Search results

This study aims to examine the effect of perceived supervisor support (PSS) and workplace dignity (WPD) on employees' affective commitment to change (ACC). It also investigates PSS as an antecedent of WPD and WPD as a mediator between PSS and ACC.

To examine the proposed relationships, data was collected from employees of an Indian public sector company undergoing many change initiatives at the time of the study. The hypotheses were tested using the structural equation model.

The findings indicate the direct effect of PSS and WPD on employees' ACC, and WPD does mediate between PSS and ACC. The results also suggest PSS works as an antecedent of WPD.

The findings suggest how organizations can enhance employees’ ACC by creating a positive context involving supervisor support and experience of WPD.

The findings contribute to ACC literature by highlighting the role of WPD and PSS. This is one of the few quantitative studies which examines the antecedent and consequences of WPD.

The purpose of this paper is to study the extent of behavioral acculturation of consumer culture (B‐ACC) and attitudinal acculturation of consumer culture (A‐ACC) among the urban, educated, middle class Indian consumers. It also aims to test if B‐ACC and A‐ACC among various demographic segments of Indian consumers differ on the basis of their ownership/usage of foreign brands vis‐à‐vis Indian brands.

An empirical study has been conducted to address the above mentioned objectives. Data have been collected from urban, educated, middle class Indian consumers using structured questionnaire and following snowball and judgment sampling methods. Data analysis has been done using ANOVA and T‐test.

The results show that highly educated Indian consumers who fall under the age group of 16‐25 years and belong to upper‐middle class show greater levels of B‐ACC as well as A‐ACC vis‐à‐vis other demographic segments of Indian consumers. In the total sample as well as among all the demographic segments, it was observed that B‐ACC is significantly higher than A‐ACC. Indian consumers who own/use foreign brands show significantly higher B‐ACC across most of demographic segments.

The research clearly identifies the segment which would be most receptive to the globalized marketing strategies of various multinational corporations.

The paper shows the extent of B‐ACC and A‐ACC among the Indian consumers. It provides empirical support to the contention in the extant literature that B‐ACC would be greater than A‐ACC among consumers in the emerging markets.

This study aims to identify the critical factors (barriers and drivers) influencing the adoption of cloud computing (ACC) in the manufacturing sector in India.

In this study, a mixed methodology approach is used. Interviews are conducted to investigate factors (drivers and barriers) influencing the ACC, which are further categorized as controllable determinants (weaknesses and strengths) and uncontrollable determinants (threats and opportunities) using a SWOT analysis. Fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) has been utilized to highlight the most critical drivers as well as barriers. Finally, decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) has been used to find the cause-effect relationships among factors and their influence on the decision of adoption.

The manufacturing sector is in the digital and value change transformation phase with Industry 4.0, that is, the next industrial revolution. The 24 critical factors influencing ACC are subdivided into strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The FAHP analysis ranked time to market, competitive advantage, business agility, data confidentiality and lack of government policy standards as the most critical factors. The cause-effect relationships highlight that time to market is the most significant causal factor, and resistance to technology is the least significant effect factor. The results of the study elucidate that the strengths of ACC are appreciably more than its weaknesses.

This study couples the technology acceptance model (TAM) with technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework and adds an economic perspective to examine the significant influences of ACC in the Indian manufacturing sector. Further, it contributes to the knowledge of ACC in general and provides valuable insights into interrelationships among factors influencing the decision and strategies of adoption in particular.

This is the first scholarly work in the Indian manufacturing sector that uses the analysis from SWOT and FAHP approach as a base for identifying cause-effect relationships between the critical factors influencing ACC. Further, based on the extant literature and analysis of this work, an adoption framework has been proposed that justifies that ACC is not just a technological challenge but is also an environmental, economic and organizational challenge that includes organizational issues, costs and need for adequate government policies.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the special items (SI) mispricing reported in Burgstahler et al. is distinct from the accruals (ACC) mispricing documented in Sloan.

This paper employs the control hedge‐portfolio test, non‐overlap hedge‐portfolio test, and regression analysis to determine whether the SI anomaly is distinct from the ACC anomaly. In addition, the Mishkin test is used to examine the impact of SI on the ACC anomaly.

This paper has four main findings. First, one‐year‐ahead abnormal returns to the special‐items‐based hedge portfolio are much diminished when holding ACC constant, whereas those to the ACC‐based hedge portfolio remain significantly positive when holding SI constant. Second, the special‐items‐based hedge portfolio loses much of its ability to earn future abnormal returns without the help of extreme ACC, whereas the ACC‐based hedge portfolio remains profitable without the help of extreme SI. Third, SI are no longer negatively associated with future abnormal returns after controlling for ACC, whereas ACC remain negatively associated with future abnormal returns after controlling for SI. Finally, SI affect the extent to which the market overprices ACC, with negative (positive) SI aggravating (alleviating) ACC overpricing.

This is the first paper to show that the SI anomaly is dependent on the ACC anomaly.

Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), Klebsiella pneumoniae (K. pneumoniae) and Streptococcus pneumoniae (S. pneumoniae) are among the pathogens detected during Hajj pilgrimage known to cause pneumonia. This study aims to evaluate the antibacterial activity of activated carbon cloth (ACC) with Ag⁺ impregnated with zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) against these pathogens.

ZnO NPs were impregnated into ACC-Ag⁺ via layer-by-layer (LbL) self-assembly. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to observe the fine surface morphological details of the ACC-Ag⁺-ZnO sheets. Antibacterial activity of the ACC-Ag⁺-ZnO sheets was evaluated using the disk-diffusion susceptibility assay. Allergy patch test was done to evaluate allergic reactions of the ACC-Ag⁺-ZnO sheets on human skin.

SEM micrographs showed successful impregnation of ZnO NPs into the ACC-Ag⁺ sheets. Disk-diffusion susceptibility assay results of ACC-Ag⁺-ZnO sheets against S. aureus, K. pneumoniae and S. pneumoniae showed good antibacterial activity; with 1.82 ± 0.13 mm zone of inhibition for S. pneumoniae, at a ZnO concentration of 0.78 mg mL^-1. No signs of human skin irritation were observed throughout the allergy patch test.

Results indicate that ACC-Ag⁺-ZnO sheets could potentially be embedded within surgical face masks (pilgrims’ preferred) to reduce the risks involved with the transmission of respiratory tract infections during and after mass gatherings (e.g. Hajj/Umrah, Olympics).

ACC Limited, under Project 30-30, had targeted to produce and sell 30 million tons (mt) of cement in the year 2011. In May 2011, the Head of Central Logistics had found the target of the project to have become increasingly difficult to achieve. He believed that to sell 30 mt of cement, 30 mt had to be transported, thereby, advancing the role of the logistics function from that of a mere facilitator to a critical actor. As possible opportunities to increase sales, issues at the Bulk Cement Corporation (India) Limited (BCCI), and the plant at Wadi are being discussed in the case. The head of BCCI had raised concerns about the decreased logistical capacity of BCCI post a mandate from the Indian Railways on transporting 58-wagon rakes against 41-wagon rakes. A common belief was that with more wagons per rake, the quantity transited from Wadi would be higher. However, this was not the case and a capacity addition was being proposed. The President of Wadi Cluster had expressed that as an effort to reduce the transit time between Wadi and BCCI, priority was given to loading for BCCI. Though an improvement was observed with the introduction of 58 wagons per rake, Wadi was facing issues. This had affected Wadi's ability to serve other markets. The focus of the case is on analysing the options being considered by ACC to increase market presence, logistics capacity at BCCI, and the overall throughput at Wadi.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a global overview of the adoption status of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSASs) in the different contexts of developed and developing countries on central government level, particularly delineating key reform issues and attempts to overcome these.

Drawing on an analytical framework that combines neo-institutional theory with diffusion theory, prior research and official documents were re-analysed.

There are substantial differences regarding whether countries acknowledge having experienced large implementation challenges and the extent to which the reform benefits have been achieved. The study sheds light on the (institutional) underpinnings of these differences.

First, the analysis could be extended to regional and local governments, as well as social funds. Both qualitative and quantitative strategies are suggested. Second, the implementation of the conceptual framework deserves further attention. Third, further research should more thoroughly scrutinise cost-benefit analyses used for justifying the (non)implementation of IPSASs, and in particular the assumptions that are being made in such analyses.

The paper informs policymakers and standard setters by delineating the areas and issues complicating the widespread adoption of IPSASs across countries, including pointing out directions to overcome these.

Substantial amounts of public money are invested internationally to converge accounting standards and translate them into native languages. A close(r) monitoring is needed to ensure that these efforts obtain sufficient value for money.

This study is original as it applies an analytical framework that combines neo-institutional theory and diffusion theory to examine public sector accounting convergence issues internationally. Such an approach explicitly puts a focus on decoupling between reform “talk” (decision) and “walk” (implementation) and helps to analyse the reasons for this decoupling.

Quality assuring elderly care through a viable and feasible standard framework is a major challenge for Asian governments. Although several attempts have been made to tackle foreign care worker (FCW) shortage, assuring the quality of the care they provide has been overlooked. The original framework allowed a better control over service quality to assure the elderly about their care according to the agreed standards. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Through several Japanese Governmental meetings, a new Asian Care Certificate (ACC) program is discussed based on the Japanese Care Certificate (JCC). The governments’ representatives adopted the JCC to form the ACC, which enables the ACC board to evaluate care workers and to intervene whenever the desired quality level is not achieved.

The author describes a new program. The findings of this paper will be confirmed when the ACC is implemented.

Using the ACC framework, the challenge in providing a high-quality care service using FCWs across Asia would be partly resolved. FCWs’ quality of life might also gradually improve especially regarding to their human rights.

The ACC provides a new framework. Its value is recognized if one considers that many Asian populations are rapidly aging and many governments compromise quality by employing overseas workers to solve care worker shortages.

A research study has been undertaken at the University of South Australia to introduce application of lessons learned process in construction contractors ' bidding process in the context of knowledge management. The study aims to identify barriers to effectively capture lessons learned in Australian construction industry and how knowledge management can benefit from lessons learned application.

The research study has been undertaken through conducting a “methodological triangulation” and “interdisciplinary triangulation”. This involved an extensive literature review of knowledge management, organisation learning, lessons learned and associated processes and administration of a questionnaire to a sample of construction contractors operating in Australia to elicit opinions on the main barriers to capturing lessons learned, practices such as existence and retention of documentation procedures. A total of 81 useable responses were received from 450 organisations. Response data were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistics with correlation analysis to examine the strength of relationship among the barriers.

The top-3 barriers to the effective capturing of lessons learned were “lack of employee time”, “lack of resources” and “lack of clear guidelines”, whereas, “lack of management support” was the least ranked barrier. The study established that despite the majority of the ACCs having formal procedures for recording the tenders submitted and their outcomes, only a minority actually retained the lessons learned documentation for each project. The larger contractors were found to be more aware of the importance of lessons learned documentation. A comparative analysis with previous studies also found a disparity in the ranking of the barriers.

The majority of the participants were small construction contractors in Australia. The reason is that the researchers were not aware of the contractors ' size prior to inviting them for participation in the research study. Second the findings may not generalize to other industries or to organisations operating in other countries.

The findings of this survey help ACCs to understand the importance of lessons learned documentation as part of lessons learned implementation and identify the barriers to effectively document their lessons learned. The study provides insights on the barriers and proposes advocated solutions in form of drivers and enablers (critical success factors) of organisational learning capturing among the Australian construction contractors. By reviewing the current literature, “post-project reviews” and “lessons learned” as important elements of organisation learning knowledge transfer, are addressed. Finally, contribution of this study to knowledge and practice has been discussed in this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the characteristics of audit committee chairman (ACC) (tenure, age, gender, ethnicity, accounting expertise and directorship) on earnings management (EM) practices.

The Jones model and modified Jones model by Dechow et al. (1995) were used to determine the discretionary accruals (DA) of 288 Malaysian listed firms with lowest positive earnings for the years 2013‒2015.

The results of the ordinary least squares regression indicate that only tenure, gender and ethnicity of the ACC are associated with DA. A further test was conducted by dividing firms into two groups: firms whose boards are chaired by a family member and firms whose boards are chaired by a non-family member. The results reveal that it is possible for firms whose boards are chaired by family members to cause the corporate governance (CG) mechanisms, particularly the audit committee, to lose their effectiveness in overcoming the EM problem. In addition, robustness tests were conducted by using panel data regression, where the results were found to be similar to the original regression results.

This study alerts policymakers, firms and their stakeholders, as well as researchers, regarding the importance of having an independent board chairman, who has no relationship with any directors or major shareholders, as this may hinder the effectiveness of CG mechanisms in curbing EM, especially in emerging countries, such as Malaysia, where it is very difficult to stop members of the family from becoming board directors.