Economic Instability and Financial Crises in a Capitalist Financial System: Empirical Evidence from the UK
Financial crisis have been happening for a long time now with little empirical studies investigating the real causes of these crisis and providing viable remedies. We provide empirical evidence of a three-stage cyclical pattern in an economy, following our investigation of the financial crisis of the past, where a gradual deterioration of financial structures occur that leads the economy into recession: The 'sustained economic activity' stage, characterised by the 'booming economic activity' stage. Unsolicited actions of many of the financial markets' players operate during both of these stages to push the economy into a 'booming economic activity'; the next stage is the formation of a 'bubble' and gradual enlargement of this credit 'bubble' in the sector; in the next stage this bubble ruptures and results in the financial crises in that sector. The economy thus experiences a big confidence shock and failure of financial institutions. The study makes policy recommendations to financial markets players and regulators.
Leadership, Business Schools and Financial Crises: The search for a missing link
Business schools produce leaders who command 'power' and 'governmentality', as per Foucault's theoretical conceptualisations, to institutionalise routines and social practices in contemporary organisations. These leaders must uphold ethics in their business decisions; however, this has not been reflected in many instances, as recurring financial crises have depicted over time. Efforts to address the issue and reach its root cause have failed to deliver concrete results so far, which necessitates an objective probe into today's business education. This conceptual-cum-analytical paper proposes an alternate, indirect approach to effectively tackle the issue. We suggest two remedies: first, transformative teaching and learning activities that inculcate ethical values into students should be implemented at the grass root level - primary and secondary schools, that feed into business schools with future business leaders; second, a conducive corporate governance environment within business organisations that supports ethical decisions and nurtures ethical behaviour needs to be developed - arguably the first being the prerequisite for the second.
Business Schools and Sustainability: A Promise Unfulfilled
"Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man" (anonymous). With the recent financial crises and associated corporate collapses combined with the seemingly unstoppable environmental degradation at the hands of organisations, the external environment for Management Accounting education around the world has not been very conducive. Society is expecting a change that will shift the current management accounting education paradigm to a more robust one, which could not only solve the current problems facing the environment and the financial world but also ensure such problems are not repeated in the future. Business schools around the world are being blamed for producing graduates whose unethical and immoral decisions have contributed if not resulted in these problems. This conceptual paper appeals to policy-makers and argues a case to identify and address the root cause of the problem. Business schools claim they have imbedded ethics and its significance in business decision-making into their curricula, but apparently this has not been reflected by these Schools' graduates in their routine decision-making in organizations. Thus, we argue that ethical behaviour in most cases cannot be taught in adulthood; and ethics taught at the business schools will not be implemented by their graduates in their practical life if ethics has not been inculcated into their very personalities at an early age. In this conceptual paper we suggest two remedies for ensuring smooth and efficient functioning of markets on a long-term basis: first, transformative teaching and learning activities that inculcate ethical behaviours into students should be implemented at secondary schools that feed universities with potential business graduates and develop personalities and mindsets that dominate students' behaviour throughout their life, and then reinforced at universities; second, conducive corporate governance environment within business organizations that encourages and fully supports ethical decisions - the first being the pre-requisite for the second.