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The purpose of this paper is to analyse the performance of accounting researchers in winning competitive Australian Research Council (ARC) grants, when compared with researchers from the medical, engineering and law professions, during a period of heightened questioning of accounting methods, bounded by the end of the dot.com boom in 2001 and the global financial crisis in 2008. Protection and expansion of a profession's core knowledge through effective research is regarded as a hallmark of ongoing professional recognition and success in winning ARC grants is one indicator of the strength of this research. Reasons for the absolute and relative performance of accounting researchers in winning ARC grants are explored.

ARC statistics for the 2000‐2008 period were analysed, along with additional data from the relevant professional associations and the Commonwealth Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.

The results indicate that Australian accounting researchers are performing poorly in absolute and relative terms when compared with their professional peers. Some evidence exists that accounting research cultures seem to flourish in only a handful of universities, and that accounting academics are overloaded with teaching to the detriment of research.

The study adds to the growing interest in the value added by accounting research to the accounting profession, the corporate sector and society at large. While the publishing record of Australian accounting researchers appears healthy, when compared with their accounting peers overseas, they perform poorly in winning competitive grants relative to researchers from other professions. This may be a timely wakeup call to the accounting profession that the social acceptance of accounting knowledge should not be taken for granted.

The purpose of this article is to describe and consider the use of diamond ranking activities as visual cues to elicit ideas, prompt reflection and promote discussion amongst pupils (aged 10‐13), teachers and other staff in two qualitative research studies.

The activities included nine photographs as visual cues, and participants cut out these pictures and stuck them onto a piece of A3 paper in a diamond shape, ranking them by position where their preferred picture is at the top and the most disliked at the bottom.

Importantly, participants also annotated their diamond with qualitative comments and explanations.

This article explores the use of diamond ranking as visual cues – a tool within qualitative research that is under‐developed – as a way of engaging participants in the research process. Issues explored include inclusivity, active discussions and applicability to a wide range of people.

To present the initial results from a project recently undertaken by Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials Europe Ltd, in collaboration with a number of European partners, to develop individual elements of the traditional PCB manufacturing process towards a sustainable and zero‐discharge alternative.

This paper presents initial results from work aimed at enabling PCB manufacturing to become more sustainable. Novel processes evaluated include special electroplating techniques, advanced oxidation methods to remove organic contaminants, and new ion exchange systems. Work has been carried out to develop these processes into viable demonstrators and the results of progress to date are reported. Descriptions of how these individual technologies may be combined to provide an integrated approach to a more sustainable PCB manufacturing methodology are also given.

Initial results indicate that a more sustainable PCB manufacturing process may be achieved by combining the use of organic and metal capture resins with advanced oxidation and electrochemical recovery technologies.

The value of the paper lies in its provision of information from a project that is integrating available treatment technologies in a novel approach that will take the PCB manufacturing process closer to a zero effluent discharge situation.

An original concept for a Web‐based role play “SurfingGlobalChange” is proposed on the basis of multi‐year interdisciplinary teaching experience and constructivist pedagogy. Underlying didactic orientation is towards self‐guided learning, acquiring socially compatible “competence to act” in a globalised world, self‐optimising social procedures inside teams, process‐orientation and peer‐review instead of teacher’s review. Participating students find themselves in an argumentative battle where they put their marks at stake. A comparison with similar games highlights the increased level of responsibility attributed to and expected from learners using this kind of “digital game‐based learning”.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether accounting researchers in Australia more proactively pursued government‐sponsored Australian Research Council (ARC) research funding in the post‐Enron period than researchers in other commerce‐related disciplines.

The study measures disciplinary research activity using successful Australian Research Council Linkage and Discovery grants for the period 2000 to 2008. The study identifies the number of grants received, the total dollar amount funded, the number of participating institutions, individual researchers and (where applicable) partnering organisations. Using these criteria, the study compares the success of accounting with that of banking and finance, economics and business and management.

The study highlights accounting's failure to attain comparable levels of research funding relative to other commerce‐related disciplines (both in terms of grants and dollars), even given the public profile of accounting events post‐Enron. The study reveals a significantly higher “elite institution effect” exists in accounting and lower levels of academic and commercial partnerships when compared to other disciplines. The study examines potential reasons for the lack of ARC funding won by accounting researchers.

The persistently low level of representation of accounting researchers among ARC grant winners during this period appears counterintuitive to the traditional “professional model” that links university‐based disciplinary members with practitioners. Why accounting, as a high‐profile profession diverges from this model should be of concern to researchers, universities and the accounting profession.

The study's use of comparative ARC data extends and contextualises earlier studies that have sought to examine the state of accounting research in Australia.

Employee engagement recently emerged as a promising mechanism to improve organisational effectiveness and accordingly reduce the performance gap. This paper empirically demonstrates which employee engagement dimension(s) act as the strongest dimension to enhance the levels of employee engagement and consequently organisational effectiveness.

This study used a quantitative approach, specifically a survey design, using a questionnaire to collect data. Regression analysis was applied to predict the impact of the employee engagement dimensions on the level of employee engagement in organisations and the impact of online/social media, as part of communication, on employee engagement.

The statistical analyses indicate that the dimensions organisational strategy and implementation, organisational commitment and team commitment are significant predictors of employee engagement. On-line/social media has a negative effect on employee engagement. However, according to the results, communication in organisations can be improved, especially by using online/social media more effectively.

This includes low response rate from some groups.

The importance of secondary general management tasks, particularly motivation and communication, in mobilising employees to cooperate in pursuing organisational goals, became apparent. This study reflects the adverse effect of a lack of leadership and management skills, and ineffective use of online/social media on organisational performance, as reported in academic and practitioner research. Regardless, practitioners can apply the levers of motivation, via structural dimensions of organisation, to activate psychological presence which drives employee engagement and in turn facilitates strategy implementation and consequently organisational effectiveness. Scholars can modify their research agendas by investigating the “(un)availability” of human resources to improve organisational effectiveness.

The costs of disengaged employees are high, in terms of productivity losses and the performance gap, with adverse consequences for society.

Employee engagement as a driver of strategy implementation is an overlooked area of research. This study offers a better explanation of employee engagement as a mechanism to improve strategy implementation, thus reducing the performance gap, and consequently waste. Employee engagement engenders employee support to pursue organisational goals, in a coordinated system of cooperation, and is produced by the structural dimensions of organisation, the parameters within which psychological presence is activated. Psychological presence drives employee engagement which enables employees to be available to implement strategy to achieve organisational goals and thus organisational effectiveness. Engagement at a broader level than individual is significant.

“On its current path, American democratic capitalism is, I believe, heading for an ugly fall.” So warns Roger L. Martin in his new book, When More is Not Better: Overcoming America’s Obsession with Economic Efficiency. Professor Martin has been concerned for some time now about the capability of the American capitalistic model in its current guise to deliver continued prosperity for the many and keep the American democratic dream alive.

Martin sees a serious problem in how the benefits of the American economy and its corporations are distributed; this has been shifting for some time now from a largely Gaussian (widely spread) to an increasingly Pareto (narrowly spread) pattern.

The shape of this distribution is getting ever more extreme, leading to a situation in which the richest families in the country are reaping a wildly disproportionate share of the benefits of economic growth. This kind of distribution tends to be self-reinforcing and that is not consistent with a well-functioning democratic capitalist system.

The actors within the system will keep adjusting to any change in the rules of engagement, and the tendency for them to keep “gaming” the system should be anticipated as both natural and inevitable and provided for accordingly. Breaking the company into subject-matter siloes has little chance of helping the company prosper. It tends to cause independent pursuits of efficiency that don’t add up to effectiveness.

The author of 11 books, Professor Martin has been ranked at the top of numerous lists of the world’s best strategic thinkers, and is a seminal contributor to the design thinking and integrative thinking movements. In his writings he seeks “to develop a new understanding of the broader public conversation around shared and sustainable prosperity, an essential piece of democratic capitalism.” A long-time consultant to major global firms, he offers insights for corporate executives.

A growing amount of German and Austrian utilities create own Facebook accounts to communicate with their stakeholders. Whereas existing studies describe how utility companies are currently using Facebook, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there exists no study which focuses on the actual expectations of Facebook users. Nevertheless, as the occurrence of social media redefined stakeholders’ expectations, research on the expectations of Facebook users become crucial. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to contribute to the existing social media literature by investigating the expectations of Facebook users towards a virtual stakeholder dialogue with their public utility companies on Facebook.

Eight German and six Austrian public utilities supported the empirical study by posting a link to an online survey on their Facebook account. In total, 258 Facebook users followed that link and completed the survey.

The broad majority of participants expect public utility companies to use Facebook as a communication channel. They request to regularly receive a variety of information on different topics. In addition, participants want to have the opportunity to post general queries, complaints or criticism, suggestions for improvement, positive feedback or queries in a crisis situation. Moreover, the empirical data reveal that user-specific characteristics such as gender, age, country of residence, length of Facebook membership or number of Facebook friends impact the expectations towards a Facebook conversation.

The findings enable scholars and practitioners to gain in-depth insights into Facebook conversations from the actual user perspective.