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The article examines the effects of industry-wide commonalities on earnings in order to assess the significance of these commonalities and how they affect firms' earnings numbers. The article makes a distinction between economy-wide events such as government monetary policy that affect all firms in an economy, industry-wide events such as changes in consumer tastes that affect only the earnings in one industry, and firm-wide events, such as management changes that only affect one firm. The author suggests that industry commonalities are no less significant than economy-wide commonalities in explaining changes in firms' earnings numbers. These economic factors can even be reflected in security prices. The former studies were of interest to accounting researchers considering the distributional properties of accounting numbers, but the latest research may help estimate the value of industry information to investors studying the effect of these factors on firms' security prices.

Industry-wide information infrastructures (IIIS) have recently gained increased attention by policy makers, especially in the healthcare sector where it is believed that IIIS can substantially contribute to the taming of exploding healthcare costs and dramatically improve service quality, e.g., by avoiding widespread medication errors. However, the emergence and evolution of IIIS is as yet poorly understood, partly because the information systems (IS) literature traditionally uses much smaller units of analysis such as projects, organizations or small networks of organization. In this paper, we propose a combined company-level and industry-level framework to shed light on the process of IIIS emergence. We demonstrate, for the first time, that IIIS emergence is intricately linked to the industry life cycle for the case of fragmented industries. We also explore the relationship between the industry-level and company-level life cycles in the process of IIIS emergence, and develop a novel proposition regarding this relationship. Our findings suggest that current policy initiatives to promote the development of IIIS have not adequately taken industry-level conditions into consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The law of complicity, particularly relating to joint enterprise liability, appears to becoming more and more complicated. Cases on secondary liability for murder in the Court of Appeal demonstrate that this area of law is difficult to interpret and to apply. Even more complex is the question of how to apply these cases to offences other than murder. This case note attempts to address the Court of Appeal's questions in the case of R v Martin as to how the jury ought to be directed in a case of aiding and abetting causing death by dangerous driving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate whether reorganization adjudication only conveys information about the announcer or whether it also provides industry-wide information for rivals. We find evidence of strong information content and information transfer arising from the announcement. Reorganization adjudication announcements are associated with positive share prices for announcers, but produce both positive contagion and negative competitive effects for industry rivals, with the latter dominating. We also develop a neuro-fuzzy model and link it to the input feature selection method of genetic algorithms to examine which rivals are more likely to exhibit a contagion or competitive effect in their equity values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on environmental liability insurance as a tool for handling environmental risk. Environmental liability insurance policies can assist in ensuring that historical and future contamination is treated in a timely manner, reduce the danger to human health and the environment from contamination, and offers a mechanism that allows investors, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies to avoid bankruptcy resulting from cleanup costs.

Much has been said recently about the risky legal environment in which outside directors of public companies operate, especially in the USA, but increasingly elsewhere as well. Our research on outside director liability suggests, however, that directors’ fears are largely unjustified. We examine the law and lawsuit outcomes in four common law countries(Australia, Canada, Britain, and the USA) and three civil law countries(France, Germany, and Japan). The legal terrain and the risk of‘nominal liability’(a court finds liability or the defendants agree to a settlement) differ greatly depending on the jurisdiction. But nominal liability rarely turns into‘out-of-pocket liability,’ in which the directors pay personally damages or legal fees. Instead, damages and legal fees are paid by the company, directors’ and officers’(D&O) insurance, or both. The bottom line: outside directors of public companies face a very low risk of out-of-pocket liability. We sketch the political and market forces that produce functional convergence in outcomes across countries, despite large differences in law, and suggest reasons to think that this outcome might reflect sensible policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the use of insurance coupled with well-specified standards, as an alternative to the liability system in managing environmental risks in the United States. Enterprise liability; Existence of insurance market; Proposal to modify the liability system; Two illustrative examples.

The article examines the impact of the minimum liability adjustment on the organization's balance sheet and to evaluates the subsequent impact on measures of corporate financial strength. It provides background information, examines the minimum liability computation, and presents recognition procedures for the minimum liability adjustment. The balance sheet accounts potentially affected are illustrated and discussed. It also addresses the impact of minimum liability accruals on financial statement analysis with examples of how the accruals impact financial structure, coverage, and profitability ratios.

Discusses the accounting and regulatory issues that have emerged from the privatization of water and sewerage authorities in Great Britain. Required rate of return and the capital base to which it should be applied; Problem of accountability for determining optimal quality standards and levels of service; Approach to promoting efficiency.

Explores the merits of the entity and enterprise liability models. Comparison of the veil-piercing law in the United States, Germany and Great Britain; Elements of control and improper conduct; Overview of the limited liability under German law.

The author argues on the traditional conception on the role of the chief executive officer (CEO) and the organizational board of directors. He cites a report by the "The Chronicle of Philanthropy" and relates the flaw in the view that the board exists for the executive director. He offers several quotes to illustrate how boards are regarded as the least developed elements in the enterprise. The author further notes the topics included in the 104th issue of the publication "Board Leadership."

This article presents an abstract of the study entitled Product Safety for a Monopolist Under Strict Liability, by Harris Schlesinger, which views strict producer liability as essentially requiring the producer to provide a tie-in sale of full coverage insurance to its customers.