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Although corporate portfolio management (CPM) has been a popular tool for strategic management of multi-business portfolios in the private sector since the late 1960s, it has received limited attention in the public sector. Accordingly, empirical research on the use of CMP in government organizations is virtually non-existent. The purpose of this paper is to partially fill that gap in the literature by highlighting and discussing some of the key points that public sector organizations may need to consider when adopting CPM.

Rather than deductively proposing and testing narrowly specified hypotheses, this study aims to answer a broad research question, namely: What are the key points that public sector organizations may need to consider when adopting CMP? Hence, the study adopts the qualitative interpretive research paradigm. The findings are based on empirical research conducted in a large Australian publicly funded research organization. Potential application of CPM was iteratively and incrementally explored with a reference group comprising 15 middle management representatives and several members of the senior leadership group over the course of one year.

Assessment criteria traditionally used in CPM (e.g. growth potential and market share) are generally not applicable in public sector organizations. This paper suggests that government organizations should instead consider past performance and future potential of individual business units, which may be operationalized via capability (a function of human capital and associated resources/infrastructure) and delivery (a function of the demand for, and the impact of, relevant business units). The paper also highlights the importance of organization-wide consultation, evidence-based decision making, and contestability.

From a practical perspective, the paper may assist public sector organizations with adapting and applying CPM. From a theoretical perspective, the paper highlights an important and relatively neglected research problem, and suggests several avenues for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to adapt the traditional corporate portfolio management approach to the strategic management of multi-business portfolios in the public sector.

The approach presented in this paper is based on a research project conducted within the Defence Science and Technology Group, Australian Department of Defence. It was developed iteratively and incrementally over the course of one year with a reference group comprising 15 middle management representatives and several members of the senior management team.

The approach developed comprises a multi-stage process and an assessment framework designed to capture the complexity of the problem space, build a strategic narrative, and facilitate senior leadership decision-making. The process is aimed at eliciting the required information, promoting contestability of the results, ensuring appropriate consultation, and ultimately achieving senior leadership consensus on priorities. The assessment framework is used to assess and visualize the balance of organizational capabilities.

By synthesizing and visualizing information on past performance and future potential, the approach presented in this paper may be used to facilitate strategic decision-making by senior management in the public sector.

This study aims to propose a new conforming tax measure based on the work of Badertscher et al. (2019).

This study divides total tax avoidance/management (TM) into nonconforming and conforming portions through a regression. The residual of the regression is treated as the conforming tax measure. In addition, the new conforming tax measure is validated via three approaches. Then, this study examines the moderating effect of nonconforming earnings management (EM) on the relationship between conforming TM and firm performance.

The empirical results show that the model has stronger explanatory power than the model proposed by Badertscher et al. (2019). Additionally, the validation results show that the mean value of the conforming tax measure is lower in quasi-private corporations (financially constrained companies) than in matched public corporations (nonfinancially constrained companies), and firms under high market capital pressure are less motivated to engage in conforming tax practices. Furthermore, nonconforming EM positively moderates the conforming tax–ROA association, implying that nonconforming EM can reduce financial reporting costs resulting from conforming tax practices.

This study contributes to conforming tax research in the following ways. First, this study proposes a new conforming tax measure by substituting the cash book tax difference (BTD) for the BTD in the model of Badertscher et al. (2019) (“BKRW”). Second, this study demonstrates theoretically why the cash BTD should outperform the BTD in computing the BKRW conforming tax measure and confirm this empirically. Third, this study presents a three-way conceptual schema that divides corporations into two groups along each of three tax-relevant dimensions. The group of firms that use both conforming and nonconforming tax strategies have different characteristics compared to the other group. This study also validates the conforming tax measure across the two-group dichotomies.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of state shareholding and control versus institutional investors on tax aggressiveness of Chinese listed firms.

By exploring recently available tax reconciliation data required under 2006 Accounting Standards for Business Enterprises on a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms, the authors calculate a direct measure of tax aggressiveness and investigate the influence of firm ownership structure on their tax aggressiveness.

The authors find that state ownership and control are positively associated with corporate tax aggressiveness. A positive link between the collective shareholding by the top ten shareholders and firm tax aggressiveness is also found. In contrast, institutional share ownership is negatively associated with corporate tax aggressiveness.

The results indicate that political connections and ownership concentration empower firms to pursue aggressive tax planning, whereas institutional investors partially mitigate such influences.

This paper complements recent studies on tax aggressiveness in the USA by analyzing tax planning activities of Chinese listed firms. The authors highlight firm ownership and control factors that encourage aggressive tax planning in China. This paper has important implications for both public policy and corporate governance in emerging markets similar to China.

Analysis of the responses of 131 local union officers to a questionnaire found that a number of variables are related to the attitudes of union leaders toward quality of worklife (QWL). Unions are morelikely to participate in a QWL program if local officers feel that unions can influence government policy, their members expect them to make progress on QWL issues, and if it is important to have good local‐member relations. Unions are less likely to participate in a QWL program if officers believe that unions are strong, feel employers favor severe tactics, and place a priority on traditional bargaining issues. For unions involved in a QWL program, union strength and perceived influence over government policy were related to positive attitudes regarding the long‐term future of QWL. For unions without QWL experience,severe management policies toward unions, and higher member expectations for local performance on QWL issues were related to more favorable attitudes toward QWL, while the officer’s tenure in position was related to a less favorable view of QWL. For locals involved in a QWL program, satisfaction with QWL increases if officers feel the labor movement needs to change its attitude and approach to problems, the labor relations climate is favorable, the local has sufficient bargaining power, and the overall performance of the local is satisfactory. The results suggest that “get tough” management policies toward unions will negatively affect union participation in and satisfaction with QWL efforts.

Perhaps the marvel is that there should exist at all a department in a British official body at national level dedicated to the support of research into information needs and the problems of providing and operating library and information services. That it does exist may be regarded as the product of a typically British combination of conscious decision‐making and historical accident.

The authors investigate the joint effects of two environmental variables, performance-based pay (PBP) and performance monitoring (PM), on behavioral dishonesty in a setting where the controls subsequently are absent. In a laboratory study using 88 participants in a 2×2 experimental design, simulating a work environment, the authors manipulate the presence of PBP and PM. Once the participants are accustomed to their assigned work environment and have completed contractual tasks unrelated to the dishonesty experiment, the authors allow them to privately roll dice to determine the size of a bonus gift card. Dishonesty levels are inferred from differences between treatment groups in the prizes claimed. The authors find an interaction effect, where inferred dishonesty in the performance-based-pay group is higher than the fixed-pay group when there is no PM, but lower when there is PM. Although theory and existing literature did not lead us to hypothesize these exact results, they offer important insights into a complex relationship. By jointly examining the effects of worker contracts and workplace monitoring on dishonesty, this research extends the understanding of the potential consequences of formal controls. As the workplace grows more complex, employers increasingly rely on information provided by frontline employees and managers. Thus, unintended effects of managerial controls on honesty are an important topic in the business literature.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how variations in management’s tone within management’s discussion and analysis (MD&A) sections of 10-K reports can serve as an indicator of tax avoidance and highlight the complex relationship between such linguistic shifts and the tax avoidance decisions within firms.

The paper uses a textual analysis approach to identify linguistic cues in MD&A sections of 10-K filings related to tax avoidance, going beyond traditional quantitative measures. The study uses differences in negative word occurrences in MD&A to measure management’s tone change and examines various measures of tax avoidance. The sample covers the period from 1993 to 2017 and comprises all firms with 10-K filings available on EDGAR, totaling over 30,000 firm-year observations.

The findings indicate a complementary relationship between tax avoidance and other drivers of firm performance. When firms have more negative management’s tone, they are less willing to engage in tax avoidance and vice versa. The study’s approach with management’s tone change provides a different and statistically significant improvement in model fit for detecting tax avoidance.

This paper provides actionable insights for detecting tax avoidance through the analysis of management’s tone in corporate disclosures, offering a new tool for researchers, investors and tax authorities. It highlights the importance of linguistic cues as indicators of tax avoidance behavior, complementing traditional financial metrics.

The paper contributes to the literature by using management’s tone change as a time-varying factor to explain tax avoidance behavior. It uncovers a larger set of linguistic cues in MD&A that can be used to detect tax avoidance. This research provides a complementary approach to traditional quantitative tax avoidance measures and offers insights into the overall relationship between tax avoidance and firm performance, going beyond one-dimensional measures typically used in prior literature.

The Australian National Standards for Mental Health Services (Commonwealth Department of Health and Family Services, 1996) were developed as a plank of the first National Mental Health Plan (Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health, 1992). Over the two subsequent national five‐year plans, they have become the basis for accreditation surveys for all Australian mental health services, both hospital and community components, whether acute or rehabilitation oriented, throughout the psychiatric career of all mental health service users and their families. The development and implementation of these standards are described. Innovations in this set of standards are detailed, specifying requirements of each phase of care, including access, entry, exit and re‐entry, and the parallel development and training of paid consumer and family carer surveyors. Largely due to the brevity and clarity of these innovations, because of a broad consultation process, and incorporation of interventions and service delivery systems that are both evidence‐based and congenial to service users, they have achieved a wide acceptance among, and championing by, service user and family carer networks. A recent review of the national standards was timely and welcomed, but is still incomplete, contentious in its protracted process, has a lack of consistent consultation and contains diluted and disorganised results. Implementation guides will now be developed to be superimposed on this revision in an attempt to improve and navigate it.