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This paper aims to examine the effect of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX), which was signed by President George W. Bush and came into effect on July 30, 2002, on firm productivity.

The authors use the total factor productivity (TFP) as our measure of firm productivity.

Analyzing annual firm-level data from the Compustat database for the period of 1991-2006, the authors find that firm productivity increases at a higher rate in the post-SOX period. The results indicate that, although firms incur significant costs in complying with the requirements of the SOX, they also benefit from these requirements as evidenced by the improved productivity over time post-SOX. There is also a shift in the output elasticities from capital toward labor. The SOX has a positive effect on the output elasticity of labor but a negative impact on that of capital.

The results have the following important implications. The SOX is a value-enhancing regulation in that it not only strengthens a firm’s corporate governance but also improves its productivity. However, compliance with the SOX can impose a long-term cost on firms: the decrease in the capital investment, leading to a decline in the output elasticity of capital. If this decline in the capital investment continues, it can have an adverse effect on firm productivity in the long term.

This paper extends the literature along the line of the actual operational effects of the SOX regulation by examining its effect on the productivity of firms.

In this paper, the authors explore racialisation through human-centric counter-accounts (counter-stories) to bring together critical race theory (CRT) and counter-accounting.

The authors utilise CRT to demonstrate the emancipatory role of counter-stories in (re)telling racialized narratives, specifically the narrative of asylum seekers who arrive by sea and are subjected to the inhumane and oppressive nature of the Australian government's policy of offshore immigration detention.

Counter-stories, as tools of accountability, can make visible oppressive forces and the hidden practices of racialized social practices and norms.

This paper emphasises that we are not in a post-racial world, and racialisation remains a fundamental challenge. We must continue to refute race as an ontological truth and strive to provide a platform for counter-stories that can spark or drive social change. This requires allies, including academics, to give that platform, support their plight, and offer avenues for change.

The authors introduce CRT as a theoretical tool for examining racialisation, opening space for a more critical confluence of accounting and race with potentially wide-reaching implications for our discipline. The paper also contributes to the limited accounting literature concerning asylum seekers, particularly in the use of counter-stories that offer a way of refuting, or challenging, the majoritarian/dominant narratives around asylum-seeking.

High levels of child obesity alongside rising stunting and the absence of a coherent food policy have deemed UK’s food system to be broken. The National Food Strategy (NFS) was debated intensely in media, with discussions on how and who should fix the food system.

Using a mixed methods approach, the authors conduct framing analysis on traditional media and sentiment analysis of twitter reactions to the NFS to identify frames used to shape food system policy interventions.

The study finds evidence that the media coverage of the NFS often utilised the tropes of “culture wars” shaping the debate of who is responsible to fix the food system – the government, the public or the industry. NFS recommendations were portrayed as issues of free choice to shift the debate away from government action correcting for market failure. In contrast, the industry was showcased as equipped to intervene on its own accord. Dietary recommendations made by the NFS were depicted as hurting the poor, painting a picture of helplessness and loss of control, while their voices were omitted and not represented in traditional media.

British media’s alignment with free market economic thinking has implications for food systems reform, as it deters the government from acting and relies on the invisible hand of the market to fix the system. Media firms should move beyond tropes of culture wars to discuss interventions that reform the structural causes of the UK’s broken food systems.

As traditional media coverage struggles to capture the diversity of public perception; the authors supplement framing analysis with sentiment analysis of Twitter data. To the best of our knowledge, no such media (and social media) analysis of the NFS has been conducted. The paper is also original as it extends our understanding of how media alignment with free market economic thinking has implications for food systems reform, as it deters the government from acting and relies on the invisible hand of the market to fix the system.

The purpose of this paper is to explore two identified knowledge gaps: first, the identification and analysis of online searching trends for Financial Technology (FinTech)-related jobs and education information in UK, and second to assess the current strength of the FinTech-related job distribution in terms of job titles and locations in UK, job market in UK and what is required to help it to grow.

Two sets of data were used in this study in order to fill the two identified knowledge gaps. First, six years’ worth of data, for the period from September 2012 to August 2018 was collected from Google Trends. This was in the form of search term keyword text. The hypothesis was designed correspondingly, and the results were reviewed and evaluated using a relevant statistical tool. Second, relevant data were extracted from the “Indeed” website (www.indeed.co.uk) by means of a simple VBA programme written in Excel. In total, the textual data for 500 job advertisements, including the keyword “FinTech”, were downloaded from that website.

The authors found that there was a continuously increasing trend in the use of the keyword “fintech” under the category “Jobs and Education” in online searching from September 2012 to August 2018. The authors demonstrated that this trend was statistically significant. In contrast, the trends for searches using both “finance” and “accounting” were slightly decreased over the same period. Furthermore, the authors identified the geographic distribution of the fintech-related jobs in the UK. In regard to job titles, the authors discovered that “manager” was the most frequently searched term, followed by “developer” and “engineer”.

Educators could use this research as a reference in the development of the portfolio of their courses. In addition, the findings from this study could also enable potential participators to reflect on their career development. It is worth noting that the motivations for carrying out an internet search are complex, and each of these needs to be understood. There are many factors that would affect how an information seeker would behave with the obtained information. More work is still needed in order to encourage more people to enter to the FinTech sector.

In the planning stage prior to launching a new course educators often need to justify the market need: this analysis could provide a supporting rationale and enable a new course to launch more quickly. Consequently, the pipeline of talent supply to the sector would also be benefitted. The authors believe this is the first time that a study like this had been conducted to explore specifically the availability and opportunities for FinTech education and retraining in UK. The authors anticipate that this study will become the primary reference for researchers, educators and policy makers engaged in future research or practical applications on related topics.

This paper aims to solve the parameter identification problem to estimate the parameters in electrochemical models of the lithium-ion battery.

The parameter estimation framework is applied to the Doyle-Fuller-Newman (DFN) model containing a total of 44 parameters. The DFN model is fit to experimental data obtained through the cycling of Li-ion cells. The parameter estimation is performed by minimizing the least-squares difference between the experimentally measured and numerically computed voltage curves. The minimization is performed using a state-of-the-art hybrid minimization algorithm.

The DFN model parameter estimation is performed within 14 h, which is a significant improvement over previous works. The mean absolute error for the converged parameters is less than 7 mV.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, application of a hybrid optimization framework is new in the field of electrical modelling of lithium-ion cells. This approach saves much time in parameterization of models with a high number of parameters while achieving a high-quality fit.

This paper analyzes two external costs often associated with port development, cost to fisheries from marine dredge disposal and damages from air pollution, using estimates of development and operation for a proposed (but since cancelled) container port as a case study. For dredge disposal, a bio-economic model was used to assess short- and long-term and indirect (joodweb) damages to fisheries from marine disposal of clean sediments. In the case of air pollution, estimates of annual activity levels and emission coefficients are used to estimate incremental annual emissions of three key pollutants (NOx, HC and CO) for trucks, trains, yard vehicles, and vessels. These estimates allow for phasing in of strict new air pollution regulations. For both external costs, sensitivity analyses are used to reflect uncertainty. Estimates of shadow values in year 2002 dollars amount from $0.094 per cubic yard to $0.169 per cubic yard of clean dredged material for the selected disposal site and from $0.0584 per mile (jor current control standards) to $ 0. 0023 per mile (after phasing in of new regulations) for air pollution from heavy trucks.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and explain trauma-informed approaches (TIAs) to mental health. It outlines evidence on the link between trauma and mental health, explains the principles of TIAs and their application in mental health and explores the extent to which TIAs are impacting in the UK.

The approach is a conceptual account of TIAs including a consideration of why they are important, what they are and how they can become more prevalent in the UK. This is supported by a narrative overview of literature on effectiveness and a scoping of the spread of TIAs in the UK.

There is strong and growing evidence of a link between trauma and mental health, as well as evidence that the current mental health system can retraumatise trauma survivors. There is also emerging evidence that trauma-informed systems are effective and can benefit staff and trauma survivors. Whilst TIAs are spreading beyond the USA where they developed, they have made little impact in the UK. The reasons for this are explored and ways of overcoming barriers to implementation discussed.

This paper – authored by trauma survivors and staff – describes an innovative approach to mental health service provision that, it is argued, could have immense benefits for staff and service users alike.

This paper aims to identify specific challenges and opportunities when crafting literature reviews of qualitative accounting research. In addition, it offers potential remedies to frequent challenges when conducting such reviews.

This piece is based on recent methodological advice on conducting literature reviews and my own experience when conducting and publishing reviews that primarily cover qualitative accounting research.

The author chart three typical advantages and three typical use cases of literature reviews of qualitative accounting research, as well as the typical process steps and outputs of such reviews. Along with these process steps, The author identifies three overarching specific challenges when conducting such reviews and discusses potential remedies. Overall, this paper suggests that literature reviews of qualitative accounting research feature idiosyncratic challenges but offer specific opportunities at the same time.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is among the first to offer advice on the specific challenges and opportunities when conducting literature reviews of qualitative accounting research.

Firms can choose from an array of approaches for reducing the detrimental financial effects caused by unfavorable fluctuations in commodity prices. The purpose of this paper is to provide guidance for effectively estimating the financial effects of mitigating commodity price risk volatility (CPV) in supply chain management decisions.

This paper adopts two prominent and complementary methodologies, namely, total cost of ownership (TCO and real options valuation (ROV), to illustrate how commodity price risk mitigation strategies can be analyzed with respect to their effect on costs and performance. The paper provides insights through a case study to demonstrate the application of these methods together and establish the benefits and challenges associated with their implementation.

The paper illustrates advantages and disadvantages of TCO and ROV and how these approaches can be adopted together to contribute to effective purchasing decisions. Supply chain flexibility is a key capability but requires investments. Holistically measuring the financial effects of flexibility investments is imperative for gaining executive management support in mitigating commodity price volatility.

This study can provide supply chain professionals with useful guidance for measuring the costs and benefits related to developing strategies for mitigating commodity price volatility. TCO provides a focus on the costs associated with the commodity purchasing process, and ROV enables the aggregation of all the costs and benefits associated with the use of the strategy and synthesizes them into the net value estimate.

The paper provides a comparison of different but complementary approaches, specifically TCO and ROV, for analyzing the effectiveness of CPV risk mitigation decisions. In addition, these two methods allow supply chain professionals to evaluate and control the financial effects of CPV risk, particularly the impact of mitigation on firm’s cash flows.

This paper aims to explore the Google Arts and Culture platform in terms of parameters used for categorizing the digital collections by it; the total number of items and their types; top contributing artists; top ten historical events and figures; and the top ten countries having maximum artworks.

An online method was used to collect the relevant data for achieving the objectives of the study. Data were harvested from the official website of Google Arts and Culture (https://artsandculture.google.com/) during the period of 15 May to 31 May 2018, and the same was tabulated in MS Excel for analysis and interpretation.

The findings revealed that Google Arts and Culture includes a total of 6,272 artists, 228 media and 121 art movements. Moreover, there are a total of 641 historical movements; 6,250 historical figures; 9,692 places; 3,226 museum views; 1,702 zoom views; 39,607 featured videos; and 5,528 featured stories; 122 items organized by color and 954 organized by time.

The present study is first of its kind that focuses on exploration of diverse arts and cultural heritages of different countries and by diverse artists made visible by Google Arts and Culture initiative. It will significantly reinforce the art and cultural heritage lovers to acquire the knowledge pertinent to various types of arts and cultures that prevailed in antiquity across the globe and also make aware the conservators about how to use digital technologies for efficient preservation and visibility of unique artworks, artists and the places whom they belong.