Role Of Committees Research Articles

The impact of expertise on the mediating role of the audit committee

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine external auditors' perceptions of the impact of audit committee financial expertise and industry expertise on the mediating role played by the committee in resolving auditor‐client disagreements.Design/methodology/approachThe study is a 2×2 between subjects experimental design, using 61 Malaysian auditors as participants. The authors manipulate audit committee financial expertise and industry expertise at high and low levels.FindingsIt is found that external auditors perceive that audit committees play a greater mediating role and use mediating techniques to a greater extent when committee members' financial and industry expertise is high compared to when expertise is lower.Originality/valueThis is the first paper to examine the importance of audit committee expertise on the mediating role of the audit committee. The major contribution of the paper is the finding that auditors believe the audit committee's role as a mediator is strengthened not only by the committee members' accounting and auditing expertise but also by their industry expertise. The paper's findings have implications for practitioners and regulators who are concerned with the role of the audit committee in enhancing the integrity of the financial reporting and audit process.

EU Counterterrorism and Aviation Security: Supranational Rules but Intergovernmental Politics?

Even though it is far from institutionalized, the field of international aviation security is dominated by growing global trends such as the proliferation of the ban on liquids in hand luggage and of the installation of body scanners in airports. The initiators of these two trends are the US in coalition with specific European states. In these cases, the European Union (EU) varies from being an early adopter to a belated one, depending on its internal politics. By employing its veto powers in full, the European Parliament (EP) has achieved a relevant influence over the policy content. In turn, despite the supranational character of decision-making rules in the EU aviation security area, the European Commission has played a weak role as an agenda setter in the substantive choices and has concentrated on performing as a coordinator - thus playing a similar role to its involvement in a number of EU intergovernmental issues. In any event, the agenda of EU aviation security is firmly in the hand of the Member States. After adopting a standard, the EU has tried to export it; yet in that process, the Commission's role is also weakened vis-a-vis the Member States' capacities.

Victimological research in Slovenia

The article gives an overview of victimological research in Slovenia. The overview has different orientations: it started with analysis of the victim?s role in commission of the offence and ended with research on help and support to the victim; it started with research into particular offences and their victims and proceeded to analyses of structural violence. Victim surveys as having been implemented in Slovenia are being presented. The article follows the victimological research studies from first empirical projects to those studies that have later allowed for theoretical generalizations. The contribution gives an account of activities of victimology as an advocacy as well as of victim support schemes developed in Slovenia during the last ten to twenty years. Finally, it presents the development of the concept of restorative justice, especially mediation and the ways it has entered into the Slovene criminal justice system.

New integrity issues for independents and minority governments

There is always a need for new measures of public accountability and integrity, not so much because current systems are lacking, but because new challenges constantly arise. One such challenge is emerging as parliamentary systems within Westminster-influenced jurisdictions are becoming more accustomed to minority parties and/or independents playing a significant role in government. This is particularly potent in the current Australian context where a minority parliament has resulted in a situation where the changing vote of any parliamentarian could change the outcome of legislation. This situation raises new questions and presents new opportunities for the development of enhanced measures to support ethical action and decision-making for all parliamentarians. More specifically, the anticipated creation of an Australian Commissioner of Parliamentary Integrity, with a brief to provide advice on ethical issues for parliamentarians, provides such an opportunity. This article draws on recent literature to put forward an expanded model of ‘parliamentary integrity’, as well as acknowledging the need for greater practical utility of concepts in this field by exploring a range of challenges that face independents and single-member parties. It suggests that the new Commissioner's role might be grounded in a notion of parliamentary integrity as the service of the public good, rather than the simple avoidance of coercion, corruption or crime. In doing so, the article identifies not only an opportunity to respond to the current political landscape in Australia but also to set a new standard for integrity and accountability in Westminster systems.

Europeanization of EU Member-State Competition Policy: The Commission's Leadership Role

The European Commission (EC) has long intended to play a leadership role in setting a pan-European competition policy; yet, both centralized and decentralized tendencies have been manifest in the European context for competition policy. It is not clear the whether these leadership intentions translate into actual leadership by the EC. We shed light on this issue by considering and estimating whether the EC’s leadership is both evident and robust. We present a framework that highlights the costs to Member States of diverging from EC merger policy norms. Employing cross-national panel data (covering 1994-2005) on European merger control, we find that changes in the EC’s proclivity to remedy mergers are reflected in Member States in subsequent years. Thus, the European Commission appears to play a leadership role in setting the tenor of merger policy throughout Europe.

Table of Contents

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Images of Europe: How Commission Officials Conceive Their Institution's Role*

AbstractHow do Commission officials conceive the Commission's role in the European Union? Should the Commission be the government of Europe or the servant of Member States? Is there a third possibility – that of institutional pragmatism, whereby Commission and Member States share authority? This article lays out jurisdictional options and role conceptions adopted by Commission officials, and estimates their relative incidence using a 2008 large‐scale survey among Commission officials (N = 1,901). There is a plurality of views, though within relatively narrow parameters. In explaining variation, national background shapes views more than professional background.

Does the European Commission Have Too Much Power Enforcing European Competition Law?

The article critically assesses the role of the Directorate General of the European Commission in executing enforcement of the European Communities Competition Law. The Commission is granted equally unprecedented legal powers to carry out the functions of policy maker, investigator, “judge”, “jury”, and “executioner”. For some, it is accordingly difficult to resist the suggestion that the focus of so many regulatory roles and so much power in the hands of one organization represents a legitimate source of concern. By comparing the European system of antitrust enforcement with that of the United States and examining the historical evolvement of the Commission's role, the article determines whether focus of so much power in the hands of the European Commission forms a legitimate source of concern. It determines whether so much power given to the Commission may interfere with the basic rights of corporate undertakings to carry out their business operations, and how the powers granted to the Commission lead to legally based reasons for anxiety.

Quality, safety, and a new people's champion

The Care Quality Commission was set the task of bringing adult social care, NHS and independent healthcare services under the same regulatory umbrella. After two busy years, Cynthia Bower examines certain aspects of the commission's role and welcomes a new development that will amplify the voices of people who rely on care services.

Collaboration, simplicity and transparency (CoSiTra): the European Society of Anaesthesiologyʼs guidelines initiative

Collaboration, simplicity and transparency (CoSiTra): the European Society of Anaesthesiologyʼs guidelines initiative

The Notional Legislator: The Australian Securities and Investments Commission's Role as a Law-Maker

This article was awarded the 2011 Zines Prize for Excellence in Legal Research, an annual award for the best article published in the Federal Law Review.Along with its power to exercise 'on the ground' discretion to alter the way in which legislative rules are applied (for example, by granting exemptions in particular cases), the executive agency that is charged with administering the corporations legislation in Australia has the power to re-write aspects of that legislation. It can, in effect, do the work of Parliament. This article examines the discretionary power of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) to change the operation of the Corporations Act 2001 by issuing Class Orders that omit, modify or insert provisions into the Act. The existence and operation of ASIC's power has attracted little critical attention in the legal literature, be it academic, judicial, or professional. This article examines the scope of this power, its operation and history. The article is prompted by a concern that the system of statutory modification via Class Order, while beneficial to the flexible regulation of the corporate and finance sector, has developed into a substantial and complex body of 'notional legislation'.

The Notional Legislator: The Australian Securities and Investments Commission's Role as a Law-Maker

Socio-legal scholars have long recognised the importance of understanding the difference and the interaction between the 'law in the books' - the formal legal rules and doctrines made by parliaments and the courts, and the 'law in action' - the processes and practices by which those rules and doctrines are put into effect. Similarly, public lawyers and regulatory theorists have highlighted the importance of understanding the role of regulatory discretion in the enforcement of rules. The commonly understood message in these overlapping areas of research is that we cannot properly understand the law if we limit our attention to formal rules. A related point is that there is nothing necessarily improper about the exercise of regulatory discretion. Nor is there anything necessarily improper about the fact that the processes of rule enforcement can produce different outcomes than might be suggested by a simple reading of the rule itself.

Commissioning reform in the NHS: will he who pays the piper ever really call the tune?

Since the purchaser/provider split was first introduced in the early 1990s, there have been successive attempts to enhance and strengthen the role of commissioners in the English NHS. Their role is to ensure that health services are planned and delivered in a way that meets the interests of patients and taxpayers rather than healthcare providers. The new coalition government has recently set out its proposals to transfer commissioning responsibilities from primary care trusts to a national NHS Commissioning Board and a set of general practice-led commissioning consortia. It is too early to say whether these reforms are likely to transform commissioning and finally place payers, rather than providers, in the driving seat of the NHS. However they unfold they are likely to have a significant impact on healthcare professionals in commissioning, primary care and specialist roles.

Powering “Progress”: Regulation and the Development of Michigan's Electricity Landscape

This article examines state-level regulation as it affected Michigan's electricity infrastructure system. Whereas many studies make central the utility companies who built and operated the system, I argue that Michigan's utilities laws and the specific actions of the regulatory body, the Michigan Public Service Commission, played a crucial role in shaping the state's electricity landscape. The regulatory process, and in particular rate-of-return accounting, converged with a specific notion of progress that linked the deployment of new infrastructure to statewide socioeconomic advancement, producing a landscape dominated by huge projects and excess generating capacity. In spite of industry restructuring in the 1990s, historical attitudes toward both infrastructure and consumption continue to limit conservation and renewable fuels programs today. Beginning with a brief history of Michigan's electricity landscape, the article shifts to the Commission's role in setting rules whereby utilities could operate, profit, and make investments. I examine impacts of Commission policies as typified by hearings surrounding the Midland Nuclear Facility. Next, I consider the role of progress in utility and regulatory decisions and conclude with a look at the legacies of earlier policies, decisions, and attitudes.

Governance prescriptions under trial: On the interplay between the logics of resistance and compliance in audit committees

This paper examines linkages between discourse and social change, in the context of corporate governance in times of turbulence. Specifically, we study how regulatory prescriptions and best-practice discourse promoting a strengthening of audit committees’ work, in the aftermath of the 2001–2002 financial scandals, were received by audit committee members. Is reception characterized with a logic of compliance and/or one of resistance? Conceptually, our study is informed by the notion of trials of strength, in that prescriptions are submitted to a series of loosely connected and quite informal tests taking place within the audit committee community. Our investigative task is predicated on in-depth interviews with audit committee members of Canadian public companies. The analysis indicates that the interviews are mainly reflective of a logic of resistance, which is especially sustained through interpretive strategies ultimately attributing the collapses of Enron and Arthur Andersen to atypical and unrepresentative actors. Prescriptions calling for a strengthening of the audit committee's role are deemed irrelevant in this context; mandatory changes tend to be superficially implemented and do not translate into a significant shift in committee members’ ways of thinking and doing. However, our interviews point to one specific area where substantive change developed, that is to say committee members’ views regarding the association between audit fees and audit quality. As such, our paper consolidates literature on trials of strength in bringing further light on their complexities – specifically in showing that trials can be tentacular (being loosely related to one another), paradoxical (generating resistance and compliance simultaneously), and secretive (taking place behind closed doors). Implications in terms of democratic governance are discussed.

The Role, Remit and Function of the Research Ethics Committee — 3. Balancing Potential Social Benefits against Risks to Subjects

This is the third in a series of five papers on the role, remit and function of research ethics committees which are intended to provide for REC members a broad understanding of the most important issues in research ethics and governance. This paper examines the role of ethics committees in balancing the social value of the research it reviews against the risks it imposes on those who take part. The ethics committee's role in assessing the social value of research goes well beyond checking its scientific validity and this assessment may affect the risks ethics committees are prepared to ask of subjects not only for their own potential personal interests but importantly and inevitably in the name of science. However, their function is importantly restricted by the wider regulatory and governance environment in which they work.

A study of risk management and performance measures on new product development

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the management process considering risks and performances in developing new products.Design/methodology/approachThe paper provides risk factors and performance factors based on literature reviews and then discusses risk and performance management processes during the product development period. Some lessons for effective risk management and performance measures are reported.FindingsThe timing of risk management and performance measures is important to the impact level of performance.Practical implicationsThis proposed framework could be used as a basis for systematic management of R&D investment projects.Originality/valueThe paper provides insights into the R&D committee's role in developing new products.

The area of freedom, security and justice in the Lisbon Treaty: commission policy entrepreneurship?

Scholars may rightly claim the European Union's (EU) area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ) has become one of the most significant developments in the European integration process. The Lisbon Treaty (LT) has the potential to push the AFSJ towards tremendous growth, and has provided the policy area with instruments that were unthinkable after the third pillar was created during the Maastricht Treaty negotiations. This article investigates the role of the European Commission in the process of constructing an ‘AFSJ’. It argues that the Commission (through alliances with other institutional actors) managed to incrementally contribute to this shift in political norms. This shift derived from the policy-making level from 1999 onwards. It manifested itself specifically during the negotiations of the Constitutional Treaty (CT) and the subsequent re-negotiation of the LT. Here, the Commission acted with the support and the use of other supranational actors during the Convention, without which this result would have been difficult, if not impossible, to obtain. Firstly, the article will deal with the main advances of the CT which resulted in the LT. Subsequently, the role of the Commission and other EU institutional actors will be examined, resulting in an overall evaluation.

The Role of Working Groups of Commissioners in Co‐ordinating Policy Implementation: The Case of Trans‐European Networks (TENs)

AbstractAnalysis of the Commission's role in policy implementation has focused largely on the administrative rather than political level. Yet little attention has been paid to the importance of high‐level Commission actors, such as Commissioners and Director‐Generals at this stage. This article analyses the role of a working group (WG) of Commissioners in monitoring and co‐ordinating the implementation of trans‐European networks (TENs) in transport. It argues that formally institutionalized structures for intra‐College co‐operation provide important arenas for creativity, entrepreneurship and consensus‐building. Ultimately, the consistent and sustained political involvement of Commissioners improves the Commission's administrative co‐ordination and may, ultimately, help secure better policy implementation.

THE EU COMITOLOGY SYSTEM: WHAT ROLE FOR THE COMMISSION?

The literature on comitology has largely ignored the European Commission's actual behaviour in the daily workings of the numerous comitology committees that were designed to control it. On the basis of survey data of Danish and Dutch representatives on nearly all comitology committees, this paper investigates the Commission's role in the system. We find that the Commission acts both as a mediator and as a policy advocate, but to varying degrees. We take a first step towards understanding this behaviour by an inspection of four arguments found in the literature on comitology and the Commission: the constraining or enabling impact of the comitology procedures; the institutional position of the responsible Directorate-General; the nature of the cases dealt with by the committees and, finally, the intensity of the member states' preferences in relation to the committees' cases. In comitology, each of these arguments shapes the mediating or the advocating behaviour of the Commission.