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This study aims to investigate the impact of human resource investment in internal controls (hereinafter, IC personnel) on managers’ goodwill impairment decisions.

The authors use the ratio of IC personnel to the number of employees in the firm and the average work experience of IC personnel as quantitative and qualitative measures for IC personnel, respectively.

The authors find that the relationship between the likelihood of impairment and the expected impairment is not associated with the ratio of IC personnel. However, the average experience of IC personnel increases the likelihood that a company will record an impairment when there are market and financial indicators of impairment. The findings suggest that the effectiveness of IC is determined by practical proficiency rather than size. Furthermore, our analyses demonstrate that the greater the experience of the IC personnel in the accounting/finance or IT departments, the more likely the manager will record an expected impairment. Overall, our findings emphasize the importance of IC personnel expertise to enhance the effectiveness of IC for financial reporting.

Using unique data available only in Korea, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to show the effect of human resource investment in IC on goodwill impairment.

This study investigates the effect of total quality management (TQM) on customer satisfaction, personnel satisfaction and company reputation.

The study results rely on a structured survey conducted among an extensive sample of Finnish SMEs. In addition to the examination of the relationship between TQM and company performance in terms of customer satisfaction, personnel satisfaction and company reputation, the study takes a view on the possible effects of the industry, the company size and the certified quality system.

The results reveal that two TQM dimensions, namely Customer Focus and Product Management, were related to companies' customer satisfaction, whereas four TQM dimensions, namely Management/leadership, Customer Focus, Personnel Management and Risk Management, were related to personnel satisfaction. None of the TQM dimensions were related to company reputation. The control variables – the industry, the company size and the certified quality system – were not found to affect customer satisfaction, personnel satisfaction or company reputation.

Most previous studies have been based on traditional TQM classification and have not shown the effects of the latest TQM-related dimensions. Compared to previous studies, this work integrates risk management, digitization, system deployment efficiency and stakeholder management into TQM, which has not been implemented in any previous study. The roles of hard and soft TQM factors have been carefully considered in this study; thus, the study does not place too much emphasis on either direction but provides a balanced picture of the performance of the management systems studied. Although there are studies on the effects of TQM on personnel satisfaction, customer satisfaction and reputation, they are based on a much narrower definition of TQM than that in this study. The business environment is constantly changing, but only a few studies have been conducted to extend the TQM approach. This has led to duplication of studies, and the effects of performance-relevant procedures have not been extensively studied in the past as part of TQM. Therefore, the concept of this study brings significant added value to TQM research and returns the TQM concept to the overall level while considering the requirements of the ISO 9001: 2015 and EFQM 2019 quality standards. The study also considers the effects of ISO 9001 certification and EFQM requirements.

Effective procurement of infrastructure is partly dependent on infrastructure procurement personnel having the skills that are important for the discharge of their role. Addressing the infrastructure deficits in developing countries, therefore, calls for an understanding of the skills that are important for the discharge of the roles of public personnel that are involved in infrastructure procurement. This study aims to investigate these skills from the perspective of public infrastructure procurement personnel in the sub-Saharan African region.

A questionnaire survey of procurement personnel yielded 590 useable responses, which were analysed using t-tests and exploratory factor analysis (EFA).

EFA established eight key components of important infrastructure procurement skills to include skills related to: project success factors; social and environmental sustainability; marketing and e-procurement; project phase management, the application of procurement laws and procedures; soft skills, ICT and communication; and data analysis and team building.

The findings are crucial in developing infrastructure procurement capacity building programmes that would be appropriate for infrastructure procurement personnel in developing country contexts. Infrastructure procurement personnel ought to engage more in capacity development training that is aligned to enhancing skills within the eight components.

COVID-19 has forced Big 4 firms to challenge existing management control arrangements and adapt their ways of working. Yet, we know little about how management control might be enacted in the future of the sustainable workplace. The objective of the study is to examine the patterns of management control change in the Big 4 accounting firms during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Adopting an exploratory qualitative research design, the authors draw on 42 interviews with directors and associates in the Big 4 professional services firms.

The findings reveal two pathways of management control change including alignment and displacement. The authors found that relatively minor adaptions to action and result controls were relied upon to respond to substantial cultural and personnel control changes.

The contributions are threefold: the authors take a temporal perspective to (1) unpack the changes to management control arrangements; (2) theorise the findings by developing a three-dimensional taxonomy of change pathways encompassing pace, scope and longevity of management control change and (3) contextualise management control arrangements in a hybrid work setting.

1. COVID-19 has forced Big 4 firms to challenge existing management control arrangements.

2. Literature has focused on traditional, onsite work settings and largely ignored change pathways.

3. The authors take a temporal perspective to unpack changes to management control arrangements.

4. Big 4 firms adapted to hybrid work with substantial changes to personnel and cultural controls.

5. The authors theorise the findings by developing a three-dimensional taxonomy of change pathways.

COVID-19 has forced Big 4 firms to challenge existing management control arrangements.

Literature has focused on traditional, onsite work settings and largely ignored change pathways.

The authors take a temporal perspective to unpack changes to management control arrangements.

Big 4 firms adapted to hybrid work with substantial changes to personnel and cultural controls.

The authors theorise the findings by developing a three-dimensional taxonomy of change pathways.

This study aimed to investigate the effect of citizens' uncivil behaviours on the turnover intention of public service personnel. It tested the moderated mediation role of job insecurity and workplace incivility. The conservation of resource (COR) theory was employed to explain the public service personnel's reactions to resource loss threats and the desire to conserve the remaining resources.

A longitudinal quantitative study design was used with a moderated mediation regression technique. Data were collected from 235 full-time public service personnel from five Indonesian public service organizations. The organizations included higher education, regional government institutions, and health, tourism, and transportation departments. All measures were valid and reliable for study purposes.

The citizen incivility's effect on turnover intention was mediated by job insecurity and moderated by workplace incivility. Citizen incivility positively influenced job insecurity only under high workplace incivility. Therefore, citizens' uncivil behaviours could not increase public service personnel's job insecurity and turnover intention without high workplace incivility.

This study contributes to the literature on citizens' incivility as a source of social stressors in Indonesian public organizations. The findings showed that citizens' hostile behaviours impact public employees' job insecurity only through workplace incivility.

Tactile communication that relies on the human sense of touch replicated using vibration motors is increasingly being explored for seamless communication on construction jobsite. However, the technological efficacy cannot secure the users’ acceptability of the tactile communication devices. This study aims to assess the factors affecting the wearability of such a portable tactile device based on the responses from practicing professionals.

The investigation adapted a three-step phenomenological interviewing approach to seek feedback from construction personnel in Texas, the USA, regarding the viability of wearable tactile communication. The interviewees expressed various opinions about the on-body placement upon exposure to a portable tactile feedback prototype developed for this study, which was used to derive inferences regarding the factors affecting its on-field acceptability.

All the participants of the round-table study (11 out of 11) considered tactile feedback as a viable mode of communication on construction jobsite. Seven professionals supported the integration of a tactile device with the hard hat, whereas the rest preferred tactile eyeglasses. Weatherability, rechargeability, traceability, safety and social receptivity were identified as the major factors affecting the on-body placement of the wearable tactile communication device.

This paper presents a roadmap to gain construction industry opinion on the factors that can affect the on-body placement of a wearable tactile communication device. The five aforementioned factors impacting tactile communication acceptability were used to evaluate 10 potential on-body placements. The findings have implications for research and development of wearable tactile devices and the subsequent acceptability of such a device on the jobsite.

This study aims to deal with the paucity of studies in the stages of the development of loyalty behaviour of customers in the healthcare context by incorporating three crucial service quality dimensions (physical environment, personnel quality and technical quality) and also investigating trust and commitment as mediating factors.

Survey data were obtained from 420 respondents admitted to government hospitals in Kerala employing a convenience sampling method. The formulated hypotheses were tested using partial least square structural equation modelling.

Results indicate that patient satisfaction, trust and commitment can create favourable behavioural intentions amongst patients. When patients reveal higher trust, they are more inclined to value healthcare services and willing to commit to a long-term relationship, resulting in increased patient loyalty.

Organisational efforts should improve trust and commitment and build a good relationship between service providers and patients. Efforts should be taken to raise the standard of technical and personnel aspects, and a focus on physical infrastructure should also be considered to build a favourable behavioural intention to revisit and positive referrals.

This is the first empirical study to analyse technical quality, personnel quality and physical environment along with the mediating effect of trust, and commitment in a four-stage loyalty development model in the healthcare context of Kerala, India.

This study explores municipal leaders' perceptions on strategic human resource management in their local government organization. Previous studies on companies demonstrate that the top manager's perceptions of the importance of human resource management (HRM) for the organization are reflected in the quality of human resource management and its strategic role. The authors are interested in how leaders in municipalities perceive HRM.

The authors interviewed 30 leaders of Finnish municipalities for this qualitative study focused on municipal leaders' perceptions of HRM. The authors applied a discourse analytical approach in the analysis.

The authors recognized four discourses that frame perceptions of HRM: HRM as a strategic weapon, HRM as an underperformer, HRM as a matter of formality and HRM as a cost generator. In addition, the authors recognized that the discourses reflected leaders' self-positioning in relation to the power to impact issues related to HRM. Shifting between distinct roles demonstrated that municipal leaders' emphasis on HRM and its strategic alignment reflects the power relations in the municipality and the attitudes to the importance of HRM.

This study contributes to the academic discussions on HRM in municipalities and provides views on the municipal leader's role and impact on valuing and investing in HRM. From a practical point of view, the study will increase municipal leaders' knowledge of HRM's impact on the performance of the organization and also of the possible means of HRM.

This study aims to explain the effect of research and development (R&D) incentives on economic growth, focusing on the case of Türkiye. A one-sector endogenous growth model has been constructed. The model includes three actors: firm, consumer and government. The consumer derives utility from consumption, supplies human capital and engages in saving. The representative firm invests in R&D to maximize the current value of profit flows by choosing how much input it will use and how much R&D it will undertake. The public sector provides incentives for labor and capital used in R&D production. R&D has been defined as a function that endogenously increases total factor productivity (TFP).

In line with the stated purpose, this study presents a dynamic general equilibrium model. Then, this study calibrates the model parameters with Türkiye's data.

The results imply that incentives for R&D personnel instead of physical capital have a stronger impact on economic growth.

The findings of this study point to an important conclusion on how to distribute R&D incentives across the two main factors in R&D production, labor and capital. Incentives given to R&D personnel are more effective in Türkiye.

This study shows that the R&D incentives provided by the public sector can be important in emerging countries where many firms have just started their R&D activities. In this study, the authors worked on Türkiye as an emerging country. This study discusses policies on how the R&D incentives will be more effective on economic growth in Türkiye. This study considers that these policies may apply to all emerging countries, due to similar R&D activities in countries that cannot export technology and mostly import technology.

本研究擬以土耳其的實例為焦點, 探討研究與開發 (研發) 的激勵如何影響經濟的增長;具體地說, 研究旨在探討透過不同生產要素所提供的研發激勵所產生的影響存在著什麼差異。

為達研究目的, 研究人員構建了一部門內生增長模型。模型內有三個參與者: 公司、消費者和政府。消費者從消費中得到他們所需要的, 提供人力資本, 並參與儲蓄的活動。為了要把利潤的現值儘量提高, 代表公司透過調控投入的數量和研發的承擔, 投資在研發上。公共部門會為研發生產上使用的勞工和資本提供激勵。研究與開發被解釋為一個以內生方式增加全要素生產率的功能。構建的模型是因應土耳其的經濟狀況而調整出來的, 當中也進行了仿真模擬。

研究結果暗示, 為研發人員提供的激勵, 而不是物質資本, 更能推動經濟增長。

研究結果, 就如何於研發生產的兩個主要因素之間, 即勞工與資本之間, 分配研發激勵的問題上, 提供了重要的結論;就土耳其而言, 分配給研發人員的激勵是更為有效的。

我們展示了在新興國家裏, 公共部門提供的研發激勵是重要的, 而在這些國家裏, 剛開始進行研發活動的公司為數不少。在本研究裏, 我們把土耳其當作新興國家看待。我們討論了若要在土耳其使研發激勵更有效地幫助推動經濟增長, 什麼政策是最合適的呢? 因為那些不能把技術出口到其它地方, 而主要靠引進技術的國家均進行相似的研發活動, 所以我們認為討論得來的政策是可應用於所有新興國家的。

While companies worldwide are largely comprised of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), a significant amount of management accounting (MA) research focuses on larger organisations, thus leaving MA practice in SMEs relatively under-researched. This paper aims to examine MA adoption (MAA) and its interfaces with MA challenges and business performance from a small business perspective.

A sample of 502 small businesses is investigated with an embedded mixed methods research design comprised of qualitative content analysis, factor analysis and analysis of variance.

Up to 78% of small businesses are facing MA challenges that stem from organisation, systems, personnel and/or resources. Based on the present findings, MA challenges do motivate small businesses to at least consider investing in MAA as small businesses facing challenges are more likely to acquire systems and services than those reporting no issues at all. Hence, small business managers seem to not only recognise where their challenges lie, but also seek ways to improve the situation through MAA. The analysis also reveals that companies with the highest MA know-how have the best average solvency, suggesting that small businesses indeed benefit from MAA. Interestingly, the performance at medium levels of know-how declines while investments increase, revealing a “decreasing solvency phenomenon”. Potential explanations are, e.g. the MA not fitting the company’s exact needs, or information usability and use being limited by poor MA understanding.

The originality of the research lies in exploring the interfaces between MA challenges, MAA and small business performance using distinctive embedded mixed methods research design.