{"title":"Conceptualizing and measuring the economic value of human capital of the third kind: Corporate culture","authors":"Eric G. Flamholtz","doi":"10.1108/14013380510645360","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/14013380510645360","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to deal with the conceptualization and measurement of the economic value of what we have termed “human capital of the third kind”, i.e. corporate culture. It also seeks to draw upon empirical research from the field of culture management to show how the economic value of human capital of the third kind can be measured.Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a theoretical framework as well as some empirical research to show how economic value of the third kind can be measured.Findings – This has provided a different conceptualization of human capital relevant to human resources accounting. It has presented a typology of human capital consisting of three types: the economic value of individuals; the economic value of groups or teams; and the economic value of the total human organization. The paper also summarized an empirical investigation relevant to the economic value of human capital of the third kind. The results of this empirical investigation provide su...","PeriodicalId":119134,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Resource Costing & Accounting","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115995746","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Accountability in Local Government : a Principal-Agent Perspective","authors":"Caroline Nyman, Fredrik Nilsson, B. Rapp","doi":"10.1108/14013380510645397","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/14013380510645397","url":null,"abstract":"The purpose of the article is to survey and analyze the chain of accountability to be reviewed by the auditors and through the use of principal-agent (PA) theory to identify the problems that ma ...","PeriodicalId":119134,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Resource Costing & Accounting","volume":"63 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122085049","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Intellectual Capital Disclosure through Annual Reports: A Study of the Swedish Retail Industry","authors":"B. Olsson","doi":"10.1108/EB029086","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/EB029086","url":null,"abstract":"This article is based on a content analysis of intellectual capital (IC) in annual reports from 1998 to 2002. The aim of the study was to compare the content of voluntary information on IC in the corporate annual reports covering a period of 4 years. The results from the study, based on 15 Swedish companies in the retail sector, show that for the year 2002 the information on human capital in the annual reports was, on average, 8.4% of the total text mass, with 14.9% pertaining to external capital, 21.2% to process capital and 7.4% about innovation capital. Further, the amount of IC information in 2002 increased when compared with the amount of information in 1998. The findings indicate that companies dealing with daily goods provide more information about IC in their annual reports than fashion companies.","PeriodicalId":119134,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Resource Costing & Accounting","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122791846","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Strategic Significance of Human Capital Information in Annual Reporting","authors":"C. Boedker, J. Guthrie, Suresh Cuganesan","doi":"10.1108/EB029083","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/EB029083","url":null,"abstract":"The disclosure of information on organisational knowledge resources and related knowledge management (KM) activities in annual reports has become a much debated issue within the intellectual capital (IC) discourse. This paper discusses the disclosure of IC information, and in particularly human capital information, in an Australian public sector organisation's annual reports. It contrasts and compares the case study organisation's internal IC management issues and practices with its external IC reporting practices. The empirical analysis demonstrates inconsistency between the organisation's internal IC management issues and practices and its external IC reporting practices. It shows that strategically important information about the organisation's management challenges, knowledge resources, KM activities and IC indicators was not disclosed to external stakeholders in the organisation's annual reports. The study exemplifies to external stakeholders the significance of the provision of information on IC and, in particular human capital, and highlights to public policy makers the relevance of extending existing reporting policies to incorporate disclosure requirements for organisations to include information on IC in annual reports.","PeriodicalId":119134,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Resource Costing & Accounting","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126996320","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Eric G. Flamholtz, R. Kannan-Narasimhan, M. L. Bullen
{"title":"Human Resource Accounting Today: Contributions, Controversies and Conclusions","authors":"Eric G. Flamholtz, R. Kannan-Narasimhan, M. L. Bullen","doi":"10.1108/EB029084","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/EB029084","url":null,"abstract":"The Journal of Human Resource Costing and Accounting has achieved critical mass and recognition as a primary place for publishing both scientific and practical applications of Human Resource Accounting (HRA). This paper reviews the state of the art of the development of HRA as it has appeared in the JHRCA since its inception. The paper assesses contributions and categorizes them according to studies which (1) underscore the importance of reporting human resource assets on the financial statements, (2) present empirical evidence, case and field studies on the various methods of reporting human resource assets and implementing HRA in various organisations, (3) analyse methods for measuring human resources, (4) demonstrate the use of HRA in human resource management decision‐making, (5) identify bottlenecks to the growth of HRA, (6) identify controversies in the field, and (7) discuss recent developments such as the balanced scorecard. The paper draws conclusions on the state of the HRA and suggests recommendations for future research and development.","PeriodicalId":119134,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Resource Costing & Accounting","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133495251","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Managerial Efficiency and Human Capital Information: Linkages with the Voluntary Disclosure of Labour Costs","authors":"Kaouthar Lajili","doi":"10.1108/EB029085","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/EB029085","url":null,"abstract":"This research paper examines the information content and managerial incentives for labour cost voluntary disclosures for a sample of United States publicly traded companies. We focus on labour productivity and managerial efficiency in labour usage and argue that these human capital indicators could provide valuable information to capital market participants seeking human resource‐type of performance measures and signals. Labour productivity and efficiency indicators are estimated following a production function approach and are included in logistic regressions to help explain and predict labour cost voluntary disclosure decisions. We find that labour productivity and managerial efficiency in labour use indicators are generally different between disclosing and non‐disclosing firms, and that proprietary information costs and political cost proxies are significantly related to labour costs voluntary disclosure, consistent with previous literature. These empirical results corroborate the ‘proprietary information’ hypothesis of voluntary disclosure where the strategic costs of disclosure outweigh the signaling benefit from disclosing human capital information.","PeriodicalId":119134,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Resource Costing & Accounting","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124716759","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Putting Balance and Validity into the Balanced Scorecard","authors":"Eric G. Flamholtz","doi":"10.1108/EB029081","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/EB029081","url":null,"abstract":"The Balanced Scorecard (BSC), popularized by Kaplan and Norton (1996a, 1996b), has become widely discussed and used (see, for example, Olsson, Karlsson, & Sharma, 2000). The basic notion of the BSC is that organisational performance ought to be evaluated from more than simply a financial perspective. This notion is sound and was an improvement over the traditional focus upon only financial performance. However, there is a fundamental problem with the version of the BSC proposed by Kaplan and Norton (1996b). Specifically, the Balanced Scorecard version proposed by Kaplan and Norton (1996b) is based upon the notion that “four perspectives” ought to be used to evaluate organisational performance: customer, internal business processes, learning and growth and financial. While this has intuitive appeal, the basic problem is that Kaplan and Norton (1996a, 1996b) have not provided any empirical support for these particular “perspectives.” We do not know whether these are the correct perspectives to be used as a basis for assessing organisational performance. This can have serious consequences for organisations. Managers are implicitly being encouraged to focus upon these four factors, when others might be more significant. In addition, this paper also questions the meaningfulness of the four perspectives proposed by Kaplan and Norton in terms of their construct validity. This is not just an academic quibble. The significance is that if the factors used in a strategic management system, such as a BSC, are invalid, managers can focus upon the wrong things and this, in turn, can potentially be damaging to companies, investors, and in turn, optimal societal resource allocation. Instead of the four perspectives proposed by Kaplan and Norton, there is evidence that there are actually six “key strategic building blocks” of successful organisations (Flamholtz, 1995; Flamholtz & Aksehirili, 2000; Flamholtz & Hua, 2002), and these should be used (in addition to financial results) to provide true balance for both performance measurement and strategic management. This should not be viewed as invalidating the original concept of the Balanced Scorecard, but rather as the next logical generation or iteration of its development.","PeriodicalId":119134,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Resource Costing & Accounting","volume":"4 2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116825793","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Paradigm Shift in Working Time Policy through Working Time Accounts — from Standard Working Hours to Controlled Flexibility","authors":"H. Seifert","doi":"10.1108/EB029082","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/EB029082","url":null,"abstract":"Flexible working time patterns have gained enormously in importance in recent years. Tins process has been accompanied by major changes in the area of industrial relations. The decision‐making power regarding working time issues is moving from the collective bargaining parties to the players at company level, namely management and works councils. How should we view these trends? How do they affect the options and freedom of action of companies and employees in the area of working hours? The article focuses on the options created by the introduction of working time accounts for the flexible oiganisation of work routines and the effects on the cost situation in modern companies as well as on the time‐based planning leeway it generates for employees. The available empirical findings support the hypothesis that the replacement of standard working time by time accounts can be described as a process of “controlled flexibility”. The introduction of time accounts is mainly observed within a regulatory framework that defines both bandwidths as well as rules for the variable organisation of working times. This practice enables companies to increase their internal flexibility and gives at least the majority of employees increased leeway to coordinate working and non‐working time.","PeriodicalId":119134,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Resource Costing & Accounting","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121519049","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Philip O’Regan, D. O'Donnell, T. Kennedy, N. Bontis, Peter Cleary
{"title":"Perceptions of Intellectual Capital: Irish Evidence","authors":"Philip O’Regan, D. O'Donnell, T. Kennedy, N. Bontis, Peter Cleary","doi":"10.1108/EB029073","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/EB029073","url":null,"abstract":"Recent market volatility has provided a fundamental challenge to those arguing for the central role of intellectual capital as a source of organisation value. Using perceptual data relevant to the importance of intellectual capital as a source of enterprise value gathered in two studies conducted before and after the recent market ‘downturn’ respectively, this paper provides empirical evidence in support of the continuing and central importance of intellectual capital. The findings from these two studies also demonstrate consistency in the composition of the human, internal and external components of intellectual capital. The Irish software/telecom sector provides an ideal research frame work for any such investigation. In recent years Ireland has established itself as the largest software exporter in the world and this sector has been one of the primary engines of growth in an economy that has experienced real growth of over 40% in 6 years, a rate unparalleled in the developed world.","PeriodicalId":119134,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Resource Costing & Accounting","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133577917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does Telecommuting Reduce Travel? A Swedish Investigation of the Expected Substitution Effect","authors":"J. Skåmedal","doi":"10.1108/EB029074","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/EB029074","url":null,"abstract":"For a long time, telecommuting has been expected to affect the aggregated travel pattern. A number of cause‐effect relationships between telecommuting and travel have been identified in literature concerning different types of trip with both decreased and increased travel as the outcome. To explore how telecommuting affects travel and travel patterns in Sweden an empirical study was conducted. The most important cause‐effect relationship concerns three categories: work‐trips, non‐work‐related trips and combination trips. The travel pattern, which is based on the telecommuter's regularity of trips, the point in time for different types of trip and the travel mode used, is also studied. The present results are compared with international findings, with the aim to create better understanding of how telecommuting affects the telecommuter's travel pattern and approximately estimate the magnitude of the travel impact. Finally, there is a contextual discussion concerning the probable total travel effects of telecommuting.","PeriodicalId":119134,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Resource Costing & Accounting","volume":"55 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132711428","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}