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The aim of the paper is to examine alternative methods of regulating prices and/or profits of privatised utilities in low‐income countries with a view to identifying their strengths and weaknesses.

The economics of regulation literature has favoured the use of a price cap over rate of return or cost of service regulation because of its greater incentive effects. A third alternative, sliding‐scale regulation, has been put forward as a compromise between the price cap and a controlled rate of return, which is said to combine the merits of both methods. This paper considers the operation of a price cap, rate of return regulation and sliding‐scale regulation in the context of low‐income economies by reviewing the theory in relation to the conditions likely to be found in low‐income economies.

It is concluded that the case for the use of a price cap is much reduced in low‐income economies. This is because of its information requirements, need for regulatory expertise and, more broadly, the institutional endowment found in many low‐income countries.

It is recognised that this conclusion is tentative and deserves further research, comparing theory and practice.

Countries need to consider carefully which method of regulation will work best in the context of the institutions of the country, rather than simply copy a method from the developed world.

This is one of the first papers to challenge the prevailing belief that price cap regulation is superior to rate of return regulation in the context of economic development.

This special “Anbar Abstracts” issue of the Industrial and Commercial Training is split into six sections covering abstracts under the following headings:Education/Graduates/Students; Training/Learning Techniques; Skills Training; Management Development; Career/Human Resources Development; Training Technology.

To underestimate service quality is like saying goodbye to some of your hard‐earned profits. Even after revamping and upgrading products, many organizations continue to experience decline because they forget that people want to feel good. The feel‐good factor is espoused by politicians throughout the world to nurture votes. The fact that people want to feel good is often overlooked and ignores Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. How many times have you bought a product only to find there is a fault and the product needs replacing? This is normally something which is very irritating, but not ulcer‐inducing enough to get worked up about until, that is, the customer service department treats you as though it is your fault.

States that the idea of grouping a number of cultural, commercial and industrial activities together under the banner of the “creative industries” is relatively new but it has already been the focus of considerable interest, discussion and policy making within the UK. Acknowledges that the government has been keen to promote the creative industries as a major success story and a key element in the knowledge economy. Looks at what is seen to constitute the creative industries, reviews some of the evidence about their contribution to the economy and outlines some of the management challenges and the support and promotion initiatives associated with these industries.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and develop the relationships among the green supply chain management enablers (GSCMEs), to understand mutual influences of these GSCMEs on green supply chain management (GSCM) implementation, and to find out the driving and the dependence power of GSCMEs.

This paper has identified 35 GSCMEs on the basis of literature review and the opinions of experts from academia and industry. A nationwide questionnaire-based survey has been conducted to rank these identified GSCMEs. The outcomes of the survey and interpretive structural modeling (ISM) methodology have been applied to evolve mutual relationships among GSCMEs, which helps to reveal the direct and indirect effects of each GSCMEs. The results of the ISM are used as an input to the fuzzy Matriced’ Impacts Croisés Multiplication Appliquéeá un Classement (MICMAC) analysis, to identify the driving and the dependence power of GSCMEs.

Out of 35 GSCMEs 29 GSCMEs (mean⩾3.00) have been considered for analysis through a nationwide questionnaire-based survey on Indian automobile organizations. The integrated approach is developed, since the ISM model provides only binary relationship among GSCMEs, while fuzzy MICMAC analysis provides precise analysis related to driving and the dependence power of GSCMEs.

The weightage for ISM model development and fuzzy MICMAC are obtained through the judgment of few industry experts. It is the only subjective judgment and any biasing by the person who is judging might influence the final result.

The study provides important guidelines for both practitioners, as well as the academicians. The practitioners need to focus on these GSCMEs more carefully during GSCM implementation. GSCM managers may strategically plan its long-term growth to meet GSCM action plan. While the academicians may be encouraged to categorize different issues, which are significant in addressing these GSCMEs.

Arrangement of GSCMEs in a hierarchy, the categorization into the driver and dependent categories, and fuzzy MICMAC are an exclusive effort in the area of GSCM implementation.

This paper investigates how different and sometimes conflicting approaches to performance evaluations are hybridized in the day-to-day activities of a disciplined hybrid organization–i.e. a public child protection agency at the intersection between the market and the public sector.

The paper is based on a one-year ethnography of how employees achieve to qualify their work as “good work” in situations with several and sometimes conflicting ideals of what “good work” is. Fieldwork material was collected by following casework activities across organizational boundaries. By combining accounting literature on hybridization with literature on practices of valuation, the paper develops a novel theoretical framework which allows for analyses of the various practices of valuation, when and where they clash and how they persist over time in everyday work.

Throughout the study, four distinct registers of valuation were identified: feeling, theorizing, formalizing and costing. To denote the meticulous efforts of pursuing good work in all four registers of valuation, the authors propose the notion of sequencing. Sequencing is an ongoing process of moving conflicting registers away from each other and bringing them back together again. Correspondingly, at the operational level of a hybrid organization, temporary compartmentalization is a means of avoiding clashes, and in doing so, making it possible for different and sometimes conflicting ways of achieving good results to continuously hybridize and persist together.

The single-case approach allows for analytical depth, but limits the findings to theoretical, rather than empirical, generalizability. The framework the authors propose, however, is well-suited for mobilization and potential elaboration in further empirical contexts.

The paper provides a novel theoretical framework as well as rich empirical material from the highly political field of child protection work, which has seldomly been studied within accounting research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between structural arrangements of public agencies of Pakistan and their autonomy.

Data were collected through a questionnaire using the key informant approach from 70 public agencies of Pakistan. Hypotheses were drawn from the structural instrumental perspective to examine the relation between structure and autonomy. In order to test the hypotheses, multivariate regression analysis was performed on the data.

The research highlights that out of the three major structural dimensions, horizontal specialization, vertical specialization and governing board, only governing board is seen to affect the human resource management dimension of autonomy while vertical specialization is related to financial management autonomy. None of the three hypotheses were completely supported. The divergence of the results from the structural instrumental perspective points to other factors related to agencies including administrative culture and context of state that matter in delegation of autonomy to the agencies by the government.

This paper contributes to an on-going debate on globalization of public management reforms with emphasis on structural instrumental explanation of the agencification in developing countries.

Organizational structures are changing. Hardly a surprising statement ‐ the world in which organizations exist is changing. Old barriers are coming down and new barriers are going up. Knowledge is increasing at a rate which can only be described as staggering ‐ overwhelming almost, but not quite. Because organizations are changing.

Concentrating on internal commentaries, this paper aims to consider the factors that have contributed to the resistance to the introduced reporting and accountability for the whole‐of‐government of Vanuatu.

The view from the centre considers documentary evidence of the Auditor‐General's commentaries on the whole of Vanuatu government reporting. Textual analysis takes into account the complexity of Vanuatu's political, social, economic, cultural and historical background, together with views from the periphery about the expectations raised about Vanuatu's constitutional accountability.

In recent times, in Vanuatu, there have been no annual reports generated by the Auditor‐General and, thus, no examination and audit of the accounts of the government of Vanuatu, suggesting a resistance to the introduced Condominium concepts of parliamentary accountability of the whole of Vanuatu government reporting. In the time the Auditor‐General's Office (AGO) did produce reports that were largely ignored by parliament and its Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

Introduced ideas of accountability as reflected in the constitution of Vanuatu have an uncertain space. Introduced Westminster systems of government raise an expectation to uphold the intent and provisions of constitutional accountability through either Western‐narrow or Western‐broad government reporting. Textual analysis of the Auditor‐General's commentaries show that to develop and fully leverage ideas of imported concepts, such as accountability, those on the periphery need to understand the “centre”, their nature, characteristics and configuration.

Greater funding and staffing of the AGO would assist in the examination and audit of the accounts of the government of Vanuatu. Greater interest by parliamentary oversight committees, such as the PAC, in the Auditor‐General's work would help this examination and audit process.

The originality of the paper rests in considering Vanuatu's agency's own government reporting through internal points of reference.

In the history of business management thought, six idea families have predominated during the last eighty or so years — bureaucracy (Max Weber), scientific management (Frederick Winslow Taylor), classical management (Henri Fayol), human relations (Elton Mayo), neo‐human relations (Abraham Maslow). To these one can add the more recent contributions of different writers under the heading of guru theory. The first five idea families are well known, but the sixth requires explanation. Gury theory achieved prominence during the 1980s. While not yet featuring extensively in management textbooks it has received widespread attention in the financial and business press (Lorenz, 1986; Dixon, 1986; Clutterbuck and Crainer, 1988; Pierce and Newstrom, 1988; Heller, 1990). Guru theory consists of the diverse and unrelated writings of well‐known company chief executives such as Lee lacocca (Chrysler), Harold Geneen (ITT), John Harvey‐Jones (ICI) and John Sculley (Apple Computer); of management consultants like Tom Peters and Philip Crosby; and of business school academics like Michael Porter, Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Henry Mintzberg. Since their contributions are so heterogeneous, and as the writings draw so much of their authority from the individual authors themselves, the adopted label is felt to be appropriate.