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This study examined sex differences in the prevalence of mutual intimate partner violence (IPV) and mental health symptoms among Ghanaian university students. Three hundred and fifty‐eight university students in heterosexual relationships were asked if they had experienced IPV, coercion, and symptoms of depression or post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as attitudes on the use of violence. Analyses were conducted separately for female and male respondents to explore sex differences in mutual violence and correlates of partner violence and mental health symptoms. Bivariate analyses found that both males and females reported strong correlations between IPV perpetration and IPV victimisation. Multivariate analyses found that among female respondents, their coercive behaviours, attitudes that accept violence and alcohol use were related to perpetrating against their male partner. Among male respondents, attitudes that accept violence and symptoms of conduct disorder were related to abusing their female partner. Additionally, results were that both females and males reported increased mental health symptoms if she/he reported childhood abuse and if her/his partner had attitudes that accepted the use of violence to achieve goals. Taken together, these findings suggest that the majority of couples experience mutual violence and that both females and males can have violent attitudes that accept the use of violence to control their intimate partners, which may also contribute to mental health symptomology.

This paper considers two important aspects of joint venture (JV) activity between Western firms and local partner firms in Turkey. First, the strategic motivation for JV formation is investigated for a sample of Western partner firms. The relative importance of a set of strategic motives is identified and discussed with respect to the nationality of foreign partner. Second, the paper considers partner selection criteria for the sample using a typology that distinguishes between partner‐related and task‐related selection criteria and also examines the relationship between the relative importance of selection criteria and the nationality of foreign partner.

The notion of communities of practice (CoP) has received great attention in educational and organisational practice and research. Although the concept originally refers to collaborative practices that emerge naturally, educational and HRD practitioners are increasingly searching for ways to create these practices intentionally in order to stimulate learning and professional development in specific fields. This paper aims to gain insight into ways in which communities of practice can be deliberately organised.

The study concerns a multiple case study of the deliberate initiation of 15 communities of practice of small and medium‐sized companies in the tourist sector, located in seven European countries. The analysis focuses on how meaningful, shared and coordinative activity is organised in each of the 15 cases. A multiple case study allowed for comparison between the various cases in order to target fruitful conditions and actions in organisation processes.

In the initiation of a CoP it is important that before an outsider starts to organise and coordinate activities questions such as “How are we relevant to one another?” and “Who are we and where are we going?” are answered first, and by the group itself. These questions relate to the development of meaningful activity (domain) and of shared activity (community). Following this, any coordinative system, any practice, should be subordinated to the motives of the group.

Besides identifying various actions for human resource developers who aim to apply the concept of CoP in professional work, the study contributes to the scientific formulation of pedagogical notions around communities of practice.

Reports on the role of UK emigrants to the USA in the creation and early development of its public accountancy profession. Explains findings in the context of US public accountancy firms founded by UK immigrants and focuses on the recruitment of qualified and unqualified public accountants from the UK. The study is based on searches of relevant archives in the UK and USA. The evidence reveals UK immigrants played a substantial part in the formation and early development of both public accountancy firms and institutions in the USA. However, the recruitment of immigrants by US firms appears to have been a temporary phenomenon pending the supply of US‐born accountants with suitable training and experience. The firms examined include local and national firms. Subject to data retrieval limitations, a major conclusion of the study is that unqualified immigrants played significant roles in the early histories of firms and institutions of US public accountancy.

This research examined how Australian construction projects perform in the area of client-led innovation. The purpose of this paper is to test the influence of a set of enablers in promoting the innovative performance of construction projects and examine how Australian construction projects perform in relation to innovation.

A questionnaire was developed and distributed to over 300 construction industry practitioners to obtain perceptions of industry practitioners regarding client-led enablers to promoting innovation at the project level, with 131 valid responses received. The data from the survey were subjected to statistical analyses including mean comparisons, using the Mann–Whitney U-test and Kruskal Wallis Test.

This research identified a number of enablers that clients can employ in construction projects to enhance innovative performance. It also revealed that the innovative performance of construction projects in Australia appears to be above average, although the perceived level is not too high. The main finding of the research is that Australian clients could achieve higher outcomes from construction projects by promoting innovativeness in their projects, especially by promoting innovativeness in their own organizations and providing incentives/rewards and other support for innovative activities in projects.

Past research focusing on client-led enablers at the project level is limited. This research identified a number of enablers that clients can employ to achieve greater benefits from their projects through innovation.

This paper aims to examine the tensions amongst the audit firms operating in Sri Lanka with the introduction of open economic policies in early 1980s and its impact to the auditing profession.

Using a qualitative approach, this study consists of in-depth interviews, documentary review and critical interpretation supported by the perspectives of globalisation, digitalisation and neo-liberalism.

The findings indicate that the main reasons for the tension between audit firms (local and international) have been the conflict of interests on the market share. While global pressures on International Standards of Auditing created more opportunities for international audit firms to capture a wider market with the support of the state, the local audit firms apparently lost their market and experienced tension created by staff. Evidence shows the negative impact of globalisation on the open economic policies and the local audit market.

The findings of this research will be useful for policymakers in revising auditing practices to ensure healthy corporate governance. Only 25 interviews were conducted; hence, the results may not be a holistic representation of the audit environment in Sri Lanka.

This study is significant, as the business capital has surged into Sri Lankan market as a result of the ongoing international agencies-led economic reforms. Such reforms have emphasised the transparency and accountability.

Building on the resource-based view of the firm the purpose of this paper is to study the intangible resources available for social ventures, and presents a typology of growth strategies based on the intangible resources possessed by those enterprises.

This research applies a multiple case study technique for ten social enterprises in Egypt listed on Ashoka and Schwab Foundation websites. The research employs a purposive sampling technique. Data triangulation is used based on reports, websites, and interviews with social entrepreneurs and employees.

The study has three main findings: describing the intangible resources needed by social ventures to grow; detailing the growth strategies adopted by social ventures and corresponding funding mechanisms; explaining how intangible resources affect the selection of growth strategies, and how these interact with the context to produce expected outcomes. Overall, a typology for growth strategies of social ventures is presented.

This paper is an original attempt to advance research on social enterprises in relation to the RBV and the domain of venture growth and impact scale-up.

This research is beneficial for social ventures and venture philanthropists who wish to learn about the specific resources important for venture growth, and understand the suitable strategies and context for organizational growth and impact scale-up.

This research is one of the few attempts to study and explain the types of intangible resources in social ventures and the role of different resource bundles in deciding social venture growth strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how experience and gender relate to the auditors’ moral awareness.

Hypotheses are informed by a neurocognitive approach to ethical decision-making and tested using survey data from 191 auditors of a Big Four audit firm in The Netherlands.

The main findings indicate that more experienced auditors (i.e. those with more years of work experience, a higher rank and a higher age) show higher levels of moral awareness. This positive relationship is stronger for morally questionable situations related to accounting and auditing, compared to general business moral dilemmas. In addition, the results support the expectation that on average, female auditors have higher moral awareness than their male counterparts.

To the knowledge of the authors, this is the first study that considers a neurocognitive approach to inform hypotheses about the antecedents of auditors’ moral awareness. The findings suggest that the involvement of experienced auditors in ethical decision-making processes may be beneficial given their enhanced ability to identify ethically disputable situations as such. Furthermore, increasing the number of women in senior positions may positively affect ethical decision-making in audit firms. Finally, this paper presents directions for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how external auditors communicate with audit committees (ACs).

A total of 53 interviews were conducted with participants in the ACs of 22 French companies listed in the CAC 40 index, including external and internal auditors, CFOs, AC chairpersons, and members.

In multiple accountability relationships, external auditors sit in the middle. They therefore use impression management (IM). While AC members expect them to be transparent, they are also expected to preserve managers’ “face” by sustaining impressions of consistency. The construction of impressions of consistency and transparency takes place mainly backstage, through time-consuming teamwork shared by auditors and CFOs. External auditors have power to make things transparent, but the use of such power is tricky, because it can damage relationships with CFOs. External auditors have a difficult “discrepant role” (Goffman, 1959) to play.

This study provides insights into what occurs behind the scenes with ACs, which can help regulators think deeper about relationships between external auditors and ACs.

This research makes contribution to governance, IM, and AC literature. It analyzes the AC process from external auditors’ – rather than AC members’ – points of view. Highlighting the AC process backstage, it shows that IM can be carried out collectively toward an internal rather than external audience and demonstrates that external auditors practice rather than limiting IM.

This study explores the multi-phasic experience of festivals to understand the nature, purpose and degree of social media (SM) use before, during and after festival occurrence and how this may inform better engagement of attendees.

A census of tweets and posts from four festivals’ Twitter handles and Facebook accounts were coded and analyzed across three time points: one week prior, during and one week after the festival. They were coded on nature (e.g. conversational, promotional, informational), purpose (e.g. information-seeking, friendship/relationship) and presence of links, photos, etc. Tests for platform influences on usage were conducted.

In total, 1,169 tweets and 483 posts were captured. Two-thirds of SM activity occurred during the festivals, one-third pre-festival and minimal activity post festival. Temporal analyses found that while the purpose and nature of the message content varied across festival time points, this was often dependent on SM platform.

Festivals are not taking advantage of the multi-phase experience model and the utility of SM to maintain contact and encourage visitors to continue processing their experience after the festival. This lost opportunity has implications for re-patronizing behaviour and sponsor relationships.

Leung et al. (2013a) call for sector specific research to elucidate SM use in tourism. Festivals provide a unique environment of co-created experience. Findings suggest differential usage of SM across festival time frames and platforms that can be used to guide festival organizations’ SM communication to better engage its patrons.