Benefits Of Specialization Research Articles

Client size, auditor specialization and fraudulent financial reporting

This study examines the effect that client size has on the relation between industry‐specialist auditors and fraudulent financial reporting. Most of the major accounting firms have organized their audit practices along industry lines, reflecting a belief that industry specialization leads to higher quality audits. Furthermore, regulatory bodies and extant research suggests that larger clients have greater bargaining power and are more likely to be able to convince the auditor to acquiesce to aggressive accounting. Also, it may be more difficult for an auditor to possess industry expertise for larger clients who are likely to be more complex and operate in more than one industry. Consistent with previous research, we generally find a significant negative relation between auditor industry specialization and client financial fraud. Also, as expected, the negative relation between auditor industry specialization and financial fraud is weaker for larger clients. This study provides evidence that the positive benefits of auditor industry specialization in deterring financial fraud is affected by client size.

Costs and benefits of prey specialization in a generalist insect predator

Summary There are very few studies on prey specialization in predatory insects. Of the prey that the larvae of the generalist ladybird beetle Adalia bipunctata regularly feed on in the field, some are more suitable as food than others. A laboratory experiment was undertaken to determine whether it is possible to select for improved performance of this insect predator on a ‘poor quality’ prey, and the cost, if any, of such specialization. The ladybird performed better when reared on the pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum than on the black bean aphid Aphis fabae. Over the course of six generations of selection there was a significant increase in performance on both species of aphid, especially the black bean aphid. Ladybirds previously selected for five generations for better performance on the black bean aphid performed significantly worse when reared on pea aphid compared with those reared continuously for six generations on pea aphids, and vice versa. That is, specialization on one species of aphid resulted in a poorer performance on another. If, as reported here, the specialization on one kind of prey generally entails a trade‐off in performance on another, then the interactions between insect predators and their prey are more homologous to those of herbivorous insects and plants than previously thought. The significance of this for prey specialization in ladybird beetles is discussed.

Ties, Trust, and Trade

Industrial clusters are associated with positive economies of networking only because the benefits of specialization and trade among clustered firms are not offset by coordination costs. This article, drawing upon a diversity of theoretical sources, elaborates on this insight, explaining why coordination is particularly efficient in industrial clusters compared to other trade contexts. It argues that in clusters, firms are able to lower coordination costs of networking by means of social trust, while firms outside clusters have to rely on more costly coordination mechanisms. It defines and discusses trust and its origin, defines and discusses coordination and coordination problems, and explains the dominance of social trust within clusters through focusing upon information costs and social ties.

Law of the unspecialized: broken?

Specialization has posed crucial problems for evolutionary biologists: What are the benefits of specialization? Is specialization an evolutionary dead end? Theory has long predicted that specialization is favored because of tradeoffs in fitness when organisms utilize different resources. These microevolutionary benefits are thought to be offset by a reduction in macroevolutionary diversification. Again, theory has suggested that the narrow ecology of specialists will result in fewer opportunities for speciation, and, therefore, lower levels of diversification than in less specialized clades. This suggestion dates back to E. Cope in 1896, who coined the idea ‘law of the unspecialized’. However, specialization as an evolutionary dead end appears inconsistent with the existence of diverse and highly specialized clades. For example, it is estimated that 80% of phytophagous insects, one of the most diverse groups of organisms, are specialized. Why is this group of specialists so diverse? There are now several phylogenies of groups with more and less specialized clades, and a new study by Termonia et al. 1xFeeding specialization and host-derived chemical defense in Chrysomeline leaf beetles did not lead to an evolutionary dead end. Termonia, A. et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 2001; 98: 3909–3914Crossref | PubMed | Scopus (93)See all References1 ‘ups the ante’ by combining knowledge of the mechanistic basis of specialization in Chrysomelina beetles with a phylogenetic analysis of diversification.In response to harassment, Chrysomelina beetles produce defensive secretions that are repulsive to predators. The type of defensive secretion produced defines three different types of beetles: those that synthesize their own defense chemicals; those that are fully reliant on their host plant for such chemicals; and an intermediate group that are only partially dependent on the host plant for their chemical defense. Termonia et al.'s phylogenetic analysis reveals that this partially dependent strategy is the most derived of the three, and is descended from the more specialized group, which relies fully on the host plant for defense. In addition to specialization not being a dead end in this system, the authors show that the derived defense strategy has allowed for beetles to move to host plants that are both chemically and phylogenetically distinct.This paper 1xFeeding specialization and host-derived chemical defense in Chrysomeline leaf beetles did not lead to an evolutionary dead end. Termonia, A. et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 2001; 98: 3909–3914Crossref | PubMed | Scopus (93)See all References1 is part of a new generation of studies that link chemical ecology to evolutionary biology. Conventional wisdom has been that specialization of herbivores is an evolutionary response to plant defenses. However, for the Chrysomelina beetles, specialization is apparently a response to avoid predation. Although it is not clear how frequently specialization in herbivorous insects is driven by predators, host-plant chemistry plays a prominent role in both plant defense and predator avoidance. This still begs the question: why are specialized clades of phytophagous insects so diverse? Does the type of resource used by such insects (i.e. hosts that are defended by chemicals or hosts that provide insect defense) and the spatial scale over which these resources occur delimit opportunities for reproductive isolation? If so, the law of the unspecialized will fail whenever novel specializations promote reproductive isolation. Well-described cases of incipient sympatric speciation (e.g. sticklebacks Gasterosteus spp. and Apple maggot fly Rhagoletis spp.) and the maintenance of species boundaries in sympatry (columbine Aquilegia spp. and monkey flower Mimulus spp.) occurring as a result of the evolution of novel specializations for resource use support this view.

Environmental ethics today

Preface Acknowledgments INTRODUCTION What Is Environmental Ethics? Enviromental Ethics Under Attack Disturbing Trends in Human Health Future Generations World Trade Population Growth and Obligations to the World's Poor Obligations to Nonhumans Preview of Chapters PART I: ANTHROPOCENTRISM 1. OVERPOPULATION, MARKETS, AND HUMAN RIGHTS Overpopulation and Scarcity What Are Free Markets? Cornucopian Economics The Tragedy of the Commons Public Goods, Externalities, and Government Coercion Trading Pollution Permits A Market Approach to Overpopulation Lifeboat Ethics Psychological Egoism and the Possibility of Sharing Human Rights 2. ENERGY, ECONOMICS, AND FUTURE GENERATIONS Global Warming and Future Generations Human Rights and the Futurity Problem Fair Contracts and Future Generations Environmental Tradeoffs and Cost-Benefit Analysis CBA and Increasing Scarcity CBA and Political Equality CBA and Future Generations 3. COMPETING HUMAN-CENTERED VALUES Environmental Hazards in the Third World How Much Money Is a Human Life Worth? Should Prostitution Be Legalized? Non-economic vs. Economic Anthropocentrism Aesthetic Values National Heritage Transformative Values and Future Generations Moral Pluralism Moral Relativism PART II: NONANTHROPOCENTRISM 4. ANIMAL LIBERATION AND UTILITARIANISM Cruelty to Animals Utilitarianism Speciesism Animal Husbandry Vegetarianism Rodeos and Bullfights The Replacement Argument Against Hedonism Preference Utilitarianism 5. ANIMAL RIGHTS AND MEDICAL RESEARCH Introduction The Nature of Rights Immortal Souls and Rights Language, Abstract Thinking, and Rights Moral Personality and Rights Contracts and Rights An Animal's Right to Life The Benefits of Experiments on Animals Animal Rights vs. Animal Research Limited Animal Rights in Reflective Equilibrium Animal Research in Reflective Equilibrium 6. SPECIES DIVERSITY AND GAIA Massive Extinction of Species Causes of Extinction Why Do We Protect Endangered Species? Animal Rights vs. Species Preservation Species as Individual Living Things The Gaia Hypothesis From Science to Metaphor Metaphors and Moral Implications Mechanical and Organic Metaphors for Nature 7. THE LAND ETHIC Hunting Animals to Preserve Ecosystems The Nature of Ecosystems Does Hunting Help or Hurt Ecosystems? Why Value Ecosystems? Conflicting Moral Commitments Tigers and Elephants in the Third World PART III: ENVIRONMENTAL SYNERGISM 8. HUMAN RIGHTS, AGRICULTURE, AND BIODIVERSITY Poverty, Efficiency, and Human Rights Environmental Synergism The Benefits of High-tech Agriculture Specialization Leads to Preoccupation with Money Fouling Our Own Nest Sustainability Problems The Green Revolution Biodiversity and Human Welfare Anthropocentrism or Synergism? 9. ECOFEMINISM AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE From Feminism to Ecogeminism Women as Subordinate Indigenous People as Subordinate Nature as Subordinate Women and Nature Subordination of Minorities Encourages Pollution Subordination of Women, Environmental Degradation, and Overpopulation Subordination of Native Peoples Reduces Biodiversity 10. RELIGION AND NATURE Should People Play God? The Master Interpretation of Christianity Hermeneutics and the Constitution Hermeneutics and the Bible Narratives, Grand Narratives, and Worldviews Naess' Deep Ecology Native American Religions The Stewardship Interpretation of Christianity The Citizenship Interpretation of Christianity PART IV: APPLICATIONS 11. PERSONAL CHOICES, CONSUMERISM, AND HUMAN NATURE Consumerism vs. Synergism Justifications of Economic Growth High Consumption and Human Welfare Marketing Discontent Extrinsic Motivations and Their Limits Some Instrinsic Motivations Looking for Love Your Money or Your Life 12. PUBLIC POLICIES, EFFICIENCY, AND GLOBALIZATION The Need for Collective Action Subsidizing Inefficiency More Efficient Transportation Agricultural Politics Corporate Welfare and Campaign Finance Reform The Promise of Globalization Globalization and Human Misery The World Trade Organization, Environmental Protection, and Democracy Each chapter ends with a section on Judgment Calls FINAL REFLECTIONS-IS OPTIMISM JUSTIFIED? Conflicting Trends Fragmenting Societies We Are the World Value Nature and Limit Human Power GLOSSARY

Stages of Diversification

This Paper studies the evolution of sectoral labour concentration in relation to the level of per capita income. We show that various measures of sectoral concentration follow a U-shaped pattern across a wide variety of data sources: countries first diversify, in the sense that labour is spread more equally across sectors, but there exists, relatively late in the development process, a point at which they start to specialize again. We introduce a model with endogenous costs of trading internationally that provides an explanation for this new empirical fact. The model highlights a trade-off between the benefits of diversification in the context of high trading costs, and the benefits of specialization in a Ricardian sense.

Risks and Benefits of Youth Sport Specialization: Perspectives and Recommendations

Of growing concern to sport researchers is the practice of youth sport athletes specializing in sport at a young age. Sport specialization is characterized by year-round training in a single sport at the exclusion of other sport or nonsport activities. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the potential benefits of specialized sport at an early age in light of the potential risks associated with specialized participation. Three areas of consideration are discussed, including motor skill acquisition and performance, potential sociological consequences, and psychological concerns related to high-intensity training of young athletes. Finally, recommendations for further research and practical considerations are suggested for deciding the appropriateness of specialized sport in the training and development of youth sport athletes.

Rent sharing mechanisms in production alliances

U.S. hog production has become an industrialized process. New technology has caused the scale of operations to increase, and the organizational form of hog farms to change. One of the new organizational forms can be found in North Carolina and Colorado where vertical integration and/or franchise-like production methods prevail. This type of production may not be possible or appealing to some producers. Instead, they may be able to reap some of the benefits of specialization by forming strategic alliances. The purpose of the paper is to answer the question: is it possible to create the same sort of control mechanisms in a production alliance that exist in a vertically integrated firm? Production risk is potentially one of the greatest problems in an alliance. We represent production risk with two measurements of performance—pig weight, and pig mortality. We find that high mortality has severe consequences for pig production. But, with appropriate rent allocation mechanisms, the member who causes under-production will be forced to bear most of the consequences.

Rethinking Cost-Benefit Analysis

This paper analyzes cost-benefit analysis from legal, economic, and philosophical perspectives. The traditional defense of cost-benefit analysis is that it maximizes a social welfare function that aggregates unweighted and unrestricted preferences. We follow many economists and philosophers who conclude that this defense is not persuasive. Cost-benefit analysis unavoidably depends on controversial distributive judgments; and the view that the government should maximize the satisfaction of unrestricted preferences is not plausible. However, we disagree with critics who argue that cost-benefit analysis produces morally irrelevant evaluations of projects and should be abandoned. On the contrary, cost-benefit analysis, suitably constrained, is consistent with a broad array of appealing normative commitments, and it is superior to alterative methods of project evaluation. It is a reasonable means to the end of maximizing overall welfare when preferences are undistorted or can be reconstructed. And it both exploits the benefits of agency specialization and constrains agencies that might otherwise evaluate projects improperly.

Rethinking Cost-Benefit Analysis

This paper analyzes cost-benefit analysis from legal, economic, and philosophical perspectives. The traditional defense of cost-benefit analysis is that it maximizes a social welfare function that aggregates unweighted and unrestricted preferences. We follow many economists and philosophers who conclude that this defense is not persuasive. Cost-benefit analysis unavoidably depends on controversial distributive judgments; and the view that the government should maximize the satisfaction of unrestricted preferences is not plausible. However, we disagree with critics who argue that cost-benefit analysis produces morally irrelevant evaluations of projects and should be abandoned. On the contrary, cost-benefit analysis, suitably constrained, is consistent with a broad array of appealing normative commitments, and it is superior to alterative methods of project evaluation. It is a reasonable means to the end of maximizing overall welfare when preferences are undistorted or can be reconstructed. And it both exploits the benefits of agency specialization and constrains agencies that might otherwise evaluate projects improperly.

The Nature of the Farm

Using a model based on a trade‐off between moral hazard incentives and gains from specialization, this paper explains why farming has generally not converted from small, family‐based firms into large, factory‐style corporate firms. Nature is both seasonal and random, and the interplay of these qualities generates moral hazard, limits the gains from specialization, and causes timing problems between stages of production. By identifying conditions in which these forces vary, we derive testable predictions about the choice of organization and the extent of farm integration. To test these predictions we study the historical development of several agricultural industries and analyze data from a sample of over 1,000 farms in British Columbia and Louisiana. In general, seasonality and randomness so limit the benefits of specialization that family farms are optimal, but when farmers are successful in mitigating the effects of seasonality and random shocks to output, farm organizations gravitate toward factory processes and corporate ownership.

Improving functional density using run-time circuit reconfiguration [FPGAs

The ability to provide flexibility and allow fine-grain circuit specialization make field programmable gate arrays (FPGA's) ideal candidates for computing elements within application-specific architectures. The benefits of gate-level specialization and reconfigurability can be extended by reconfiguring circuit resources at run-time. This technique, termed run-time reconfiguration (RTR), allows the exploitation of dynamic conditions or temporal locality within application-specific problems. For several applications, this technique has been shown to reduce the hardware resources required for computation. The use of this technique on conventional FPGA's, however, requires additional time for circuit reconfiguration. A functional density metric is introduced that balances the advantages of RTR against its associated reconfiguration costs. This metric is used to justify run-time reconfiguration against other more conventional approaches. Several run-time reconfigured applications are presented and analyzed using this approach.

Seasonal variation as a determinant of population structure in rotifers reproducing by cyclical parthenogenesis

Monogonont rotifers live in habitats that display extensively variation in both biotic and abiotic components. Much of this variation is seasonal and therefore predictable for a given pond or lake. In 1972, King proposed one physiological and two genetic models presenting alternative modes of adaptation to this temporal variation. Our purpose in the present paper is to review and evaluate how our knowledge of the seasonal structure of rotifer populations has changed in the past 25 years. Seasonal changes in clone frequencies have been reported from three studies of natural populations using electrophoretic analysis of isozymes. In one of these studies there was evidence for substantial temporal overlap of multilocus genotypes suggesting that these clones were broad-niched generalists. By contrast, both the genetic and ecological analyses in the other two studies support a non-overlap model in which clonal groups are composed of narrow-niched specialists that undergo seasonal succession. In both of these studies the clonal groups appear to have achieved the status of sibling species, a phenomenon that we conclude is probably common in monogonont rotifers. Strong competition promotes reproductive isolation between successive groups of seasonal specialists. The existence of this competition has been inferred from natural populations and demonstrated by studies in the laboratory. Also required, and also supported by field observations, is a temporal separation of periods of mictic (sexual) reproduction. A final requirement of the nonoverlap model is seasonal variation in the timing of resting egg hatching. That is, clones established from hatching of resting eggs must enter a physiologically appropriate habitat if they are to increase in number and achieve a competitive advantage. Unfortunately, we still have little information on this topic. Finally, we present the results of a study analyzing the effects of variation in the mictic ratio (i.e., the relative frequency of mictic females) on the adaptive structure of rotifer populations. Mixis may shift the balance between costs and benefits of specialization thereby producing seasonally specialized populations that overlap in space but not time. Life history patterns may therefore provide fundamental insights on the adaptation of rotifers to the extensive temporal variation in their environments.

Separation of Ownership and Control

This paper analyzes the survival of organizations in which decision agents do not bear a major share of the wealth effects of their decisions. This is what the literature on large corporations calls separation of ownership and control. Such separation of decision and risk bearing functions is also common to organizations like large professional partnerships, financial mutuals and nonprofits. We contend that separation of decision and risk bearing functions survives in these organizations in part because of the benefits of specialization of management and risk bearing but also because of an effective common approach to controlling the implied agency problems. In particular, the contract structures of all these organizations separate the ratification and monitoring of decisions from the initiation and implementation of the decisions.

The purchaser/provider separation in child and family social work: Implications for service delivery and for the role of the social worker

This paper discusses some of the findings from a research study that was carried out in 1995. The study aimed to examine the implications of the use of the purchaser/provider separation (and associated care management processes) in social work with children and families, focusing on the effects of separation on service delivery and on the role of the social worker. The research involved two stages: a telephone survey (to gather quantitative data about the prevalence of organizational separation in England and qualitative data about perceived advantages and disadvantages of separation) and a single exploratory case study in a Local Authority Social Services Department.The paper is concerned primarily with the case study findings. It begins by locating organizational separation within a social policy context. This is followed by an overview of the existing literature on the implications of the purchaser/provider separation and care management for service delivery and for the social work role. The methods and key findings for the telephone survey and the case study are then described. Analysis of the case study data suggested that separation in this setting could be understood along three dimensions: efficient processing versus delays; control of the work and work processes versus lack of control; and clarity of role and task versus duplication. The paper ends with a discussion of the study’s main conclusion – that the purchaser/provider separation in child and family work may introduce benefits of specialization whilst also bringing problems associated with fragmentation of the traditional social work role.

Information processing and organization design

This paper examines the optimal structure of an organization in which analysts are hired to process information on behalf of a principal decision-maker whose attention is limited. I focus on the case where information processing exhibits declining complexity. This means that information processing becomes less complex as it progresses. The optimal organization design is determined endogenously as an optimal response to the limitations of the principal decision-maker in her attention to communication and supervision and to the limited processing ability of the analysts. I examine serial and parallel processing structures. I show that the optimal serial structure is ordered by ability. This ordering reflects specialization according to comparative advantage in processing. The choice between a serial structure and a parallel structure involves a tradeoff between the benefits of specialization in the serial structure and lower communication costs in the parallel structure.

Professional liability and the licensed profession

The pervasive benefits of specialization in modern economies lead to information asymmetry as a characteristic of many occupational markets. Each of us have our own skills and we are not always able accurately to discern the skills of others. In certain occupational markets, however, this ex ante information asymmetry is compounded by difficulties in gauging the quality of the work done or the service provided at the time of exchange. These tend to be occupations in which the service provided to buyers is in the nature of advice or intermediate tasks, the benefits from which are discernible only after a time lag. This type of information problem, with aspects of both adverse selection and moral hazard, is typical of markets in “professional” services such as law, accountancy and medicine. This paper is concerned with the way in which these markets can be governed in order to minimize the social costs associated with information asymmetries. A number of “solutions” have been suggested, and indeed most professional markets tend to be governed by more than one regulatory instrument. Skill levels of those who enter the profession can be regulated through licensing (by which the state or the profession itself imposes a minimum standard of competence) or by certification (by which the state or the profession itself provides information about skill levels). The quality of service delivered by a professional of given skill can be gov-

Sociology and Entrepreneurship: Concepts and Contributions

Sociological perspectives and research provide important and distinctive contributions to the understanding of entrepreneurship in three ways. The first is through the development of societal conceptions regarding productive activities that encompass the entrepreneurial role or function. The major alternatives emphasize socioeconomic systems as (a) moving toward an equilibrium (reflecting a broad consensus) or (b) reflecting the outcome of class competition (emphasizing conflict resolution). Both assume the inevitable dominance of massive productive organizations. These conceptions have recently been supplemented with attention to the dual nature of advanced economies or the benefits of flexible specialization. The second is through attention to specific societal characteristics affecting entrepreneurship: modernization; the role of the state in economic development; variations in the scope and nature of the unregistered (underground) economy; and the character of organizational populations and their ecological niche as they affect new firm foundings. The third is through attention to the impact of social context on the decisions of individuals to pursue entrepreneurial options. This includes attention to the individual's life course stage; social networks and embeddedness; ethnicity; and work experiences.

Organization of Informative Committees by a Rational Legislature

This paper combines an organization theory perspective with rational choice techniques to study legislative design. The specific focus is on how a legislature assigns members and transfers resources to standing committees with the aim of motivating committees to specialize and to share the benefits of specialization. The stimulus for the study comes from organization theory and a long tradition of empirical congressional studies. The main analytical tool, however, is a game of incomplete information. Several testable propositions about legislative organization are derived.

日野・トヨタ提携の史的考察

This article provides an historical analysis of the relations between the Toyota Motor Company and Hino Motors Limited, relations which formally began in 1966. Through such analysis, light can be shed on the general characteristics of tie-ups between vehicle manufacturers.Three basic areas are covered. First, Hino's failure in the small automobile sector is discussed. In the 1950's Hino was a specialist manufacturer of large trucks and buses. In 1961, it tried to enter the small car sector but, faced with severe competition, made an ungraceful exit and was left with a large investment in small car assembly equipment.Second, the tie-up with Toyota is examined. Through this tie-up, Hino was restored to its former position as a specialist in the large truck and bus field, and Toyota was able to utilize Hino as a subcontracting assembler of Toyota brand automobiles. This arrangement was good for both companies. Partly because of the benefits of specialization, Hino's market share gradually rose and it eventually reached the top position in its sector. For its part, Toyota was able to increase production through the subcontracting arrangement.Finally, the shift in the nature of the tie-up is considered. In the 1970's, as Japan's economy moved from high to low growth, the domestic demand for large trucks and buses began to stagnate and Hino suffered as a result. At the same time, needless to say, Toyota increased small car production through the expansion of both domestic and export markets.In general, this episode points out some of the long term factors involved in selection and bargaining between partners in vehicle manufacturing tie-ups.