Search results

In developing countries, how risk management technologies influence management accounting and control (MAC) practices is under-researched. By drawing on insights from institutional studies, this study aims to examine the multiple institutional pressures surrounding an entity and influencing its risk-based management control (RBC) system – that is, how RBC appears in an emerging market attributed to institutional multiplicity.

The authors used qualitative case study research methods to collect empirical evidence from a privately owned Egyptian insurance company.

The authors observed that in the transformation to risk-based controls, especially in socio-political settings such as Egypt, changes in MAC systems were consistent with the shifts in the institutional context. Along with changes in the institutional environment, the case company sought to configure its MAC system to be more risk-based to achieve its strategic goals effectively and maintain its sustainability.

This research provides a fuller view of risk-based management controls based on the social, professional and political perspectives central to the examined institutional environment. Moreover, unlike early studies that reported resistance to RBC, this case reveals the institutional dynamics contributing to the successful implementation of RBC in an emerging market.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the current legal framework on money laundering control in the insurance sector. Essentially, this examination is premised on the interrogation of whether it is still appropriate for Mauritius to apply such stringent, opaque and unyielding Anti-Money Laundering/Combating Financing of Terrorism norms and rules on general insurance when developed nations such as the UK and Singapore have done away with them for a more effective combat against money laundering. It would also be assessed why the financial services commission (FSC) is not able to draw inspiration from its British and Singaporean counterparts in fighting money laundering more effectively.

This paper uses the doctrinal legal research methodology which is colloquially described as “black-letter law” approach. It is backed up by a contextual legal analysis that is based on an analysis of relevant legal provisions. It relies ground experience from the insurance industry through the experience of the authors. A comparative approach is used with Singapore and the UK as case studies given that there are significant commonalities to the Mauritian jurisdiction as well as useful differences.

It is observed that a move towards a de-regulation of the legal framework on money laundering in the insurance sector with a more relaxed approach is more effective for the Mauritian insurance sector. Evidence is drawn from the Singaporean and British models. A re-structuring of the FSC of Mauritius is also warranted for such an approach to be adopted.

This paper is among the first academic contribution that proposes a de-regulation and the adoption of a relaxed approach of and by the Mauritian Insurance Industry for a more effective combat against money laundering. It serves as a legal foundational basis for further research in this direction.

The authors compare perspectives on external evaluation of health service provision between Norway and the USA. External inspection and accreditation are examples of internationally wide-spread external evaluation methods used to assess the quality of care given to patients. Different countries have different national policy strategies and arrangements set up to do these evaluations. Although there is growing attention to the impact and effects on quality and safety from external evaluation, there is still a gap in knowledge to how structures and processes influence these outcomes. Accordingly, the purpose of this article is to describe the structures and processes in external evaluation designed to promote quality improvement in Norway and the USA with attention to comparison of enablers and barriers in external evaluation systems.

Data collection consisted of documentary evidence retrieved from governmental policies, and reviews of the Joint Commission (the US), international guidelines, recommendations and reports from the International Society for Quality in Health Care, and the World Health Organization, and policies and regulations related to Norwegian governmental bodies such as the Ministry of Health and Care Services, the Norwegian Directorate of Health, and the Norwegian Board of Health Supervision . Data were analyzed inspired by a deductive, direct content analytical framework.

The authors found that both accreditation and inspection are strategies put in place to ensure that healthcare providers have adequate quality systems as well as contributing to the wider risk and safety enhancing management and implementation processes in the organizations subjected to evaluation. The US and the Norwegian external regulatory landscapes are complex and include several policymaking and governing institutions. The Norwegian regulatory framework for inspection has replaced an individual blame logic with a model which “blames” the system for inadequate quality and patient harm. This contrasts with the US accreditation system, which focuses on accreditation visits. Although findings indicate an ongoing turning point in accreditation, findings also demonstrate that involving patients and next of kin directly in adverse event inspections is a bigger part of a change in external inspection culture and methods than in processes of accreditation.

The message of this paper is important for policymakers, and bodies of inspection and accreditation because knowledge retrieved from the comparative document study may contribute to better understanding of the implications from the different system designs and in turn contribute to improving external evaluations.

Although there is a growing attention to the impact and effects on quality and safety from external evaluation, the implications of different regulatory strategies and arrangements for evaluation on quality and safety remain unclear.

Studies have shown that customer orientation has a substantial impact on a business's success. This study examines the effects of positive personality on salespeople's proactive customer orientation (PCO) and responsive customer orientation (RCO) by incorporating the effects of job enthusiasm and transformational leadership.

A questionnaire survey is conducted. A total of 511 questionnaires are received from Taiwan's life insurance salespeople. Partial least squares (PLS) regression is used to test the hypotheses.

The results show that positive personality influences PCO and RCO both directly and indirectly through job enthusiasm. The effect of transformational leadership is also found to be significant. Financial service companies should be concerned about the important role of positive personality and transformational leadership in promoting job enthusiasm, PCO and RCO among salespeople.

Previous studies mostly focused on the direct relationship between customer orientation and organizational outcomes, neglecting the role of individual personality. This gap leaves us wondering how a positive personality influences a salesperson's proactive and responsive customer orientation. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to examine the mechanisms of a positive personality, job enthusiasm, and transformational leadership on salespeople's PCO and RCO.

This paper aims to explore factors impacting wearable fitness tracking (WFT) device continued usage intention from perspectives of technology attributes (autonomy benefits), health attributes (self-health management benefits, diet-control benefits and health self-efficacy), and consumer attributes (age, gender, technological innovativeness, symbolic benefits, social benefits and hedonic benefits).

The study integrates constructs from the technology acceptance theories and the health promotion model to develop the research model and hypothesis. The empirical analysis was conducted using data from 217 respondents from India. Logistic regression was used to identify factors that discriminate between groups with low and high continued usage intentions.

Results indicate higher continued usage intention for WFT devices is driven by perceived benefits-health, autonomy, social and hedonic, and individual characteristics-technological innovativeness and perceived health self-efficacy. Further, perceived symbolic benefits, diet control benefits, age, and gender does not discriminate between the groups with low and high continued usage intentions.

The results may be limited to the context of the sample and the factors considered. The study suggests future research areas.

The paper offers insights for marketers, governments, insurance firms, and related healthcare services on promoting higher usage of WFT devices to yield dual benefits of preventive healthcare and higher profitability.

The study extends existing research by examining factors across consumer, health, and technological domains in a single framework and adds to the limited research in the context of usage of WFT devices in developing countries.

This research aimed to create inventive principles in managing quality and innovation systems that can be used as a guide for the development of effective innovation projects in hospitals.

Total quality and innovation management in healthcare (TQIM-H) framework and theory of inventive problem-solving (TRIZ) were integrated with results from in-depth interviews with 30 healthcare experts, resulting in TQIM-H inventive principle. The developed inventive principle was validated using 50 effective innovation projects from one of the largest healthcare conglomerates in Southeast Asia.

The TQIM-H inventive principle consisted of 7 dimensions and 72 procedures for creating innovation in hospitals under the medical quality framework. The principle effectively helps innovators develop innovative solutions that still strictly comply with medical guidelines.

Innovation is recognized as a critical factor that helps organizations adapt to global changes and increases the potential for competition, especially in hospitals. However, creating innovation in hospitals has a lower success rate than in other industries because, in general, ineffective innovation development strategies are used and the created innovation is not aligned with regulations and restrictions regarding healthcare quality in the healthcare system.

This study aims to investigate whether socially responsible businesses with corporate social expenditure are less prone to engaging in tax avoidance. The study also examines whether political connections moderate the association between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and tax avoidance.

The study uses ordinary least squares to analyse the panel data of all 30 listed banks on the Dhaka Stock Exchange covering 2012 to 2020. The study uses a set of alternative variables to check the robustness of the findings.

Confirming the corporate culture theory, the study findings indicate that the higher the firms’ CSR expenditure, the lower the tax avoidance. Contrarily, the moderating effect of political connection weakens the role of CSR in tax avoidance, implying that political relation makes the firms socially irresponsible. Besides, the findings document that firms with strong political connections are more likely to be tax aggressive by weakening the role of CSR. The findings imply that firms with weaker political connections are more socially responsible than firms with strong political ties.

The study provides the bank management and regulatory bodies valuable insights to take necessary actions so that they can easily monitor whether the banks follow their instructions regarding CSR and tax payments. As the politicians make the firm socially irresponsible, the regulatory bodies and bank management should not keep them or their relatives on the board.

The study contributes to the CSR and tax avoidance literature considering the moderating role of political connections in Bangladesh banking sector.

The purpose of this study is to provide for critical literature on the legal aspects of corporate governance and their application in Mauritius. The drawbacks of having the principles in the form of a non-binding code are discussed, and a case is made to consider their enshrinement in laws such as the Companies Act 2001 to render them legally enforceable for the good health of companies in Mauritius.

A doctrinal legal methodology has been adopted to assess the effectiveness of the principles of the 2016 Code of Corporate Governance of Mauritius. Legislations, legal texts, case law and regulations are used to conduct this assessment. In addition, a black-letter approach is taken while discussing the enshrinement of the principles in the Companies Act 2001 of Mauritius. The doctrinal methodology is further supported by a qualitative analysis of the principles of corporate governance based on existing legal literature, which emphasises their relevance and importance.

The principles of the 2016 Code of Corporate Governance are no doubt a progress over the former 2004 Code in various aspects, aligning the Code with the requirements of the OECD. However, there are still certain loopholes that have been highlighted. In addition, the extent to which these principles are reflected in the Companies Act, which is the primary legislation for companies, has been found to be lacking and inadequate.

This paper is, to the best of the author’s knowledge, the first legal literature concerning the Mauritian legal framework on corporate governance. This is relevant because the country has recently experienced corporate collapses, which could arguably have been avoided with the application of the principles of corporate governance. As such, the paper will present a case study that can be used as a reference for future research on the enforceability and justiciability of these principles.

While the three lines model (TLM) provides an organizational structure to execute risk and control duties, research and practice show limitations in the model's implementation. These limitations result in governance issues. Such issues, together with control weaknesses, could be addressed by leveraging properties of distribution, transparency, and immutability of blockchain technology. To this end, in this paper the authors propose a conceptual control framework based on blockchain technology to augment control practice.

The design of the resulting blockchain-based control framework (BBCF) and its prototype, based on the design science research methodology (DSRM), is presented and discussed in terms of the potential impact in the context of the identified problems within the TLM.

One potential outcome of BBCF could be to redefine the scope and boundaries of some of the activities in audit and control practices from a more static to a more dynamic and prospective role. In a larger context of improving governance practices, the BBCF could set the path for a more inclusive and participatory interaction between the different governance actors of an organization.

However, this assumes that blockchain is more widely adopted despite its complexity and rigidity.

BBCF covering both a conceptual model design and a reference implementation provides an innovation in audit and control. BBCF could include all relevant stakeholders who have an interest in corporate governance and control activities, including the regulators.

The contribution intends to serve both as a starting point for discussing the evolution of audit and control practice based on blockchain technology, as well as an initial actionable prototype for experimentation and further development.