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1 – 10 of 206It has been 34 years since the passage of Title IX. Yet women in academia are still underpaid and underrepre-sented in the full professor ranks nationwide. Why is this still an…
Abstract
It has been 34 years since the passage of Title IX. Yet women in academia are still underpaid and underrepre-sented in the full professor ranks nationwide. Why is this still an operative convention? Identities, roles, and perceptions leave some wondering if the old male guard isn’t still guarding.
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Gustaf Kastberg and Sven Siverbo
One of the latest trends within public administration and healthcare organizations (HCOs) is process orientation, often in the shape of Lean management. The purpose of this study…
Abstract
Purpose
One of the latest trends within public administration and healthcare organizations (HCOs) is process orientation, often in the shape of Lean management. The purpose of this study is to expand our understanding of process orientation of HCOs and the more specific aim is to investigate what measures are taken to re-frame the HCOs to include the process dimension.
Design/methodology/approach
This empirical study is based on 67 interviews and 20 meeting observations.
Findings
The main observation in this study is that introducing process-oriented management solutions is about disconnecting and cutting-off existing links. The authors see how attempts are made to cut-off links to the logic of functional specialization, the autonomy of the professional worker, equal treatment of patients and other objectives.
Originality/value
This study adds to and expands previous studies that have problematized the use of Lean-inspired ways of organizing in the public sector.
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Lois M. Christensen and Anaiza Medina
Title IX and The Lilly Ledbetter (Fair Pay Act, 2009), an extension of the Civil Rights Act, have not changed the fact that women in academia are paid 78% less than males in the…
Abstract
Title IX and The Lilly Ledbetter (Fair Pay Act, 2009), an extension of the Civil Rights Act, have not changed the fact that women in academia are paid 78% less than males in the professoriate while sometimes experiencing subjugation and oppression. This context is juxtaposed with the Golden Rule and Platinum Rule as nudged by a mentor and mentee relationship between a professor and undergraduate, young female honor student. How does this constant social convention toward women academics effect matriculated university students?
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Vibeke Asmussen Frank, Anne‐Sofie Christensen and Helle Vibeke Dahl
Overall within cannabis research, only a few studies have specifically targeted the use of cannabis among the adult population, and consequently very little is known about the…
Abstract
Purpose
Overall within cannabis research, only a few studies have specifically targeted the use of cannabis among the adult population, and consequently very little is known about the consumption practices of this user group. The purpose of this paper is to explore how adult cannabis users integrate cannabis use into their daily life; a use that can be characterized as recreational use, i.e. a non‐problematic use of cannabis for pleasure and to get intoxicated. Despite the fact that cannabis use is illegal and larger societal views on consuming cannabis still is subject to stigmatization and “unruly conduct”.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on qualitative interviews with 39 persons who were cannabis users as well as growers. The interviewees could not be described as “deviants” and the vast majority of them were socially well integrated. For how long the interviewees had been using cannabis depended on age as well as different life circumstances.
Findings
The paper shows how cannabis users commonly employ two strategies when integrating cannabis use into their everyday life and keeping up a meaningful life: refraining from using cannabis in particular situations and smoking alone. The interviewees in particular find it unacceptable to smoke cannabis when around children, engaging with family members, and when at work. The interview narratives reveal how cannabis consumption as narrated by the interviewees is embedded not only in balancing a controlled use applicable to the everyday situations and practices that the interviewees are engaged in, but also to more wider, societal norms and values around acceptable and unacceptable use of cannabis. The main analytical concept applied is moral reasoning.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to research on adult cannabis users.
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Mark Christensen, Dorothea Greiling and Johan Christiaens
The purpose of this paper is to encourage research implicating public sector accounting practitioners. It overviews articles in the AAAJ Forum arising from the Comparative…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to encourage research implicating public sector accounting practitioners. It overviews articles in the AAAJ Forum arising from the Comparative International Governmental Accounting Research (CIGAR) Network conference in 2015 in which practitioners’ doings were themes across numerous papers. The paper’s central objective is to scope out an agenda for future research in the area.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the CIGAR presentations and papers reviewed for this AAAJ Forum, a desk-based study informed by these sources and others has been conducted.
Findings
Aspects of public sector accounting practitioners’ doings hold promise in themselves whilst also being likely to complement and enrich other themes of public sector accounting research. Those aspects give rise to analytical frames, which may overlap and/or reinforce other aspects. Those analytical frames are: first, examining networking between practitioners; second, identifying implications of the professionalisation project for public sector accounting practitioners; third, analysing public sector accounting practitioners’ responses to the rise of external experts; and, fourth, exploring how public sector accounting practitioners interact with forces that shape the accounting craft. The four articles published here variously address several parts of these themes.
Originality/value
In scoping out a future research agenda, this paper justifies greater attention being paid to the four themes noted in its findings. In each of these research fields, an interdisciplinary approach is important.
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Globalisation is generally defined as the “denationalisation of clusters of political, economic, and social activities” that destabilize the ability of the sovereign State to…
Abstract
Globalisation is generally defined as the “denationalisation of clusters of political, economic, and social activities” that destabilize the ability of the sovereign State to control activities on its territory, due to the rising need to find solutions for universal problems, like the pollution of the environment, on an international level. Globalisation is a complex, forceful legal and social process that take place within an integrated whole with out regard to geographical boundaries. Globalisation thus differs from international activities, which arise between and among States, and it differs from multinational activities that occur in more than one nation‐State. This does not mean that countries are not involved in the sociolegal dynamics that those transboundary process trigger. In a sense, the movements triggered by global processes promote greater economic interdependence among countries. Globalisation can be traced back to the depression preceding World War II and globalisation at that time included spreading of the capitalist economic system as a means of getting access to extended markets. The first step was to create sufficient export surplus to maintain full employment in the capitalist world and secondly establishing a globalized economy where the planet would be united in peace and wealth. The idea of interdependence among quite separate and distinct countries is a very important part of talks on globalisation and a significant side of today’s global political economy.
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The study visualizes the link between environment accounting & triple bottom line, quantitative environmental reporting & standard method, voluntary environmental disclosure &…
Abstract
The study visualizes the link between environment accounting & triple bottom line, quantitative environmental reporting & standard method, voluntary environmental disclosure & legal requirement, size of company & volume of environmental disclosure, material flow analysis & life cycle assessment to achieve sustainable development in Bangladeshi corporation. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to investigate the role of these factors to achieve sustainable development in Bangladeshi corporation. To investigate the role of these factors, ten factors that significantly contribute to achieve sustainable development were determined. A set of closed-minded questionnaire was developed on the basis of these factors to collect the data from employees & employers. Questionnaire was administered by using statistical tools such as matrix, cross tabulation & Paired Samples Tests as a data collection tool and analyses. Research finding shows that sustainability of corporation was associated with the performance of economic, social, and environment. Other factors like quantitative environmental reporting, standard method, voluntary environmental disclosure, legal requirement, size of the company, volume of environmental disclosure, material flow analysis & life cycle assessment were found that they worked as a complement to enhance the performance of economic, social, and environment to achieve sustainable development in Bangladeshi corporation.
Jorge Alejandro Silva Rodríguez de San Miguel
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the measures taken by the Mexican Government in relation to the country’s climate change and its management to improve it.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the measures taken by the Mexican Government in relation to the country’s climate change and its management to improve it.
Design/methodology/approach
Much of the information which has guided this review was sourced from official documents referred to the climate change initiatives in Mexico, especially technical reports and working papers. The selection of literature was considered based on its recency, academic importance and veracity. The studies selected mainly ranged from 2001 to 2017.
Findings
This review finds that further research is required to assess Mexico’s climate change efforts objectively, which will help to ascertain if the nation’s plans and commitment are as ambitious and strong as the country claims.
Research limitations/implications
Most of the literature considered in this review was sourced from official documents and has not been subject to extensive academic peer review to guarantee that national decision and policy making are based on reliable scientific knowledge.
Originality/value
Mexico is one of the first countries to introduce a law dedicated to climate change, and its inclusion of short-term climate pollutants in its National Climate Change Strategy makes it more ambitious than that of many other Latin American countries. However, literature on the subject is limited and fragmented.
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Cristiano Busco, Elena Giovannoni, Fabrizio Granà and Maria Federica Izzo
The purpose of this paper is to explore the enabling role of accounting and reporting practices as discourses about sustainability unfold inside organizations. In particular, the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the enabling role of accounting and reporting practices as discourses about sustainability unfold inside organizations. In particular, the authors investigate how managers attempt to connect the concept of “sustainability” to their specific experience, as they seek to make sustainability meaningful (i.e. filling it with unfolding meaning) through accounting and within particular discursive spaces.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors rely upon the case of LOGIC, a large international oil and gas company operating in more than 70 countries worldwide. The authors analyze the evolution of discourses concerning sustainability inside the company, as well as the changing accounting and reporting practices, with a particular focus on integrated reporting.
Findings
The authors show that accounting and reporting practices (such as integrated reporting within LOGIC) provide the conditions for “sustainability”—as a discursive concept—to become meaningful, while evolving themselves as they are attached to this concept. They do so by enabling individuals (the management team within LOGIC) to connect their diverse experiences and aspirations to the concept of sustainability. Rather than filling sustainability with stable meaning, the authors observed that individuals are attracted by the gaps left by accounting representations, leading to the development of new practices and unfolding meanings within specific discursive spaces.
Originality/value
Most of the literature on sustainability accounting and reporting practices concentrate on the need for these practices to mirror what companies do about sustainability. Differently, the authors add to the very few studies on “aspirational” reporting that have emphasized the enabling effects of the gap between what companies say and do about sustainability. The authors do so by demonstrating that accounting is “aspirational” not only because it stimulates corporate efforts toward an imaginary better future, but also because it attracts managers’ particular aspirations through its representational gap. The authors show that this gap enables meaningful connections between individuals (their particular experience and aspirations) and “sustainability,” bringing this concept into their specific discursive space and, thereby, leading to the emergence of new practices.
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The purpose of this paper is to understand how and why accountants who moved from accounting firms to public service adapted their identities to reduce insecurity. The literature…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand how and why accountants who moved from accounting firms to public service adapted their identities to reduce insecurity. The literature on accountant identity highlights insecurity caused by promotion criterion to partnership, which requires accountants to win new work for their employers and leads to overtime, as a serious problem which has permeated the accounting profession. However, there have been few studies that explore whether accountants who moved to the public service, where they have stronger job security and can enjoy work-life balance, have resolved the insecurity problem, although a neoliberalism turn accompanied by New Public Management-style reforms has increased the number of accountants in public service. Therefore, the authors of the current study aim to fill this gap in the literature by exploring the identity transitions of South Korean (hereafter Korean) accountants who joined the public service.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors theorise the nature of the process of identity adaptation with conceptual tools from Pierre Bourdieu, such as habitus and capital, and examine whether the accountants took a “vision-of-division” or a “di-vision” strategy in the public service to secure their identity. For this purpose, the authors interviewed accountants and their non-accountant colleagues, and investigated other written sources, such as newspaper articles and business cards.
Findings
The authors found that Korean accountants in Big-4 firms dealt with the same insecurity issues as accountants in western countries and perceived public service as an attractive alternative to remove this insecurity. However, accountants who joined the public service found themselves confronted with different types of problems, such as accounting/costing work being regarded as demeaning, which made their identity insecure. Therefore, some accountants took a di-vision strategy that makes the difference between themselves and typical public servants less visible by avoiding accounting/costing work, using bureaucratic designations and de-emphasising their accounting credentials. Accountants took this strategy because the symbolic value of their accountancy qualifications grew weaker over time, due to the increase in the number of qualified accountants, and because the public service field valued bureaucratic habitus and capital more highly than those of the accountants.
Originality/value
From a methodological aspect, the authors collected participants’ business cards and analysed which designations/credentials they chose in order to create a certain perception. This analysis helped the authors understand how accountants work on their identity by de-emphasising accounting credentials to secure their identity in an organisational field. In a theoretical dimension, the current study argues that the symbolic capital of accounting credentials is dependent on the organisational and social context in line with Bourdieu, and, contrary to Bourdieu, on the supply and demand in the professional labour market.
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