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The purpose of this paper is to analyse the accounting research project concerned with accounting narrative obfuscation, focusing on the translation of the concept of readability from educational psychology via an earlier literature concerned with the readability of accounting narratives per se.

This paper uses actor-network theory and examines, in particular, the need for a network to accommodate the interests of its actors and the consequent risk of failure.

The analysis shows that the project is failing because the network seeking to support it is failing, and failing because of its inability to adapt sufficiently to accommodate the interests of its constituents. This failure is contrasted with the earlier concern with readability per se, which did see a successful reconfiguration of actors’ interests.

The puzzle of the maladjustment of the network concerned with obfuscation is examined and it is suggested that it is a consequence of interests prevailing in the wider academic research network within which the relevant human actors are embedded.

The reasons for the failure of the project are bound up in the wider circumstances of the contemporary accounting research community and may affect scholars’ capacity to pursue knowledge effectively.

This paper contributes to a modest stream of actor–network analysis directed at accounting research itself.

Most Americans are keenly aware of the costs political corruption extracts on system support, fiscal policies and economic development, and ultimately, government effectiveness. Among a list of 10 challenges facing the nation, the public ranks political corruption as the nation's biggest crisis Samussen (2019). Importantly, this issue cuts across partisan and demographic lines. Members of both political parties and independents consistently cite political corruption as a serious problem facing the country.

However, there is a specific kind of political corruption that is disturbing for the health of American democracy – the corruption of Congress. Most Americans appear to have little faith in lawmakers to do the right thing. Majorities believe that Congress is out of touch with average Americans, focused on the needs of special interests, and is corrupt. To be sure, political corruption severely undermines government legitimacy and weakens the development of political, economic, and social structures. This chapter considers the problem of congressional corruption including what forms it takes, where it arises, what anti-corruption reforms are needed, and what these findings mean for the future of American democracy. More specifically, this chapter will permit us to examine if and how perceptions of congressional corruption influence citizens' interactions with government and provide a better understanding of citizens' policy preferences for regulating political corruption.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the tasks involved in the planning and implementation of integrated marketing communications using an interesting, real‐life case study.

A mix of secondary and primary research is used: analysis of academic literature, market research data and organisational data, as well as interviews conducted with members of the Renault Marketing Team.

The planning and implementation of integrated marketing communications is complex and involves a wide range of different management tasks. These include: situation analysis and identification of marketing communications opportunities; choosing the right marketing communications agency; campaign development and implementation, including the selection of the marketing communications mix, creative execution and media planning; campaign evaluation; planning of follow‐up campaigns; and managerial coordination between all tasks and parties involved to ensure integration of marketing communications initiatives throughout the campaign.

Applies marketing communications theories to a real‐life example and illustrates comprehensively the management tasks involved in the planning and implementation of integrated marketing communications campaigns. Provides hyperlinks and references to organisations and bodies relevant to the marketing communications industry as well as academic literature.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of Cloud technologies on management practices and business strategies. It considers the role of human resource management (HRM) departments in supporting the organisational changes required for the introduction and integration of Cloud business strategies.

The study uses a qualitative exploratory research approach. It utilises the resource view of the firm and transaction costs economics (TCE) to support the analysis. It synthesises the literature with the qualitative interview data.

Cloud business models require organisations to focus on the nexus of business strategies and information and communication technology (ICT) capabilities. HRM departments can play a positive role in this process by better integrating ICT sections into business decision‐making processes. Cloud technologies may further change ICT worker functions and roles.

Qualitative research approaches may limit the generality of the findings. However they allowed for an in‐depth analysis of complex Cloud related data that quantitative approaches may not have elicited.

The paper outlines a strategic “holistic” approach for organisations shifting to Cloud‐based business models.

The paper examines the likely impacts of Cloud technologies on potential ICT worker redundancies.

The Cloud as the nexus of ICT and business and the potential role of HRM in facilitating shifts to Cloud business models have been under‐researched areas to date. The paper is therefore of value to ICT, HRM and business strategy focused academics and practitioners.

During the 2020 election cycle, 2,276 super PACs spent over $2.1 billion in federal elections. This chapter argues that changes made to the US campaign finance system brought about by the Citizens United v. FEC (2010) and SpeechNow.org v. FEC (2010) cases have destabilized the American political system by fueling tensions between right-wing and left-wing populist factions and by contributing to congressional corruption. By moving away from the political corruption standard and toward the free speech standard in Citizens United, polarizing wealthy mega-donors and dark money sources have come to play a dominant role in congressional elections. These cases also helped to contribute to a two-tiered campaign finance regulatory structure that distinguishes between campaign contributions given directly to federal candidates and political money contributed to super PACs to support or oppose federal candidates. In the 2020 congressional elections, PACs and super PACS outspent both major party candidates combined in 35 House and Senate races. Super PACs are serving as “shadow parties” by targeting competitive races for the purpose of swaying partisan control of Congress. This study also shows that an exceedingly high percentage of super PAC money is spent on negative advertising that further divides rather than unifies the nation. This chapter also highlights the corrupting influence of congressional leadership PACs and examines how super PACs have enabled foreign and dark money sources to illegally influence congressional campaigns.

Both consumer and corporate credit ratings agencies played a major role in the US subprime mortgage crisis. Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion deployed a formalized scoring system to assess individuals in mortgage origination, mortgage pools then were assessed for securitization by Moody's, S&P, and Fitch relying on expert judgment aided by formal models. What can we learn about the limits of formalization from the crisis? We discuss five problems responsible for the rating failures – reactivity, endogeneity, learning, correlated outcomes, and conflict of interest – and compare the way consumer and corporate rating agencies tackled these difficulties. We conclude with some policy lessons.

The significance of cloud services in information technology (IT) is increasing as a means of achieving enhanced productivity, efficiency and cost reduction. Through cloud-based service, the reliability and scalability of an organization’s systems can be enhanced since organizations such as local governments are able to concentrate on their main business strategies. This research seeks to identify critical factors that may have an impact on the acceptance of cloud-based services, where the organizational context is based on local governments in Australia.

To formulate a more comprehensive IT innovation adoption model for cloud technology, factors from the technology-organizational-environment framework, desires framework and diffusion of innovation model were integrated. Data was obtained from 480 IT staff working in 47 local government organizations.

The research results show that the factors which had a statistically significant and positive impact on the adoption of cloud-based services in local governments were compatibility, complexity, cost, security concerns, expected benefits and organization size. It is likely that the outcomes from this research will provide insights to any organization seeking to make investment decisions on the adoption of cloud-based services.

Limitations include generalizability of the findings since the data is restricted to local government areas in Queensland, Australia. Further, the sample mostly included individuals with managerial positions and may not completely capture the cloud adoption factors relevant for front line IT employees. Another limitation is the possible omission of factors that may be relevant but not considered due to the selected theories. Lastly, this research did not differentiate between different types of cloud adoption such as private, public, community and hybrid models that are possible in this context.

The paper provides a combination framework of cloud-based service adoption based on a literature review on cloud adoption from an IS perspective. It adapts integrated model to establish a more comprehensive innovation adoption framework for cloud technology.