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1 – 10 of 12Nur Azliani Haniza Che Pak, Suhaiza Ismail and Norhayati Mohd Alwi
The purpose of this paper is to help better understand the translation process of the management control system (MCS) of privatised solid waste management (SWM) towards creating a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to help better understand the translation process of the management control system (MCS) of privatised solid waste management (SWM) towards creating a stable network.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on the actor network theory (ANT), the case of a privatised SWM was studied. Data were collected from all entities involved in the privatisation process of SWM, which include Department A, Corporation X and the private sector concessionaire. Six documents were reviewed, 20 interviews were conducted and two observations were carried out.
Findings
The findings reveal that the control mechanism of SWM is complex, involving the interaction between human and non-human actors. Non-human actors include the key performance indicators (KPIs) and the concessionaire agreement (CA), which are the main control mechanisms towards creating a stable SWM network. Essentially, stability is achieved when the KPIs and CA can influence the activities of both intra- and inter-organisational relationships.
Originality/value
This paper provides a better understanding of the translation process of the MCS that adds to the stability of the network of a privatised SWM from the lens of the ANT.
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Welington Norberto Carneiro, Jose Carlos Tiomatsu Oyadomari, Paulo Afonso, Ronaldo Gomes Dultra-de-Lima and Octavio Ribeiro de Mendonça Neto
This paper seeks to understand kaizen in practice as it travels through time and space in the organisational setting.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to understand kaizen in practice as it travels through time and space in the organisational setting.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative case study was carried out at a multinational company using mainly interviews for the data collection that were analysed from an actor-network theory (ANT) perspective.
Findings
This paper finds that the company deals with a series of paradoxes while managing the kaizen process. Efficiency and quality paradoxes are the basis for starting kaizen projects. Furthermore, intrinsic, and extrinsic motivation, emerge in these processes, and paradoxes relate to how spontaneous ideas emerge in a deliberated context of cost-saving objectives. The supply chain finance team coordinates kaizen projects with the collaboration of plant managers, promoting the paradox of autonomy and control. In addition, as kaizen mobilises and enrols the actors, some trials of strength emerge, showing actors who oppose the kaizen network and create competing networks that mutually exist in the firm.
Practical implications
This study presents valuable insights for professionals to successfully implement kaizen methodologies that take advantage of developing a network for problem-solving in organizations.
Originality/value
This study highlights the supply chain finance team's role in enrolling the actors within a network built by practitioners engaged in kaizen projects. Usually, engineers, quality, or manufacturing teams lead kaizen projects, and only occasionally, accounting and financial teams participate, including multidisciplinary teams.
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Phuong Thi Nguyen, Michael Kend and Dung Quang Le
This study aims to explore some perceptions related to the suggestion that external auditors will be replaced by audit technologies that use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore some perceptions related to the suggestion that external auditors will be replaced by audit technologies that use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to make audit judgements when performing the financial statement audits. Digital transformation is revitalising the technologies used by external auditors and their firms; thus, the authors seek to understand what challenges this creates for the auditing profession in Vietnam.
Design/methodology/approach
Through the theoretical lens of new institutionalism theory, this study uses a qualitative approach involving 20 semi-structured interviews conducted with external auditors in Vietnam during 2022. This sample includes the global Big Four, global mid-tier and smaller local Vietnamese audit firms.
Findings
The findings indicate that there is resistance or disagreement with the suggestion that in the future audit technologies using AI tools can replace humans (external auditors). The role of external auditors in the professional services sector will gradually be changed by audit technologies; however, external auditors are unlikely to be replaced by audit technologies that use AI tools based on the responses of the participants. Strict institutional rules that exist in Vietnam would prevent the replacement of (human) external auditors. In the future, external auditors may take on new roles as consultants, with unique skills in classifying and processing data for decision-making processes; however, they will not be completely replaced by technology in the audit space.
Research limitations/implications
This study has limitations that it is based on the data collection from a single developing country, Vietnam; therefore, the generalisability of the findings is limited to Vietnam. Also, the authors sought insights into the future of external audits in Vietnam.
Practical implications
This study highlights the changing role of auditors and institutions. Thus, policymakers, external auditors and auditees in other developing countries would find the findings helpful.
Originality/value
This study provides new perspectives, particularly from local Vietnamese firms, about audit practices that emerge due to high-level technological advancements and then embed themselves into existing audit practices in an emerging economy. Prior studies tended to focus on the global Big Four firms, thus this study contributes by sharing the perceptions of the smaller practitioners also.
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Jari Huikku, Elaine Harris, Moataz Elmassri and Deryl Northcott
This study aims to explore how managers exercise agency in strategic investment decisions (SIDs) by drawing on their knowledgeability of the strategic context. Specifically, the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore how managers exercise agency in strategic investment decisions (SIDs) by drawing on their knowledgeability of the strategic context. Specifically, the authors address the role of position–practice relations and irresistible causal forces in this conduct.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors examine SID-making (SIDM) practices in four case organisations operating in highly competitive markets, conducting interviews with managers at various levels and analysing company documents. Drawing on strong structuration theory, the authors show how managerial decision makers draw upon their knowledge of organisational context when exercising agency in SIDs.
Findings
The authors provide insights into how SIDM behaviour, specifically agents’ conduct, is shaped by a combination of position–practice relations and the agents’ comprehension of their organisation’s context.
Research limitations/implications
The authors extend the SIDM literature by surfacing the issue of how actors’ conjuncturally-specific knowledge of external structures shapes the general dispositions they draw on in exercising agency in practice.
Originality/value
The authors extend the SIDM literature by surfacing the issue of how actors’ conjuncturally-specific knowledge of external structures shapes the general dispositions they draw on in exercising agency in practice. Particularly, the authors contribute to this literature by identifying irresistible causal forces and illuminating why actors might not resist in SIDM processes, despite having the potential to do so.
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Dogan Gursoy, Simone Luongo, Valentina Della Corte and Fabiana Sepe
This study aims to provide an overview of the evolution of knowledge on smart destinations and identify the key issues addressed in the smart destination research domain, the main…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to provide an overview of the evolution of knowledge on smart destinations and identify the key issues addressed in the smart destination research domain, the main themes and sub-themes and research gaps in smart destination research as well as the future research agenda to address those gaps.
Design/methodology/approach
A bibliometric analysis of 409 studies published on smart destinations literature was conducted using the Bibliometrix R-package to provide a comprehensive review of studies published on smart destinations and identify the main research themes, gaps in the literature and future research opportunities.
Findings
Based on the research findings, a conceptual model of smart destination research has been proposed. This conceptual model can serve as a foundation for further knowledge generation in this research area. The findings also shed light on future research directions, highlighting research opportunities for the exploitation of cutting-edge innovations and digitalization across various dimensions of smart destinations.
Originality/value
Although past research has paid attention to the theme of smart destinations, this work advances scientific knowledge by providing a foundation for a new smart destination management paradigm focusing on accessibility, sustainability, digitization, experience co-creation and creativity as milestones.
研究目的
本研究旨在提供关于智慧目的地知识演变的概览, 并确定智慧目的地研究领域中涉及的关键问题、主要主题和子主题, 以及智慧目的地研究的研究空白, 同时提出未来研究议程以填补这些空白。
研究方法
本研究利用 Bibliometrix R 软件对发表的409篇智慧目的地文献进行了文献计量分析, 以全面回顾关于智慧目的地的研究, 并确定主要研究主题、文献中的空白以及未来的研究机会。
研究发现
基于研究结果, 本研究提出了智慧目的地研究的概念模型。该概念模型可作为进一步知识生成的基础。研究发现还为未来研究方向提供了启示, 强调了利用先进创新和数字化技术在智慧目的地各个维度上进行研究的机会。
研究创新
尽管过去的研究关注了智慧目的地的主题, 但本研究通过提出以可达性、可持续性、数字化、体验共创和创意为里程碑的新智慧目的地管理范式, 推进了科学知识的发展。
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Lise Justesen and Ursula Plesner
The purpose of this paper is to inspire a different way of thinking about digitalization and organizational change by theorizing simultaneity as an alternative to the otherwise…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to inspire a different way of thinking about digitalization and organizational change by theorizing simultaneity as an alternative to the otherwise dominant root metaphor of sequence in the literature on digitalization and organizational change.
Design/methodology/approach
The theoretical argument is based on a reading of central contributions to the literature on digital technology and organizational change, and particularly inspired by the work positing a constitutive entanglement of technology and organization. We argue for an extension of this line of thinking with a reading of Latour’s notion tonalities. The relevance of the theoretical argument is demonstrated through an illustrative empirical example of the phenomenon digital-ready legislation.
Findings
The paper identifies sequence as a root metaphor in the organization and digital change literature. It develops a simultaneity view and illustrates its relevance through the example of digital-ready legislation, pinpointing how technological, organizational and legal elements are attuned to one another at the same time rather than in sequence.
Practical implications
The sequentiality view has dominated the change management research, which has travelled from research into practice. The simultaneity view has the potential to offer a new approach to planning change, with a focus on the simultaneous alignment of, e.g. legal, organizational and technological elements.
Originality/value
The paper offers an alternative to dominant views on digitalization and organizational change, drawing on an overlooked notion in Latour’s scholarship, namely tonalities. This has potential to qualify the entanglement thesis and develop simultaneity as a new metaphor for understanding digital change.
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Michael Buckland's works have spanned theoretical, historical and practice-oriented foci and genre. This article focuses on some of his theoretical-historical works that span over…
Abstract
Purpose
Michael Buckland's works have spanned theoretical, historical and practice-oriented foci and genre. This article focuses on some of his theoretical-historical works that span over 20 years, which demonstrate a reading and critique of European Documentation in terms of what has been called “Documentality.” This turn to a philosophy of information called “Documentality” marks the moment of “neo-documentation.” This article surveys this moment in Buckland's works by reading his articles “Information as Thing,” “What is a ‘Document’?”, and “Documentality Beyond Documents.” It shows the transition from Documentation as a philosophy of information as representation to Documentality as a philosophy of information as function and performance. Some concepts and works of Bruno Latour are used to illuminate this transition from Documentation to Documentality. Implications and further research directions are discussed at the end.
Design/methodology/approach
Conceptual and historical analyses.
Findings
The article follows a neo-documentalist transition in Buckland's works in the thinking of documents from an Otletian representationalist epistemology (“Documentation”) to a functionalist and performative epistemology (“Documentality”) for documents.
Research limitations/implications
This is a conceptual work on a limited corpus in Buckland's oeuvre. It has a limited discussion of Documentality in the works of other writers, namely the works of Bernd Frohmann and Maurizio Ferraris.
Practical implications
The article points to historical shifts in the study of documents in Library and Information Science.
Social implications
Documentality critically and materially studies documents in sociotechnical information management systems and elsewhere.
Originality/value
This work highlights the importance of the above works and the importance of the neo-documentalist perspective of Documentality.
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Lucinda McKnight and Cara Shipp
The purpose of this paper is to share findings from empirically driven conceptual research into the implications for English teachers of understanding generative AI as a “tool”…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to share findings from empirically driven conceptual research into the implications for English teachers of understanding generative AI as a “tool” for writing.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reports early findings from an Australian National Survey of English teachers and interrogates the notion of the AI writer as “tool” through intersectional feminist discursive-material analysis of the metaphorical entailments of the term.
Findings
Through this work, the authors have developed the concept of “coloniser tool-thinking” and juxtaposed it with First Nations and feminist understandings of “tools” and “objects” to demonstrate risks to the pursuit of social and planetary justice through understanding generative AI as a tool for English teachers and students.
Originality/value
Bringing together white and First Nations English researchers in dialogue, the paper contributes a unique perspective to challenge widespread and common-sense use of “tool” for generative AI services.
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Manuel Castelo Castelo Branco, Delfina Gomes and Adelaide Martins
The purpose of this study is to contribute to the discussion surrounding the definition of accounting proposed by Carnegie et al. (2021a, 2021b) and further elaborated by Carnegie…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to contribute to the discussion surrounding the definition of accounting proposed by Carnegie et al. (2021a, 2021b) and further elaborated by Carnegie et al. (2023) from/under an institutionalist political-economy (IPE) based foundation and to specifically extend this approach to the arena of social and environmental accounting (SEA).
Design/methodology/approach
By adopting an IPE approach to SEA, this study offers a critique of the use of the notion of capital to refer to nature and people in SEA frameworks and standards.
Findings
A SEA framework based on the capabilities approach is proposed based on the concepts of human capabilities and global commons for the purpose of preserving the commons and enabling the flourishing of present and future generations.
Practical implications
The proposed framework allows the engagement of accounting community, in particular SEA researchers, with and contribution to such well-established initiatives as the Planetary Boundaries framework and the human development reports initiative of the United Nations Development Programme.
Originality/value
Based on the capability approach, this study applies Carnegie et al.’s (2023) framework to SEA. This new approach more attuned to the pursuit of sustainable human development and the sustainable development goals, may contribute to turning accounting into a major positive force through its impacts on the world, expressly upon organisations, people and nature.
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Daan Kabel, Jason Martin and Mattias Elg
The integration of industry 4.0 has become a priority for many organizations. However, not all organizations are suitable and capable of implementing industry 4.0 because it…
Abstract
Purpose
The integration of industry 4.0 has become a priority for many organizations. However, not all organizations are suitable and capable of implementing industry 4.0 because it requires a dynamic and flexible implementation strategy. The implementation of industry 4.0 often involves overcoming several tensions between internal and external stakeholders. This paper aims to explore the paradoxical tensions that arise for health-care organizations when integrating industry 4.0. Moreover, it discusses how a paradox lens can support the conceptualization and proposes techniques for handling tensions during the integration of industry 4.0.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative and in-depth study draws upon 32 semi-structured interviews. The empirical case concerns how two health-care organizations handle paradoxical tensions during the integration of industry 4.0.
Findings
The exploration resulted in six recurring technology tensions: technology invention (modularized design vs. flexible design), technology collaboration (automation vs. human augmentation), technology-driven patient experience (control vs. autonomy), technology uncertainty (short-term experimentation vs. long-term planning), technology invention and diffusion through collaborative efforts among stakeholders (selective vs. intensive collaboration) and technological innovation (market maintenance vs. disruption).
Originality/value
A paradox theory-informed conceptual model is proposed for how to handle tensions during the integration of industry 4.0. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to introduce paradox theory for quality management, including lean and Six Sigma.
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