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The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of accountability in times of exception. The Italian government's account-giving practices are critically analysed with respect to the distinct modes in which duties of accountability are discharged for the exceptional measures taken during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in early 2020.

This paper draws on an exploratory case study. The case analysis draws primarily on data obtained through publicly available documents and covers the period between January 1 and August 7, 2020.

The paper reveals that the Italian government employed various accountability styles (rebuttal, dismissal, reactive, proactive and coactive). Each style influenced both how the government justified its conduct and how it sought to form distinctive relationships with social actors.

The paper uses the notion of “styles of accountability” to empirically illustrate how an unprecedented public governance challenge can reveal broader accountability trends. The paper contributes to accountability research by elucidating how governments tackle ambiguity and uncertainty in their systems of public accountability in extraordinary times.

Local Government in Indonesia annually publishes Local Government Financial Statements (LGFS) for helping their stakeholders in making decisions. Audit Opinion of the LGFS for counties and cities in East Java Province during the last 8 years (2006-2013) showed a quite astonishing result. From all of 301 financial statements, only 45 LGFS (14.95%) obtained Unqualified Opinion, other financial statements (256 or 85.05%) received Non-Unqualified Opinion. This study aims to analyze the accounts and problems in the accounts which cause LGFS obtain Non-Unqualified Opinion. Using content analysis with NVIVO10 applications, this study analyzed 256 audit opinions of the LGFS of counties and cities in East Java during 2006-2013 that obtained Non-Unqualified Opinion to identify the accounts and problems in the accounts which cause LGFS obtain Non-Unqualified Opinion. The results showed that the most frequent accounts as an exception in the audit opinion are the accounts on Budget Realization Report (BR) with the frequency of occurrence as much as 6628 times. The Balance Sheet (BS) accounts was at the second place with the total frequency of occurrence 4206 times. And last, there was a Cash Flow Statement (CF) account with the frequency of occurrence as much as 693 times. In BR, the most frequent account which appears as an exception is spending account (as much as 4198 times), while the assets are the most frequent accounts as an exception in the Balance Sheet (as much as 4206 times). The problem with the accounts that often appear as an exception was mainly due to the weakness of the Internal Control System (ICS), followed by non-compliance with the provisions of law and the last problem is in-economies, inefficiency and ineffectiveness.

This paper aims to attempt to provide an overview of the copyright legal framework for audiovisual resources in Europe and Greece, how Audiovisual (AV) content is currently licensed by Greek providers and how licenses or copyright exceptions enable its reuse. The motivation for this work was the development of an aggregation service for audiovisual resources in Greece, the Open AudioVisual Archives (OAVA) platform.

Copyright licenses and exceptions in the European Union and in Greek Legislation have been thoroughly reviewed along with the reuse of content, based on the terms of Fair Use, Rights Statements and Creative Commons. Licensing issues for the most well-known aggregation services, such as Europeana, Digital Public Library of America, Trove, Digital New Zealand and the National Digital Library of India, have also been studied and considered. Audiovisual content providers in Greece have been recorded, and their licensing preferences have been analyzed. Pearson’s chi-square test was applied to test the relationship between the provider’s type, resources’ genre and licenses used.

Despite the abundance of copyright legislation in the European Union and in Greece, audiovisual content providers in Greece seem to ignore it or find it difficult to choose the right license. More than half of them choose to publish their resources on popular audiovisual platforms using the default licensing option provided. Creative Commons licenses are preferred for audiovisual content that falls into the following categories: open courses (almost exclusively) and interviews and digital collection/research projects (about half of the content).

This paper examines audiovisual content aggregation, in the EU and Greece, from a legal point of view. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first attempt to record and analyze the licensing preferences of Greek AV content providers.

The paper examines how accounting and accounting experts provided important contributions to the Italian government's strategy to address the COVID-19 emergency in 2020, especially in terms of implementing new rules of conduct and providing justification for penetrating interventions in the life of individuals.

The paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach by drawing upon Agamben's concepts of the state of exception, bare life and biosecurity to understand the purposes of the decrees issued by the Italian government and data provided to the citizens in the “daily bulletin” on the crisis by the Civil Protection Department.

Accounting data provided essential contributions to the government's strategy that sought to spread disquiet and uncertainty in the population to ensure compliance with the strict rules in place, thereby sustaining the management of the country under a state of exception.

The study draws attention to the way in which accounting provides justification for measures that are promoted as provisional but which have enduring effects, most importantly the ability of governments in the future to suspend the rights of individuals. It shows how accounting can influence people's behaviour and contribute to the development of a permanent state of exception that significantly increases government prerogatives.

The work contributes to the literature on accounting and emergencies by studying the use of accounting information as a subtle means to ensure support for extreme government actions and ultimately as a political tool that promotes biosecurity as a new government paradigm.

Entrepreneurs starting new ventures will encounter a host of legal issues requiring consultation with an attorney on an episodic or ongoing basis. It is critical that careful attention be given to the attorney selection process to properly match the needs of the company with the credentials of the attorney.Additionally, options should be explored regarding the billing and payment methodologies the attorney is willing to entertain. The financial resources and cash flow of young companies will likely have a direct impact on the financial agreements entered into with legal counsel. Further, companies desirous of offering the attorney a stake in the company as full or partial payment for legal services need to be mindful of ethical restrictions applicable to the lawyer, as well as exceptions to the lawyerʼs malpractice coverage arising from his or her role with the company

A deteriorating security situation and an increased need for defence equipment calls for new forms of collaboration between Armed Forces and the defence industry. This paper aims to investigate the ways in which the accelerating demand for increased security of supply of equipment and supplies to the Armed Forces requires adaptability in the procurement process that is governed by laws on public procurement (PP).

This paper is based on a review of current literature as well as empirical data obtained through interviews with representatives from the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration and the Swedish defence industry.

Collaboration with the globalized defence industry requires new approaches, where the PP rules make procurement of a safe supply of defence equipment difficult.

The study's empirical data and findings are based on the Swedish context. In order to draw more general conclusions in a defence context, the study should be expanded to cover more nations.

The findings will enable the defence industry and the procurement authorizations to better understand the requirements of Armed Forces, and how to cooperate under applicable legal and regulatory requirements.

The paper extends the extant body of academic knowledge of the security of supply into the defence sector. It serves as a first step towards articulating a call for new approaches to collaboration in defence supply chains.