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1 – 10 of 255Ahmed Shafiqul Huque and Patamawadee Jongruck
The purpose of this paper is to examine the strategies of civil service reforms in Hong Kong and Thailand. It seeks to identify the drivers of reforms in the two cases and explain…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the strategies of civil service reforms in Hong Kong and Thailand. It seeks to identify the drivers of reforms in the two cases and explain the divergence in processes that were intended to achieve similar ends.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper adopts a case study approach along with a thorough review of the literature. It is based on secondary materials, including academic studies, government publications and websites, and media reports. It compares approaches, strategies and outcomes of civil service reforms in Hong Kong and Thailand.
Findings
Civil service reforms in Hong Kong focused on improving management through the implementation of New Public Management (NPM) principles, while governance values were prominent in civil service reforms in Thailand.
Originality/value
This paper compares civil service reforms in two dissimilar Asian cases. It highlights the impact of global trends on traditional bureaucratic organizations and reform strategies, and recognizes the impacts of traditions, culture and capacity on civil service reforms.
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Virpi Ala-Heikkilä and Marko Järvenpää
This study aims to take a step toward integrating research regarding the image, role and identity of management accountants by understanding how employers’ perceptions of the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to take a step toward integrating research regarding the image, role and identity of management accountants by understanding how employers’ perceptions of the ideal management accountant image differ from operational managers’ perceived role expectations, how management accountants perceive their identity and how those factors shape management accountants’ understanding of who they are and want to be.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative design draws upon the case company’s 100 job advertisements and 31 semi-structured interviews with management accountants and operational managers. Those data are entwined with role theory and its core concepts of expectations and identities and also early recruitment-related theoretical aspects such as image and employer branding.
Findings
The findings reveal how employers’ perceptions of the ideal image and operational managers’ role expectations shape and influence the identity of management accountants. However, management accountants distance themselves from a brand image and role expectations. They experience identity conflict between their current and desired identity, the perception of not being able to perform the currently desired role. Although this study presents some possible reasons and explanations, such as employer branding for the misalignment and discrepancy between perceptions of employer (image), expectations of operational managers (role) and management accountants’ self-conception of the role (identity), this study argues that the identity of a management accountant results from organizational aspects of image and role and individual aspects of identity.
Research limitations/implications
Image and external role expectations can challenge identity construction and also serve as a source of conflict and frustration; thus, a more comprehensive approach to studying the identity of management accountants is necessary to understand what contributes to the fragility of their identity.
Practical implications
The results provide an understanding of the dynamics of the image, role and identity to support management accountants and employers and to further address the suggested dissonance and ambiguities.
Originality/value
This study contributes by showing how the dynamics and connections between the image, role and identity influence the identity construction of management accountants. Moreover, this study shows how overpromising as a part of employer branding might not reflect the reality experienced by management accountants but may cause frustration and threaten the management accountants’ identity.
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