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Article
Publication date: 25 March 2021

Hafiz Zahoor, Rashid Mehmood Khan, Ahsan Nawaz, Muhammad Ayaz and Ahsen Maqsoom

Earned Value Management (EVM) is widely used as a project performance measurement and forecasting technique. Nonetheless, it has not been fully explored in Pakistani construction…

Abstract

Purpose

Earned Value Management (EVM) is widely used as a project performance measurement and forecasting technique. Nonetheless, it has not been fully explored in Pakistani construction industry; where conventional progress reporting methodology (CPRM) is being followed having certain confines. It reports only the financial progress of a project, expresses feeble association between the duration and cost of activities, and forecasts flawed schedule and completion cost. This research implements EVM on under-construction building projects in Pakistan, and compares its upshots with the projects' actual records and with the outcomes of CPRM.

Design/methodology/approach

To assess the implementation of EVM on building projects, a set of specific criteria was established. Work Breakdown Structure, Organization Breakdown Structure and Control Points were established. The study has compared the EVM metrics with CPRM outcomes on three under-study building projects, and has deliberated on their mutual differences as well as their relationship with actual cost and schedule performance. Monthly figures of actual spending and completed activities were periodically recorded and compared with planned values for status indication. The graphs were generated to observe the correlation between the results of EVM and CPRM. The data was then extrapolated to forecast the schedule and cost values at completion.

Findings

The study discovered that trends of EVM in quantifying the project's cost and schedule performance were strongly correlated and were closer to the actual progress. It has also verified the EVM's soundness in forecasting the cost and schedule, required for project's completion. Contrarily, CPRM metrics could not precisely visualize the current and future, cost and schedule performance.

Originality/value

The case study concludes that EVM's incorporation in progress reporting regime can revolutionize the assessment procedures in Pakistan by rightly indicating the project's current status as well as visualizing the future performance. The study's methodology can also be extrapolated in other countries having similar work environment and economic conditions.

Details

Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, vol. 29 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0969-9988

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 May 1983

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of…

16287

Abstract

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Details

Management Decision, vol. 21 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0025-1747

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 18 July 2017

Kala Saravanamuthu

Accounting’s definition of accountability should include attributes of socioenvironmental degradation manufactured by unsustainable technologies. Beck argues that emergent…

Abstract

Accounting’s definition of accountability should include attributes of socioenvironmental degradation manufactured by unsustainable technologies. Beck argues that emergent accounts should reflect the following primary characteristics of technological degradation: complexity, uncertainty, and diffused responsibility. Financial stewardship accounts and probabilistic assessments of risk, which are traditionally employed to allay the public’s fear of uncontrollable technological hazards, cannot reflect these characteristics because they are constructed to perpetuate the status quo by fabricating certainty and security. The process through which safety thresholds are constructed and contested represents the ultimate form of socialized accountability because these thresholds shape how much risk people consent to be exposed to. Beck’s socialized total accountability is suggested as a way forward: It has two dimensions, extended spatiotemporal responsibility and the psychology of decision-making. These dimensions are teased out from the following constructs of Beck’s Risk Society thesis: manufactured risks and hazards, organized irresponsibility, politics of risk, radical individualization and social learning. These dimensions are then used to critically evaluate the capacity of full cost accounting (FCA), and two emergent socialized risk accounts, to integrate the multiple attributes of sustainability. This critique should inform the journey of constructing more representative accounts of technological degradation.

Details

Parables, Myths and Risks
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-534-4

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 November 2006

Rob Gray

The objective of this essay is to examine the extent to which social, environmental and sustainability accounting and reporting (SEA) can or should contribute to shareholder value…

35715

Abstract

Purpose

The objective of this essay is to examine the extent to which social, environmental and sustainability accounting and reporting (SEA) can or should contribute to shareholder value and, correspondingly, to consider the challenge that SEA can offer to the conventional views of “value” that underpin traditional financial accounting. The essay is then used as a vehicle to introduce some relatively new data about sustainable development that has implications for our consideration of “value”.

Design/methodology/approach

Although drawing from a wide range of secondary contextual data, the paper is primarily argumentative and seeks to challenge a number of implicit assumptions within both conventional and more “critical” accounting.

Findings

Substantive social and environmental reporting and, especially, high quality reporting on (un)sustainability will demonstrate that modern international financial capitalism and the principle organs which support it are essentially designed to maximise environmental destruction and the erosion of any realistic notion of social justice. This paper seeks to demonstrate this contention and the powerful and fundamental implications that this has for conventional financial reporting and for the superficial and cosmetic adjustments to that reporting through “new models of organisational reporting”.

Research limitations/implications

The paper questions whether any research which is not either cognisant of or directed towards sustainability and/or sustainable development makes any real sense in the context of current data about the planet. More especially, the paper asks whether any notion of “value” employed in the accounting (and wider) literature can be anything other than self‐delusional and empty if it ignores a crucial wider context.

Originality/value

Apart from taking debates about “value” and, especially “shareholder value” into another dimension, the paper is one of the first (at least in accounting as far as I am aware) to formally introduce and confront data about planetary sustainability.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 19 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 August 2012

Luis Perera Aldama and Adrián Zicari

The purpose of this paper is to present a collection of ongoing experiences with a value‐added reporting model in Latin America, positing its pertinence with regards to CSR

1674

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present a collection of ongoing experiences with a value‐added reporting model in Latin America, positing its pertinence with regards to CSR accountability.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper utilises a qualitative methodology in which a series of semi‐structured telephone interviews and/or e‐mail questionnaires with managers from six reporting companies in Latin America (Chile, Colombia, Uruguay) was conducted. The fact that one of the authors of this paper created the reporting model facilitated easier access to company managers and a deeper understanding of each situation. A literature review from European, US and Latin American sources provides a framework for discussion.

Findings

The paper illustrates how value‐added statements (which are based on conventional financial accounting) can provide relevant information for CSR accountability. The variety of experiences shown (different industries and diverse company ownership in separate countries) may suggest the wide potential of this reporting model.

Research limitations/implications

As the paper deals with a recent, ongoing experience (this model has been in use for the last six years only), the results have to be treated with caution. Even though many firms are interested in adopting this value‐added model, there are currently fewer than 20 reporting firms using it.

Social implications

The paper aims to position value distribution and its accountability as relevant issues in CSR, particularly for developing countries. In addition, such an intuitive model might more easily reach the general public, something that rarely happens with conventional CSR reporting models.

Originality/value

This is the first academic paper that demonstrates the application of this reporting model (though the authors already published a practitioner‐oriented article in Spanish). Furthermore, there are few documented cases of value‐added reporting experiences in emerging markets, particularly in Latin America.

Details

Corporate Governance: The international journal of business in society, vol. 12 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1472-0701

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 October 2015

Hairul Suhaimi Nahar

The purposes of this paper are threefold. First, it aims to argue normatively how Shari’ah precepts governing Takaful operations are translated into (rightfully) different…

3058

Abstract

Purpose

The purposes of this paper are threefold. First, it aims to argue normatively how Shari’ah precepts governing Takaful operations are translated into (rightfully) different accounting and reporting of Takaful operators. Second, it provides a critical review of the available and applicable accounting and reporting standards and guidelines related to Takaful in the Malaysian context. The third objective which constitutes the empirical piece of this paper centred on the basic numerical evidence obtained from the survey of final-year accounting students with regards to their ability in identifying the basic (dis)similarities in accounting and reporting between Takaful and insurance based on the published financial statements.

Design/methodology/approach

A mixed-mode research approach was adopted covering archival document reviews and focused group survey.

Findings

Findings are arguably informative and relevant to diverse stakeholders. First, the missing jigsaw puzzle representing accounting and reporting in the Takaful literature is uncovered by extending the explanations of Takaful-insurance conceptual and operational differences to that of accounting and reporting. The essence primarily lies on the different operational set-up attributed to the elements of gharar, maisir and riba. Second, the comparative analysis of accounting and reporting rules indicates that AAOIFI standards are less detailed in terms of accounting treatment over certain areas of Takaful operations (e.g. Re-Takaful), but these are more holistic, focused and specific in some other relatively important reporting areas reflecting the unique nature of Takaful operations. Third, findings based on the Malaysian Takaful accounting and reporting guideline suggest that accounting and reporting between Takaful and insurance are perceived to be a coin having monographic characteristics on both sides.

Originality/value

The research explicitly extends and highlights the impact of Shari’ah precepts governing Takaful’s operational nature on its accounting and reporting. It also provides empirical evidence on the nature of Malaysian-based Takaful accounting and reporting guidelines which mirror its insurance counterpart.

Details

Journal of Financial Reporting and Accounting, vol. 13 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1985-2517

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 June 2020

Eric G. Flamholtz, Ulf Johanson and Robin Roslender

The paper celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Flamholtz’s seminal paper on the Human Resource Accounting approach to taking people into account, providing a…

Abstract

Purpose

The paper celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Flamholtz’s seminal paper on the Human Resource Accounting approach to taking people into account, providing a critical review of its progress since that time and offering some thoughts on how the project might now be beneficially shaped.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper provides an authoritative review of the progress of the accounting for people project to date.

Findings

The continuing exploration of how it might be possible to take people into account is identified to be entering a new and exciting phase.

Research limitations/implications

The authors readily acknowledge that what the paper provides is an account of the evolution of the accounting for people field, which they argue is currently extending into a new and important phase relating to employee health and wellbeing.

Originality/value

The paper’s principal contribution lies in bringing together three authors who have made significant contributions to the topic of accounting for people over the past 50 years.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 33 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Responsible Investment Around the World: Finance after the Great Reset
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80382-851-0

Article
Publication date: 23 October 2009

Markus J. Milne, Helen Tregidga and Sara Walton

Through an analysis of corporate sustainable development reporting, this paper seeks to examine critically language use and other visual (re)presentations of sustainable…

9130

Abstract

Purpose

Through an analysis of corporate sustainable development reporting, this paper seeks to examine critically language use and other visual (re)presentations of sustainable development within the business context. It aims to provide a framework to interpret and tease out business representations of sustainable development. Such representations are argued to be constitutive of the way that business has come to “know” and “do” sustainable development and, therefore, to constrain and enable particular actions and developments.

Design/methodology/approach

The study uses a mix of synthesis, interpretive and discourse analysis to locate, interpret and critically analyse a corpus of written and presentational texts produced by a New Zealand business association and eight of its founding members' early triple bottom line reports.

Findings

The business association and its members' reports are shown to present a pragmatic and middle‐way discourse on business and the environment. Through the use of rhetorical claims to pragmatism and action, this discourse suggests that businesses are “doing” sustainability. But critical analysis and interpretation within a wider framework reveal a narrow, largely economic and instrumental approach to the natural environment.

Originality/value

This paper offers a diagrammatic synthesis of the contested “middle ground” of the sustainable development debate, and thereby provides a frame of reference for further interpretational work on organisations and sustainable development.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 22 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 31 January 2024

Olubukola Tokede and Anastasia Globa

This paper bridges the gap between the theory and practice by developing a life cycle sustainability tracker (LCST). The study is seeking to proffer solutions to an observed…

90

Abstract

Purpose

This paper bridges the gap between the theory and practice by developing a life cycle sustainability tracker (LCST). The study is seeking to proffer solutions to an observed shortcoming of conventional life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) communication platforms. Notably, the static nature of the information provided on such platforms has made it difficult for them to be used for real-time decision-making and predictions. The main aim of this paper is to develop a LCST that facilitates a dynamic visualisation of life cycle sustainability results and allows for an integrated benchmark across the dimensions of sustainability.

Design/methodology/approach

The study leverages the model development capabilities of the design science research strategy in accomplishing a dynamic and novel communication platform. A life cycle thinking methodology and appropriate multicriteria decision approach (MCDA) is applied to accomplish a comprehensive, streamlined and replicable approach in mapping and tracking the progress of sustainable development goals (SDGs) in the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) projects in India.

Findings

It was found that: (1) The use of the LCST tracker provides a dynamic and holistic insight into the key LCSA indicators with clearly defined benchmarks to assess the impact on the SDG 11, (2) The NIP projects achieve an upward trend across all the regions, and the percentage of opportunities ranges from 11 to 24%, with the South experiencing the highest growth and the North having the minimal increase in percentage and (3) The assessment score (52–58%) provides performance metrics that align well with the LCST – which ranges between “Fair” and “Average” for all the regions in India.

Originality/value

The novelty of this research is that the LCST provides a transparent and harmonised approach to reporting on the LCSA results. The LCST utilises heat maps and radial mapping to achieve an intuitive display of large amounts of highly heterogeneous data, thus allowing the synthesis of large sets of information compactly and with coherence. Progress towards the SDGs change on a yearly basis; hence, a dynamic LCSA tool provides a timely and the valuable context to map and track performance across different regions and contexts.

Details

Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0969-9988

Keywords

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