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The paper seeks to develop a theory of information processes that invokes three major explanatory factors to account for the escalating patterns of information growth that have been taking place over the last decades.

Conceptual analysis and review of relevant theories.

First, information is claimed to have a dual value as a description of a reference domain and a relationship that such a description may have or develop with already available descriptions within that domain or across reference domains. Second, the intrinsic combinability of technologically mediated information is substantially strengthened by the interoperable character of contemporary information infrastructures. Finally, information growth dynamics are intimately connected with the perishable and disposable character of information.

The paper presents a novel theory of information growth dynamics.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of inscriptions on social media in enabling action at a distance. The purpose is addressed by investigating how and by what mechanisms inscriptions on social media can shape action at a distance.

We conduct a qualitative analysis of the Facebook page of a crowdfunded grassroots initiative, where the founders and their stakeholders interact.

We identify two mechanisms by which inscriptions on social media can shape action at a distance: a flow of micro-level inscriptions and a joint stabilisation of inscriptions. By signalling achievement, creating a sense of closeness and highlighting powerful explanations, these mechanisms guide what action at a distance is taken and by whom. Action thereby becomes a mutual exercise between centres of calculation and distant peripheries, highly intertwined with the stability of inscriptions. The two mechanisms indicate the importance of the boundaryless nature of the inscriptions in shaping action at a distance.

Our findings indicate new forms of inscriptions and, consequently, of novel conditions for action at a distance. These insights add to the literature on Web 2.0 and accounting, which has mainly revolved around the relationship between centres of calculation and distant peripheries that act upon each other rather than around the inscriptions that enable such action.

By using Latour’s notion of “action at a distance” (Latour, 1987), the purpose of this paper is to examine the ways in which the government acts at a distance to achieve corporate governance of public sector banks, and the extent to which accounting enables such actions of the government.

This study follows the qualitative research approach and adopts the case study research method. A major public sector bank in Sri Lanka was selected as the case organization for this study. Data were gathered from semi-structured interviews with organizational participants and document study.

The study provides evidence to suggest that inscriptions produced through four areas of accounting, namely external reporting, external auditing, management accounting and internal auditing, have the capacity to develop strong explanations enabling action at a distance and good corporate governance in the case organization. The study also provides evidence to show how the role of accounting in long-distance control and corporate governance in the case organization is influenced by various contextual factors. In particular, the study finds that undue government interference over the case organization to gain the long-distance control have resulted in deteriorating the level of corporate governance.

The findings support the literature that examines the accounting in its social context.

The findings suggest that actors should be allowed to operate independently, particularly without political expedience and undue influences from pressure groups, which ensure effective utilization of accounting inscriptions by the actors in long-distance control as well as good corporate governance of public sector banks.

Although research into accounting in public sector organizations has gained considerable importance in recent times, those studies examining public sector banks are still lacking. The paper aims to fill this gap.

This article examines the power of management control mechanisms as “inscriptions” for bringing the interests of organisations within a purchaser–provider network into alignment.

The study contributes to accounting and accountability literature in hybrid organisations by applying actor-network theory to a case study organisation. This enables an analysis of how a government agency, operating as a social service provider to the community, developed and used management control mechanisms in its intra-organisational units to ensure its operations were aligned with the expectations of inter-organisational networks in a purchaser–provider context. Data were collected using open-ended interviews and by examining internal accounting and management reports, government archival records and newspaper articles.

Analysis of the results demonstrates that inter-organisational network control was internalised within the provider organisation because of the ability of the controls to function as inscriptions that influenced organisational actions. The authors conclude that the network control travelled across boundaries over time and was assimilated by the provider organisation to become its internal management control mechanisms.

A single case study of a government service provider agency may limit the generalisation of the findings to other hybrid entities or networks. The significant practical essence of this study lies in the diversity within the results that offer a rich representation of the impact of purchaser–provider arrangements on internal organisational systems within a hybrid public sector setting.

The outcomes enhance knowledge of how a hybrid government agency developed, mobilised and institutionalised its management control mechanisms to ensure the activities of one party are consistent with the other parties' expectations within a network.

This study investigates the effects of service modularity on the perceived usefulness (PU) of e-learning programs through the perceived ease of use (PEoU) and service customization.

Structural equation modeling was used to test four hypotheses with survey data from 517 undergraduates in Turkey.

Results show that service modularity affects the PU of e-learning programs through the PEoU. Service customization negatively moderates the effect of service modularity on the PEoU, but positively moderates the effect of the PEoU on the PU of e-learning programs.

This study offers insights that support the decisions of policymakers and higher education institutions on how to design appealing e-learning programs cost-effectively.

This study reveals the determinants of the PU of e-learning, which could support the democratization of access to higher education in emerging countries where barriers to higher education are relatively greater than in developed countries.

The concept of service modularity is explored in the e-learning context from the students' perspective. This study shows that the standardized interfaces across course modules increase the PU of e-learning programs by improving the ease of use. It also shows, interestingly, that service customization, enabled by modularity, is not always appreciated by service consumers, because of the potential extra effort demanded in communicating their unique needs to service providers.

Knowledge‐based techniques can enhance the effectiveness of mathematical methods. Here the application of artificial intelligence approaches to freight transportation planning is examined.

The automotive industry has been studied extensively, but few studies focus on outbound logistics in automotive supply chains, or on the logistics service provider’s (LSP’s) point of view. Furthermore, there is hardly any research on service model innovation in LSPs. The purpose of this paper is to narrow these research gaps.

The analysis is based on a single-case study – an LSP that specializes in services for the automotive industry. The paper examines the company’s service models and their development over time.

The findings show how the case company has moved towards multifaceted service models through a number of radical and incremental innovations. Moreover, it has used the same methods in developing all its new service models, and has applied modularity principles in service innovation to achieve better process efficiency and service effectiveness.

The rather narrow focus of this study – automotive logistics in a specific area – decreases the generalizability of the findings beyond this context. However, the single-case approach offers in-depth insights, and the analytical frameworks developed herein for service models is applicable in other contexts.

The analysis may help LSPs and service companies in their service design and development. The use of modularity principles makes it easier to offer mass-customized services and to develop efficient processes.

This study narrows a research gap in examining outbound logistics services in the automotive supply chain and focussing on the LSP’s perspective.

This paper describes the Laurin thesaurus, which is used for indexing and searching in the Laurin system, a software package for digital clipping archives. As a multilingual thesaurus it complies with the corresponding standards, though presenting some approaches going beyond some of the standards' recommendations. The Laurin thesaurus integrates all kind of indexing terms, not only keywords, but proper names as well. The system of categories and relationships is described in detail.

The main purpose of this research is to analyse the socio‐technical consequences deriving from the digitisation of crown prosecutors' work.

This research is based on an in‐depth, qualitative case study of the use of technologies by crown prosecutors. It relies on observations, focus groups and semi‐structured interviews conducted in London and Humberside over a 15‐month time‐span. The overarching methodological approach interweaves the empirical data with the theory of information growth which postulates that information is a difference that makes a difference.

The main finding is that the digitisation of prosecutors' work has produced an increasingly‐larger, interlocked domain of digital information by triggering the need for new data standards which, in turn, have created the need for new information‐handling capabilities, thus prompting a ubiquitous infrastructure of self‐propelling differences.

The information growth dynamics investigated have broader implications in relation to information privacy, security and data ownership that go beyond the scope of this research.

It is suggested that rather than steering the information‐growth process, public sector managers should attempt to control the premises of such a process by setting out a structured information quality management procedure both for domain‐specific and generic data standards.

It is argued that plans are makeshift accomplishments that are bound to succumb to the overarching process of information growing out of information. Once viewed from this vantage point, cross‐organisational governance structures are no longer the outcome of pre‐defined plans but rather the side effect of a self‐reinforcing process of information growth.

The purpose of this paper is to seek to extend the work of Robson (1991, 1992) by exploring the accounting implications of the way in which subsets of non-financial accounting numbers are constructed. In particular, the study investigates whether the different procedures for organising subsets of a set of accounting data may lead to different conclusions about (the same) reality.

The empirical analysis focuses on the procedures by which organisations translate work-related injury outcomes to accounting numbers. First, existing procedures are problematised within their institutional context. This highlights complementary elements of translation and neo-institutional theory that together explain how institutional factors might operate to constrain the problematising process. An empirical analysis of workers’ compensation data covering a ten year period is then conducted to calculate and contrast performance using two competing logics of accounting for injury.

The findings demonstrate that different representations of reality may result not only from accounting choices as to “what” is measured, but also from accounting choices as to “how subsets of measured data are organised”. Specifically, different ways of organising injury data into subsets led to different representations of the reality of overall injury performance. The evidence further suggests taken-for-granted assumptions and institutionalised practices may prevent adequate problematisation of the underpinning logic that guides the procedures for organising translations of work-related injury and illness to accounting numbers.

The results suggest the existing logic of accounting for injury fails to recognise the financial or non-financial complexity of non-fatal injury outcomes. “Lost time injury” measures are revealed as neither valid nor reliable measures of injury (or safety) and therefore inappropriate for informing the occupational health and safety (OHS) decisions of managers, boards and external stakeholders. These findings reveal an urgent need for change in injury accounting practice and, in turn, raise serious concerns about the increasingly institutionalised global template for external disclosure of OHS performance information.

This paper takes a novel look at the construction of social performance measures and suggests further attention to the construction of accounting subsets is warranted. In demonstrating serious problems in accounting logic that underpin existing, and deeply institutionalised, measurement and reporting practices, the findings reinforce the need to routinely re-problematise accounting practices. Failure to critically review those accounting translations that underpin decision-making may prove a fatal mistake.