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The role of management control is frequently emphasized in connection with inter-organizational relationships and value networks. For example, boundary-spanning cost and accounting control techniques have been studied in multifaceted empirical settings. The prevalence of such techniques is, however, currently unknown in conjunction with companies’ interests to increase inter-organizational integration in general. Additionally, also the nexus between the internal state of cost management and the company’s willingness to develop inter-organizational relationships requires further investigation. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The study is based on an extensive survey that was responded to by more than 1,500 CEOs and CFOs from large, medium-sized and small Finnish enterprises in a variety of industries. As the authors chose the mixed-methods approach, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected for the study.

The findings suggest that companies can be allocated to five clusters: “the cost experts,” “the trustful,” “the holdouts,” “the trailblazers” and “the uncertain”. When the networking-oriented clusters, “the trustful” and “the trailblazers” are combined, the authors can conclude that 40 percent of the studied companies are interested in increasing inter-organizational integration. However, only 7 percent have boundary-spanning techniques in use. There is also a correlation between interest in integrating and developing cost management.

This paper contains several theoretical implications, although further research, e.g. comparative studies, is required to verify the findings. The scarcity of managerial implications can be regarded as a limitation.

This paper fills several untapped research gaps by studying inter-organizational integration in the cost management context from multiple, complementary perspectives with a particularly large set of data.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the status quo of digital poverty among adolescents in China, analyze the characteristics and the causes, then propose countermeasures to provide reference for alleviating digital poverty among adolescents.

The study developed an initial scale of digital poverty among adolescents and used survey data to revise the scale, on this basis, formed a questionnaire, which was distributed to nationwide adolescents. The study developed its findings from the 837 valid questionnaire respondents.

The digital poverty among adolescents is mainly shown in the poverty of digital ability, digital psychology and digital environment and presents the following characteristics, that is, insufficient information seeking ability and information selection ability needing to be improved; equipped with basic information awareness but lack of information evaluation ability; lack of patience in obtaining information and inclined to the principle of least effort; imperfect knowledge structure and immature psychological emotions and vulnerable to external interference; having a certain relationship with the information environment, but not significantly affected by regional economic differences. Finally, the study puts forward countermeasures to alleviate digital poverty among adolescents.

Understanding of the digital poverty among adolescents will likely demand rethinking into a number of issues ignored by information poverty studies.

Few studies focus on digital poverty among adolescents. This study developed an initial scale of digital poverty among adolescents and revised it by survey data, then conducted an empirical study through questionnaire, which could expand the understanding of information poverty in the field of library and information science.

This seminal research investigates the adaptation experiences of elderly dependent Chinese immigrants who have come to New Zealand under the Family Reunion Category between 1994 and 1998. The study involved a group‐administered questionnaire to measure the various aspects of the adaptation experiences of 105 elderly dependent Chinese from China aged 50 years and over. The data set was subjected to ANOVA, Kruskal‐Wallis and Factor Analysis to analyse and establish relationships between variables. The results confirmed that there were five main factors that influence the living conditions of the elderly dependent Chinese immigrants in New Zealand. These were, in order of severity, communication in the English language, medical care, transportation, cost of living and interestingly relationships with other family members. The study also confirmed that age, length of time in New Zealand, and the need to stay in New Zealand permanently influenced the adaptability of the elderly Chinese immigrants in New Zealand.

Given the importance of competitive intelligence (CI) to the economic performance of firms, understanding whether CI practice is impacted by firm size or by their awareness of CI maybe important when creating programs designed to improve firms’ CI performance. This paper aims to address this by examining the extent to which the CI practices of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large firms differed using a sample of firms with knowledge/awareness of CI.

A survey was developed that included 10 CI organization questions and 67 CI process questions. The survey was sent to a sample with awareness/knowledge of CI – strategic and CI professionals (SCIP) members and individuals who had attended SCIP events T-tests were then used to compare the SME’s and large firms’ responses to the 10 CI organization and 67 CI process questions.

For firms with CI awareness/knowledge, the study results suggest that size has very little relationship with CI practice. Of the 10 CI organization variables, only two were significantly different between the SME’s and the large firms. Large firms had more full-time CI staff and were more likely to have a formal intelligence unit compared to the SME’s. Of the 67 CI process variables, only four were significantly different between the SME’s and the large firms. Large firms made more use of company intranet for distributing CI findings use business analytics software and use commercial databases for information than SME’s while the SME’s used social media, in particular Facebook more than large firms, in their competitive intelligence activities.

This study uses a sample frame of firms with CI awareness/knowledge in examining differences between SME’s and large firms CI practices.

This study sought to further develop the growing body of qualitative evidence exploring the content, duration and triggers of cognitive distortions and deviant sexual fantasies in perpetrators who offend against adult women, using grounded theory techniques. Detailed accounts of the thoughts and fantasies of 10 rapists pre‐ and post‐intervention were analysed. All participants reported having benefited from the programme. Nine participants reported that the victim‐focused work had the most impact on them. It was also found that after treatment: (a) there was a reduction in the level of cognitive distortions around victim blaming, other justifications for offending (such as alcohol use) and the acknowledgment of the impact that their offences has had upon their victims; (b) reductions in denial of fantasising about the offences prior to their offences. The implications of this study, for the improvement of intervention programmes for this group of offenders, are discussed.

This chapter investigates how international trade affects pollution using annual data from 34 Asian countries for the period 1970–2019. Following the work of Antweiler, Copeland, and Taylor (2001), the authors divide the impact into three effects – scale, technique, and composition effects. The scale of economic activity drives pollution demand. The technique effect reflects increased willingness to bear the costs of abating pollution as a country gets more prosperous because of increased international trade. International trade changes the composition of output in a country and therefore the level of pollution as different goods are produced with different pollution intensities. This is called the composition effect. This chapter measures pollution using carbon dioxide emissions (metric tons per capita) obtained from the United States Energy Information Administration. This study estimates a regression model that provides estimates of the magnitudes of trade’s impact on pollution as per the aforesaid three effects. The authors find that the scale and the composition effects of pollution are positive, but the technique effect is negative, and that the net effect is negative (international trade leads to a lower level of emission) when the underlying model is linear, but it is positive (international trade leads to a higher level of emission when non-linearities are considered).

The aim of this chapter is to examine the way in which small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) adapt their financial and operational planning in order to develop green entrepreneurship. This is examined through two different practices which may be followed by companies: policies and strategies that lead enterprises to energy upgrade and policies and strategies relating to environmental protection. This chapter draws upon the dataset from 100 Greek SMEs. The process of data collection was conducted by delivering questionnaires to the sample of companies in question. The novelty of this research, in comparison with other surveys, is that the level of adopting green strategies is approached not only in the fields of energy or environmental efficiencies but also attempts to introduce techno-economic parameters with related items in the questionnaires delivered to the SMEs. Hence, a more thorough analysis for the greenness of Greek SMEs is discussed based on 10 (i.e. techno-economic) research hypotheses. The results indicate that the SMEs should be supported more effectively by the Greek government and European Union through funding initiatives. The funding initiatives do not have the expected results so far towards this direction. However, it seems that the SMEs realize the importance of green strategies as they believe the consumers are willing to pay more for green products.

This study aims to determine the pedagogical and socio-emotional impacts of school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in Guinea.

A descriptive, survey-based methodology was used to collect quantitative and qualitative data directly from parents and caregivers. Between February 24 and March 13, 2022, data was gathered from a study population comprising 2,955 adults residing in five communes and five prefectures of Guinea.

Half of all respondents stated that school closures had no particular impact on children in their household, and 42% stated that no intentional pedagogical activities took place during school closures. Approximately 15% of respondents stated that children experienced boredom, loneliness, sadness, depression, stress and anxiety during the school closures.

The study underscores the significance of school closure readiness and interactive learning while revealing limited emotional impact on children. The findings, while specific to Guinea, provide a foundational understanding, highlighting the complexity of pandemic effects on education and the need for adaptive strategies in vulnerable regions.

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.