflective practice based on a one-to-one relationship with the coach; *  tailored to the needs of the individual; *  stimulating growth in areas of organizational importance or weakness; *  present and future focused; *  action oriented; *  a non-directive intervention form of development; and *  aimed at the development of individual performance and abilities";

"Although there is no blue-print available to avoid making the wrong choice when selecting a coach, the following will act as a guideline: (1) Assess the need of the individual to be coached. (2) Should the services of an internal or external coach be employed? (3) Match the profile of the coach with that of the need of the individual, the issues to be explored and the organization. (4) What is the relevant experience of the coach and how much experience have they had? (5) Ensure you obtain testimonials from previous clients. (6) How will quality be monitored during the coaching assignment? (7) Agree measurable outcomes for the coaching assignment. (8) Determine qualifications and any membership of professional bodies. (9) Match personal qualities and characteristics with the individuals they will coach";

Glunk, U. and Follini, B. 2011. "Polarities in executive coaching" Journal of Management Development Vol. 30 Issue: 2, pp. 222-230 [https://doi.org/10.1108/02621711111105795].

"The coaching relationship entails ambiguities and tensions; if this is not the case, the coaching becomes flat and uninspired. The metaphor of a seesaw can best illustrate this relationship. The coach is in charge of keeping the seesaw in movement; depending on the “weight” of the other person, the coach has to adjust his/her own position, leaning towards one direction or the other, allowing for the complementarities of opposing forces";