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The merger of PriceWaterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand marked another historical event in the accounting and auditing industry. Both firms were optimistic that the merger would enhance the performance as well as the profession of the merged firms. This research studies the impact of the merger and the price of audit service charged to their clients. The findings showed that there is no significant impact of the merger on audit pricing. The results provide richer understanding of the relationship between organizational structure and pricing in a developing country.

With an increasing urbanization trend over the last decades, urban agglomerations are facing different challenges that affect its inhabitants: pollution, traffic congestion, thriving population growth rates, and economic uncertainty. In the context of Latin America, where less than 20% of its inhabitants live in rural areas and with a projection to decrease to close to 10% by the year 2030, providing solutions to reduce the impact of this increase of population, on at least one of the issues, seems logical.

This study focuses on the urban logistics component to propose a classification method for homogeneous areas, using Factor Analysis (FA) and analysis of variance (ANOVA) as the main supporting tools. The proposed methodology builds up on the square kilometer (KM2) methodology developed by MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, applying it in a neuralgic section of the downtown area of a mid-sized city in Latin America: Córdoba, Argentina. The selection was made considering the logistic restrictions, commercial density, and the relevance of the area for the city. Our proposed methodology uses relevant variables for urban logistics to perform the statistical analysis. The main goal is to develop a data-driven methodology to identify clusters to guide Córdoba's urban logistics policy and decision-making processes.

The results suggest a clear relationship between the different commercial activities and the location inside the area, splitting the area under study clearly into two main sections with similar overall characteristics and two subsections inside each one of them, which should be considered as a basis for further urban logistic analysis and implementation of specific best practices that fit the particular needs.

We study three private hospital organizations in India that were set up to deliver affordable high quality, services to the poor. Their distinctive feature is that they have successfully balanced two apparently contradictory logics: financial (doing well) and social (doing good) through business model innovations. By analyzing abundant primary and secondary data, we document in detail the key features of their business models – customer identification, customer engagement, value chain and linkages, and monetization – and document how they contribute to the organizations’ ability to deliver high quality healthcare at very low prices. We analyze the impact of these organizations, both direct and indirect, on the healthcare delivery landscape in India. We show that while their direct impact is significant, their indirect impact could potentially transform healthcare delivery in India and in other developing countries.

India is a country of socio-cultural diversity. Every society and culture existing in India is full of values, ethics and morality regarding good deeds. The exhaustive survey of corporate social responsibility (CSR) literatures from Indian philosophical perspectives observes many studies based on the socio-cultural and religious aspects. It has been observed all these philosophical views and concepts covering socio-cultural and religious backgrounds have received attention in the field of CSR. It is observed that almost all views have been fully explored in the context of CSR. Therefore this chapter tries to detect the drivers of CSR with all these philosophies prevalent in the culture of Indian society. This study utilises the hermeneutics, a qualitative research methodology which involves an in-depth study, critical analysis, thoughtful understanding and explanatory interpretation of the concepts of CSR originated from diversified Indian society and culture. In a nutshell, from these viewpoints and philosophies of different cultures, CSR is seen from an inside-out perspective.

Working from home has long been considered an exception applicable to freelancers and a limited number of jobs. In Nigeria, past research revealed that flexible work arrangements were attractive to many employees irrespective of gender but that managers were generally reluctant to accept flexibility in time and in space. The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged this managerial mindset, obliging both men and women to move their workstation from the company premises to their home. This chapter tells what happened at the onset of the pandemic in Nigeria and looks at its impact on employing organisations, employees and families. It is found that (1) employers can benefit from substantial savings when employees work from home, (2) personality types, poor infrastructure, lack of digital skills, unequal access to internet and inadequate family support affect the experience of work from home for employees. Employers must be willing to provide necessary training and to give adequate support to employees working from home to help them defray additional expenses a home office entails.

This article develops Polanyi’s (2001) theme of harnessing the regulatory capacity of a social sphere by focusing on trust as an emotion for framing risk regulatory regimes. Using the global mining sector as its focus, it explores the role of trust in the regulation and corporate management of social and environmental risk.

Sociological perspectives on trust are employed to identify and analyze dynamics of trust in the mining industry. The article draws on data collected between 2004 and 2008 by way of participant observation, document analysis, and in-depth qualitative interviews with around 40 representatives of the mining industry, NGOs, and regulators. Trust-relationships are an example of harnessing the regulatory capacity of a social sphere, but they can also undermine regulatory effort where trust is abused. The effectiveness of trust-based regulation would be enhanced by sanctions for nonperformance that target corporate motivations and financial performance. This research focused on a selection of large, multinational mining corporations with a presence in Australia. Generalizations could not be made from this research about smaller mining entities or single-country or state-owned corporations.

A better understanding of corporate trust-building behaviors and motivations can help inform more effective regulatory strategy for improving corporate, social, and environmental impacts. This article contributes to the body of knowledge about the regulation of the social and environmental performance of the mining industry. This is important as many of the remaining accessible mineral deposits across the globe are in areas of environmental and social significance.

Greece provides another, although timid, example of how financial crisis and the technological advancements have affected national media systems. In the media sector, the recent financial crisis brought major losses of advertising revenues, while telecommunication companies have entered the field providing the Greeks with triple play services at lower rates. But in one way or another, the main players have remained the same. This chapter aims to describe the new conditions in the Greek media sector and to highlight the consequences of the fiscal crisis in terms of sales, profit losses, decreased advertising spending, salaries and emerging costs. It will also attempt to document that although important players in the field lost power, although media changed hands, the majority of media owners still come from other sectors of the economy, principally in shipping, energy, constructions and sports.

We combine insights from the strategic management and international business literatures in order to explore the moderating role of business group characteristics on the link between innovation and internationalization in the context of the pharmaceutical sector in India. We test our three hypotheses on a sample of 219 Indian pharmaceutical firms affiliated with business groups, over a five-year period (2005–2010) in a panel of 1,096 firm-year observations. Results indicate that, contrary to our contention, research expenditure is negatively associated with export intensity, implying that firms in the Indian pharmaceutical sector may face a trade-off between investing in innovation and international expansion. As expected, business group characteristics significantly impact the strength of the relationship between innovation and internationalization. Theoretical and practitioner implications are discussed.

This paper seeks to argue that managers need to apply a holistic and long‐term approach in their understanding of strategic alliances' paradigms to inform decisions. Owing to the complexity of strategic alliance scenarios it is often a difficult task for management to know what information is required in order to take such decisions. It is suggested here that six widely used motivational paradigms in the formation of interorganisational relationships (transaction cost economics, resource dependence, strategic choice, stakeholder theory, organizational learning, and institutional theory) can be used not only during the formation stages of alliances but also during an alliance's lifecycle to help in decision making.

The paper proposes a discussion of possible shortcomings in the literature on motivational paradigms based on a review of the pertinent literature and, with the help of previously published cases/examples, suggests a new conceptual perspective of the paradigms.

The paper explains how and why motivational paradigms could be viewed as an interrelated web of issues throughout a strategic alliance's entire lifecycle – and not just at their formation stage when, often, they are used singly and in isolation of one another. It is proposed that their continuous and holistic use contributes to a manager's awareness of possible issues and helps his/her strategic management and decision taking. This new perspective is presented conceptually in a model.

For decision makers and managers: the proposed perspective will enhance their management and decision‐taking processes by increasing their awareness and acting as an aide‐mémoire of issues they need to consider/investigate and will reduce the possibility of alliance failure. For educators, it will expand the scope of traditional alliance formation paradigms and inform their teaching and research.

This is a novel approach to a traditional theory that expands its scope and usefulness.