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The purpose of this paper is to add to the literature on accounting change in explaining a decade-long effort by the FASB and IASB to develop a set of global accounting standards accepted by markets worldwide. This research studies the effort as one of “convergence” in accounting standards and aims to bring theoretical and empirical clarity as to how we can conceptualize the notion of convergence.

Through a longitudinal study of 23 key FASB-IASB projects undertaken between 2002 and 2011, this paper analyzes processes of accounting change using a blend of institutional theory and political economy. A process perspective provides a method to unfold variants of accounting change by identifying patterns that help us to understand the conditions for and characteristics of convergence.

The author highlights specific variants of accounting change observed during the convergence effort – direct emulation, difference reduction and progressive redesign – as analogous to institutional processes. Where direct emulation and difference reduction reflect institutional processes of imitation and editing or translation, respectively, the author shows how progressive redesign of accounting standards goes beyond these classical categorizations to encompass the notion of “institutional co-construction” (Djelic, 2008).

A longer (shorter) period of study and a greater (lesser) number of projects could be argued for a more comprehensive (more detailed) study; however, limiting the period and project to the terms of the formal convergence program allows for forces driving this particular process to be isolated and their effects extrapolated to broader thinking on accounting and global regulation.

This research informs the global standard-setting community of the evolution of convergence and the factors which impact that evolution by revealing the influence of various institutions, actors and events over time. In particular, the author identifies the impact of the competitive and cooperative conditions under which the FASB-IASB convergence effort operated and reveal how these conditions were influenced by the macro-level economic and political developments occurring over the period.

This empirical study conceptualizes the institutional environment within which firms function in a transition economy as a number of dimensions, representing the externally set ‘rules of the game’ as perceived by senior managers. It then proposes a mediating model of the links between that environment and the commercial performance of enterprises in which incentive intensity is a key strategic choice, influenced by perceptions of the institutional setting and the influence of that choice is carried on to commercial performance by a set of managerial orientations. The model is tested using survey data from a sample of 959 Chinese enterprises.

European countries are likely to increasingly adopt integrated reporting (IR) voluntarily, after the 2014/95/EU Directive is revised and other initiatives are implemented. Therefore, the present study provides insights on the relevance of IR in voluntary contexts by exploring analysts' reactions to the release of integrated reports in diverse institutional settings.

Drawing on voluntary disclosure theory, a quantitative empirical research method is used to explore the moderating role of country-level institutional characteristics on the associations between voluntary IR release and analyst forecast accuracy and dispersion.

IR informativeness is not uniform in the voluntary context and institutional settings play a moderating role. IR release is associated with increased consensus among analyst forecasts. However, in countries with weak institutional enforcement, a reverse association is detected, indicating that analysts rely largely on IR where the institutional setting strongly protects investors. Although a strong institutional setting boosts the IR release usefulness in terms of accuracy, it creates noise in analyst consensus.

Academics can appreciate the usefulness of voluntary IR across the institutional enforcement contexts.

Managers can use these findings to understand opportunities offered by IR voluntary release. The study recommends that policymakers, standard setters and regulators strengthen the institutional enforcement of sustainability disclosure.

This study is a unique contribution to recent calls for research on the effects of nonfinancial disclosure regulation and on IR “impacts”. It shows on the international scale that IR usefulness for analysts is moderated by institutional patterns, not country-level institutional characteristics.

This chapter is aimed at contributing to the question of how institutional reforms affect multi-level governance (MLG) capacities and thus the performance of public task fulfillment with a particular focus on the local level of government in England, France, and Germany.

Drawing on concepts of institutional evaluation, we analytically distinguish six dimensions of impact assessment: vertical coordination; horizontal coordination; efficiency/savings; effectiveness/quality; political accountability/democratic control; equity of service standards. Methodologically, we rely on document analysis and expert judgments that could be gleaned from case studies in the three countries and a comprehensive evaluation of the available secondary data in the respective national and local contexts.

Institutional reforms in the intergovernmental setting have exerted a significant influence on task fulfillment and the performance of service delivery. Irrespective of whether MLG practice corresponds to type I or type II, task devolution (decentralization/de-concentration) furthers the interlocal variation and makes the equity of service delivery shrink. There is a general tendency of improved horizontal/MLG type I coordination capacities, especially after political decentralization, less in the case of administrative decentralization. However, decentralization often entails considerable additional costs which sometimes overload local governments.

The distinction between multi-purpose territorial organization/MLG I and single-purpose functional organization/MLG II provides a suitable analytical frame for institutional evaluation and impact assessment of reforms in the intergovernmental setting. Furthermore, comparative research into the relationship between MLG and institutional reforms is needed to reveal the explanatory power of intervening factors, such as the local budgetary and staff situation, local policy preferences, and political interests in conjunction with the salience of the transferred tasks.

The findings provide evidence on the causal relationship between specific types of (vertical) institutional reforms, performance, and task-related characteristics. Policy-makers and government actors may use this information when drafting institutional reform programs and determining the allocation of public tasks in the intergovernmental setting.

In general, the euphoric expectations placed upon decentralization strategies in modern societies cannot straightforwardly be justified. Our findings show that any type of task transfer to lower levels of government exacerbates existing disparities or creates new ones. However, the integration of tasks within multi-functional, politically accountable local governments may help to improve MLG type I coordination in favor of local communities and territorially based societal actors, while the opposite may be said with regard to de-concentration and the strengthening of MLG type II coordination.

The chapter addresses a missing linkage in the existing MLG literature which has hitherto predominantly been focused on the political decision-making and on the implementation of reforms in the intergovernmental settings of European countries, whereas the impact of such reforms and of their consequences for MLG has remained largely ignored.

This paper focuses on the managerial challenges involved in establishing subsidiaries in the Post‐ Soviet market. In these circumstances, the Western firms’ management meets the host country’s institutional structures. It is suggested that management transfers from the Western parent firm towards the local subsidiary take place across institutional boundaries. The analysis focuses on aspects creating, or reducing tensions in relations between local employees and the Western firm’s representatives. This paper explains why some local employees develop identities that facilitate management transfers, and why other employees develop conflict identities that inhibit management transfers.

Private certification systems (PCS) have emerged as governance tools for sustainable development, regulating social and environmental standards through global supply chains. PCS are seen as essentially private and market-driven, but governments have engaged with them in various ways. There are also substantial differences in the institutional design of PCS with regard to the standard-setting process, ex-ante conformity assessment and ex-post verification procedures. Consequently, what determines the institutional design of PCS has attracted growing attention. This article argues that governments, through public regulation, influence the design of PCS, which in turn affects their effectiveness. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

First, a review of academic literature, policy and legal documents presents how PCS have become institutionalized in government policy, focusing on sustainable public procurement (SPP) regulation. Second, the authors explore the link between effectiveness and the institutional design of PCS by empirically assessing the variations between institutional parameters conducive to effectiveness. Data from the Ecolabel Index database were used to assess the presence or absence of four institutional design parameters related to the rule-making and monitoring mechanisms of PCS.

Public procurement regulations are important drivers influencing the institutional design of PCS. The buying power and market share of government spending is a potential tool for policy-makers not only to stimulate the adoption of PCS, but also for shaping their design and effectiveness. However, the impact of such policies is highly dependent upon the market-share of public procurement within a given sector. In addition to public procurement frameworks, other factors drive the institutional evolution of PCS.

The article connects two themes within the study of non-state market regulation; the growing interaction of governments with PCS, and the institutional variety and development of these systems.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a conceptual interpretation of the role business families play in the institutional context of sub-Saharan Africa, characterised by voids within the formal institutional setting. Responding to calls to take a holistic perspective of the institutional environment, we develop a conceptual model, showcasing the emergence of relational familial logics within business families that enable these enterprising organisations to navigate the political, economic and socio-cultural terrain of this institutional context.

The authors undertake a review of extant literature on institutional theory, institutional voids, family business and business families and examine the relevance of these theoretical constructs in relation to the institutional environment of Sub-Saharan Africa. The authors offer tentative propositions within our conceptualisation, which the authors discuss in an inductive fashion.

The review underlines the relevance of informal political, economic and socio-cultural institutions within the sub-Saharan context, within which the family as an institution drives business families engagement in institutional entrepreneurship. In doing so, the authors argue business families are best positioned to navigate the existing Sub-Saharan African institutional context. The authors underline the critical relevance of the embeddedness of social relationships that underpin relational familial logic within the sub-Saharan African collectivist socio-cultural system.

By challenging the assumptions that institutional voids are empty spaces devoid of institutions, the authors offer an alternative view that institutional voids are spaces where there exists a misalignment of formal and informal institutions. The authors argue that in such contexts within Sub-Saharan Africa, business families are best placed to harness their embeddedness within extended family and community for entrepreneurial activity. The authors argue that family and business logics may complement each other rather than compete. The discussions and propositions have implications for future research on business families and more inclusive forms of family organisations.

This paper aims to analyze the relationship between bank institutional setting and risk-taking by exploring whether board education and turnover are drivers of the risk propensity of cooperative banks compared to joint-stock banks.

Based on a comprehensive data set of Italian banks over the 2011-2017 period, this paper examines whether these board characteristics affect the risk propensity of cooperative and joint-stock banks. Bank risk is measured by the Z-index, profit volatility and the ratio of non-performing loans to total gross loans.

The findings show that cooperatives take less risk than joint-stock banks and have lower board turnover and education. Furthermore, this study finds that while board education mediates the relationship between the cooperative model and bank risk-taking, there is no evidence for board turnover. Thus, the lower educational level of cooperative directors contributes to explaining the lower risk-taking of cooperative banks.

The findings have several implications. In terms of the more general policy debate, the results point to the need to strengthen the governance model for both joint-stock and cooperative banks while supporting the view that a more ad hoc perspective on the best models and practices for each type of institutional setting would be preferable. In particular, the study reveals how board education’s effects on bank risk-taking should be carefully monitored.

Through a mediation framework, this study provides empirical evidence on the relationship between bank institutional setting (by distinguishing between cooperative and joint-stock banks) and risk-taking behavior by exploring the underlying mechanisms at the board level, which is novel in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate efforts to manage institutional complexity in a state-owned enterprise, the roles of explicated values in these efforts and how these values interact with each other and other influential management controls.

Exploratory case study in StateEnt, a state-owned enterprise that faces institutional complexity. The analysis is based on interviews, observations and documents and concepts from the management control literature and institutional logics are applied.

Findings from this study suggest that a structural differentiation have separated two logics in different departments and two of the explicated values have become symbols of these logics taking on various roles in negotiations. Tension between the departments is heightened because the departments legitimize logic enactment through mobilizing different socio-technical dyads of management control. The division of responsibility between these departments still ensures that they need to collaborate and make compromises. The study also finds that exogenously imposed constraints have a significant influence on organizational activities, which is further strengthened due to internally developed management controls embedded in the same logic.

The study contributes with deeper understanding of values as control, and how these interact with other control forms to influence organizational activity. Herein, the importance of regulatory controls in state-owned enterprises is also highlighted. A limitation of this study is the limited size of the organization under investigation.

The explicit emphasis on values as a control in studies on management control issues in institutionally complex environments is underemphasized in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and understand corporate social responsibility (CSR) and human resource management (HRM) practices of the UK and Japan, who share opposing societal and cultural characteristics, from a national business system (NBS) perspective, to answer the following two questions: the extent of convergence/divergence of CSR-HRM of two very different NBS, and the institutional relations behind the convergence/divergence.

For these purposes, the paper proposes a framework that can be utilised to understand the complex relationships between institutions, HRM, and CSR. Using a qualitative approach and grounded theory analysis as well as multiple-case analysis of six cases from the UK and Japan, the findings are tested against the framework.

The paper was able to confirm that mimetic and coercive isomorphism from global institutional pressure cause certain convergence of CSR-HRM in these two nations. However, simultaneously, the local institutional pressure (i.e. NBS) appears to be deeply rooted and is more salient at micro-level, resulting in diversified CSR-HRM in the two nations. As a result, it appears that convergence and divergence co-exist due to their differences in NBS with possibility of “crossvergence”.

This paper’s significance lies not only in contributing to the existing convergence–divergence debate on both CSR and HRM but also to help understanding of how Western CSR-HRM concepts are utilized and interpreted in East Asian countries with very different NBS from the West, with the aid of the proposed framework.