Yes / This paper uses panel cointegration with a corresponding vector error correction model (VECM) to investigate the changes in the value relevance of accounting information before and after the mandatory adoption of IFRS in Germany and the UK under three different valuation models. First, a basic Ohlson model, where our results indicate that despite the value relevance of the book values of equity has declined, it has been replaced by the increasing prominence of earnings in both Germany and the UK after the switch to the IFRS. Second, a modified model, which shows that the incremental value relevance of both earnings and book values are considerably higher in the long term for firms in the UK than in Germany. Third, a simultaneous addition of accounting and macroeconomic variables in an extended model, which indicates a significant rise in the relative predictive power of the book value of equity in the UK compared with the more noticeable impact on the value relevance of earnings in Germany. Collectively, the results of these models indicate that: (i) the explanatory power of linear equity valuation models is higher in UK than in the Germany, (ii) a long-run Granger-causal relationship exists between accounting variables and share prices in common law countries like the UK. Nevertheless, the implications of our findings lie in the knowledge that the potential costs of switching to the IFRS is completely nullified within three years by the benefits arising from a reduction in information asymmetry and earning mismanagement among firms which are listed on the stock exchanges of both common law and code law-based EU countries.

No / I-MEET is an Integrated Model for Evaluating E-government services Transformation from stakeholders' perspectives. It is based on an integration of concepts from value chain management and business process transformation to optimize the system-wide value chain of providers and users simultaneously. It aims to align stakeholders on a common global value against traditional disintegrated approaches where each stakeholder optimizes its e-service local value at the expense of others. The measured variables are derived from the literature and focused groups. They are then categorized into cost and risk (Inputs) and (benefit and opportunity) Outputs after a validation process based on Structured Equation Models using a sample of 1540 user-responses of e-services in the UK. Finally, Data Envelopment Analysis is conducted to derive an aggregated of an e-service satisfaction value using the various inputs and outputs. The empirical results demonstrate that data-derived weights for aggregating indicators are variable rather than fixed across e-services. The novelty of the assessment approach lies in its capability to provide informed suggestions to set targets to improve an eservice from the perspective of all engaging users. Hence it provides a better transformation of public administration services and improved take up by citizens and businesses.

Yes / The relationship between banks and society in UK remains fragile more than 10 years after the financial crisis. The level of public mistrust, though lower than in the aftermath of the crisis, still re-mains at unsatisfactory levels especially as scandals continue to plague the sector. This raises the question of the effectiveness of reforms adopted in UK during the past 10 years to improve the public oversight of banks and change their culture. The reforms resulted in a significant expansion of the scope of financial regulation through the adoption of large numbers of new rules with binding effect on banks. In addition, new supervisory bodies were created to more closely monitor bank activities. This paper reviews the effects of the reforms on bank culture and concludes that expanded regulation and compulsory norms brought about mixed results and had only moderate effect on re-pairing the relationship between banks and UK society. The paper argues that more significant cultural change could come only from the banks themselves and therefore, going forward, the scope of compulsory norms should be reduced. The paper contributes to the ongoing dialogue between industry experts, policy makers and lawyers about the optimum levels of financial regulation especially in light of recent calls for rolling back parts of public interventions in the financial sector.

No / What role do individual member states play in the continuing development of European Union (EU) environmental policy? Are they capable of successful intervention in the process of joint rule making to maintain their preferred national policies? On the basis of a detailed analysis of EU environmental pollution control measures adopted in the period 1972-86, some observers have argued forcefully that the United Kingdom (UK) Government successfully defended its sovereignty by systematically manipulating national and European political arenas in order to maintain its pre-existing policies. However, when other aspects of EU environmental policy are analysed over the full policy cycle, the extent of national control appears much more circumscribed. A comparison of UK Government aims with long-term political outcomes in the sphere of EU biodiversity policy (c.1970-2000) reveals evidence of firm state control in the short-term, but significant unintended consequences in the medium to long-term. These findings raise doubts about the explanatory power of intergovernmental accounts of EU environmental policy making.

No

Enterprise Information Portals (EIPs) have become crucial components in contemporary organisations, including universities. Campus portals (CPs) have found their way into the academic environment and universities are increasingly implementing these technologies. While there are many studies concerning EIPs in organisations, there are few studies that touch this issue in the academic environment. This study investigates factors affecting the adoption, implementation and utilisation of CPs from the implementers’ and users’ perspectives. It adopts a comparative approach based on multiple case studies in some Saudi and UK universities. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and documentation, which was analysed using hermeneutics and other qualitative data analysis techniques. Findings show that adoption and implementation of CPs are affected by factors including: technological, organisational, environmental, financial, innovation and user-related factors. Results from the users perspective reveal that although CPs are perceived to be useful in terms of accessing information and services, there are many concerns related to system, content and service quality. Moreover, the study has identified two main gaps between users and the implementers: a communication gap and an expectations gap. Consequently, users complained about a lack of user involvement and poor communication. Findings are interpreted using elements from institutional theory. Development of CPs is affected by many institutional factors such as coercive, mimetic, normative and competitive pressures. Furthermore, the introduction of CPs could lead to a clash of institutional logics among various stakeholders. Institutional arguments are likely to arise between portal teams and other campus constituents such as service providers and users. This study has three major contributions. First, it used institutional theory to investigate CPs adoption and implementation. As a result, it extends the line of research on the use of this theory to study IS in organisations. Second, it responds to calls from other IS researchers to study portals by conducting in-depth field investigation using qualitative research. Third, it addresses issues related to the development of bilingual portals in universities.

Innovation and ‘creative destruction’ should thrive in the competitive, high risk and high cost environment of the North Sea. Paradoxically, uptake of new technology is slow. The focus of this research was to understand how new technology is developed and how end users make decisions about innovation. Innovation process in the literature can sometimes come across like a ‘black box’ without much explanation of what happens inside the box. This study seeks to explicate what transpires inside the ‘black box’ to improve our understanding of the innovation process. The linear models of technology-push and market-pull are too simplistic to account for the complexity of relationships and engagements that affect innovation at small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) level. Subsequent models of innovation are suited to how large corporations manage innovation but neglect patterns of social interactions at the micro level where SMEs operate. These innovation models are incomplete because they relegate the importance of context and how it shapes understanding, action and outcome. This study, rooted in a social constructionist paradigm, takes a process-relational stance on entrepreneurship and innovation, recognising the dynamic relationships between social actors and context. Taking Heidegger’s explication of how we relate to the world, this thesis submits that innovation occurs when actors move into the ‘occurrent’ mode. The happenings and doings in the innovation process are treated as the results of perpetual social constructions. This study is based on extended interviews with eleven individuals in relevant roles and with direct experiences of the technical innovation construction in the oil and gas industry. The purposeful sample of research encompasses a variety of roles including technology entrepreneurs, end users of technology and venture capitalists. This study makes a number of contributions. Firstly, the research improves our understanding of how different social constructions are welded together to develop shared understanding. Secondly, a conceptual framework is presented that bridges a number of theoretical concepts, which allows us to see that innovation cannot be properly understood using simplistic models that ignores the social constructions human actors instantiate. Thirdly, the research claims that problem framing is foundational to innovation construction, where social actors collaborate to develop shared understanding, and mentally represent in the present a future that is not totally knowable. Fourthly, an alternative model of innovation construction is presented that is relational and accounts for the social constructions of process participants. Finally, a number of research implications for academics and insights for practitioners engaged in the technical innovation construction are offered.

Bakgrund Från och med september 2014, är alla barn i åldern fyra till sju berättigade till gratis skolmat i Storbritannien, för att öka hälsosamt ätande och minska fetma. Syfte Att undersöka hur skolmåltider (speciellt skolluncher) avbildats i olika tidningar i Storbritannien, från och med 2000 till 2014, då gratis skolmåltider introducerades. Metod Fyra tidningar i Storbritannien, under tiden 2000 till 2014, valdes ut för undersökning. Totalt 616 artiklar hittades, varav 426 texter analyserades. En kombination av kvalitativ och kvantitativ innehållsanalys gjordes i flera steg på artiklar och insändare. Texterna lästes och grupperade i huvudbudskap/innehåll. För att visa när och i vilken mängd dessa huvudbudskap/innehåll avbildades i de studerade medierna, blev dessa grupperade som ämnen och placerade i tidslinjer. Slutligen kategoriserades ämnena i grupper för att visa huvudfokus under tidsperioden. Resultat Under åren 2000 till 2014 diskuterades flera ämnen som rörde skolmåltider i media. Bland dessa fanns både positiva och negativa inställningar till Jamie Olivers skolmatkampanj, ohälsosamma lunchboxar, förbud av lunchboxar, förbud mot att vistas utanför skolområdet under raster, samt planen för och införandet av gratis skolmat för fyra till sjuåringar. Gratis skolmåltider och texter relaterade till ekonomi var de mest diskuterade ämnena under åren. I studien var det möjligt att se att Jamie Oliver var en stor del av processen som lett till att barnen i åren fyra till sju fått gratis skolmat. Slutsats En större process kunde ses framskrida fram till gratis måltider till alla skolbarn i ålder fyra till sju. Regler har tillagts och åtgärder gjorts för att få bättre skolmåltider och samtidigt uppmuntra barn att välja hälsosammare mat. Det är möjligt att allmänheten blivit mer medvetna om hälsa och skolmåltider samt relationen mellan dessa / Background Starting from September 2014, all children aged four to seven received their school lunches for free in the UK, to increase healthy eating and decrease obesity. Aim To investigate how school meals (especially school lunches) were depicted in different newspapers in the UK, from 2000 to 2014 when free school meals were introduced. Method Four newspapers in the UK between the years 2000 and 2014 were chosen for the study. In total, 616 texts were found from which 426 were analysed. A combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis of articles and letters to press was made in several steps. The texts were read and grouped into several main messages/contents. These were grouped into subjects and put together in timelines to show when and how much they were depicted in media during the studied years. Finally the subjects were grouped into topics, to show the main focus during the time period. Result During the years 2000 to 2014 several topics related to school meals were discussed. Among these were both positivity and negativity towards Jamie Oliver’s school food campaign, unhealthy packed lunches, the ban of packed lunches, ban of going outside schools on school breaks and the free school meals plan and free school meals for all children aged four to seven. The free school meals and texts related to economy were the most discussed during these years. In the study it was possible to see that Jamie Oliver have been a big part of the results of free school meals for the children between four and seven. Conclusion A long process could be seen progressing until free meals were given to all schoolchildren aged four to seven. There were regulations and actions towards better school meals and encouragements for children to choose the healthier foods. It is possible that people became more and more aware about health and school meals, and the relation between these over the years.

For as long as managed mutual funds have been in existence there has been a desire to accurately assess their relative performance against each other, and also their respective performance in relation to an appropriate stock market index. There has been a specific interest in whether the expensive, professionally managed mutual funds can justify their high cost with respect to low cost, simple index trackers by producing superior, post-cost performance, and this proposition is implicitly tested within this thesis. The aim of this thesis is to undertake an empirical assessment of the managerial performance of mutual funds utilising a three-stage DEA-SFA-DEA methodology which combines linear mathematical programming (DEA) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). Specifically, this thesis focuses on evaluating the managerial performance of UK domiciled open-ended investment companies (OEICs) and unit trusts (UTs) over a three year period from 1st January 2008 to 31st December 2010. Various DEA models are utilised including CCR, BCC and SBM DEA models with various orientations, and also versions of these DEA models which make use of the SORM procedure. These are used to carry out an initial evaluation of the managerial performance of the OEICs/UTs, before two of these DEA models are combined with SFA regression analysis in a three-stage DEA-SFA-DEA methodology to purge the influence of environmental factors and statistical noise, thus leading to a more robust evaluation of the true managerial performance of the OEICs/UTs under assessment. The results of this thesis extend support to the premise of the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) that financial markets are information efficient , and thus it is not possible, given the information available when the investment is made, to consistently obtain returns in excess of the average market return on a risk-adjusted basis, and this thesis does so through the use of a novel approach.

This thesis is a study of multiple access schemes for satellite land mobile systems that provide a domestic or regional service to a large number of small terminals. Three orbit options are studied, namely the geostationary, elliptical (Molniya) and inclined circular orbits. These are investigated for various mobile applications and the choice of the Molniya orbit is justified for a U. K. system. Frequency, Time and Code Division Multiple Access (FDMA, TDMA and CDMA) are studied and their relative merits in the mobile environment are highlighted. A hybrid TDMA/FDMA structure is suggested for a large system. Reservation ALOHA schemes are appraised in a TDMA environment and an adaptive reservation multiple access protocol is proposed and analysed for a wide range of mobile communication traffic profiles. The system can cope with short and long data messages as well as voice calls. Various protocol options are presented and a target system having 100,000 users is considered. Analyses are presented for the steady state of protocols employing pure and slotted ALOHA and for the stabilty of the slotted variant, while simulation techniques were employed to validate the steady state analysis of the slotted ALOHA protocol and to analyse the stability problem of the pure ALOHA version. An innovative technique is put forward to integrate the reservation and the acquisition processes. It employs the geographical spread of the users to form part of the random delay in P-ALOHA. Finally an economic feasibility study is performed for the spacesegment. For costs of capital (r) less than 23 % the discounted payback period is less than the project's lifetime (10 years). At r- 8% the payback period is about 5.6 years, while the internal-rate-of-return is 22.2 %. The net present value at the end of the projects lifetime is £M 70 at r-8%.