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This paper seeks to explore the way charity accountants understand, interpret and legitimate or delegitimate the introduction of accounting and reporting changes (embedded in the extant charity statement of recommended practice), before these are actually implemented.

Drawing on 21 semi-structured interviews with accountants in large UK and Republic of Ireland charities, the manner and extent to which forthcoming changes in charity accounting are legitimated (justified) or delegitimated (criticised) is explored.

Acceptance of accounting changes in the charity sector by formal regulation may not be necessary for future required adjustments to practice to be legitimated. Using interviews carried out before the implementation of required changes, the results suggest that other factors, such as national culture, identity and mimetic behaviours, may play a major role in the homogenisation and acceptance of accounting and reporting rules. In particular, it is argued that mimetic pressures can be much more influential than regulative pressures in legitimating change in the charity sector and are more likely to lead to the embedding of change.

The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it explores rhetoric and legitimation strategies used before changes are actually implemented. Second, it contributes to filling a gap in charities’ research related to intra-organisational legitimation of managerial and accounting changes, illustrating institutional-field identity at work to preserve shared organisational values and ideas. Finally, the research illuminates the importance of particular contextual pressures and individual legitimation arguments during accounting-change processes.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions of senior accounting officers on governance, performance and accountability issues in the charity sector.

The empirical data presented in this paper were collected via a mail‐out survey to Chief Financial Officers (CFO) of large charity organisations in Australia.

The executives surveyed agreed that the public is entitled to receive high quality financial disclosures from charities, favouring “programme accountability”, “fiscal accountability” and “profit” as relevant performance indicators rather than cash surplus/deficit. The respondents also considered that charities warrant a dedicated accounting standard but were less enthusiastic about an independent regulator with stronger control functions.

The data in this study report the opinions of financial executives which may not represent the view of all managing executives.

While governance in charities has been examined previously from an organisational or management perspective, this is one of the few papers that emphasises how members of the accounting profession view this important topic.

The charity retail format has experienced significant growth over the last 30 years to a situation where charity shops have now become a taken for granted feature of local high streets across the UK. Traditionally charity shops have played an important service role in their local communities by providing low cost goods and employing voluntary staff. However, alongside the growth of the sector, charities have become increasingly professional in their approach to managing their shops. Changes include the introduction of paid managers and shop assistants and an overall ’‘trading up” of the charity retail environment. This paper explores in detail this professionalisation of the charity retail sector. It then examines the impact of this professionalisation on the role of charity shops in their local communities and speculate on the likely future for charity retail in this context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine charity regulatory systems, including accounting standard setting, across five jurisdictions in varying stages of adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards, and identifies the challenges of this process.

Using a regulatory space approach, this paper relies on publicly available archival evidence from charity regulators and accounting standard setters in five common‐law jurisdictions in advanced capitalist economies, all with vibrant charity sectors: the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The study reveals the importance of co‐operative interdependence and dialogue between charity regulators and accounting standard setters, indicating that jurisdictions with such inter‐relationships will better manage the transition to IFRS. It also highlights the need for those jurisdictions with not‐for‐profit or charity‐specific accounting standards to re‐configure those provisions as IFRSs are adopted.

The study is limited to five jurisdictions, concentrating specifically on key charity regulators and accounting standard setters. Future research could widen the scope to other jurisdictions, or track changes in the jurisdictions longitudinally.

This paper provides a timely international perspective of charity regulation and accounting developments for regulators, accounting standard setters and charities, specifically of regulatory responses to IFRS adoption.

The paper contributes fresh insights into the dynamics of charity accounting regulation in an international context by using regulatory space as an organising framework. While accounting regulation literature provides a rich interpretation of regulatory issues within the accounting arena, little attention has been paid to charity accounting regulation.

Sometimes an issue can remain dormant for a long period of time before receiving governmental and legislative attention. Debate on corporate governance has coincided with a number of measures impacting on the charitable sector which, taken together, have the effect of bringing about improvements in the overall corporate governance climate for the charity, and re‐inforcing the centrality of the charity as an important instrument of social policy. The aim of this article is to explore this battery of measures, their historical context, and the varying fortunes of the charitable sector in its social policy role.

Explores the development of the charity retailing sector in the past decade. Examines the role of charity shops in their local communities. Provides some suggestions as to the likely future of the sector.

The purpose of this study is to explore and understand the influence of servant leadership on volunteers' commitment working in the voluntary sector in war zones.

With a qualitative research design, participants were 16 volunteers from a servant-leadership-led charity who took part in three focus groups.

Results of the present study revealed that (1) the effectiveness of servant leadership in the war environment lies in creating hope, and (2) the overlap between personal ethics of servant leaders and flexible policies in addition to a set of attributes such as honesty; social awareness; listening; a sense of responsibility; emotion; altruism; patience; and leading without power represent the primary reasons that influence volunteers' commitment during war times.

Research data was conducted during the war on Syria, which has negative implications not only on the participants, but also on the way they responded to questions.

This paper explores and attempts to understand the influence of servant leadership on volunteers' commitment working in the voluntary sector in war zones, which can shed light on the importance of servant leadership behavior in the voluntary sector during postwar and reconstruction periods.

The study offers data and interpretation regarding servant leadership and its positive outcome in war zones, which can be used as a foundation for future studies in war zones.

This paper aims to examine the puzzles of “ownership”, the legal and psychological commitment of directors, through the experience of the work of boards at non-profit organisations.

An exploration of the literature on charity governance leads to a first-person reflection on the tensions in directing two common types of non-profit organisations.

In the UK as in other countries, charities are companies, bound by company law as well as regulatory constraints of the non-profit sector. This creates responsibilities of ownership without the material benefits. In contrast to corporate share ownership, a sense of psychological ownership may pre-date appointment as a director, facilitating stewardship behaviour, facilitating stewardship and accountability.

This paper calls for expanded empirical work on boards of non-profit organisations, giving a focused agenda of aspects to highlight the differences between charities and the corporate sector.

The focus on psychological ownership can influence recruitment, induction and organisation of the work of charity boards, helping to ease resource deficits.

With pressure mounting in deliver of public services, the charity sector needs to fill growing gaps in provision. The constitution of boards plays a valuable role.

By incorporating psychological ownership in a framework of accountability, this paper points towards both a research agenda and practical considerations for charity boards.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether, how and why ethical investment practices of charities differ between two countries with quite different ideological and institutional frameworks – Norway and the UK.

The paper uses mixed methods and a cross-sectional field study design to explore the ethical investment practices of 300 of the largest charities by investments in the UK and Norway. Practices are theorized using the dual lens of institutional theory and social origins theory.

The paper provides evidence on why charities established the practice of ethical investment. The results show that large charities were more likely to have an ethical policy; that charities with moderate public sector funding were more likely to have an ethical policy. In line with institutional theory some Norwegian charities with public sector funding mimic the policy of the Government Pension Fund, and the ethical investment policy of Norwegian charities was more influenced by donors. Institutional entrepreneurs (charity founders) had a more prominent influence in UK charities.

The paper highlights that more research is needed on sovereign wealth funds, their investment practices and how they affect charities.

The findings of this paper highlight the potential role that the ethical investment practices of sovereign can play a soft regulatory function in changing the behaviour of other investors.

To the extent that ethical investment practices are construed as having a positive social impact, then this study shows how a government sovereign wealth fund can influence the spread of ethical investment practices.

This paper, which sits at the nexus of the charity and corporate social responsibility (CSR) literatures, contributes by responding to calls for more research on charity practices in different countries and CSR practices in different countries. This comparison also contributes to the development of institutional theory by shedding light on the institutional influence of a sovereign wealth fund and its impact on others. The paper will be of value to academics, policy setters and regulators.

The purposes of the study are: to determine the prevalence of complaints systems within human services charities (HSCs); to identify the determinants of the adoption of complaints procedures; and to assess the outcome of strategic (rather than ad hoc) approaches to complaints management.

A review of the literature is used to propose a model of the antecedents and outcomes of the adoption of a formal complaints‐handling system. A questionnaire survey is then conducted among a sample of 251 HSCs in the UK with annual incomes in excess of £1 million. The data are utilised to assess the prevalence of formal complaints procedures, potential antecedents to the adoption of such a system, and whether the application of strategic approaches to complaint management leads to greater managerial satisfaction with the system.

The prevalence of formal complaints‐handling procedures in UK charities is increasing. Such systems are less common in smaller HSCs with little statutory funding and low levels of listening orientation. In contrast, strategic approaches to formal complaints systems tend to be high in charities characterised by: learning, listening and client orientation; sectors in which beneficiaries can easily switch to alternative service providers; and clients who depend heavily on the charity's assistance.

Fewer than half of the charities in the research population returned the questionnaire. The data were self‐reported. Only one category of charities (HSCs) was considered. The study was undertaken in a single country.

Organizational antecedents of the adoption of strategic approaches to complaint management should be encouraged. Steps should be implemented to remove frequent causes of complaints against HSCs.

This is the first study to model and test potential antecedents of strategic approaches to the implementation of formal complaints‐handling procedures within the charity sector and to relate strategic approaches to satisfaction with complaints systems.