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The purpose of this study is to present an in-depth examination of stakeholder engagement processes in non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from the perspective of NGO managers to enhance accountability and the effectiveness with which aid services are delivered. Specifically, demand-side (downward) accountability and the implications of an accountability system that is predominantly supply-side (upward) focused are explored.

This study draws on evidence gathered from 25 in-depth interviews with representatives of leading NGOs in Nigeria to explore and uncover the nature of stakeholder engagement and accountability processes in their respective organisations. This study shows prospects for entrenching organisational reform that balances power and influence that benefits the less economically powerful demand side of the stakeholders. A relevant aspect of stakeholder theory was used to frame the analysis.

The study reveals an overlay of a blanket engagement system and a seeming reluctance of NGOs to disclose critical information to the demand-side stakeholders (DSS), and suggests ways to meet sustainability demands and address the militating concerns. A perceived lack of understanding and prospects or outcomes of demand-side accountability are central to this; however, engagement outcomes that account for impact rather than output are explored and reported. The findings suggest that proper accountability involves adequate stakeholder engagement which is a prerequisite and paramount for sustainability.

This study primarily delineates NGO managers’ views on NGO engagement and accountability dynamics. Future research may explore the perspectives of downward stakeholders themselves. The study highlights the concern for NGOs to maintain a defined stakeholder engagement process that resists external forces that may impact on their operations and derail their mission, resulting in duplication of services.

The study shows the implications of donors’ influence on accountability practices which can be improved by re-structuring supply-side stakeholders to significantly include DSS accountability requirements in the key performance indicators of NGOs in developing countries. The authors present a nuanced perspective to aid delivery and access that ensures improved services and more effective, impactful and sustainable aid which is of practical relevance to NGOs and their accountability mechanism.

This study deepens the understanding of the dynamics of stakeholder engagement and accountability processes and shows that the most effective way to deploy aid funds to meet sustainability goals is to draw on the experiences and local knowledge of the DSS. This would require an effective and results-driven dialogue among all the stakeholders involved. The proposed engagement and management framework contribute to theory and practice by fostering multi-stakeholder cooperation, DSS accountability and the advancement of sustainable development

The COVID-19 pandemic has made humanity contend with the negative footprint of its activities in which social justice, ecological integrity and economic stability are compromised. This study aims to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on the operation and management of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Nigeria.

Multiple case study research design was used in the study with interviews from 25 senior-level management staff of NGOs.

The analysis revealed that COVID-19 impacts NGOs both negatively and positively. Dominant among the negative impacts are a decline in health-seeking behaviours, low programme implementation, increased cost and wastages resulting from PPE, transition to virtual meetings, a decline in capacity building and staff burnout/pressure. However, some positive impacts include increased efficiency through the use of virtual innovations, peer-to-peer intervention through the establishment of networks, flexibility and prompt adaptation to the crisis, prudent management of available resources, etc. This research contributes to theory and practice.

Conducting this research and recruiting participants at the height of COVID-19 in Nigeria, in adherence to the prevention guidelines, constituted a considerable limitation to the study.

Although the identified impact could be useful in framing operational policies and guidelines, the study highlights a salient future outlook with policy implications for both the governance of NGOs and the facilitation of sustainable development goals by the government.

Although researchers continue to explore the impact of COVID-19, none has considered the NGO sector, especially in developing countries, and with a focus on providing evidence-backed resilience practices for the future.

This paper examines the Random Walk Hypothesis (RWH) for aggregate New Zealand share market returns, as well as the CRSP NYSE‐AMEX (USA) index during the 1980‐2001 period. Using several indices, we rely on the variance‐ratio test and find evidence to support the rejection of the RWH with some evidence of a momentum effect. However, we find evidence to suggest the behaviour of share prices to be time‐dependent in New Zealand. For example, we find the indices tested were closer to random after the 1987 share market crash. Further analysis showed even stronger results for periods subsequent to the passage of the Companies Act 1993 and the Financial Reporting Act 1993. We also find evidence that indices based on large capitalisation stocks are more likely to follow a random walk compared to those based on smaller stocks. For the USA index, we find stronger evidence of random behaviour in our sample period compared to the earlier period examined by Lo and Mackinlay (1988)

This introductory chapter opens up with the notion of ‘technologies of trauma’ and the appropriation of trauma as a cultural form in modernity aided by technologies of vision and sound. Trauma in modernity has been intimately welded with witnessing and testimony, illuminating an inter-relationship with technologies which simulates our senses and affect, with its capacities to re-present past events through present consciousness, and its ability to produce a moral economy in their own right. Humanity's reliance on technologies to narrate and circulate trauma as a cultural form of exchange and transaction articulates a moment of transcendence in which media as cultural artefacts reconfigure trauma as a cultural form. The notion of second-hand witnessing and the simulation of trauma as a shared and popular genre unleashes trauma as a resonant genre bound with technologies which renew human bonds. Equally it can be reduced to fiction or give way to compassion fatigue. In historically tracing the movement of technologies of trauma as a cultural form over time from televisual witnessing to its aesthetic or perverse renditions in the digital age, the chapter discerns trauma's machinic bind and its enactment as a cultural artefact couched within the sensorium of affect and ethics. The development of mass technological forms over time, from print to the digital age, also concerns the rise of trauma as a cultural form in terms of witnessing, testimony, memorializing, mourning and commemoration. Within these configurations the traumatized human figure is submerged through time as one equally enacted and abstracted through the formats of technology and consumption.

Seeks to promote discussion of the pursuit of accountable management in public sector organizations by providing a commentary on post‐1979 experiences with such reforms in the UK public sector. Particular attention is given to the nature and impact on the UK public sector of the neoliberal agenda which took particular charge during the Thatcher years, the position of accountable management reforms in this agenda, and some of the factors underlying the promotion, implementation, acceptance and resistance of such reforms. Explores the paradoxical nature of both neoliberalism and the accountable management reforms promoted in its name. Gives consideration to the construction and pursuit of alternative agendas and approaches regarding the provision of public services.

The auditor′s responsibility with respect to fraud has been one of the issues which has been associated most persistently with questions about the adequacy of audit performance. Examines the way in which the position of the accountancy profession in Britain on this subject developed during the 1980s – a period of considerable professional activity with respect to the issue of the auditor and fraud. While the profession has been persuaded to accept additional responsibilities concerning the reporting of detected fraud, it is argued that no such development has occurred with respect to the auditor′s responsibilities concerning fraud detection. The current nature of the auditor′s duties regarding fraud detection is seen as contestable. While further government action may force the profession to assume additional responsibilities in this respect, any such developments are seen as needing more detailed investigation of the precise capacities of audit practice in detecting (particularly management) fraud.

This paper reviews key aspects of the regulatory response in the UK and the USA to the apparent crisis of confidence in auditing stimulated by Enron and other recent corporate scandals. Drawing on a consideration of the nature of the market for auditing services and the regulatory and corporate governance structures in which auditing is embedded, the paper argues that the bulk of recent regulatory attention appears to have been on matters of auditor independence rather than auditor competence. Such a focus is seen to have parallels with former ‘crisis’ eras in the auditing arena, while the analysis presented also raises questions about the status of the auditing function within accounting firms and the capacity of regulatory reform to deliver a fundamentally enhanced auditing function. The paper concludes by stressing the importance of making more transparent what is being done in the name of auditing and audit regulation.

The purpose of this study is, in considering the significant role of social exchange relations at work, to add value by highlighting the remedial effects of the individual guanxi network (IGN), perceived organizational support (POS) and leader–member exchange (LMX) in overcoming ostracism at work.

Data were collected from 247 Chinese employees working in the services sector in Western Malaysia at two points in time. A questionnaire was used as a tool to gather responses from the selected sample. Respondents were selected using a simple random sampling technique. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.

Results of the study support the hypothesis and prove that the presence of social exchange relations (i.e. POS and LMX) can have a positive effect on reducing ostracism at work. The Chinese social value of IGN is also an important predictor in overcoming ostracism in Chinese organizations.

This study covers employees working in the service sector. A good and more realistic picture could be drawn by increasing the sample size and drawing comparisons with the manufacturing and trading sectors both in and outside Malaysia.

One clear implication of this study is a suggested means of overcoming ostracism and its adverse effects at work.

Determining a means of overcoming ostracism and eradicating its negative consequences is the main contribution of this study.

Using the social exchange perspective, the aim of this research is to add value to the construct by looking at direct and indirect effects through perceived organizational support (POS) and leader‐member exchange (LMX) of the guanxi network in job involvement, and ultimately the effect of job involvement on in‐role performance.

A questionnaire was used as the medium for data collection. A total of 458 respondents took part in research at two points of time. Respondents were selected using random sampling technique from hotels of western part of Malaysia. Descriptive statistics, CFA, and SEM were used for this purpose.

Findings of the study reveal that individual guanxi network significantly contributes towards social exchange relations (POS and LMX), and employees' job involvement. The individual guanxi network has both direct and indirect effects on job involvement, which confirms that individual guanxi network affects involvement through social exchange relations, i.e. POS and LMX; it also confirms the basic notion of individual guanxi network (social relations with norm of reciprocity).

This study covers only hotel employees working in Western Malaysia. Other sectors can be selected for future research endeavours with a larger sample size.

One obvious implication of this research is that management should utilize the guanxi network of employees, which can result in increasing involvement and improved performance.

The main contributions of the study contain: consideration of LMX as a mediator and explaining the social exchange essence of individual guanxi network.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the origins and development of the “Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal (AAAJ) Community”, a flourishing international interdisciplinary accounting research community. This scholarly community has emerged over some 30 years from the publication in 1988 of the inaugural issue of AAAJ under the joint editorship of James Guthrie and Lee Parker. This historical account discusses the motivation for establishing the journal and the important publishing initiatives, developments and trends across this period. The study positions the journal as a key thought leader, the catalyst for other Community activities such as the Asia-Pacific Interdisciplinary Research in Accounting conference.

The investigation involved a selective review of the contents of AAAJ, particularly the annual editorials published since inception, and other relevant literature, analysis of the main research themes and the most cited papers, and oral history interviews with the joint editors. The future prospects for the AAAJ Community are addressed.

The AAAJ Community has shaped and led developments in interdisciplinary accounting research. Recognised for innovation and with a reputation for nurturing scholars, AAAJ continues to grow in stature as one of the world’s leading accounting journals, challenging the status quo and fostering inclusive scholarship.

The study does not examine the journal’s publication patterns nor assess in detail the research studies that have been published in the journal.

The study recognises AAAJ as central to the development of an interdisciplinary accounting research community, firmly located in the sociological, critical and interpretative tradition also associated with some other leading accounting journals.