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This paper explores the role of accounting and accountability techniques in contributing to Australia’s border industrial complex.

We use the political thought of Behrouz Boochani to explore the role that accounting techniques play at the micro and macro level of his dialectic of alienation and freedom. Firstly, we explore the accounting and accountability techniques detailed in Boochani’s No Friend but the Mountain, which gives an account of his life in Manus Prison, and the accounting techniques he experienced. Secondly, we explore the discourse of alienation created within the annual reporting of the Australian Federal Government regarding the border industrial complex.

We argue that the border industrial complex requires the alienation of asylum seekers from their own humanity for capital accumulation, and that accounting and accountability techniques facilitate this form of alienation. These techniques include inventorying, logging and queuing at the micro level within Manus Prison. This alienates those trapped in the system from one another and themselves. Techniques also include annual reporting at a macro level which alienates those trapped in the system from the (White) “Australian Community”. However, these techniques are resisted at every point by assertions of freedom.

We illustrate the role of accounting in accumulation by alienation, where the unfreedom of incarcerated asylum seekers is a site of profit for vested interests. But also that this alienation is resisted at every point by refusals of alienation as assertions of freedom. Thus, this study contributes to the accounting literature by drawing from theories of alienation, and putting forward the dialectic of alienation and freedom articulated by Boochani and collaborators.

Farmer sentiment may be an important indicator for the agricultural sector, similar to the way that consumer sentiment is linked to the general economy. This study uses the Purdue University–CME Group Ag Economy Barometer to test the degree to which farmer sentiment is correlated with demand for United States Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency (FSA) direct loan applications.

We estimate the dynamics between farmer sentiment and applications to FSA direct operating or farm ownership loans using monthly measures of farmer sentiment and loan applications from October 2015 to April 2023 and pairwise vector autoregression.

A negative relationship exists between farmer sentiment and FSA direct operating loan applications. In contrast, a positive relationship exists between farmer sentiment and FSA direct farm ownership loan applications. Together, the estimated nonzero relationships suggests that the Ag Economy Barometer may be a leading indicator for the Agricultural Economy and that FSA loan programs play a nuanced role in the agricultural credit market.

This study uses unique data sources to further the discussion on the link between farmer sentiment and real economic outcomes and the role of an important US Federal Government farmer lending program: FSA direct loans.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the incorporation, prioritization and depth of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) initiatives in tourism industry restart policies of Canadian provinces and territories. This study investigates how the detailing of EDI in policies determine the priority in emancipating tourism workers from the inequities exacerbated during the pandemic. Such investigation enables a better understanding of the complexities, tendencies and rationale of involving EDI in the tourism industry’s recovery.

The research investigated the presence and prioritization of equity, diversity, and inclusion using systematic text analytics of 38 publicly available restart plans and statements from 52 government and non-government agencies. Using web-based software Voyant Tools to assist in text analytics, a hybrid deductive-inductive coding approach was conducted.

Key outcomes from the analysis revealed scarce to no full and dedicated content on EDI as a holistic initiative necessary for tourism industry relaunch. This lack of EDI content was a result of the greater impetus to prioritize economic generation and limited data due to practical and ideological issues. Results also suggested the tokenizing of EDI in some policies.

Difficulties in data used for research include the lack and availability of restart policies specifically for tourism; most policies were generalized and referred to economic recovery as a whole. Studies of tourism-specific EDI issues were also limited.

The research is revelatory for investigating EDI prioritizations in restart policies even among well-developed and worker-diverse tourism industries such as in Canada, where inequities and injustices to women, Black, Indigenous, gender-diverse, and newcomer tourism workers among others have been withstanding.

This study aims to examine the factors of implementing istibdal waqf and generating cash waqf funds through istibdal in Penang. This study was based on the previous problem statements, stating that waqf property could not be developed due to lack of cash funds. This has allowed the study to explore the factors for implementing istibdal waqf property and the extent to which the istibdal method can generate cash waqf funds in Penang.

This study adopted a qualitative method by conducting semi-structured interviews to achieve its research goals. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to comprehensively understand the current practice on istibdal cases in Penang State Islamic Religious Council (MAINPP) through official institutions concerned with waqf management practices in Penang. This research relied on purposive sampling to select the informants. It is a sampling strategy to select the informants in advance based on the research question. To achieve the purpose of this study, two officers from MAINPP were selected based on their working experience and specialisation criteria. As a result, several themes were successfully defined from the interview data before being analysed based on the content analysis method.

The results present three istibdal implementation processes outlined by MAINPP, namely, the istibdal implementation process for waqf land involved in the acquisition by state authorities (PBN), non-productive waqf land and istibdal applications from certain parties. The results also reveal two factors in implementing istibdal in Penang: the acquisition of waqf land by PBN and the application of istibdal for cemeteries by the Islamic Centre of Universiti Sains Malaysia. From the point of cash fund generation, no case of istibdal implementation records the generation of cash funds to MAINPP. Thus, this study ends with proposals for improving the process and implementing istibdal in Penang to generate cash funds to help MAINPP manage waqf properties.

The study only focused on implementing factors and generating cash waqf funds through istibdal in Penang. At the same time, it can be expanded to other states like Terengganu, Johor and Kelantan. This study only interviewed officers who manage matters related to the affairs of waqf properties. Therefore, it is believed that the study can be extended to other respondents, such as experts in cash fund generation investments and others.

This study proposed improvements to the policy and practice of istibdal waqf property to MAINPP after the shortcomings were identified throughout this study. If improved, these proposals will significantly impact the waqf properties involved in implementing istibdal, where it can generate cash and ensure the constant economic value of waqf properties.

This study has great implications for society through the development of a cash waqf fund that can provide great benefits to the needy, in addition to increasing funds for the welfare expenditure of Muslims through rental income, investment and development. Progress and significant impact on waqf property can provide a high indicator of the efficiency of an organisation in managing waqf property. This can attract the interest of the public, especially the wealthy, to always fulfil welfare through the waqf mechanism and share the wealth with the needy.

This study contributes to comprehensive field data on the implementation of istibdal in Penang. The data analysis results are significant to be used by the waqf property management.

For more than four decades, scholars from diverse disciplines and countries have been interested in the act of whistleblowing. To battle financial fraud, financial regulators have been developing whistleblowing programs to motivate and protect whistleblowers, i.e. those who sound the alarm after witnessing an illegal act in their organization. The purpose of this article is to review five historical phases of whistleblowing research. The authors analyze the themes covered by whistleblowing studies conducted over the past 50 years and draw a snapshot of the evolution of whistleblowing research.

The authors examine academic papers published between 1970 and 2022 and inventory the disciplines involved in the literature and changes in the definition of whistleblowing.

The findings show the progress made in academic research (especially for the accounting discipline) regarding whistleblowing. The themes covered by academic studies became progressively diverse. However, this broader scope limited the depth of analysis and the level of self-criticism in the academic research. All but a few articles fail to view whistleblowing in light of its actual level of complexity, and the rationale behind limiting the definition of whistleblowing can only increase this myopia. Although most academic studies have adopted Near and Miceli (1985) definition of whistleblowing, the literature has yet to reach a consensus. Indeed, the analysis shows that Near and Miceli’s (1985) definition of whistleblowing is incomplete and narrow by today’s standards, not to mention out of step with regulators’ needs.

The main contributions are offering a big picture of whistleblowing academic research's evolution and proposing a more complete and updated view of this act.

This paper aims to analyze stock market reactions to announcements of regulatory and law enforcement penalties imposed on banks operating in the USA.

This paper examines abnormal stock market returns around penalty announcements for banks operating in the USA from 2000 to 2022. The authors use a comprehensive data set of nearly 600 penalties to conduct their event study.

This paper finds evidence of positive and statistically significant abnormal returns on the day of the penalty announcement. However, the authors also observe negative and statistically significant abnormal returns days later, violating the semi-strong efficient market hypothesis.

By accounting for confounding events and analyzing subsamples, the authors reconcile conflicting results from prior literature that have variously shown negative, null or positive stock market reactions to penalty announcements.

Schools have long been perceived as an ideal setting to support the healthy eating behaviours of children. The aim of the study was to examine the views of Australian primary school parents regarding school food and nutrition, including education, practices and policy.

An online survey was conducted among 787 parents in March 2021, which included closed and open-ended questions.

The results indicated the inconsistent implementation of policies and/or varying practices among different schools. Parents’ views were slightly associated with some demographic and personal measures including their SES levels, education, age, the main language spoken at home and universalism values. Parents viewed healthy food provision through canteens, policies and informing parents, fruit and vegetable breaks and kitchen and garden programs as the main contributors to the promotion of healthy eating. They believed unhealthy options in canteens, school fairs, events and birthdays are the major contributors to the formation of unhealthy eating habits among children at schools. Results revealed the efforts to establish health promoting school food environments in Australian primary schools; however, inconsistencies and discrepancies among schools should be addressed to ensure equity among all children.

The findings may provide directions for policymakers and school managers and can inform future reforms and initiatives in Australian primary schools and elsewhere.

This is the first study that has examined Australian parents’ views of school food policy, practices and environments using a mixed-methods design.

Engaged employees assure organizational competitiveness and sustainability. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between job resources and employee turnover intentions, with employee engagement as a mediating variable.

Data were collected from 934 employees of eight wholly-owned pharmaceutical industries. The proposed model and hypotheses were evaluated using structural equation modeling. Construct reliability and validity was established through confirmatory factor analysis.

Data supported the hypothesized relationship. The results show that job autonomy and employee engagement were significantly associated. Supervisory support and employee engagement were significantly associated. However, performance feedback and employee engagement were nonsignificantly associated. Employee engagement had a significant influence on employee turnover intentions. The results further show that employee engagement mediates the association between job resources and employee turnover intentions.

The generalizability of the findings will be constrained due to the research’s pharmaceutical industry focus and cross-sectional data.

The study’s findings will serve as valuable pointers for stakeholders and decision-makers in the pharmacuetical industry to develop a proactive and well-articulated employee engagement intervention to ensure organizational effectiveness, innovativeness and competitiveness.

By empirically demonstrating that employee engagement mediates the nexus of job resources and employee turnover intentions, the study adds to the corpus of literature.

A major obstacle regarding the measurement of an organization's sustainability and accountability in the space economy is defining the context and boundaries of commercial activity in outer space. Here, we introduce an ecosystem framework to address this obstacle. We utilize this framework to analyze the space mining sector. Our ecosystem framework sets the space mining sector's boundaries and helps a firm identify key stakeholders, activities, policies, norms and common pool resources in that sector and the interactions between them; a significant step in structuring how to measure space sustainability and accountability.

Borrowing theories and perspectives from a wide range of academic fields, this paper conducts a comprehensive context analysis of the space mining ecosystem.

Using our ecosystem framework to define the context and set boundaries for the space mining sector allowed us to identify sustainability-related issues in the sector and offer roadmaps to develop sustainability measures and standards.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first papers to introduce a framework to define boundaries in the global space economy and provides a tool to understand, measure and evaluate the space mining sector's environmental, social and economic issues.

This study aims to identify necessary conditions for innovative entrepreneurship in cities and determine similarities in entrepreneurial configurations among them.

The authors assessed the necessary conditions for various levels of entrepreneurial output and categorized cities based on similar patterns by applying necessary condition analysis (NCA) and cluster analysis in a sample comprised of 101 cities from the entrepreneurial cities index, representing a diverse range of urban environments in Brazil. A comprehensive data set, including both traditional indicators from official Bureau of statistics and nontraditional indicators from new platforms of science, technology and innovation intelligence, was compiled for analysis.

Bureaucratic complexity, urban conditions, transport infrastructure, economic development, access to financial capital, secondary education, entrepreneurial intention, support organizations and innovation inputs were identified as necessary for innovative entrepreneurship. Varying levels of these conditions were found to be required for different entrepreneurial outputs.

The static nature of the data limits understanding of dynamic interactions among dimensions and their impact on entrepreneurial city performance.

Policymakers can use the findings to craft tailored support policies, leveraging the relationship between city-level taxonomy and direct outputs of innovative entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs).

The taxonomy and nontraditional indicators sheds light on the broader societal benefits of vibrant EEs, emphasizing their role in driving socioeconomic development.

The cluster analysis combined with NCA’s bottleneck analysis is an original endeavor which made it possible to identify performance benchmarks for Brazilian cities, according to common characteristics, as well as the required levels of each condition by each city group to achieve innovative entrepreneurial outputs.