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1 – 10 of 203The purpose of this paper is to discuss the roles of accounting for university survival, recovery and revolution from the COVID-19 pandemic. It constructively critiques the use of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the roles of accounting for university survival, recovery and revolution from the COVID-19 pandemic. It constructively critiques the use of compliance and cost-centric accounting to inform crisis response and proposes roles for accounting to better serve decision-making in a crisis.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper discusses limitations about how accounting information was used in a university’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper describes potential roles for accounting across crisis phases. These proposals recognise requirements arising from the university’s regulatory environment and apply concepts from intellectual capital accounting and service-dominant logic.
Findings
This paper proposes that in the survival phase, accounting can mitigate rash responses by clarifying the crisis’s impact and stakeholder alignment. In the recovery phase, accounting can inform resourcing decisions by balancing signals from accounting about staff expense and capital investment. In the revolution phase, accounting helps develop the business models needed to adapt to changing student needs, hybrid teaching delivery and importance of intellectual capital.
Research limitations/implications
The case study discusses the early stages of a university’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It does not provide a comprehensive analysis of success or failure of accounting in a crisis. The case raises directions for accounting to clarify the ambiguities in objectives and cause-and-effect relationships from the pandemic.
Practical implications
This paper proposes actions for accounting to support the survival, recovery and revolution of the university sector from the pandemic. The actions cover stakeholder engagement, university sector governance and strategic planning.
Originality/value
This paper proposes a lifecycle of accounting roles at different stages of the COVID-19 response that reflects requirements from the university’s regulatory environment and draws on intellectual capital and service-dominant logic literature.
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This paper aims to problematise critiques raised against customer accounting’s numeric focus, which risks controlling and simplifying customers rather than facilitating closer…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to problematise critiques raised against customer accounting’s numeric focus, which risks controlling and simplifying customers rather than facilitating closer engagement. This analysis suggests ways to better account for what it is that customers buy, why they do so and how to better serve them.
Design/methodology/approach
Service-dominant logic (SDL) is a marketing ideology that recognises the active role of customers in value creation. Seven customer accounting techniques are appraised against SDL principles to identify strengths and shortfalls in logic and application.
Findings
Customer accounting techniques align with SDL’s beneficiary-oriented and relational view of customers. Weaker alignment is found regarding a focus on outputs rather than outcomes, silence about the customer’s role in co-creating value and failure to recognise contextual circumstances.
Research limitations/implications
The analysis uses prototypical descriptions of customer accounting techniques. Actual applications could offset weaknesses or raise other shortfalls.
Practical implications
For each area of SDL, the authors suggest avenues for integrating SDL into customer accounting using related literature and building on concepts within customer accounting techniques.
Originality/value
SDL contrasts with the traditional, goods-dominant logic that underscores much of accounting. SDL is used to critically and constructively evaluate customer accounting techniques.
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This paper aims to examine how the customer can be better integrated into case-mix systems for primary healthcare. Case-mix is an established performance management tool in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine how the customer can be better integrated into case-mix systems for primary healthcare. Case-mix is an established performance management tool in hospitals, and there is growing interest in its extensions into out-of-hospital healthcare.
Design/methodology/approach
Interviews with academics and clinicians are used to explore conceptual foundations for this area. A service-dominant logic perspective is used to problematize the roles of accounting in this complex setting.
Findings
The findings identify that a customer focus is embedded in current primary healthcare thinking, contrasting with the goods-dominant focus in hospitals. This paper identifies diverse objectives and coordinating networks of care as challenges for case-mix.
Research limitations/implications
This paper breaks down the complexity of primary healthcare case-mix into two accounting roles: a “dialogue machine” to understand client objectives and a “learning machine” to understand clients’ networks of resources. The infancy of case-mix for primary healthcare means our interview sample is restricted to a small group of pioneers in the area, within a supply perspective.
Practical implications
Primary healthcare management is a priority area in New Zealand. The findings describe opportunities and challenges for the “dialogue” and “learning” roles of accounting. This paper discusses practical and ideological tensions to be resolved when integrating customers into case-mix systems.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the limited literature on the use of case-mix accounting outside of hospitals, discussing the role of customers and networks of care. Findings contribute by describing the customer as both a source of, and a means to resolving, complexity.
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Frederick Ng and Julie Harrison
The purpose of this paper is to provide a first-hand, critical reflection on the rapid redesign of a New Zealand university accounting course in response to the COVID-19 pandemic…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a first-hand, critical reflection on the rapid redesign of a New Zealand university accounting course in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors reflect on their experience of redesigning a course for online delivery, while preserving its focus on transferable skills.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents the authors’ commentary on and self-evaluation of the teaching of a final year accounting paper during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Findings
The authors provide lessons for developing transferable skills when pivoting to digital learning under extreme conditions. The authors found a multi-modal approach to course delivery that helped facilitate the development of transferable skills and self-reflection journals were particularly useful for motivating students in an online teaching environment. The authors also identified the efficacy of designing and evaluating online course delivery using a “transferable skills first” template to identify gaps in learning activities and assessments.
Originality/value
The pressures of rapidly pivoting to digital learning threatened the authors’ ability to maintain a focus on transferable skills. The authors provide a design method for maintaining and developing transferable skills in a digital environment using a “transferable-skills first” teaching philosophy.
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Ramona Zharfpeykan and Frederick Ng
This paper aims to commentate on the roles of sustainability reporting during the COVID-19 pandemic. It evaluates the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) framework, designed as a…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to commentate on the roles of sustainability reporting during the COVID-19 pandemic. It evaluates the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) framework, designed as a guide for best-practice in sustainability reporting, for its applicability to cover COVID-19 issues and, more generally, issues arising in crisis conditions.
Design/methodology/approach
The GRI’s COVID-19 communications and the GRI framework are reviewed using three common theories of reporting, namely, institutional, stakeholder and legitimacy theory. For each theory, the authors contrast expectations under business-as-usual conditions against crisis conditions to identify gaps and avenues to guide COVID-19 responses.
Findings
This commentary opines the GRI framework risks perpetuating incremental change towards the “new normal”, rather than motivating the urgent responses needed in a crisis. The GRI can play a significant normative role to guide immediate and short-term best practice in COVID-19 reporting. Findings motivate the need to report for vulnerable rather than powerful stakeholders and to recognise and celebrate proactive change.
Originality/value
This paper commentates on the suitability of a major sustainability reporting framework and its role in improving responses to the current COVID-19 crisis. Findings propose challenges to the GRI and GRI framework to motivate urgent responses and communication for the pandemic.
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Frederick Ng, Julie A. Harrison and Chris Akroyd
The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for the systematic examination of management accounting practices in small businesses using a revenue management perspective…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for the systematic examination of management accounting practices in small businesses using a revenue management perspective. This highlights the multi-faceted nature of size as a contextual factor and emphasises the role of management accounting in supporting profit-oriented decision-making, rather than its traditional role of co-ordination, control, and accountability.
Design/methodology/approach
The framework is theoretically derived from the management accounting, revenue management, and small business literature. An illustrative case study of a small fast-food business is presented to demonstrate the applicability of this framework to practice.
Findings
The paper identifies that various dimensions of business size have different and sometimes opposing effects on management accounting practices. Given heterogeneity is a common feature of small businesses, the framework considers alternative specifications of the size contingency variable.
Research limitations/implications
The synthesis of small business characteristics and revenue management perspective offers a more incisive understanding of what has traditionally been considered a simple practice. The case study illustrates some of the influences of small business characteristics identified in the framework. Given its narrow scope, the findings are used for theorisation rather than offering generalisable results. Further cross-sectional comparisons of small businesses are needed to confirm size influences.
Practical implications
The framework can assist practitioners to gauge the strengths and weaknesses of their management accounting practices and can help assess the value of adopting more sophisticated management accounting practices, given their particular business environment. A synthesis of these small business attributes can help practitioners identify key barriers to implementation.
Originality/value
The revenue management perspective and the inclusion of key characteristics of small businesses provide a new approach to evaluating management accounting practices in small businesses.
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Syed Adil Shah, Maqsood Hussain Bhutto and Sarwar M. Azhar
The purpose of this study is to integrate and synthesize the Islamic marketing literature, understand the phenomenon and related concepts and provide suggestions for future…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to integrate and synthesize the Islamic marketing literature, understand the phenomenon and related concepts and provide suggestions for future research.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses an integrative review method that emphasizes summarizing and synthesizing the previous literature related to a phenomenon.
Findings
The findings indicate the emergence of five major themes, namely, Islamic marketing and its perspectives, activities in Islamic marketing, opportunities, controversies and challenges in Islamic marketing, Islamic principles and determinants of consumers’ behavior and awareness toward Islamic products. Each of the major themes consists of sub-themes discussed in detail in the results and discussion sections.
Research limitations/implications
Like other studies, this integrative literature review has some limitations. These include the methodology undertaken, the lack of explanation of inter-relationship among themes and lack of Islamic theory-based review. These limitations lead to future research directions.
Practical implications
Marketing managers need a thorough understanding of the Islamic standards and need to develop strategies. Further, there are inter-differences among Muslims, which need to be thoroughly understood by managers. Moreover, marketers can effectively use advertising in creating awareness and increasing demand of halal products.
Originality/value
This study provides an integrative review of the literature and synthesizes the Islamic marketing literature, which has not been done before.
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Arnab Banerjee, Tanusree Dutta and Aditya Shankar Mishra
Handloom products often fail to infiltrate the global or mainland market, resulting in small localized markets, limited demand and profitability. Recent times have also witnessed…
Abstract
Purpose
Handloom products often fail to infiltrate the global or mainland market, resulting in small localized markets, limited demand and profitability. Recent times have also witnessed a decline in the weaving population of India. Assam, accounting for a third of all households engaged in the handloom industry in India, has been widely hit by unemployment, migration and demotivation among weavers due to lack of profitability in the sector. This research aims to study the case of Assam as an exemplar to identify the barriers and cognitive biases impacting the sales of such ethnic apparel and propose nudges as interventions to address such concerns.
Design/methodology/approach
A conjoint-based experimental study was used to understand and compare the cognitive biases of two study groups: an ethnic group from Assam and a non-ethnic group from various Tier I and Tier II cities of India. The groups were exposed to a variety of ethnic Assamese and ethnic non-Assamese products to understand their value perception using conjoint analysis.
Findings
Results indicate a potential lack of cognitive fluency when dealing with Assamese ethnic garments, triggering System II thinking among the non-ethnic (national buyer) group. The underlying cause may be the inability to attribute substitution of the given product for a more familiar product. The results suggest that exposure may lead to priming, which in turn can increase cognitive fluency.
Originality/value
Within the limits of the literature reviewed, designing a conjoint-based experiment and proposing the use of nudge to popularize certain ethnic garments are novel contributions of this study.
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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the results of Hong Kong’s 2015 District Council elections in order to test the repercussions of the Occupy Central Movement. The paper…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the results of Hong Kong’s 2015 District Council elections in order to test the repercussions of the Occupy Central Movement. The paper attempts to identify the political implications of the Movement as reflected by the 2015 election results.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology used for the paper was to collect election data and conduct data analysis to generalize the political implications of the Occupy Central Movement.
Findings
The paper found that, first, Hong Kong is still polarized, as most voters were divided into those who supported the Occupy Central Movement and those who opposed it. Second, there is no consensus regarding political reforms, as most voters were split into two antagonistic positions. Third, the activists of the Occupy Central Movement have formed a new political force that attracts voters who demand change. Fourth, the Occupy Central Movement has become a breeding ground that nurtures localism.
Research limitations/implications
The 2015 District Council elections were a continuation of the Occupy Central Movement. The Movement affected the political balance between the pro-establishment and pan-democratic camps in the 2015 elections and it has shaped the democratization process in Hong Kong.
Originality/value
The paper was the product of an original research project that examined the results of the 2015 District Council elections to reflect on the implications of the Occupy Central Movement. The paper concluded that the 2015 elections sent important political messages to key political players in Hong Kong.
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