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Book part
Publication date: 8 October 2013

Gloria Agyemang and Bill Ryan

This chapter examines organisational change processes that occur when accountability demands from powerful external stakeholders change. It investigates, firstly, whether these…

Abstract

This chapter examines organisational change processes that occur when accountability demands from powerful external stakeholders change. It investigates, firstly, whether these external accountability demands impact on the performance management systems of two different types of organisations. Secondly, it considers whether the goals for improved performance contained within the external accountability demands are realised. The chapter derives its primary insights from analysing in-depth interviews with managers working in a private sector company and in public sector organisations. The analyses reveal complex organisational responses. In the public sector case study, the organisations tended to reorient their performance management systems towards the external accountability demands; whilst in the private sector organisation, pressures from falling share prices forced managers to focus their decision making on the preferred performance measures contained in shareholders’ accountability demands. However, whilst there is some evidence of performance management system changes, the desires for improved performance subsumed by the external accountability demands are not necessarily realised through the performance management system changes.

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Managing Reality: Accountability and the Miasma of Private and Public Domains
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-618-8

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Book part
Publication date: 8 November 2004

Jane Broadbent, Jas Gill and Richard Laughlin

On-going change in relation to the management of public services has led to the development of many initiatives in the control of day-to-day resources as the New Public Management1

Abstract

On-going change in relation to the management of public services has led to the development of many initiatives in the control of day-to-day resources as the New Public Management1 (Hood, 1991, 1995) continues its reforms. In this context debates about control of capital expenditure have taken a less visible role despite some earlier and influential comment on the area (Perrin, 1978 for example). Perhaps as the flow of ideas for reform in the management of day-to-day activity have waned, recent attention has turned more systematically to the efficient use of capital resources or infrastructure. This has been accompanied by recognition of the poor state of some of the public sector infrastructure. This chapter is concerned with the implications of the changing approaches to the provision of infrastructure is the U.K. National Health Service (NHS). Its particular focus in the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and the contractual implications this brings into infrastructure development.

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Strategies for Public Management Reform
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-218-4

Book part
Publication date: 23 November 2016

Basil P. Tucker and Raef Lawson

This paper compares and contrasts practice-based perceptions of the research–practice gap in the United States (US) with those in Australia.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper compares and contrasts practice-based perceptions of the research–practice gap in the United States (US) with those in Australia.

Methodology/approach

The current study extends the work of Tucker and Lowe (2014) by comparing and contrasting their Australian-based findings with evidence from a questionnaire survey and follow-up interviews with senior representatives of 18 US state and national professional accounting associations.

Findings

The extent to which academic research informs practice is perceived to be limited, despite the potential for academic research findings to make a significant contribution to management accounting practice. We find similarities as well as differences in the major obstacles to closer engagement in the US and Australia. This comparison, however, leads us to offer a more fundamental explanation of the divide between academic research and practice framed in terms of the relative benefits and costs of academics engaging with practice.

Research implications

Rather than following conventional approaches to ‘bridging the gap’ by identifying barriers to the adoption of research, we suggest that only after academics have adequate incentives to speak to practice can barriers to a more effective diffusion of their research findings be surmounted.

Originality/value

This study makes three novel contributions to the “relevance literature” in management accounting. First, it adopts a distinct theoretical vantage point to organize, analyze, and interpret empirical evidence. Second, it captures practice-based views about the nature and extent of the divide between research and practice. Third, it provides a foundational assessment of the generalizability of the gap by examining perceptions of it across two different geographic contexts.

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Advances in Management Accounting
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78560-972-5

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Book part
Publication date: 15 November 2021

C. Richard Baker and Martin E. Persson

Accounting history has tended to ignore the accounting research enterprise, focusing instead on particular episodes or periods, such as histories of standards setting or histories…

Abstract

Accounting history has tended to ignore the accounting research enterprise, focusing instead on particular episodes or periods, such as histories of standards setting or histories of the accounting profession. In effect, methodological and theoretical differences within the accounting research discipline have so profoundly divided the discipline that researchers working in one area are relatively unable or unwilling to understand the key issues in other areas. This chapter seeks to shed some light on the greatest divide in accounting research: the divide between positive and critical accounting research. This chapter argues that both positive and critical accounting research can trace their origins to certain key figures who were doctoral students at the University of Chicago in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The chapter employs Foucault’s concept of genealogy to examine the origins of the positivist and critical paradigms in accounting research.

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Historical Developments in the Accountancy Profession, Financial Reporting, and Accounting Theory
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-805-1

Book part
Publication date: 8 November 2004

Abstract

Details

Strategies for Public Management Reform
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-218-4

Book part
Publication date: 8 November 2004

Lawrence R. Jones, Kuno Schedler and Riccardo Mussari

So much has been written about public management and administrative reform in the past decade that in developing the approach for this book we wondered whether there was anything…

Abstract

So much has been written about public management and administrative reform in the past decade that in developing the approach for this book we wondered whether there was anything new to say. As is the case for most professionals working in our field, we recognize that the topic of New Public Management has been worked over very thoroughly. New public management is no longer “new” and, therefore, we believe in the future it is better to use the words public management change or innovation when speaking and writing about emerging initiatives in the public sector. And, as most in our field also understand, the topics receiving significant attention at present are networking and a set of issues related to what is termed “governance.” Research on networking has been on-going since at least the 1970s. Many issues related to networks and networking remain unresolved so that continued dialogue in this area is constructive. Renewed attention to governance (versus government) appears to have emerged in the public management dialogue and literature in the past five years or so.

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Strategies for Public Management Reform
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-218-4

Book part
Publication date: 8 November 2004

Abstract

Details

Strategies for Public Management Reform
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-218-4

Book part
Publication date: 30 September 2016

Charles R. McCann and Vibha Kapuria-Foreman

Robert Franklin Hoxie was of the first generation of University of Chicago economists, a figure of significance in his own time. He is often heralded as the first of the…

Abstract

Robert Franklin Hoxie was of the first generation of University of Chicago economists, a figure of significance in his own time. He is often heralded as the first of the Institutional economists and the impetus behind the field of labor economics. Yet today, his contributions appear as mere footnotes in the history of economic thought, when mentioned at all, despite the fact that in his professional and popular writings he tackled some of the most pressing problems of the day. The topics upon which he focused included bimetallism, price theory, methodology, the economics profession, socialism, syndicalism, scientific management, and trade unionism, the last being the field with which he is most closely associated. His work attracted the notice of some of the most famous economists of his time, including Frank Fetter, J. Laurence Laughlin, Thorstein Veblen, and John R. Commons. For all the promise, his suicide at the age of 48 ended what could have been a storied career. This paper is an attempt to resurrect Hoxie through a review of his life and work, placing him within the social and intellectual milieux of his time.

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Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78560-962-6

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Book part
Publication date: 2 December 2021

Charles R. McCann

William Amasa Scott was in his time well-known as a monetary economist as well as a popularizer of economic ideas, whose opinions were widely regarded by the public. A proponent…

Abstract

William Amasa Scott was in his time well-known as a monetary economist as well as a popularizer of economic ideas, whose opinions were widely regarded by the public. A proponent of Austrian economics and defender of classical economic theory, he soon found a home at the School of Economics, Political Science and History (later the School of Economics) at the University of Wisconsin which, while initially a mainstream department, would evolve into the citadel of Institutional Economics. Notwithstanding his status as an authority on monetary economics and his place as a public intellectual, he remained at the University something of an outsider throughout his career and today is largely forgotten.

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Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Including a Symposium on Frank Knight's Risk, Uncertainty and Profit at 100
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80071-149-5

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Book part
Publication date: 23 July 2016

Nicola Giocoli

At the turn of the 20th-century railroad regulation was hotly debated in the United States. Railways were accused of abusing of their monopolistic position, in particular by…

Abstract

At the turn of the 20th-century railroad regulation was hotly debated in the United States. Railways were accused of abusing of their monopolistic position, in particular by discriminating rates. Public opinion’s pressure for tighter regulation led to the 1906 enactment of the Hepburn Act, which strengthened the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission. American economists actively participated in the debate. While most of them sided with the pro-regulation camp, the best economic analysis came from those who used the logic of modern law and economics to demonstrate how most railroads’ practices, including rate discrimination, were simply rational, pro-efficiency behavior. However, as relatively unknown Chicago University economist Hugo R. Meyer would discover, proposing that logic in public events could at that time cost you your academic career.

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Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78560-960-2

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