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1 – 10 of over 7000Garry D. Carnegie and Christopher J. Napier
The purpose of this paper is to examine the origins and development of the “Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal (AAAJ) Community”, a flourishing international…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the origins and development of the “Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal (AAAJ) Community”, a flourishing international interdisciplinary accounting research community. This scholarly community has emerged over some 30 years from the publication in 1988 of the inaugural issue of AAAJ under the joint editorship of James Guthrie and Lee Parker. This historical account discusses the motivation for establishing the journal and the important publishing initiatives, developments and trends across this period. The study positions the journal as a key thought leader, the catalyst for other Community activities such as the Asia-Pacific Interdisciplinary Research in Accounting conference.
Design/methodology/approach
The investigation involved a selective review of the contents of AAAJ, particularly the annual editorials published since inception, and other relevant literature, analysis of the main research themes and the most cited papers, and oral history interviews with the joint editors. The future prospects for the AAAJ Community are addressed.
Findings
The AAAJ Community has shaped and led developments in interdisciplinary accounting research. Recognised for innovation and with a reputation for nurturing scholars, AAAJ continues to grow in stature as one of the world’s leading accounting journals, challenging the status quo and fostering inclusive scholarship.
Research limitations/implications
The study does not examine the journal’s publication patterns nor assess in detail the research studies that have been published in the journal.
Originality/value
The study recognises AAAJ as central to the development of an interdisciplinary accounting research community, firmly located in the sociological, critical and interpretative tradition also associated with some other leading accounting journals.
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The purpose of this paper is to provide a commentary on Professor Lee D. Parker's article on photo‐elicitation.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a commentary on Professor Lee D. Parker's article on photo‐elicitation.
Design/methodology/approach
Two exciting possibilities addressed in Parker's paper are discussed: the potential of archival photographs to transcend their status as “evidence” of times gone by; and the mobilisation of emotional oral histories through photographs as objects.
Findings
The status of photographs as emotional artefacts and issues surrounding their production, curation, storage, circulation and consumption are found to be as important as analysis of what photographs depict.
Research limitations/implications
Analysing the performative and emotional character of historical research using photographs poses a challenge for the accounting and management scholar on account of the non‐reductionist nature of images.
Practical implications
Addressing these difficulties has great potential advance research methodology in this area.
Originality/value
Literature and ideas from geography and museum studies bring a new perspective on Professor Parker's article. The paper is of interest to researchers interested in the visual dimension of accounting and management, or those wishing to keep abreast of avant‐garde developments in accounting research methodology.
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This study aims to critically evaluate the COVID-19 and future post-COVID-19 impacts on office design, location and functioning with respect to government and community…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to critically evaluate the COVID-19 and future post-COVID-19 impacts on office design, location and functioning with respect to government and community occupational health and safety expectations. It aims to assess how office efficiency and cost control agendas intersect with corporate social accountability.
Design/methodology/approach
Theoretically informed by governmentality and social accountability through action, it thematically examines research literature and Web-based professional and business reports. It undertakes a timely analysis of historical office trends and emerging practice discourse during the COVID-19 global pandemic's early phase.
Findings
COVID-19 has induced a transition to teleworking, impending office design and configuration reversals and office working protocol re-engineering. Management strategies reflect prioritisation choices between occupational health and safety versus financial returns. Beyond formal accountability reports, office management strategy and rationales will become physically observable and accountable to office staff and other parties.
Research limitations/implications
Future research must determine the balance of office change strategies employed and their evident focus on occupational health and safety or cost control and financial returns. Further investigation can reveal the relationship between formal reporting and observed activities.
Practical implications
Organisations face strategic decisions concerning both their balancing of employee and public health and safety against capital expenditure and operation cost commitments to COVID-19 transmission prevention. They also face strategic accountability decisions as to the visibility and correspondence between their observable actions and their formal social responsibility reporting.
Social implications
Organisations have continued scientific management office cost reduction strategies under the guise of innovative office designs. This historic trend will be tested by a pandemic, which calls for control of its spread, including radical changes to the office at potentially significant cost.
Originality/value
This paper presents one of few office studies in the accounting research literature, recognising it as central to contemporary organisational functioning and revealing the office cost control tradition as a challenge for employee and community health and safety.
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Basil P. Tucker and Lee D. Parker
The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the issue of research relevance from the frame of reference of university leaders. Its specific aim is to gain insights…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the issue of research relevance from the frame of reference of university leaders. Its specific aim is to gain insights into how “relevance” is conceptualised, and the underlying assumptions upon which such conceptualizations are based.
Design/methodology/approach
Adopting an inductive approach, the study collects and analyses data from semi-structured interviews with 31 senior research-related university leaders, and archival sources in five Australian universities.
Findings
Research relevance is primarily viewed as a means of responding to government and political imperatives, as a pathway to ensuring university legitimacy, and as a means of generating further resources. The authors apply this understanding to develop a framework that adopts a nuanced view of relevance, reflecting what is driving research, and to whom research is principally targeted.
Research limitations/implications
The evidence-base upon which the study is based represents a relatively small number of university leaders of Australian universities. Moreover, restricting the investigation to a few senior hierarchical levels nonetheless offers insights into high level organisational drivers hitherto neglected in the accounting research literature on university strategy, governance and accountability. While not addressing perceptions across the university population, this study focusses on and unpacks the social construction of relevance of this select group as research policy makers.
Originality/value
As one of the few empirically informed investigations exploring the issue of research relevance from the perspective of university leaders, this study provides insights rather than “answers”. Its findings therefore serve as a foundational basis for further empirical and theoretical enquiry.
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Lee D. Parker, Kerry Jacobs and Jana Schmitz
In the context of global new public management reform trends and the associated phenomenon of performance auditing (PA), the purpose of this paper is to explore the rise of…
Abstract
Purpose
In the context of global new public management reform trends and the associated phenomenon of performance auditing (PA), the purpose of this paper is to explore the rise of performance audit in Australia and examines its focus across audit jurisdictions and the role key stakeholders play in driving its practice.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopts a multi-jurisdictional analysis of PA in Australia to explore its scale and focus, drawing on the theoretical tools of Goffman. Documentary analysis and interview methods are employed.
Findings
Performance audit growth has continued but not always consistently over time and across audit jurisdictions. Despite auditor discourse concerning backstage performance audit intentions being strongly focussed on evaluating programme outcomes, published front stage reports retain a strong control focus. While this appears to reflect Auditors-General (AGs) reluctance to critique government policy, nonetheless there are signs of direct and indirectly recursive relationships emerging between AGs and parliamentarians, the media and the public.
Research limitations/implications
PA merits renewed researcher attention as it is now an established process but with ongoing variability in focus and stakeholder influence.
Social implications
As an audit technology now well-embedded in the public sector accountability setting, it offers potential insights into matters of local, state and national importance for parliament and the public, but exhibits variable underlying drivers, agendas and styles of presentation that have the capacity to enhance or detract from the public interest.
Originality/value
Performance audit emerges as a complex practice deployed as a mask by auditors in managing their relationship with key stakeholders.
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The purpose of this paper is to critique the accounting and financial orientation of Australian universities’ business model to identify the future university financial management…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to critique the accounting and financial orientation of Australian universities’ business model to identify the future university financial management and accounting role in universities’ strategic trajectory responding to COVID-19.
Design/methodology/approach
Informed by Habermasian perspectives on change, it uses published research into university commercialisation and media commentaries on COVID-19 impacts.
Findings
Australian universities have aggressively pursued an accounting-based private sector business model. Their revenue generating reliance on international student revenues has been undermined by the COVIS-19 crisis. Nonetheless, university management clings to their commercialised university identity and role colonised by the accounting structures. Fundamental change requires a reversal of this relationship.
Research limitations/implications
Future research must observe and evaluate university strategic crisis reactions and their impacts on national and societal well-being with a view to identifying alternative futures.
Practical implications
Universities face decisions concerning their ongoing role in society and their future approach to balancing operational strategies and the accounting influence.
Social implications
This study raises the issue of whether universities should continue being seen as an export industry supporting the national economy or as knowledge, educational and social resource for their national and regional communities.
Originality/value
This paper integrates research into universities over several decades into a strategic critique of their current reaction to an unprecedented global pandemic.
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Basil Tucker, Lee D. Parker and Glennda E.M. Scully
The purpose of this inductive, exploratory study is to provide foundational insights into the role of management control in dealing with dysfunctional behaviour within accounting…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this inductive, exploratory study is to provide foundational insights into the role of management control in dealing with dysfunctional behaviour within accounting schools in changing environment of Australian universities.
Design/methodology/approach
Evidence is drawn from semi-structured interviews with 28 current or previous heads of school, research deans, deans of teaching and learning, school managers and human resource managers from 16 Australian universities and interpreted from the theoretical perspective of rational choice theory.
Findings
The findings suggest the incidence of a range of dysfunctional behaviours occurring in accounting schools. Even when such behaviours are limited in frequency, their consequences are nevertheless found to have far-ranging and potentially destructive change impacts for both individuals and the university. Formal management control systems designed to address such behaviours are perceived to be largely ineffective in identifying, managing, eliminating or even mitigating the consequences of such dysfunctionality. Instead, it is informal control processes that are preferred in dealing with dysfunctionality.
Originality/value
This study enhances our understanding of the role of management control in dealing with dysfunctional behaviour within university accounting schools, and points not only to the difference between the design and use of management controls but also to the implications of this disconnect between the underlying intent of control design and their actual use in the context of environments that are subject to significant change.
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