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When an individual leaves evidence to suggest that they are dead to mislead others, they are committing “pseudocide.” This study aims to examine pseudocides performed for the purpose of committing or concealing a financial crime.

This manuscript summarizes information from both academic and nonacademic publications. To provide evidence related to the conclusions made by prior authors and identify the risk factors that are often indicative of pseudocide, this manuscript examines the characteristics of pseudocides that received media coverage.

Pseudocides that receive media coverage often involve a prominent figure or a compelling story. These stories are not representative of the average pseudocide, which receives no publicity because it occurs in a less developed nation and is committed by a nonpublic figure. Common characteristics include the absence of a corpse and paperwork procured through bribery.

One of the only academic papers focused on pseudocide, this manuscript provides readers with information related to the scope of the issue, common methodologies and factors indicative of pseudocide. This should be of interest to several parties including forensic accountants, insurers, regulators and academics.

Although special education was built upon the foundation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the discrimination that many racialized students receiving special education services experience cannot be denied. Many culturally, ethnically, and linguistically diverse students receiving special education services encounter labels that perpetuate racism and ableism and lead to inequitable access to services and resources necessary for more positive postsecondary outcomes. By honoring intersectionality and dismantling the singular identity, educators can become change agents and shift the historic oppressive narrative to create a system of empowerment as these individuals transition from transitional kindergarten to age 21 special education programs (TK-21) schools into adulthood.

The present research aims to examine the effect of workplace spirituality (WPS) and employee well-being (EWB) on public service motivation (PSM) in the public institutions. Workplace spirituality and EWB are two concepts related to the optimal level of human performance, while the motivation of academic staff is a vital concern in higher education institutions (HEIs), particularly in the public sector. In this competitive age, it is a challenge to improve the motivation of academic staff due to limited resources in developing countries. This study examines the association between WPS and PSM through the lens of EWB in the context of HEIs.

This study opted for a quantitative research method by using a stratified sampling technique. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from the academic staff of renowned public sector universities located in Lahore, Pakistan. Hypothesized relationships were tested using structural equation modeling through AMOS: 22.

The results supported the established conceptual model that WPS is positively associated with PSM through the mediating role of EWB.

The research approach chosen may lack generalizability of the results because the data were collected from a specific population. Moreover, self-report measures were used, which may have led to common method bias which is also another drawback of the study.

This study is a pioneer in conceptualizing and testing a model that links WPS, EWB and PSM in the context of HEIs. The implications regarding enhancing the culture of spirituality in the workplace, EWB and PSM are elaborated in the specific context of academic staff, attempting to fill a gap in the extant literature.

This study accomplishes a recognized need to study how PSM can be improved by facilitating EWB and WPS.

This paper aims to analyse the character and strength of the claims made in an emerging literature offering a sociology of financial reporting principles.

The analysis evaluates exemplary works in the literature against the characteristics of the paranoid style first identified by Richard Hofstadter: overheated claims of a far-reaching, malign and collusive machinery of influence; a reductive, rationalistic and dualistic reading of events; weak empirics; and weak theorisation.

A significant stream within the literature is coming to be constructed in the paranoid style. Paranoid stylistics, used as a diagnostic tool, alerts us here to distorted judgement.

Alternative ways of avoiding the dangers of paranoid-style readings are suggested, ranging from resisting the temptations towards such readings to a radical re-working of the epistemics of “socio-accounting”.

The danger of allowing the conclusions advanced in the literature to go unchallenged is that they may influence society’s attitude to accounting, public policy-making and scholars’ willingness to contribute to the crafting of reporting principles and standards.

Although paranoid style analysis has been widely used to examine narratives in other academic fields, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to apply it to scholarly accounting.

I historically compare changes in institutional frameworks creating academic positions linked to temporary employment by analyzing university employment statistics in Chile, Colombia, Germany, and the USA. I find that temporary academic positions were institutionalized through the creation of previously inexistent academic categories called a contrata in Chile, de cátedra in Colombia, “junior professor” without tenure in Germany and “postdoc” in the USA; used in higher education and employment laws since 1989, 1992, 2002, and 1974, respectively. Under institutional frameworks demanding the maximization of students and research, universities have increasingly contracted academics through temporary contracts under rationales that differ between regions. In Colombia and Chile, public university leaders and owners of private universities contract such teaching positions to expand student numbers through lowering costs. In Germany and the USA, employment insecurity is mostly driven by temporary scientific positions under a main rationale of scientific expansion. The share of temporary positions has increased exponentially in Colombia and Germany in recent decades, whereas in the USA there has only been an increase since 2012. Moreover, in Chile, the share of permanent positions has decreased since 2012. The common trend is one of isomorphism of vertical academic structures sharing a pyramidal form, with a wide base of academics working under conditions of contractual insecurity. Such trends follow a rationale for maximization of student numbers as well as administration, and scientific production that is in tension with prioritizing wellbeing and improvement of academics’ working conditions. Yet, in these environments, the institution of tenure in the USA and recent Chilean regulations on accreditation represent mechanisms counteracting precarious employment.

This paper aims to analyze idea generation in a public-private collaboration of a Brazilian Government Agency. The authors start from the following research question: How did the process of open creativity occur from collaboration, network relationships and creative practice in the experience of open innovation cycles of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Pernambuco, Brazil?

The research was characterized as a case study that empirically explored a contemporary phenomenon in a specific context. The authors conducted document research and interviews and used the content analysis technique.

The findings showed that open creativity enabled more efficient idea generation when the public-private partnership was established in a well-structured collaboration network with the private sector of the economy; when it consisted of a heterogeneous group of external collaborators who developed a wide exchange of expertise; and when practical actions were developed to make the creative process more efficient.

The study was limited to a single reality. The study was conducted in a single country and other nations may have social and institutional elements that were not considered in the analysis and that may influence the results in similar studies.

The authors investigated open creativity in the public sector, a field that still has gaps in understanding. The authors focused on social relationships for the generation and improvement of ideas among actors external to the organization involved, a niche that is still little explored in the literature.

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) often lack adequate accounting systems and may even fail because of accounting inefficiencies. Indeed, accounting can mitigate the course of a crisis and support a troubled SME’s turnaround. Its impact on reorganization success, however, has scarcely been researched so far. Therefore, this paper aims to examine the effects of several accounting parameters, namely, the quality of accounting systems, quality of early warning systems, formal planning, the standard of financial accounting and reorganization planning on the short- and long-term success of court-supervised reorganization.

The impact of accounting on reorganization success is investigated in a sample of all SME bankruptcy cases with ten or more employees (n = 117) in Upper Austria in 2012 including data for short-term survival (in 2016) and long-term survival (in 2019).

This study found evidence that the general quality of accounting systems, the quality of early warning systems and written reorganization plans positively influence the outcomes of the analyzed court-supervised reorganizations of SMEs. In particular, the existence of a reorganization plan significantly increases the short- and long-term reorganization success by ensuring the efficient and effective use of resources in the reorganization process.

This study should increase the awareness of SMEs’ owner managers, consultants, creditors and legislators for the importance of accounting in the context of reorganization. The fact that the effect of accounting on reorganization success is less pronounced in the long-term view indicates the necessity of increasing the strategic focus in SMEs’ accounting instruments.

This study provides new evidence on the impact of specific accounting parameters on the short- and long-term success of the court-supervised reorganization of SMEs. Furthermore, this study points out the high relevance of reorganization plans for SMEs.

Pakistan had never been a place of serious and nuanced debate and contestation of politics of postcolonial critique, that is, the continuity of economic, political, and cultural dependency of newly independent countries (NICs) on ex-colonizers as pointed out by neocolonialism, dependency theory, and postcolonial theory, respectively. Instead, Pakistan is presented by extant liberal academic literature as a “failed nation” and a state dominated by the military and plagued by religious extremism. As opposed to this, through the literary and activists writings of Aziz-ul-Haq, this chapter will try to illustrate how cultural contestation of the nation-building project postindependence from British rule was a lot more complex and interesting in Pakistan. This was so because the nation-building project of Pakistan was, on the one hand, an amalgamation of Indo-Persian, Arab, Indian, and Western colonial and civilizational influences and, on the other hand, entailed suppression of resilient local and national cultures of its constituent nationalities developed over centuries. This was later expressed in ethno-nationalist politics. However, when it came to the politics of the marginalized in the late 1960s, there were important political, theoretical, and literary insights which caused a change in the direction of political practice in Pakistan, which paralleled the politics expressed by writers like Fanon and early Subaltern Studies influenced by the Naxal Movement in India. The contestation and confusion arising from this dialectic also entered Pakistan's literary and cultural sphere. This chapter not only tries to give a different postcolonial critique of the failure of nation-building project in Pakistan but, though at a preliminary level, is an attempt to separate the original postcolonial theory in its radical tradition from contemporary postmodern/poststructuralist postcolonial theory marked with pessimism and resignation.

This editorial for the 6th World Conference on Production and Operations Management (P&OM) 2022 Special Issue delves into the transformative role of advanced artificial intelligence (AI)-driven chatbots in reshaping operations, supply chain management and logistics (OSCM). It aligns with the conference’s theme of exploring the intersection between P&OM and strategy during the Technological Revolution.

Utilizing a conceptual approach, this paper introduces the “ERI Framework,” a tool designed to evaluate the impact of AI-driven chatbots in three critical operational dimensions: efficiency (E), responsiveness (R) and intelligence (I). This framework is grounded in disruptive debottlenecking theory and real-world applications, offering a novel structure for analysis.

The conceptual analysis suggests immediate benefits of chatbots in enhancing decision-making and resource allocation, thereby alleviating operational bottlenecks. However, it sees challenges such as workforce adaptation and potential impacts on creativity and sustainability.

The paper suggests that while chatbots present opportunities for optimizing operational processes, organizations must thoughtfully address the emerging challenges to maintain productivity and foster innovation. Strategic implementation and employee training are highlighted as key factors for successful integration.

Bridging the gap between the burgeoning proliferation of chatbots and their practical implications in OSCM, this paper offers a first perspective on the role of AI chatbots in modern business environments. By providing insights into both the benefits and challenges of chatbot integration, it offers a preliminary view essential for academics and practitioners in the digital age.