Francisco M. Somohano

Innovation Cost Determination by Tracking Innovation in Maps

This paper discusses how cost affects Management Control System (MCS) choices and effectiveness in creative contexts from a cost and benefit of information approach. We used Tessier and Otley’s (2012) conceptual development of Simons Levers’ control framework to propose an overhead cost allocation in a fashion textile company’s design department. This is a two-step action study. First, we analyse historic new design data using social network analysis software to introduce the concept of innovation maps or family design maps (designs networks). Second, we apply an allocation methodology based on these families’ costs. Several problems regarding an absence of data and the quality of data resulted in that some families were wrong defined, but the cost model was implemented with appropriate data fixing and data recording. This is an illustration of the importance of technical controls, which affect employee perceptions to induce a negative attitude. Typically, diagnostic versus interactive data or rewards versus punishments in terms of the use of controls are more often discussed by scholars that quality of data.

The Intellectual Capital and the Relevance of Non-Financial Information About Innovation in the Spanish Automotive Sector from an Accounting Perspective: A Proposal of an Indicator

Our research on the relevance of non-financial information considers to aspects: one that requires more complete and adequate information on intangibles or Intellectual Capital (IC); and another concerned with the today’s main accounting conceptual frameworks, to which a certain rigidness is attributed in terms of recognizing intangibles in financial areas that can lead to the financial information not being useful for those who use it. Given the complexity of IC, we concentrate on the information provided on websites of automobile component manufacturers in the Spanish automotive sector. We’ve designed an indicator for the innovation disclosure intensity (I3) and a classification of the activities carried out by these companies (UFPE). Both items are crossed with the ratio ROA and Cash-Flow from total assets (Self-financing Capacity). We found statistically significant evidence that companies with lower I3 have worse ROA and Self-financing Capacity ratios.

Proposal of a Model for Planning and Control at the Public University: Contrasting through Deterministic and Stochastic Frontiers

Today, the need to produce more with fewer resources is a inescapable objective, and the university is aware of this. The demand for continuous improvement in effectiveness, efficiency and economy, make it complex for the university’s heterogeneous and multiple activities; like any economic entity, the university requires internal information for benchmarking and supporting decision making, this is where the management information models take a role; but there has been more concern with the importance of determining the cost or design of the models, so that the true essence of the models is to obtain relevant, reliable and timely information that is useful to support the management of government bodies. In this sense, our doctoral thesis project is aims to be the proposal of a model that considers four approaches: cost, quality, time and flexibility; with it and without any institutional policy decision, we sought to estimate the value creation of the management entities in heterogeneous production from two complementary approaches: parametric and non-parametric, using a considerable disaggregation level in the proposed model.

Estimating Value Creation in the Public University: A Comparison of Deterministic and Stochastic Frontiers

Public value creation philosophy is based on the idea that public administration should guide its performance accordingly with the changing times and reconcile effectively its objectives with the appropriate use of its resources. However, in public administration, particularly in organizations characterized by heterogeneity of the mandated functions, this sort of analysis is difficult. In this work, we estimate changes in the value creation of a Spanish public university, specifically the University of Cantabria, over the period 2005-2007. We analyze 31 of its departments with deterministic and stochastic frontiers using panel data. The results reveal information related to productivity and efficiency change through time, as well as their possible causes for each of the evaluated Decision Making Units (DMUs).