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Book part
Publication date: 4 December 2023

Stuart Maguire and Ian Robson

Abstract

Details

Sustainable Development Through Global Circular Economy Practices
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83753-590-3

Article
Publication date: 19 July 2022

Mohammed Sulaiman Hassan Kasbar, Nicholas Tsitsianis, Androniki Triantafylli and Colin Haslam

The study aims to predict and understand the conditions under which the association between corporate governance and a company's financial performance is positive or meaningful by…

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Abstract

Purpose

The study aims to predict and understand the conditions under which the association between corporate governance and a company's financial performance is positive or meaningful by empirically accounting for agency conflicts. This study is motivated by the fact that the separation between ownership and control creates agency conflicts between company owners and managers. Therefore, strong corporate governance systems are expected to align the interests of conflicting parties whereby companies become more likely to improve their financial performance. However, previous research did not yield consistent results in this regard.

Design/methodology/approach

Given the latent nature of corporate governance and agency conflicts, this study uses principal component and exploratory factor analyses to proxy for corporate governance and agency conflicts, respectively. Using dynamic panel data modelling, the authors estimate the change in the relationship between corporate governance and a company's financial performance as a function of the change in the level of agency conflict using data from the UK on 78 non-financial companies listed in the Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 (FTSE100) index between 1999 and 2014.

Findings

The corporate governance quality of companies is significantly differed. Moreover, companies operating at high levels of agency conflict outperform the companies' counterparts operating in low levels of agency conflict only when the former improves the corporate governance quality. This implies that financial performance improves by approximately 11% if companies improve corporate governance quality due to an increase in the level of agency conflicts.

Research limitations/implications

Lack of data on ownership structure for the study period (1999–2014) was the main reason the authors excluded it from the analysis. Additionally, the lack of reliable and quantifiable corporate governance data on small-medium sized enterprises limits findings on large non-financial companies.

Practical implications

The authors propose a framework/tool for the impact of the level of corporate governance compliance on financial performance conditional upon the level of agency conflicts whose importance has largely been neglected by the empirical literature. By providing the right “lens” to de-fragmentise the corporate governance mechanisms and estimate empirically the unobserved agency conflicts, researchers, practitioners and investors are able to get further insights on the composing elements of financial performance and evaluate it more objectively. Managers can allocate companies' resources more efficiently and thus improve financial performance. The auditors can get further background information when they compile their report on company's directors. The study's findings offer valuable suggestions for accounting and corporate governance regulators to further put forward and improve accounting standards so as to enhance existing regulations and internal mechanisms which, in turn, could decrease the scope for managerial opportunistic behaviour as the latter can be empirically estimated through our framework.

Social implications

The findings point out the need for a revised framework accounting for the principal-agent (mis)alignment and the engrained information asymmetries. By acknowledging the level of corporate governance compliance and agency conflict, managers and shareholders should actively strive for the effectiveness of companies, the efficiency of the stock markets and the minimisation of the agency costs. Furthermore, policymakers can look into the development of a code of corporate governance to effectively regulate firms rather than enforcing rigid laws that may not be value relevant. With all these settings in place, the likelihood of corporate failures, corporate scandals as well as corporate violations with the ensuing penalties is set to be reduced. Hence, valuable resources, social capital and effort can be directed into more productive activities.

Originality/value

This study adds to the existing literature by offering empirical and explicit evidence on the dynamic association between corporate governance, agency conflicts and financial performance against a backdrop of high demand for strong corporate governance practices/codes. To the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no study that has yet empirically examined the moderating effect of the level of agency conflicts, given the level of corporate governance compliance on financial performance for listed and internationally aligned companies.

Details

Journal of Applied Accounting Research, vol. 24 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0967-5426

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 2 November 2023

Sahil Sharma

This chapter conceptualises a link between Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0), big data, data science and sustainable tourism.

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter conceptualises a link between Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0), big data, data science and sustainable tourism.

Design/Methodology/Approach

The author adopts a grounded theory and conceptual approach to endeavour in this exploratory research.

Findings

The outcome shows a significant rise of big data in the tourism sector under three major dimensions, i.e. business, governance and research. And, some exemplary evidence of institutions promoting the use of big data and data science for sustainable tourism has been discussed.

Originality/Value

The conceptualised interlinkage of concepts like IR 4.0, big data, data science and sustainable development provides a valuable knowledge resource to policy-makers, researchers, businesses and students.

Details

Impact of Industry 4.0 on Sustainable Tourism
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-157-8

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 17 July 2023

Bert Spector

The purpose is to offer a critique of the process of decision-making by top university administrators and to analyze how their decisions imposed their preferences and expanded…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose is to offer a critique of the process of decision-making by top university administrators and to analyze how their decisions imposed their preferences and expanded administrative control.

Design/methodology/approach

In the fall of 2021, the top administrators at Boston-based Northeastern University required that all members of the university community return to fully on-campus face-to-face work. That decision involved a return to what was labeled “normal operations” and followed a year-and-a-half of adjustments to the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on that case example, the analysis then ranges backward and forward in time. Other decisions – by Northeastern University leaders as well as leaders at other schools – are considered as well.

Findings

Leaders impose labels on complex contingencies as a way of constructing meaning. No label is objectively true or indisputable. In the hands of individuals who possess hierarchical power and authority, the application of a label such as “new normal” represents an exercise of power. Through an exploration and analysis of the underlying, unspoken, assumptions behind the application of the “new normal” label, the article suggests how the interests of university leaders were being advanced.

Research limitations/implications

Because of its reliance on labeling, the paper focuses mainly on the words of administrators – at Northeastern University and elsewhere – that are called upon to explain/justify decisions. The multiplicity of interests forwarded by the “new normal” label are explored. No attempt is made – nor would it be possible – to understand what was in the hearts and minds of these administrators.

Practical implications

The article makes a case that any and all pronouncements of leaders should be understood as assertions of power and statements of interests. The practical impact is to suggest a critical analysis to be applied to all such pronouncements.

Social implications

The approach taken in this article is situated within post-modernist analysis that critiques dominant narratives, disputes epistemological certainty and ontological objectivity and takes cognizance of coded messages contained in language.

Originality/value

Everyone has been through a traumatic period of time with the pandemic. The author has focused on a specific community – university administrators and tenure/tenure track faculty – as a window to help explain how decision-makers shaped their response. The author wants to emphasize the labels imposed by leaders and the assumptions behind the application of those labels.

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 18 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 23 March 2023

Camilo Osejo-Bucheli

The purpose of this research is to increase academic understanding of the relationship between systems' political identity and their viability, and to contribute to…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this research is to increase academic understanding of the relationship between systems' political identity and their viability, and to contribute to anarchist-cybernetics by examining the idea of organization proposed by Malatesta using Viable Systems. The research also develops the understanding of the relationship between Viable Systems and the environment.

Design/methodology/approach

The author developed a content analysis method that uses dynamic analysis, identifying how some variables affect others, and data is analysed using the Viable Systems Model. The author used Dynamic Causal Diagrams and the Viable System Model to draw conclusions and build theory. The author examined 137 documents produced by Errico Malatesta, studying in detail 39 documents containing the researched concepts.

Findings

The article identifies the literature, proposes an organizational theory for society and for cooperatives, strongly grounded in both, self-management and control. It presents a theory of self-management as a balancing effort to the control exercised by the external economic, political and societal forces of the environment. The literature also shows a form of organization that can be interpreted using the VSM framework. The ideas about self-management found in the literature, extend to economics, social theory, ethics, organizations, management and even operations management. The article finishes proposing a set of committees linked to the VSM structure, and successfully bridges anarchism and organizational cybernetics.

Originality/value

The article presents a novel method of systems analysis for the study of literature. It discovers the theory proposed by Malatesta not identified previously. Using the VSM framework, the ideas presented by the author, are translated into the organizational identity, and the operation of cooperatives. It makes an important contribution to anarchist-cybernetics.

Article
Publication date: 9 January 2024

Caecilia Drujon d’Astros, Camille Gaudy and Marianne Strauch

This paper aims to explore the role of the researcher’s emotions in ethnographic practice in accounting research. This paper focuses on shame as an emotion that lingers on…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to explore the role of the researcher’s emotions in ethnographic practice in accounting research. This paper focuses on shame as an emotion that lingers on, despite the efforts to work through those emotions.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted a collective autoethnography to make sense of the fieldwork and after-fieldwork emotions and their consequences. This autoethnography began with the three authors discovering their shared feeling of shame.

Findings

Building on Hochschild’s theory (1979, 1983) on emotional labor, the authors demonstrate how shame emerged as a central and lingering emotion of the ethnographies beyond an emotional labor process. The authors show how a double shame appeared toward the field participants and the academic accounting community, affecting the writing and the work.

Originality/value

The authors demonstrate that the perception of the research community’s rules of feelings gives rise to emotions that ultimately change the work. The authors show how collective autoethnography can help accounting research to acknowledge and give room to emotions.

Details

Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1176-6093

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 May 2022

Purushottam L. Meena, Rajesh Katiyar and Gopal Kumar

This paper aims to address the supplier selection problem based on a developed framework capturing the essence of the supply chain operations reference (SCOR) model…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to address the supplier selection problem based on a developed framework capturing the essence of the supply chain operations reference (SCOR) model, sustainability and providing services to customers. Specifically, the authors consider planning, manufacturing, delivery, sustainability and customer service attributes to evaluate and select suppliers.

Design/methodology/approach

Relevant literature is reviewed, a framework capturing the essence of major supply chain functions was developed and suitable measurement attributes were identified. An integrated fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and fuzzy technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution method are employed to obtain the final ranking of the attributes and suppliers. The proposed methodology is illustrated through a real case of an Indian automobile company.

Findings

The authors observed that planning, manufacturing, customer service, sustainability and delivery are preferred in decreasing order to select component suppliers for an automotive company. The impact of suppliers on planning and manufacturing is most important to consider while assessing suppliers. Interestingly, concerns about sustainability and delivery are the least cared factors when selecting suppliers. The top five criteria contain measures of operational efficiency rather than purchasing cost.

Originality/value

This paper proposes and demonstrates a supplier selection framework harmonizing supply chain functions of the SCOR model, sustainability and customers service that adds a valuable wing to literature that expounds on the connection of purchasing strategy to corporate strategy. A case study in an automotive company throws unique and valuable managerial implications for purchasing and supply chain performance.

Details

International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, vol. 72 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1741-0401

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 22 September 2023

Hooman Soleymani, Hamid Reza Saeidnia, Marcel Ausloos and Mohammad Hassanzadeh

In this study, the authors seek to introduce ways that show that in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), selective dissemination of information (SDI) performance can be…

Abstract

Purpose

In this study, the authors seek to introduce ways that show that in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), selective dissemination of information (SDI) performance can be greatly enhanced by leveraging AI technologies and algorithms.

Design/methodology/approach

AI holds significant potential for the SDI. In the age of AI, SDI can be greatly enhanced by leveraging AI technologies and algorithms. The authors discuss SDI technique used to filter and distribute relevant information to stakeholders based on the pertinent modern literature.

Findings

The following conceptual indicators of AI can be utilized for obtaining a better performance measure of SDI: intelligent recommendation systems, natural language processing, automated content classification, contextual understanding, intelligent alert systems, real-time information updates, intelligent alert systems, real-time information updates, adaptive learning, content summarization and synthesis.

Originality/value

The authors propose the general framework in which AI can greatly enhance the performance of SDI but also emphasize that there are challenges to consider. These include ensuring data privacy, avoiding algorithmic biases, ensuring transparency and accountability of AI systems and addressing concerns related to information overload.

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