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To examine metrics used for performance measurement, analysis, and decision-making by insurance cooperatives.

A documentary review and semi-structured interviews of three large insurance cooperatives form the basis of the study.

The analysis suggests insurance co-operatives metrics are consistent with investor-owned companies. These measures do not recognize the cooperative principles and values which consistent the formative basis of these insurance co-operatives.

The insurance co-operatives under examination do not engage in a comparison to other insurance co-operatives; rather comparisons are made against investor-owned companies. As this analysis is used in decision-making and strategy formulation, guiding the direction of the co-operatives the questions must be raised: does the co-operative difference exist in the insurance sector and how (and what) performance analysis tools are used to assess their performance?

There is a paucity of research in the area of metrics and analytics of co-operatives. As such this article expands the academic scope of examination of co-operatives in the context of financial and accounting operations. Additionally, it adds to the ongoing discussion in the academy focused on the nature of co-operatives and the nature of the co-operative difference.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the accuracy and informational quality of the cash from operations section of the cash flow statement.

This paper empirically tested the accuracy of the cash from operations reported by Canadian non-financial companies. The authors studied 262 companies at three different time periods providing 786 firm observations. For each observation, the balance sheet was used to confirm the figures reported in the statement of cash flows. In addition, the authors investigated management's disclosure of the particular working capital items.

The findings suggest that in recent years, companies are more likely to overstate their cash flow from operations, thereby presenting a better financial picture than is supported by the balance sheet accounts. This would suggest that the investing or financing section would be correspondingly understated. The presence of acquisitions reduces overstatements, which may be the result of more auditor presence.

This paper extends previous research from documented single, isolated instances of cash from operations being misstated to include a significant sample with more generalizable findings. The data are Canadian which may limit the generalizability to other countries. Future research should address the extent to which financial analysts rely on the reported cash from operations figure.

This preliminary study may have implications for financial analysts and others relying on the free cash flow figure.

This study expands on previous research which has taken place only on a case-by-case basis.

This paper aims to analyze the implications of technology change on management control. Specifically, the paper seeks to examine the deployment of an enterprise resource planning system (ERP), and to apply a temporal perspective of practice as a theoretical tool to discuss the effects of the ERP on the organization's management control systems.

The research is based on a longitudinal case study of a North American Financial. Data were collected during the deployment of a new management control system. The paper introduces the temporal view of agency as a means of examining the practices involved in control system.

The observations suggest that ERP can create an illusion of control, and may jeopardize the systems they are meant to augment through the presence of practices meant to by‐pass the control system and invisible work (work‐arounds).

The paper seeks to augment existing studies of technology mitigated change through framing the analysis in a temporal practice perspective to offer insight into the paths of action individuals adopt: the how and why.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and apply Goffman's dramaturgical perspective to the study of organizations in the context of their internet presence(s), or as Goffman might have called it, internet play-acting. The paper responds to recent criticism of dramaturgy, and advocates its continuing relevance for organizational studies on the contemporary stage – the internet.

The paper studies the proposed merger of three accounting bodies in Canada using data obtained from publically available sources and employing dramaturgical techniques. Data includes documents (such as position papers, PowerPoint slides and practitioner journal articles). Particular attention was paid to sources of data from the internet such as YouTube videos, web sites, on-line media stories and chat from discussion boards.

The paper concludes that the criticisms of dramaturgy are overstated, and that dramaturgy enables robust recovery of complex organizational stories providing insights into how and why individual behaviour unfolds in organizations.

The paper is directed to qualitative researchers working in the interpretive tradition. It engages with the recent discussion in the literature which considers the significance of dramaturgy as a useful methodology to understand the emergence of behaviour and action, and how internet activities unfold in such a powerful and ubiquitous communication medium.

This paper aims to discuss the concepts contained in communities of practice theory (COPT) and how they might contribute to greater understanding of organizations.

The paper draws upon COPT as a means to broaden the perspective of institutional theory.

The findings provide insight into the processes surrounding organizational change. The notion of change as both intentional actions and unintended consequences is explored through a review of the case of Arthur Andersen and Company.

The study presents a historically informed case study that presents a novel theoretical approach for examinations of behavior, practices and ethics in organizations. Future work based on broader empirical examinations would enrich the findings presented in this study.

The study provides a means to examine organizations in practice and expands awareness of how behaviors in organizations evolve and might be shaped and encouraged over time.

The study introduces a novel theoretical vocabulary to the accounting academy COPT that has the potential to expand our understanding of organizations through examinations of practice.