Search results

1 – 10 of 70
Article
Publication date: 22 December 2022

Michele Bigoni, Simone Lazzini, Zeila Occhipinti and Roberto Verona

The study investigates the use of early forms of environmental accounting in the implementation of environmental strategies in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany between the 16th and 17th…

Abstract

Purpose

The study investigates the use of early forms of environmental accounting in the implementation of environmental strategies in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany between the 16th and 17th centuries.

Design/methodology/approach

The study adopts the Foucauldian concept of raison d’État to shed light on the ways in which environmental accounting practices were used by Tuscan Grand Dukes to form a detailed knowledge of the territory to be governed and act accordingly.

Findings

Financial and non-financial information relating to environmental issues enabled the Grand Dukes to “visualise” the territory to be managed as an enclosed disciplinary space whereby the conduct of people living therein could be decisively influenced. Accounting practices as a tool for the implementation of environmental strategies did not merely aim to protect the environment but were a means to reinforce the power of the State.

Research limitations/implications

The paper can inform future works that investigate the ways in which environmental policies and accounting are used to pursue far-reaching governmental goals. It encourages scholars to examine further the origins of environmental accounting and its early forms.

Social implications

The study documents how environmental strategies and the related use of accounting can have a significant influence on how individuals are allowed to conduct themselves. It also shows that environmental accounting practices can be an important tool in a State’s machinery of power.

Originality/value

The study offers a novel perspective on the use of environmental accounting information as a tool in the exercise of State power. It explores explicitly the interrelations between accounting, sustainability and power. It also adds new evidence to historical research that has engaged with early forms of environmental accounting.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 36 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 31 August 2021

Abdullahi Abubakar Lamido and Mohamed Aslam Haneef

This paper critically reviews and analyzes the trends in waqf studies within the Islamic economics literature. It analyzes the recent developments and debates in waqf reform and…

2993

Abstract

Purpose

This paper critically reviews and analyzes the trends in waqf studies within the Islamic economics literature. It analyzes the recent developments and debates in waqf reform and advances the argument for prioritizing research on waqf economics; the waqf dimension that is concerned with modelling how to utilize it to enhance productivity, consumption, redistribution, investment and saving, and generally contribute sustainably towards poverty reduction, economic empowerment and development.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is conceptual in nature, focusing on a systematic historical analytical review of waqf studies in Islamic economics literature.

Findings

Despite the documented historic role of waqf in constructing the Muslim socio-economic architecture as the third economic sector and a mechanism for civilizational development and renewal, it received little attention in the early writings on modern Islamic economics. While the past one decade has witnessed a renewed interest in waqf research, most studies focus on its legal, juristic and administrative aspects in addition to the nostalgic reflections on its past glories. Little attention is comparatively given to the socio-economic aspect, which represents the actual raison d’être for its institutionalization.

Practical implications

An important task ahead of the current generation of Islamic economists is to formulate waqf-based development models that are rooted in proper diagnosis and deep understanding of the current socio-economic realities of the OIC member countries for the purpose of uplifting living standards and stimulating sustainable socio-economic development.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to the debate on priorities in waqf studies and practice and can trigger further discourses and research on the future of research in waqf economics.

Details

Islamic Economic Studies, vol. 29 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1319-1616

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 September 2023

Jill Frances Atkins, Federica Doni, Karen McBride and Christopher Napier

This paper seeks to broaden the agenda for environmental and ecological accounting research across several dimensions, extending the form of accounting in this field by…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper seeks to broaden the agenda for environmental and ecological accounting research across several dimensions, extending the form of accounting in this field by encouraging research into its historical roots and developing a definition of accounting that can address the severe environmental and ecological challenges of the 21st century.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors explored environmental and ecological accounts from the dawn of human consciousness across a wide variety of media and in a broad range of forms. This theoretical approach reacts to the cold capitalist commodification of nature inherent in much environmental accounting practice, which documents, values and records usage of natural capital with little attempt to address depletion and loss.

Findings

By analysing the earliest ecological and environmental “accounts” recorded by humans at the dawn of human consciousness, and considering a wide array of subsequent accounts, the authors demonstrate that rather than being a secondary, relatively recent development emerging from financial accounting and reporting, environmental and ecological accounting predated financial accounting by tens of thousands of years. This research also provides a wealth of perspectives on diversity, not only in forms of account but also in the diversity of accountants, as well as the broadness of the stakeholders to whom and to which the accounts are rendered.

Research limitations/implications

The paper can be placed at the intersection of accounting history, the alternative, interdisciplinary and critical accounts literature, and environmental and ecological accounting research.

Practical implications

Practically, the authors can draw ideas and inspiration from the historical forms and content of ecological and environmental account that can inform new forms of and approaches to accounting.

Social implications

There are social implications including the diversity of accounts and accountants derived from studying historical ecological and environmental accounts from the dawn of human consciousness especially in the broadening out of the authors' understanding of the origins and cultural roots of accounting.

Originality/value

This study concludes with a new definition of accounting, fit for purpose in the 21st century, that integrates ecological, environmental concerns and is emancipatory, aiming to restore nature, revive biodiversity, conserve species and enhance ecosystems.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 36 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 July 2008

Andrew T. Young

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the stated goals of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and then demonstrate that in practice those goals have not been achieved…

508

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the stated goals of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and then demonstrate that in practice those goals have not been achieved, and at significant cost to US taxpayers.

Design/methodology/approach

The objectives are achieved by describing statements of the NFIP and the legislation behind it, and then providing an analysis of the NFIP in practice in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Findings

The NFIP flood insurance primarily shelters lending institutions rather than flood victims. At subsidized rates, premiums covered little of the Katrina‐based claims, and future premiums cannot realistically be expected to repay off the resulting debt to the US Treasury.

Research limitations/implications

If the findings are accepted they lead one to conclude that government attempts to complete incomplete markets are fraught with inherent and exceptional difficulties.

Practical implications

The NFIP should be eliminated, allowing private insurance to be offered when profitable in floodplains and allowing property‐owners to make informed choices as to residence and development.

Originality/value

Attention to general disaster relief and the controversies surrounding private insurers and homeowners policies following Katrina have overshadowed the NFIP's federal flood insurance failings. This paper contributes to that relative void.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 35 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 2006

Nicholas Ridley

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the banking systems in Western, and Central and Southeastern Europe, focusing on the interactive factors of anti‐money laundering…

673

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the banking systems in Western, and Central and Southeastern Europe, focusing on the interactive factors of anti‐money laundering, transitional economies and the underground illicit economy.

Design/methodology/approach

Provides a comparative analysis of the banking systems in Western, and Central and Southeastern Europe.

Findings

The transition economies of central and Southeastern Europe face, and have been confronted for over a generation by, the interlinked problems of the transition stage post‐1989, the alternative or illegal economy, and the vulnerability of banking systems to money laundering. In contrast, by the 1990s, Western European central banks have become established as an essential government organ in macro‐economic policies.

Originality/value

Suggests an interesting lesson that might be gained from the experiences of central and Southeastern Europe and anti‐money laundering since the late‐1990s, where a national bank or central bank has not been essential, indeed has been comparatively unimportant, compared to the developed banking system led by the individual banks.

Details

Journal of Money Laundering Control, vol. 9 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1368-5201

Keywords

Content available
Article
Publication date: 1 December 2004

Dmitry V. Shlapentokh

226

Abstract

Details

European Business Review, vol. 16 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0955-534X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 July 2023

Julian Rawiri Kusabs

Recent trends in Western civics education have attempted to secure democratic institutions from perceived threats. This paper investigates how political securitisation…

Abstract

Purpose

Recent trends in Western civics education have attempted to secure democratic institutions from perceived threats. This paper investigates how political securitisation historically operated within civics textbooks in Australia and Aotearoa, New Zealand. It further evaluates how Māori, Aboriginal and other Indigenous peoples were variably incorporated or marginalised in these educational discourses.

Design/methodology/approach

This discourse analysis evaluates a sample of civics textbooks circulated in Australia and New Zealand between 1880 and 1920. These historical sources are interpreted through theories of decoloniality and securitisation.

Findings

The sample of textbooks asserted to students that their self-governing colonies required the military protection of the British Empire against undemocratic “threats”. They argued that self-governing colonies strengthened the empire by raising subjects who were loyal to British military interests and ideological values. The authors pedagogically encouraged a governmentality within students that was complementary to military, imperial and democratic service. The hypocritical denial of self-government for many Indigenous peoples was rationalised as a measure of “security” against “native rule” and imperial rivals.

Originality/value

Under a lens of securitisation, the discursive links between imperialism, military service and democratic diligence have not yet been examined in civics textbooks from the historical contexts of Australia and New Zealand. This investigation provides conceptual and pedagogical insights for contemporary civics education in both nations.

Details

History of Education Review, vol. 52 no. 2/3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0819-8691

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 August 1999

Andrew Calabrese

The prospect that technological and social innovation in the use of communication and information technologies are bringing about an end to sovereignty has been a source of…

1390

Abstract

The prospect that technological and social innovation in the use of communication and information technologies are bringing about an end to sovereignty has been a source of optimism, pessimism and ambivalence. It has captured the popular imagination and it can be found in the anxieties of national leaders about the mingling and collision of cultures and cultural products within and across their borders, and about growing awareness that environmental threats bow to no flag. According to much of this discourse, national governments are becoming increasingly powerless in their battles against real or imagined plights of cultural imperialism (and sub‐imperialism, that is, cultural imperialism within states) and capital mobility, as well as in their efforts to effectively exercise political control through surveillance and censorship. The end of sovereignty is a theme in political discussions about new pressures brought on by global regimes of trade and investment, and by unprecedented levels of global criminal networks for drug trafficking, money laundering and trade in human flesh. Social movements and non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) have reflected this by recognizing the need to match the scale of the problems they confront with appropriately scaled collective action. This article examines the discourse about the end of sovereignty and therise of new institutions of global governance. Particular emphasis is given to how advancements in the means of communication have produced the ambivalent outcomes of threatening the democratic governance of sovereign states, and serving as foundations for the assertion of democratic rights and popular sovereignty on a global scale.

Details

info, vol. 1 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-6697

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 2006

Gaétan Breton and Yvon Pesqueux

Corporate governance is more than disciplining managers to produce more value for the shareholders. It must include how the organization influences other social institutions in…

Abstract

Purpose

Corporate governance is more than disciplining managers to produce more value for the shareholders. It must include how the organization influences other social institutions in order to impose its view or legitimize its procedures. The purpose of this paper is to give the concept of governance its full meaning.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper describes some of the essential networks between the corporation, as an organization, and other social institutions. It also tries to separate the level at which these networks function, while proposing some categories to understand the specificity of the organization in regard to individuals or the society all included in a discussion of the managerialism.

Findings

The paper considers the other side of the institutional theory, showing that the enterprise is, at least, influencing the functioning of the society, as much as the society influences the enterprise. However, in this period still dominated by the agency theory, this kind of analysis had not been developed very much yet.

Originality/value

This paper situated itself in the scotoma of the theories customarily used in accounting or management. These theories are interested to present the enterprise as passively supporting the weight of social pressures. The paper's originality is to focus on what is habitually left in the blind spot of those theories using works that have a best audience in political sciences than in management.

Details

Society and Business Review, vol. 1 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5680

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 September 1995

Daniel J. O’Neil

Explores the possibility and probability of a Catholic‐Evangelicalalliance within the US social arena. Notes the numerical strength andsystemic importance of each tradition…

399

Abstract

Explores the possibility and probability of a Catholic‐Evangelical alliance within the US social arena. Notes the numerical strength and systemic importance of each tradition. Examines the histories, tenets, politics, economic teachings and lifestyles of the two respective orientations. Cites their legacy of mutual hostility as well as the more recent ecumenical ventures. Focuses on the relevancy of the Vatican II Council to their dialogue and enumerates their contemporary differences and similarities. Concludes optimistically that theology and politics have forged stranger coalitions.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 22 no. 9/10/11
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Keywords

1 – 10 of 70