Large Accountancy Firms in the UK: Operational Adaptation and Spatial Development
Recent growth in the accountancy sector has been accompanied by a series of structural changes, in particular the concentration, internationalisation and diversification of accountancy practice. At the same time, the future of the partnership structure of accountancy firms is in doubt because of litigation pressure. Within the UK internal structural change has been accompanied by the geographical expansion of the large accountancy firms that now dominate the national and regional accountancy markets.
Market Competition and Mergers in Professional Service Firms
This study examines competition level and merger in Taiwanese audit industry over a long time interval of 1992-2008. Total public accounting firms are divided into four sub-samples in terms of market segment, including big, large, medium, and small firms. Next, based on prior studies and service attribute, this study establishes four practice sub-markets: auditing, tax, consultation, and accounting. Empirical results indicate that big firms have the highest competition level but the other three sub-samples show no significant differences in competition level. Next, the auditing, tax, and accounting sub-markets become more concentrated over time but consultation sub-market does not change significantly. Big firms exhibit the highest competition level in the four sub-markets and four sub-markets but achieve the best in three financial performance measures, net profit per partner, profit ratio, and productivity per employee. Post-merger firms financially outperform pre-merger firms for Taiwanese two big firms’ mergers occurred in 1999 and 2003.
Gender and History in Medieval English Romance and Chronicle
New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt/M., Oxford, Wien. This reading of canonical texts of medieval English literature - Sir Gawain and the Green Night and Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale - alongside Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britanniae and other Anglo-Norman and English chronicles offers a broader context for reading the romance narratives and re-evaluates romance conventions in light of the genealogical priorities of these chronicles. By arguing that maternity is featured as a position of power, Gender and History in Medieval English Romance and Chronicle adds to our understanding of women and sovereignty, and the ways gender and authority were rhetorically linked to medieval texts.