Removing the barriers on the way to European high-performance finance functions

Technological changes that come with industrial revolution have largely affected businesses, as well as society. With the current technological shift and Fourth Industrial Revolution, many questions arise regarding the impacts and effects on current ways businesses operate. This study presents a retrospective analysis and overview of previous industrial revolutions. The aim of the retrospective analysis is to identify common characteristics that may lead to lessons learned for the forthcoming Fourth Industrial Revolution and thus complement the current debate on technological change. All previous industrial revolutions have led to change in business environments and new challenges for managers and owners. The findings show that all previous revolutions have led to increase in the number of service jobs created. The key approach of successful countries during the times of industrial revolution has included education as the source of new skills and knowledge necessary for adaption. Countries that were able to produce high skilled people could not only invent, but also adapt to new technologies sooner than others. Similarly, these approaches included introduction of new managerial practices in order to be able to utilize new technologies and new skilled workers effectively. The research article processes secondary data together with literature review on this topic.

A rigorous and extensive application of the value chain management (VCM) has become the vogue in modern day business practices and processes. However, due to the complex and multidimensional nature of value chains, achieving efficient and effective value chain management in real value chains remains a major conundrum for practitioners. Many unknown barriers continue to impede effective and efficient value chain management in developing countries’ industrial value chains. The purpose of this study was to find out the common barriers to effective value chain management in a developing country’s industrial value chains using evidence from the cotton industry in Zimbabwe. The analysis was based on survey data sets obtained from 157 purposively sampled experts from the cotton industry value chain in Zimbabwe. Exploratory factor analysis was used to find the barriers to effective value chain management. The results revealed both architectural and governance barriers to effective value chain management. The findings also presented major policy implications for industrial value chains in the developing countries and also indicated areas for further robust research founded on a broader data set from other developing countries’ industrial chains as a way of validating the findings of this study.

In many countries International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) have become part of the domestic law or common practice. Ukraine has also taken the first steps to the use of IFRS taking into account its national peculiarities. However, problems occur in the adaptation of international standards, which need to be solved. The proposed article is devoted to the research of specific problems arising during the implementation of IFRS in Ukraine. The author substantiates the expediency of implementing International Financial Reporting Standards in Ukraine, studies the prospects of using international standards in the national accounting practices and defines the principle of transformation as a priority. It determines the stages of IFRS implementation in Ukraine and the problems that arise on each of these stages. As a result, the study highlights the shortcomings of the national accounting system’s reform and ways of optimizing the process of IFRS implementation in Ukraine.