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An appraisal is normally conducted to determine financial viability of property development projects for several purposes. The residual valuation method is normally used to appraise such projects and the purpose of the paper is to examine its financial viability decision rules (FVDRs) used by practitioners.

The qualitative research approach was adopted based on the case study strategy of enquiry where 48 development appraisal reports from 37 Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors registered firms in London were accessed from the internet and critically reviewed.

Site-specific and area-wide development appraisals for planning purposes dominated the reports. Five FVDRs were identified. A development project is financially viable if: (i) computed residual profit expressed as a percentage return is equal to or greater than a determined market benchmark risk-adjusted return; (ii) computed residual profit expressed as a percentage return is positive; (iii) calculated residual land value is greater than open market land value or benchmark land value; (iv) computed residual land value is positive; and (v) there is a surplus when appraisal cost variables including land costs plus allowance for developer’s profit are deducted from gross development value. In some reports, it was discovered some appraisal cost variables were excluded whilst others were inappropriately treated.

The first and third FVDRs are reasonable whilst the remaining are fraught with problems and using them can make development projects that are financially unviable to be viable. Also, excluding relevant cost variables and treating some inappropriately understate the appraisal cost component resulting in incorrect financial viability outcomes. These can lead to wrong recommendations about financial viability being proffered that negatively affect the practitioners’ clientele. The dominance of development appraisals for planning purposes shows the important role development appraisals continue to play in the English planning system.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, it is the first time FVDRs in development appraisals have been systematically investigated in England with resultant new empirical findings and arguments.

This paper aims to illustrate how service ecosystem governance may provide a suitable ground to pursue holistic resilience to “wicked” socio-economic and ecological problems, for enhancing “place-based” sustainable performance outcomes through an organizational, interorganizational and context setting.

This work suggests the use of “place-based” collaborative ecosystem platforms driven by a dynamic performance governance approach as a setting where facilitated performance dialogue is carried out among networked stakeholders. This fosters a holistic view of performance sustainability where intangibles, inertial, cultural and behavioral factors play a key role in policy analysis.

The paper illustrates how different research streams framing stakeholder relationships under a business, hybrid organization and public sector perspective converge toward the “service ecosystem” construct, as a common field for sustainable “place-based” value creation. This performance governance perspective frames accountability for achieving sustainable outcomes through interconnected viewpoints, i.e. (1) time (short vs long-term), (2) subject (single organization, “theme-focused” service ecosystem and “place-based” service ecosystem) and (3) field (socio-economic, cultural and ecological).

This work has an interdisciplinary track. It recommends feedback and “stock-and-flow” modeling to enhance framing counterintuitive patterns of behavior of dynamic complex socio-economic, cultural and ecological subsystems within “place-based” collaborative ecosystem platforms. Combining an inside-out with an outside-in view triggers sustainable outcome-based dynamic performance governance through an organizational, interorganizational and context setting.

The Great Recession that began around 2008 hit hard on Greece and Italy. During a period of extreme economic distress, the two countries suffered the loss of government performance and citizen trust in government. The purpose of this study is to describe how government performance and citizen trust in government had been altered in the context of the Great Recession.

This study conducts a case study on France and Germany. These in-depth case studies afford a lens for diagnosing how the Great Recession affected macro and micro-performance in practice.

Comparative case studies of Greece and Italy provide evidence that government performance in Greece and Italy was diminished to a large extent as a result of the Great Recession. In addition, citizen trust in both countries was impaired during the Great Recession period.

It is a matter of grave concern how the government responds to crises. During the crisis, some states implemented stringent austerity measures. This case brings out the careful point that austerity measures could diminish government performance as well as the state’s fundamental potential.

Due to its significance, the Great Recession has been widely investigated, with the explanations often concentrating on economic and political repercussions. Nonetheless, how the economic crisis transformed into public administration and policy has largely gone unheeded. The case studies of Greece and Italy newly identify and help to explain how the Great Recession contributes to governments and citizens in a multitude of aspects.

This paper applies novel techniques from the field of operations management to examine the allocation of patrol and investigative personnel to identify which is most effective in improving police performance around homicide clearance.

A panel sample of homicide clearance rates from the 100 largest US cities between 2000 and 2013 were analyzed in two steps: first, a random-effects regression model was performed to locate influential factors; second, optimum analysis was applied to locate the optimal values that yield maximal homicide clearance.

Both patrol and investigative personnel levels have a significant impact on homicide clearance. Maximal clearance can be achieved by allocating departmental personnel to investigative roles.

Given recent trends around “defunding” police and public sector austerity measures, future research should continue to explore the utility of optimum analysis for efficient allocation of policing personnel.

This study provides proof of concept for the use of optimum analysis in policing research.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the application of citizen satisfaction (CS) as a tool for measuring performance by arm's length bodies (ALBs) in local governments across eleven countries, addressing central questions about its functionality and influencing factors.

We employ a hybrid inductive-deductive explorative study design, characterized by an iterative interpretative approach guided by sensitizing concepts. Expert interviews are analyzed through template analysis and cover eleven countries where ALBs are present due to decentralization and outsourcing.

Our study uncovers limited real-world applications of CS in evaluating public service delivery by ALBs. Expert interviews reveal insights into factors potentially influencing CS use, such as the level of autonomy of local governments, state traditions and austerity measures. A research agenda is formulated for further investigation.

Contributing to the CS debate, our study focuses on its application in evaluating public service delivery by ALBs. The explorative design, expert opinions and theoretical foundations enhance understanding, offering insights into factors potentially shaping CS use in this context. The study proposes a research agenda, propelling further investigations into this underexplored, yet emerging, area.

This paper aims to develop a compound measure, which is fiscal vulnerability index, provides early warning signals of fiscal sustainability problems for Türkiye's economy.

The index is constructed using twelve distinct fiscal indicators and applying the portfolio method, which considers the time-varying cross-correlation structure between the subindices.

Dynamics of the fiscal vulnerability index indicate that it accurately predicts to the well-known fiscal crisis occurring in Türkiye's recent history. As a result, such a compound measure should be used in the early identification of fiscal vulnerability in Türkiye.

The main contribution of this paper, relative to existing papers, is that a fiscal vulnerability index was constructed by employing the most contemporaneous method and evaluating its performance in terms of capturing historical stress periods.

This study aims to examine the question “How can we understand the dynamics that give rise to multiplicities of overlapping controls (MoOCs)?” and explore the role of local politics in the emergence of such multiplicities.

Building on assemblage theory, we use an in-depth case study of local government in France where a Socialist and Green coalition (the “Coalition”) replaced a long-standing Communist administration. The Coalition introduced a comprehensive set of new management control systems (MCSs), layered onto pre-existing systems.

The proliferation of new MCSs, together with the persistence of legacy MCSs, gave rise to a MoOC. Linkages between controls constituted potential points of rupture around which the assemblage changed and shifted the nexus of control. Whereas densely populated areas of the assemblage provided sites for conflict in the battle to influence the allocation of resources, some MCSs became isolated or were reterritorialized by political groups seeking autonomy from the new management.

We highlight the material consequences of political contentions around MoOCs that obfuscate, and at times frustrate, the implementation of a programme for government.

We contribute a set of concepts pertaining to the dynamics of MoOCs. We offer an alternative perspective on the disappointment associated with the adoption of new management tools in the public sector, showing how MCSs can become battlegrounds for political contention rather than tools for management improvement. We contribute to literature utilizing assemblage theory for analysing management accounting change.

In the past decade, financial austerity has brought significant pressure upon emergency services in the UK. For the British Government, one approach to alleviate this pressure was to increase collaborative efforts in core functions (e.g. information systems and technology) between multiple organisations. Despite the consensus that collaborations are key in addressing complex problems, the majority fail or become discontinued. This research explores the development of collaborative information infrastructures between one Police Force and two Fire and Rescue Services in the UK, with a specific focus on how the difference in culture, identities and rules and norms, can work in a collaborative emergency service environment.

This study investigated an example of successful development of a collaborative information infrastructure within the context of public safety and, specifically, the technology-based structures that underpin information management. A case study approach was taken, combining semi-structured interviews, document analysis and site visits. The study used activity theory as a theoretical and analytical framework.

The research revealed that creating a shared identity is not essential in emergency services collaboration, and organisations may maintain their separate identity, given they address other elements of the activity system (e.g. leadership, motivated subjects). However, pursuing this strategy will create multiple tensions throughout the collaboration process.

The study contributes to the information systems literature concerning inter-organisational collaborations in the public sector providing a novel view to the implications of maintaining separate identities, and the significance of misalignment between interacting activity systems.

The objective of this paper is to synthesize and extend the existing understanding of social health accounting (SHA) literature within the perspectives of social health disclosures (SHAD) and the effect of social health problems on public and private sector accounting.

This study provides a comprehensive and up-to-date systematic literature review (SLR) of past studies on social health within the accounting literature. This is done by employing a three-step SLR research design to investigate a sample of papers, made up of 62 mixed, qualitative and quantitative studies conducted in over 23 countries, drawn predominantly from the extant accounting literature from 2013 to 2023 and published in 25 peer-reviewed journals.

Our SLR offers several findings. First, we find that existing SHA studies apply theories in SHAD studies, but hardly apply them to explain the impact of health problems on business outcomes. Second, we show that the extant studies have focused predominantly on rigorous empirical studies on SHAD, while this is scarce for studies examining the impact of diseases/health problems on both public and private sector accounting. Third, we identify several research design weaknesses, including a lack of primary data analysis, mixed-methods approach and rigorous qualitative studies. Finally, we present directions for future SHA research.

In contrast to the ever-increasing general social and environmental accounting (SEA) research, existing studies examining global health issues and challenges (e.g. diseases, epidemics and pandemics), especially from an accounting perspective are rare. Nonetheless, the past decade has witnessed a steady increase in research on corporate accounting for, and reporting of, health issues; although the emerging literature remains fragmented thereby impeding the generation of useful empirical and theoretical insights for policymakers, practitioners and researchers. Consequently, this paper offers extensive and timely SLR of the existing studies on SHA; critically reviewing past findings published in a wide range of peer-reviewed international journals that discuss the current state of global SHA research, their weaknesses and set future research agenda.

For many years, universities have been confronted with the rise of a managerial logic, in line with the new public management movement. They have been encouraged to implement new accounting tools such as cost calculations. Literature shows mixed results regarding the institutionalization of such tools, and the logic they try to support. In most studies, the agency of actors is examined to explain the institutionalization of accounting tools and only few studies consider the specific characteristics of these accounting tools to understand this process. To enrich the literature on institutionalization, this article examines how the affordances of costing tools affect the institutionalization of these tools and the institutionalization of new logics in pluralistic organizations such as universities.

The data were collected at a French university which is considered as an example of successful institutionalization of the tool and is cited as a model to follow. The data include a four-month participant observation and 18 interviews. Access to internal and external documents was also available. The analysis of the data is based on a framework proposed by Jarzabkowski and Kaplan (2015), which draws on the concept of affordance of tools, to investigate how the possibilities and constraints of costing tools shape the selection, application and outcomes of cost calculations.

The results show that the affordances of cost calculations facilitate the institutionalization of a new logic and its coexistence with previous logics. Technical affordances are mobilized by actors aiming to bring in a new logic without directly confronting the old ones. Role affordances also play a major role in the institutionalization by facilitating the adhesion of the actors through multiple applications of the tool. Finally, value-based affordances reinforce the institutionalization of a managerial logic by emphasizing the values shared with the other logics and thus facilitating the coexistence of the three logics at stake in the university.

This research provides three main contributions. First, it contributes to the literature on the institutionalization of accounting tools. It shows the relevance of the concept of affordance (Leonardi and Vaast, 2017) to unpack the characteristics of accounting tools (including the constraints and the possibilities they offer) and to achieve a better understanding of the institutionalization of accounting tools. Second, this paper contributes to the literature dealing with the role of accounting tools in the institutionalization of logics. The results suggest that the institutionalization of tools and the institutionalization of logics are two different phenomena that move at different speeds. However, these phenomena interact: the institutionalization of accounting tools can facilitate the coexistence of different logics in pluralistic organizations. Third, this paper contributes to the literature on affordances. The data reveal several types of affordances for accounting tools: technical affordances that refer to the technical possibilities to shape and tweak the tool; role affordances that refer to the various roles and purposes that the tool can fulfill and value-based affordances that refer to the plasticity of the values and beliefs that the tool can convey. The study shows that each type of affordance is prevalent at a different time of the process of institutionalization and that the combination of these affordances contributes to the institutionalization of the tool and of new logics.