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The plethora of changes in the corporate governance landscape over the past two decades has the potential to tighten governance regimes and influence the preference of supervisory board members vis-à-vis the involved decision-making role of business unit (BU) controllers and their independent fiduciary role. Stricter financial reporting and compliance requirements may lead organizations to prioritize the latter role. However, recent studies support the need to balance these roles, inducing the potential for role conflict. The purpose of this study is to shed light on the influence of a tight and loose governance regime on this balance as preferred by supervisory board members.

This study uses a unique data set from an experiment among 73 supervisory board members. The authors take their perspective because compliance with governance codes and corporate policies are relevant topics for their function.

The authors find evidence for the preference of supervisory board members for “all-round” BU controllers who, irrespective of the governance regime, demonstrate substantial levels of fiduciary and decision-making qualities and deal with the resulting role conflict.

The outcomes of the experiment among supervisory board members provide evidence for their preferences concerning the balance of the two primary controller roles and for the potential of role conflict. The authors have not found studies that provide such empirical evidence.

The purpose of this paper is to present a five-fingered, multisensory prosthetic hand integrating both intuitive myoelectric control and sensory feedback.

The artificial hand’s palm has a three-arcuate configuration and the thumb can move along a cone surface, improving the resemblance with the biological hand. By using a coupling linkage mechanism, each finger is independently actuated by a direct current motor. Both torque and position sensors are embedded in the finger to sense the hand’s status and its interaction with the outer environment. The proposed human-in-the-loop control system consists of an internal motion control scheme and an external human–machine interface. The pattern recognition-based electromyography (EMG) control scheme is adopted to control the motion of the hand, and the transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) is utilized to feedback the hand’s sensory information to its user.

The hand prototype shows that it has an anthropomorphic appearance (85 per cent to an average human hand), low weight (420 g), great power (10 N on the fingertip) and eligible dexterity. Clinical evaluation of the prosthetic hand on transradial amputees also approves the hand design.

From a systematic view, the paper details the design concepts of the HIT–DLR prosthetic hand IV, especially on its appearance, mechanism, myoelectric control and sensory feedback.

The aim of this essay is to present the possibility of applying personal controlling as a tool used in library staff management.

The studies involved analyze the strong and weak points of human resources (SWOT). Motivational system, promotion opportunities, wage policy, staff's qualification usage, training system and rationalization of employment in the various sectors, the level of satisfaction, work conditions, absenteeism and crew's fluency – were all taken into account during researches.

Based on the survey it is possible to identify the strong and the weak points, opportunities and threats existing in the library, and thus eliminate accidental events and steer the activities in the future. The possibility of controlling usage in the libraries optimizes exploitation of owned human resources and contributes to the achievement of the library's purposes.

Weak points of actions and functioning of the library's crew create vicissitudes for librarians. Libraries' management should seek to acquire financial funds or material rewards, aiming at the modification of adopted rules and receipt of bonuses. The noticed and appreciated employee may feel fulfilled and may identify with the purposes of the entire library and would be motivated, and thus may raise the quality of services provided by the library.

The paper describes the first attempts at controlling the implementation of personnel in Polish libraries.

The purpose of this paper is to examine securities analyst independence in China's capital market and the effect on analyst independence of institutional investors’ shareholding and separation between control rights and cash flow rights of ultimate controller.

Using data of China's listed companies from 2006 to 2012, the authors empirically tested the relationship between analyst following and volatility of stock return. And based on the test, the authors investigated the role played by institutional investors’ ownership and separation between control rights and cash flow rights of ultimate controller.

According to the empirical results, there is a significant negative correlation between analyst following and volatility of stock return. Also, shareholding of institutional investors and the separation between control rights and cash flow rights of ultimate controllers will have an impact on the relationship between analyst following and volatility of stock return. When institutional investors hold higher proportion or the separation between control rights and cash flow rights of ultimate controllers keeps at a high level, the negative correlation between analyst following and volatility of stock return will weaken.

First, based on the theory of market intermediation, the paper examined analyst independence by investigating and analyzing the relationship between analyst following and volatility of stock return. Second, it analyzed the factors affecting analyst independence by integrating enterprise characteristic variable and market characteristic variable on the basis of introducing two variables – shareholding of institutional investors and the separation between control rights and cash flow rights of ultimate controllers.

Financial services firms have a significant societal responsibility to prevent issues. The three lines model helps them do that though faces challenges in its effectiveness. This paper aims to offer a behavioural perspective on these challenges and practical solutions to help improve the model and herewith better prevent issues.

The authors detail key behavioural pitfalls and underlying psychological mechanisms that hinder the effectiveness of the model. The authors illustrate these with examples from the corporate practice, alluding to the behavioural patterns and drivers identified in the academic and consultancy work. The authors conclude with offering practical solutions how to enhance the effectiveness of the model.

The authors discuss common ineffective intergroup behaviours between the controllers (here: internal audit) and the controlled (here: the audited business or 2nd line functions): the controllers responding to issues with increased scrutiny; the controlled dismissing the feedback and challenging the issues raised; and the controlled and the controller competing for power. The root causes of these ineffective intergroup behaviours include: psychological defence mechanisms, social categorisation and collective beliefs about intrusiveness. The offered solutions range from actions the controllers can take, actions the controlled can take and actions both can take to improve the effectiveness of the model in practice.

The authors argue that the behavioural perspective on the effectiveness of the model is a blind spot and largely omitted from organisations’ agendas. This paper adds this behavioural perspective to help organisations improve the effectiveness of the model.

This chapter provides an overview of local government auditing in New Zealand by outlining the nature of local government, particularly the legislative requirements in respect to financial and service performance reporting and those for external audit. It also summarises the role and powers of the Controller and Auditor-General and their office in respect to local government audit in New Zealand.

The purpose of this paper is to study the work roles undertaken by financial controllers. The literature suggests a recent transformation, with the role of the finance professional making a significant shift from “score‐keeper” to a “value‐added” business partner. The paper suggests that the role has undergone a more complex change and combines elements from both of these descriptions.

The methodological approach starts by analysing job specifications of financial controller vacancies. Using survey data, it then establishes what tasks they now do. Finally, it uses interviews to understand whether financial controllers believe that they could add more value to the organisation and if any barriers exist preventing the transformation of the role.

The findings suggest that the role of financial controller has not transformed in recent years, but has instead enlarged, incorporating more “forward‐looking” elements, which are concerned with the management of the whole business. These developments have not replaced the “traditional” tasks such as reporting and control, but are supplementary to them. The research also indicates that financial controllers believe that the role should be expanded and that they could add more value, but are constrained by external pressures.

The authors acknowledge that this paper does not consider the contingent factors which shape the individual role within different types and sizes of business, but nevertheless it discusses many of the characteristics associated with the complex role.

This paper has implications for finance and accounting managers working in business, the accounting bodies and those involved in accounting education.

Real-time simulation trials involving operational air traffic controllers are an essential stage in the validation of new ideas and computer assistance tools for air traffic control. This paper describes the business and technical background to such trials and then highlights two statistical issues which continue to complicate the design and reporting of trials:

Reconciling objective, subjective, quantitative and qualitative data: striking the right balance between controlled measurement and expert opinion;

Correlation and independence in sequences of data: designing cost-effective trials without over-sampling.

Research has focused on factors causing pressure and impairing auditor independence. These include competition, opinion shopping, client and auditor size, and client financial health. No study has examined the characteristics of the pressures. Responses to case studies sent to auditors in the USA and Australia were analysed via factor analysis. The objective was, first, to increase understanding of the underlying dimensions of pressures faced by these auditors; and second, to examine any similarities between these two countries, similar in culture, but significantly different in such respects as the legal environment. The results indicate two dimensions: pressure to retain the client, and to conform. The first is a more pervasive but subtle pressure while, in the second, the auditor is asked to follow a certain course of action. Pressure to retain the client appears to be greater for auditors in both countries, relative to the pressure to conform. So the underlying dimensions of the pressures in these countries are similar.

This study aims to take a step toward integrating research regarding the image, role and identity of management accountants by understanding how employers’ perceptions of the ideal management accountant image differ from operational managers’ perceived role expectations, how management accountants perceive their identity and how those factors shape management accountants’ understanding of who they are and want to be.

A qualitative design draws upon the case company’s 100 job advertisements and 31 semi-structured interviews with management accountants and operational managers. Those data are entwined with role theory and its core concepts of expectations and identities and also early recruitment-related theoretical aspects such as image and employer branding.

The findings reveal how employers’ perceptions of the ideal image and operational managers’ role expectations shape and influence the identity of management accountants. However, management accountants distance themselves from a brand image and role expectations. They experience identity conflict between their current and desired identity, the perception of not being able to perform the currently desired role. Although this study presents some possible reasons and explanations, such as employer branding for the misalignment and discrepancy between perceptions of employer (image), expectations of operational managers (role) and management accountants’ self-conception of the role (identity), this study argues that the identity of a management accountant results from organizational aspects of image and role and individual aspects of identity.

Image and external role expectations can challenge identity construction and also serve as a source of conflict and frustration; thus, a more comprehensive approach to studying the identity of management accountants is necessary to understand what contributes to the fragility of their identity.

The results provide an understanding of the dynamics of the image, role and identity to support management accountants and employers and to further address the suggested dissonance and ambiguities.

This study contributes by showing how the dynamics and connections between the image, role and identity influence the identity construction of management accountants. Moreover, this study shows how overpromising as a part of employer branding might not reflect the reality experienced by management accountants but may cause frustration and threaten the management accountants’ identity.