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This paper aims to explore how accounting is fostering neoliberal citizenship through the participants of Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). More specifically, this paper aims to understand how accounting discourse and the management accounting technique of budgeting, when intertwined with automated administrative processes of the NDIS, are giving rise to a pastoral form of power that directs people’s behaviour toward certain ends.

Publicly available data has been crafted into an autoethnographic case study of one fictitious person’s experiences with the NDIS – Mina. Mina is an amalgam created from material submitted to the Joint Parliamentary Standing Committee on the NDIS. Mina’s experiences are then analysed through the lens of Foucault’s concept of pastoral power to explore how accounting has contributed to marketising and digitising public disability services.

Accounting rhetoric appears to be a central part of rationalising the decision to shift to individualised disability funding. Those receiving payments are treated as self-governable, financially responsible subjects and are therefore expected to have knowledge of management accounting techniques and budgeting. However, NDIS’s strong reliance on the accounting concepts of funds, budgets, cost and price is limiting people’s autonomy and subjecting them to intervention and control.

This paper addresses calls to explore the interplay between accounting and current disability policies. The analysis shows that incorporating accounting into the NDIS’s algorithms serves to conceal the underlying ideology of the programs, subtly driving behaviours towards neoliberal objectives. Further, this research extends the Foucauldian accounting literature by revealing the contribution of accounting to reinforcing the authority of digital pastors in contemporary times.

This study aims to uncover the mechanisms behind the marginalization of county-level public libraries.

The research surveyed 25 counties in central China, including Hubei, Chongqing, Hunan, and Guizhou provinces. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with library directors and deputy directors, focusing on main and branch library construction, cultural inclusivity, library assessment, and digital services.

Contributing factors to library marginalization were identified as economic pressure, institutional domain, longstanding issues, organizational entity, and societal misconceptions. Building on this, the study introduces the HBAC model to explain county-level public library marginalization. Considering the actual social context of these libraries, the article proposes a “3 + 1” approach to mitigate their marginalization.

The research methodology, analysis process, theoretical model, and recommendations provided could shed light on academic research and practical exploration in the field of public libraries globally.

This chapter presents three Chinese teachers' narrative accounts about how they live in dilemmatic spaces due to excessive entitlement. Still, the teachers move forward with transformative agency. The thick description of the three teacher participants has been reported elsewhere as the narratives of Lee – a math teacher, Ping – a Chinese language teacher and Wang – a school principal. In this chapter, however, ‘excessive teacher entitlement’ is used as a new lens to assist me in revisiting their stories of living in dilemmatic spaces. Narrative inquiry as a method unpacks the three teachers' life experiences. Although Lee, Ping and Wang encounter different entitlements and various dilemmas, their transformative agency in transitioning from a survival mode to thriving human beings brings out the similarities in their experiences. Using Vygotskian philosophy and cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), this chapter focuses on the teachers' transformative agency as breaking away from given boundaries in their professional lives and taking up initiatives that confront the tacit excessive entitlement in and around them. Furthermore, transformative agency is promising in that it helps develop new practices in teacher education. Finally, the new understanding emanating by viewing the three subjects' experiences from the angle of excessive entitlement has the potential to inspire teachers in other contexts to become conscious of manifestations of excessive entitlement not only in themselves or others they interact with but also in the macro context we live in. This consciousness also increases the likelihood of the urge to find ways to ameliorate excessive entitlement and to move closer to one's cherished professional values.

In this paper, the authors examine the strategies used to reduce labour costs in three public hospitals in South Africa, which were effective and why. In the democratic era, after the revelations of large-scale corruption, the authors ask whether their case studies provide lessons for how public service institutions might re-make themselves, under circumstances of austerity.

A comparative qualitative case study approach, collecting data using a combination of interviews with managers, focus group discussions and interviews with shop stewards and staff was used.

Management in two hospitals relied on their financial power, divisions between unions and employees' loyalty. They lacked the insight to manage different actors, and their efforts to outsource services and draw on the Extended Public Works Program failed. They failed to support staff when working beyond their scope of practice, reducing employees' willingness to take on extra responsibilities. In the remaining hospital, while previous management had been removed due to protests by the unions, the new CEO provided stability and union–management relations were collaborative. Her legitimate power enabled unions and management to agree on appropriate cost cutting strategies.

Finding an appropriate balance between the new reality of reduced financial resources and the needs of staff and patients, requires competent unions and management, transparency and trust to develop legitimate power; managing in an authoritarian manner, without legitimate power, reduces organisational capacity. Ensuring a fair and orderly process to replace ineffective management is key, while South Africa grows cohorts of competent managers and builds managerial experience.

This study identifies a methodology to explore the issues of enterprise innovation ecosystem health (EIEH).

First, this study constructs the indicator system of EIEH based on the research objective; second, the dynamic vertical projection method (DVPM) and entropy weight method are proposed to analyze the status and influencing factors of EIEH; finally, the future development of EIEH is analyzed using GM (1,1).

In terms of methodology, the DVPM can effectively analyze EIEH, which can not only analyze the development status and potential of EIEH every year but also analyze the comprehensive state of EIEH for many years. In terms of practice, the value and grade of EIEH in China have been gradually increasing from 2016 to 2020, but the overall development is unbalanced, and five key factors affecting EIEH have been identified. The EIEH in China is predicted to steadily grow from 2021 to 2025.

The analytical method employed in this study can effectively analyze EIEH, which provides a new analytical perspective for the evaluation of EIEH and enriches the research content of the enterprise innovation ecosystem (EIE). By analyzing the results, we can gain a comprehensive understanding of the state of different EIEs, enabling each EIE to design tailored remedial measures to enhance EIEH and achieve sustainable development.

The purpose of this study is to determine research areas that are most favorable in supporting the development and manufacturing of electric vehicle (EV) components locally in Indonesia for 2025–2035. Therefore, will provide direction for the formulation of the related government policies and programs. Consequently, an EV technology research priority must be identified.

A technology foresight (TF) procedure which consists of a STEEPV analysis, followed by scenarios development and expert elicitation techniques, was conducted to determine an EV technology research priority that may direct future specific local component innovations, and therefore businesses.

The results of this study indicate that research in a range of EV battery technologies, technologies relating to a variety of key components (to increase local content) and autonomous systems were important to support the local development and manufacturing of EV components in Indonesia.

In this study, the scenarios development process was conducted based on selected available experts, mostly internally from BRIN. Some biased opinions may be present.

There have not been any TF studies regarding the development of EV technology research priority in Indonesia.

This paper aims to unravel the puzzle that the United Kingdom’s high-quality government accounting and fiscal architecture is associated with low-quality outcomes, including poor productivity growth, high public debt, public services which do not meet citizen expectations and historically high levels of taxation. It contributes to public sector accounting research in the fields of fiscal transparency and governance.

This paper uses Miller and Power’s (2013) economization framework and Dunsire’s (1990) concept of collibration to explain why being a global leader in public sector accounting reform and in fiscal and monetary architecture has not protected the UK from weak governance. The intersection of economization’s roles of accounting with modes of government accounting clarifies the puzzle.

Whereas accruals government accounting contributes to fiscal transparency, this is not a sufficient condition for well-judged policy and its effective application. Collibration is the dominant mechanism for mediation in the fiscally centralized UK, but it has failed to deliver stable outcomes, in part because Parliament is limited in its ability to hold back inappropriate behaviour by the Executive. Subjectivization has disrupted adjudication because governments at all levels resist constraints on their behaviour, with unpredictable and often damaging consequences.

This paper provides insights through the combined lens of economization and modes of government accounting, demonstrating the practical value of this conceptualization. Although some causes for unsatisfactory outcomes are specific to the UK, there are cautions for accounting and fiscal reformers in other countries, such as Member States of the European Union.

India should hold a privileged position in maritime transportation due to its extensive coastline and advantageous location. However, the country heavily relies on other maritime nations like Singapore and Colombo for transshipment due to insufficient infrastructure and policy framework, and this has created disadvantage to Indian goods in the international market. The government has launched a significant drive to promote three transshipment ports in southern India with top-notch amenities in response to this worrying circumstance. It is anticipated that these ports would compete with the existing transshipment ports, particularly with Colombo, and divert the transshipped goods back to India. The move is expected to make Indian exports more competitive besides making India less prone to geopolitical and economic disturbances in the region. However, these initiatives have been met with many challenges. In fact, the first attempt of the Indian government to set up an International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT) at Vallarpadam in Cochin Port has met with failure despite its best infrastructure and connectivity. High-cost structure seems to deter the competitiveness of this port. Furthermore, the development of Vizhinjam into a transshipment hub in the same region has put additional pressure on Vallarpadam. This chapter draws attention to certain factors that might be considered to enhance the competitiveness of Cochin Port. Also, the study highlights the snags that could have well been avoided while implementing the project and might as well be avoided while implementing other projects in line.

After completion of the case study, the students will be able to analyze the FinTech industry in emerging markets, distinguish the growth strategies for startups in the hyper-growth phase, using the Ansoff matrix, evaluate and select geographical markets for expansion (foreign country selection) and understand the liability of foreignness concept.

In 2015, Islam Shawky, Alain Al-Hajj and Mostafa Menessy founded Paymob in Egypt, a FinTech start-up providing technological and financial solutions to consumers and merchants in the country. The company had grown into one of Egypt’s most prominent digital payment providers by deploying infrastructure and technologies that empower the underserved with access to financial services. In 2021, Paymob had gained a lot of support from venture capital investors that ended with closing the largest in Egypt Series A fund of $18.5m led by Dubai-based venture capital firm Global Ventures. Although Paymob had already reached great success in Egypt, the founders’ vision was to become the regional leader of digital payments, focusing on small and medium-sized enterprises. So, they are considering regional markets similar to Egypt’s, such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a call with a lot of structure but a lot of competition, and Pakistan, a market with much less competition but relatively unstructured. The founders found themselves in early 2022 deciding between these two markets in preparation for the next round of Series B $50m funding.

This case study can be useful for courses in executive education.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

The case study aims to help students/learners to analyse the role of perception and its linkage to an entrepreneur’s decision-making process in setting up a social entrepreneurship venture during the COVID-19 pandemic without any prior entrepreneurial experience; understand the definition and meaning of social enterprises based on concepts/theories of social entrepreneurship; identify if AgriVijay fits the outline of a social enterprise based on its vision, challenges faced and journey as an agriculture-based technology-oriented social venture (AgTech SE); and outline the future path of AgriVijay as an independent business (post its incubation support period) using suitable strategy and funding models related to for-profit social enterprises.

This case study details the fascinating journey of a social AgTech venture – AgriVijay – through the perspectives of the protagonist Vimal Panjwani, a budding agri-business entrepreneur. Fuelled by a desire to empower the farming communities, Panjwani with the support of his dynamic mother, Shobha Chanchlani, embarked on the challenging task of crafting a business model that sought to merge community welfare with profitable enterprise. The case study illuminates the protagonist's background, revealing Panjwani’s motivations, risk-taking tendencies and the pivotal role played by his co-partner and mother, Chanchlani. It also highlights the challenges encountered by the protagonist in setting up a technology-based social entrepreneurship venture along with its success in making a social impact across marginalised farming communities. Through all this, the case study also highlights the major dilemma of the protagonist – that of continuing to balance AgriVijay’s core mission of “empowering the farmers” with profitability and long-term growth beyond its limited incubation support period, and his own dilemma of venturing into a social enterprise as a start-up venture without any prior entrepreneurial experience. The case study through its narrative encourages the readers/learners to understand the evolving dynamics of a nascent social entrepreneurial venture in a developing economy and how such a balanced model can actually be the harbinger of social impact and change in similar economies with large rural farming and marginalised communities.

The case study is most suitable for postgraduate management, weekend executive learning or distance learning students in agri business, sustainable business, social entrepreneurship and allied management domains. It can be used for teaching and learning topics related to entrepreneurship, new venture strategy, leadership and motivation, with a specific focus on agriculture business, agricultural entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship and sustainable ventures.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.