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1 – 10 of 21Chao Ren, Hui Situ and Gillian Maree Vesty
This paper examines the ways in which Chinese university middle managers evaluate subordinate performance in response to the Chinese Double First-Class University Plan, a national…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines the ways in which Chinese university middle managers evaluate subordinate performance in response to the Chinese Double First-Class University Plan, a national project that ranks the performance of universities. In exploring compromise arrangements, the hybridised valuing activity of middle managers is found to be shaped by emergent and extant macro-foundations.
Design/methodology/approach
The qualitative data from 49 semi-structured interviews at five Chinese public universities were conducted. Drawing on macro-foundational studies and the sociology of worth (SW) theory, the analysis helps to identify socially shared patterns of actions and outcomes.
Findings
The findings elucidate the interplay between diverse economic, social, political and institutional values and the compromise-making by middle managers. The authors find that contextual factors restrict Chinese academic middle managers' autonomy, preventing workable compromise. Through the selective adoption of international and local management practices, compromise has evolved into a private differential treaty at the operational level.
Originality/value
A nuanced explanation reveals how the macro-foundations of Chinese society influence middle managers who engage with accounting when facilitating compromise. This study helps outsiders better understand the complex convergence and divergence of performance evaluative practices in Chinese universities against the backdrop of global market-based forces and the moral dimensions of organisational life. The findings have wider implications for the Chinese government in navigating institutional steps and developing supportive policies to enable middle managers to advance productive but also sustainable compromise.
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Gillian Maree Vesty, Chao Ren and Sophia Ji
The purpose of this paper is to provide practical insights into a senior manager’s engagement with integrated reporting (IR). This paper theorises IR as an accounting compromise…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide practical insights into a senior manager’s engagement with integrated reporting (IR). This paper theorises IR as an accounting compromise and test of worth in an Australian IR pilot organisation.
Design/methodology/approach
In-depth interviews with the chairman of the IR pilot organisation are analysed in the context of Boltanski and Thévenot’s (1991, 2006) economies of worth (EW). A personal narrative approach was used to privilege the voice of an individual actor at the heart of decision making.
Findings
In contributing to van Bommel’s (2014) use of EW to examine IR as an accounting compromise, the authors find that ambiguity in IR does not mean that reporting is getting harder to operationalise. Instead, IR is getting harder to justify. The relativism issues that IR has revealed suggest that if all views are met, any significant contributions would not stand out. Interviews reveal that the challenge for IR is to provide the means to report on the organisation’s broader societal impacts, which go beyond measures of IR value creation.
Practical implications
This paper contributes to the accounting academy with practical insights on a dual-purpose organisation’s experiences with IR. The authors demonstrate how a chairman of the board uses accounting to navigate competing priorities and justify management decisions.
Originality/value
This study offers unique insights from the chairman of an IR pilot organisation. A personal narrative approach contributes to the limited empirical literature in accounting using EW as a micro-level analytic.
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Gillian Vesty, Olga Kokshagina, Miia Jansson, France Cheong and Kerryn Butler-Henderson
Despite major progress made in improving the health and well-being of millions of people, more efforts are needed for investment in 21st century health care. However, public…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite major progress made in improving the health and well-being of millions of people, more efforts are needed for investment in 21st century health care. However, public hospital waiting lists continue to grow. At the same time, there has been increased investment in e-health and digital interventions to enhance population health and reduce hospital admissions. The purpose of this study is to highlight the accounting challenges associated with measuring, investing and accounting for value in this setting. The authors argue that this requires more nuanced performance metrics that effect a shift from a technical practice to one that embraces social and moral values.
Design/methodology/approach
This research is based on field interviews held with clinicians, accountants and administrators in public hospitals throughout Australia and Europe. The field research and multidisciplinary narratives offer insights and issues relating to value and valuing and managing digital health investment decisions for the post-COVID-19 “value-based health-care” future of accounting in the hospital setting.
Findings
The authors find that the complex activity-based hospital funding models operate as a black box, with limited clinician understanding and hybridised accounting expertise for informed social, moral and ethical decision-making. While there is malleability of the health economics-derived activity-based hospital funding models, value contestation and conflict are evident in the operationalisation of these models in practice. Activity-based funding (ABF) mechanisms reward patient throughput volumes in hospitals but at the same time stymie investment in digital health. Although classified as strategic investments, there is a limit to strategic planning.
Research limitations/implications
Accounting in public hospitals has become increasingly visible and contested during the pandemic-driven health-care crisis. Further research is required to examine the hybridising accounting expertise as it is increasingly implicated in the incremental changes to ABF in the emergence of value-based health care and associated digital health investment strategies. Despite operationalising these health economic models in practice, accountants are currently being blamed for dysfunctional health-care decisions. Further education for practicing accountants is required to effect operational change. This includes education on the significant moral and ethical dilemmas that result from accounting for patient mix choices in public hospital service provision.
Originality/value
This research involved a multidisciplinary team from accounting, digital health, information systems, value-based health care and clinical expertise. Unique insights on the move to digital health care are provided. This study contributes to policy development and the limited value-based health-care literature in accounting.
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Lan Anh Nguyen, Steven Dellaportas, Gillian Maree Vesty, Van Anh Thi Pham, Lilibeth Jandug and Eva Tsahuridu
This research examines the impact of organisational culture on the ethical judgement and ethical intention of corporate accountants in Vietnam.
Abstract
Purpose
This research examines the impact of organisational culture on the ethical judgement and ethical intention of corporate accountants in Vietnam.
Design/methodology/approach
The study relies on survey data collected from 283 practising accountants in Vietnam. Organisational culture was measured using the Organisational Culture Assessment Instrument, developed by Cameron and Quinn (2011). The Instrument is developed based on the competing values framework comprised of four distinct cultures: clan, hierarchy, market and adhocracy. Ethical judgement and ethical intention were measured based on respondent responses to five ethical scenarios, each linked to a principle of professional conduct in the code of ethics.
Findings
The findings indicate that the clan culture (family oriented) is dominant and has a significant positive influence on accountants' ethical judgement and ethical intention. Respondents in the clan culture evaluate scenarios more ethically compared with accountants in the adhocracy and market cultures but not the hierarchy culture. Accountants who emphasise the adhocracy and market cultures display a more relaxed attitude towards unethical scenarios whereas respondents in the hierarchy culture (rule oriented) display the highest ethical attitude.
Research limitations/implications
The code of ethics, its content and how it is interpreted and applied may differ between professions, organisations or cultures.
Originality/value
Organisational research on ethical decision-making is ample but few studies link organisational culture with ethical judgement and ethical intention from the perspective of individual accountants.
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Lan Anh Nguyen, Gillian Vesty, Michael Kend, Quan Nguyen and Brendan O'Connell
The purpose of this paper is to understand the institutionally driven changes impacting organizational accounting manipulation in Vietnam’s emerging transitional economy…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand the institutionally driven changes impacting organizational accounting manipulation in Vietnam’s emerging transitional economy. Specifically, this study explore how Vietnamese accountants and regulators explain questionable accounting transactions and their rationalization for those practices, especially during the period of accounting system transition from Vietnamese accounting standards to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses interview-based methods involving 22 Vietnamese accountants, financial managers, audit partners and regulators.
Findings
This study have found dysfunctional approaches to revenue and expense recognition underpinned by institutional theory. At play is a combination of opportunities relating to weak accounting standards and organizational controls; management pressure; and a desire to avoid unwanted scrutiny from Vietnamese regulators.
Research limitations/implications
This study does not include the views of non-financial managers or other accounting users. Future research could focus more on the perceptions of these other stakeholder groups.
Practical implications
Accounting manipulation can be collusive, therefore, regulators should have a stricter view and broader examination in the monitoring process.
Originality/value
This study examine accounting manipulation through the lens of New Institutional Sociology and also share the views of the accountants and regulators. This study argue that weak accounting standards are not the only factors contributing to accounting manipulation. When evaluating the existence of accounting manipulation, this paper find a combination of factors including: opportunities for manipulation, pressure from management and the rationale behind the conduct. These factors should be interpreted in context.
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Lan Anh Nguyen, Brendan O'Connell, Michael Kend, Van Anh Thi Pham and Gillian Vesty
The study explores accountants' views of the likelihood of widespread accounting manipulation in the emerging economy, Vietnam. Applying the fraud triangle framework, we examine…
Abstract
Purpose
The study explores accountants' views of the likelihood of widespread accounting manipulation in the emerging economy, Vietnam. Applying the fraud triangle framework, we examine accountants' responses to management pressure, manipulation opportunities and perceptions of how they rationalize their decisions.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses an experimental methodology involving 592 Vietnamese accountants as participants. Post-experiment field interviews were conducted with eight highly experienced accountants.
Findings
Our findings indicate that accounting manipulation is perceived to be common in Vietnam. The findings reveal that there is no differentiation between manipulation of accounting transactions with or without management pressure and no differentiation between collective gain or individual gain.
Research limitations/implications
While the study focused on accountants' perceptions of accounting manipulation, these views may change over time. The impact of law reforms and the potential for prosecution under the force of law provisions could alter these perceptions.
Practical implications
The study findings alert regulators, government authorities and auditors of the perceptions and views in relation to accounting manipulation and the potential for fraud in Vietnam. Auditors could use help from forensic specialists to uncover unethical behaviors identified in this study.
Originality/value
The fraud triangle framework is used to shed light on fraud through the examination of accounting manipulation in Vietnam. We contribute to the relevant accounting literature with insights into accountants' motivations toward conducting questionable accounting transactions. The contributions we make draw attention to preconceptions of Asian societies; in particular, accounting actions to motivate collectivist gains. While we shed further light on fraudulent accounting, we conclude that the fraud triangle framework does not necessarily articulate fraud well in relation to accounting manipulation in emerging economies.
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Judy Oliver, Gillian Vesty and Albie Brooks
The purpose of this paper is to offer theoretical and practical insights on the ways in which integrated thinking is observed in practice. Integrated thinking is linked to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to offer theoretical and practical insights on the ways in which integrated thinking is observed in practice. Integrated thinking is linked to integrated reporting, and described as an attribute or capacity for senior management to constructively manage tensions between the multiple capitals (manufactured, intellectual, human, natural, social and relationship as well as financial capital) in strategy, resource allocation, performance measurement and control.
Design/methodology/approach
A theoretical framework is developed from the accounting and systems thinking literature, linking integrated thinking to sustainability. Soft versus hard integrated thinking approaches are applied to contrast the siloed management of sustainability with a model that focuses on relationships and broader indicators of societal health and well-being. Practical illustrations of the conceptualised framework are presented for discussion and for further empirical research.
Findings
The illustrative examples offer a diversity of corporate, government and not-for-profit viewpoints, providing evidence of both hard and soft integrated thinking in practice. Valuable insights are provided into innovative approaches that foster and make explicit the soft integrated thinking skills and map them to broader societal outcomes.
Research limitations/implications
Potential problems can arise if hard integrated thinking dominates over the soft, and data required for internal management accounting purposes become narrow, linear and segregated. Routines and practices will then be based on quasi-standards, further concealing the soft integrated thinking that might be occurring within the organisation.
Originality/value
With theoretical roots in systems thinking, this paper contributes to the relatively underexplored area of integrated thinking in accounting for sustainability.
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Vikash Ramiah, Thomas Morris, Imad Moosa, Michael Gangemi and Louise Puican
This paper aims to investigate the impact of 75 announcements of environmental policies on British equities over the period 2003 to 2012. In particular, the research has the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the impact of 75 announcements of environmental policies on British equities over the period 2003 to 2012. In particular, the research has the following specific objectives: finding out whether there is wealth creation/destruction for investors as a result of the announcements of green policies and identifying changes in risk structure following the introduction of green policies.
Design/methodology/approach
Using event study methodology and non-parametric tests, the authors attempt to find out whether announcements of environmental/sustainability policies are value constructive or destructive for equity investors. The CAPM is fitted with interaction variables to measure the change in systematic risk following announcements.
Findings
The results show that the UK market is particularly sensitive to domestic, international and nuclear announcements. Cumulative abnormal returns in the range of 30-40 per cent were recorded in certain sectors. Consistent with the emerging literature, the authors observe that environmental policies induce changes in the systematic risk of businesses, both in the short run and the long run.
Originality/value
To the best of authors’ knowledge, the literature does not provide any answer as to how the risk and return of British equity portfolios change following the announcement of green policies in the aftermath of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. Furthermore, the literature does not differentiate among various categories of announcements (domestic, international and nuclear). Therefore, this paper bridges the gap in the literature on these two grounds.
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Marcia Annisette, Gillian Vesty and Thierry Amslem
This article will consider the various ways in which accounting can be conceptualized within Boltanski and Thévenot’s economies of worth theoretic. Drawing on two case…
Abstract
This article will consider the various ways in which accounting can be conceptualized within Boltanski and Thévenot’s economies of worth theoretic. Drawing on two case illustrations, a not-for-profit welfare agency and a government-owned water utility, we follow the unfolding of disputes and the variety of outcomes in which accounting is implicated. We illustrate the role of accounting in justificatory actions and the ways in which it “holds things together” in compromise arrangements. We also illustrate the situations which challenge the “test” of worth and the innovative accounting responses that either facilitate coordination and agreement or become controversial and be the object of organizational and institutional dispute.
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