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This chapter analyses recent reforms of the derivative claim in the UK as implemented by the Companies Act 2006. Recent reforms and modernisation of company law is part of a drive to facilitate enterprise and enhance the attractiveness of the UK as a location in which to do business. The reforms of derivative claims are, naturally, part of this wider drive. The chapter focuses on those areas that are particularly relevant to the question of whether the new legal framework relating to derivative claims is likely to promote these goals.

This study examines the director labor market to better understand which director attributes are important for board service.

Director level data, which includes proxies for both human and social capital, is analyzed to determine which characteristics increase the likelihood of gaining additional board appointments.

We find that general skills and director connections are valued in the marketplace. Among specific director characteristics, financial expertise, holding an MBA degree, and S&P 500 experience are positively associated with gaining new board appointments. Moreover, regardless of the director’s level of expertise, highly connected individuals are more likely to obtain new appointments. Finally, from a range of characteristics, only director connections mitigate the negative consequences of serving on the boards of firms that restate their financials.

While most research has analyzed the effectiveness of boards of directors as a whole, this study examines the value of individual director characteristics within the context of the labor market.

The study here examines how business actors adapt to changes in networks by analyzing their perceptions or their network pictures. The study is exploratory or iterative in the sense that revisions occur to the research question, method, theory, and context as an integral part of the research process.

Changes within networks receive less research attention, although considerable research exists on explaining business network structures in different research traditions. This study analyzes changes in networks in terms of the industrial network approach. This approach sees networks as connected relationships between actors, where interdependent companies interact based on their sensemaking of their relevant network environment. The study develops a concept of network change as well as an operationalization for comparing perceptions of change, where the study introduces a template model of dottograms to systematically analyze differences in perceptions. The study then applies the model to analyze findings from a case study of Norwegian/Japanese seafood distribution, and the chapter provides a rich description of a complex system facing considerable pressure to change. In-depth personal interviews and cognitive mapping techniques are the main research tools applied, in addition to tracer studies and personal observation.

The dottogram method represents a valuable contribution to case study research as it enables systematic within-case and across-case analyses. A further theoretical contribution of the study is the suggestion that network change is about actors seeking to change their network position to gain access to resources. Thereby, the study also implies a close relationship between the concepts network position and the network change that has not been discussed within the network approach in great detail.

Another major contribution of the study is the analysis of the role that network pictures play in actors' efforts to change their network position. The study develops seven propositions in an attempt to describe the role of network pictures in network change. So far, the relevant literature discusses network pictures mainly as a theoretical concept. Finally, the chapter concludes with important implications for management practice.

We utilise the actor-network theory (ANT) – based especially on Latour (2005) – to examine how management accounting tools affect physicians’ representations and new managerial practices in French public hospitals currently undergoing reform.

We conducted a longitudinal case study – based on interviews and observations – in a large French public hospital in which dashboards are diffused to physicians and nurses dealing with both medical and managerial activities.

The case shows that head physicians and nurses are implicated in their new managerial tasks and spend time analysing dashboards. Management accounting tools thus play a role, as mediators, in organising new managerial practices, and dashboards are a means of materialising and giving structure to new managerial practices and enabling discussions and exchanges to take place between actors who were previously separated.

The case shows that management accounting tools are not necessarily useful because they help in decision-making or control – as in the dominant paradigm; rather, they are beneficial because they may help in changing representations and building a new collective organisation. Future research should therefore expand on the organisational and social roles of management accounting tools, especially in the healthcare field.

Most ANT-inspired studies in management accounting focus on explaining changes in accounting practices, which are perceived as a consequence of an ANT process. This chapter, however, analyses the practices by which management accounting tools act as a vehicle to organisational change.

This chapter examines corporate governance–related financial reporting issues in the context of globalization. Over the past few decades, the process of globalization has substantially altered the fields of corporate governance and accounting. More specifically, Anglo-American models of corporate governance and financial reporting have received increasing momentum in emerging economies, including China. However, a review of relevant studies suggests that there is limited research examining the implementation of Anglo-American concepts in various countries regardless of their growing acceptance. This monograph extends the existing literature by comprehensively investigating the adoption of internationally acceptable principles and standards in China, the largest transitional economy that has different institutional context from Anglo-American countries. In addition, the review has a number of implications for developing the theoretical framework, and determining the research methodology for the monograph.

The purpose of this chapter is to examine how leaders furthered the development of a social enterprise in response to paradoxes. Data on leadership practices were collected through interviews and observations in an Italian Healthcare network over the organization’s first two years. The data indicate that leaders addressed paradoxes in developing several critical resources by using both top-down influence and bottom-up participation. Leaders used top-down practices to further organizational development along a known path when they could leverage technical expertise or a vision to address a source of tension. Bottom-up practices, on the other hand, permitted the discovery of new paths that had not been previously identified. Leaders leveraged such responses where tensions appeared intractable. Implications for managers and organizational development and change practitioners are discussed.

This chapter describes the current state of special education in Israel as well as what the future holds with possible solutions to improve services for individuals with disabilities. Israel is a very complex society and, as such, the educational system is very complex as well. The development of the special education system in Israel will be described as well as the current policies. In addition, different service delivery models will be explained. Inclusionary practices in Israel will be discussed as well as the prevalence and incidence rates of different disabilities in Israel and how they have changed over time. Finally, different strategies and models for implementation of services will be described and the importance of teacher training to meet student needs will be highlighted.