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Optimum utilization of investments has always been considered one of the most crucial aspects of capital markets. Investment into various securities is the subject of portfolio optimization intent to maximize return at minimum risk. In this series, a population-based evolutionary approach, stochastic fractal search (SFS), is derived from the natural growth phenomenon. This study aims to develop portfolio selection model using SFS approach to construct an efficient portfolio by optimizing the Sharpe ratio with risk budgeting constraints.

This paper proposes a constrained portfolio optimization model using the SFS approach with risk-budgeting constraints. SFS is an evolutionary method inspired by the natural growth process which has been modeled using the fractal theory. Experimental analysis has been conducted to determine the effectiveness of the proposed model by making comparisons with state-of-the-art from domain such as genetic algorithm, particle swarm optimization, simulated annealing and differential evolution. The real datasets of the Indian stock exchanges and datasets of global stock exchanges such as Nikkei 225, DAX 100, FTSE 100, Hang Seng31 and S&P 100 have been taken in the study.

The study confirms the better performance of the SFS model among its peers. Also, statistical analysis has been done using SPSS 20 to confirm the hypothesis developed in the experimental analysis.

In the recent past, researchers have already proposed a significant number of models to solve portfolio selection problems using the meta-heuristic approach. However, this is the first attempt to apply the SFS optimization approach to the problem.

The results of a longitudinal field study (1967‐89) of International Foods, a holding corporation for a group of companies in Pakistan is presented. It focuses on the influence of societal culture on the development of accounting and control practices in the organisation. Four specific issues are examined: How do organisations initiate accounting and control systems? How do such systems evolve? What roles do they play in a crisis? How does organisational action become disconnected from such systems? National culture, particularly as it shapes the world views of individuals, greatly enhances our understanding of the dynamics of accounting and control systems in organisations. The local nature of rationality is demonstrated by showing how contextualising practices allow us to make sense of them.

The primary purpose of this paper is to merge two traditions in management accounting change – design theory and action research – to explain findings from a case study of introducing a cost leadership initiative.

This paper is an example of action research in which design theory explains events related to the implementation of a strategic cost leadership initiative at Shell Gabon, a Royal Dutch Shell unit in West Africa.

The evidence shows that technical accounting changes are, in the final analysis, change management exercises. Implementing change requires thinking as a designer and employing the logic of conjecture rather than scientific deductive or inductive reasoning. Successful implementation requires conjuring an image of a future reality that does not currently exist and making that image persuasive by connecting it with the values of the organizational participants.

This case study provides five key lessons for future designers of accounting change. Implementers should: understand the mental models of organizational participants; show respect for the cultural values of the organization they are working in; meaningfully engage organizational participants; use structured processes to unfold change; and be ready to seize new opportunities and discard old game plans when necessary. The case study also reveals gaps in existing change management models and behavioural accounting theories.

This paper offers design theory as an alternative way of viewing organizational change and offers criteria for evaluating the use of design as a process and for assessing the value of the implemented change.

This paper examines four underlying trends in the changing business environment relating to information technology and geographic, functional and sectorial integration. It discusses three required changes in management focus needed to reach global profitability from product inception to promotion. The skills required for this change are listed by functional area, although the techniques are predominantly cross‐cultural. This paper explains the steps needed to move from a traditional firm to a globally competitive network and the cultural barriers to building consumer‐focused extended‐value chains. Finally it discusses ways in which business school education can promote strategic thinking about profitability and heighten awareness of the potential gains from cooperative inter‐firm partnerships.

The main purpose of this study is to provide healthcare institutions with a management accounting framework that helps them achieve their quality goals and cost targets when providing services under bundled payment schemes.

After providing a theoretical framework on both bundled payments and target costing, the success factors of the former are compared with the principles of the latter in order to analyze the compatibility and complementarity of these models. Afterwards, an example of their potential combination in practice is introduced and ideas for future research are suggested.

It is concluded that, apart from presenting similar underlying goals as regards quality and cost, bundled payments and target costing display elements in common that make them compatible from a theoretical standpoint.

Because bundled payments models are relatively new, studies on their compatibility with managerial techniques emerging from industries other than healthcare do not abound in the literature.

Restates the case for accounting and management research from a grounded theory perspective, and advocates its informed and more frequent application. Examines the intellectual foundations and key tenets of grounded theory in the context of researchers’ theoretical assumptions and methodological characteristics, discussed in relation to Laughlin’s (1995) classification schema. Pays particular attention to grounded theory assumptions and methods in relation to other interpretive paradigms such as symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology and hermeneutics. Describes the basic principles and methods of grounded theory research, and presents potential applications to the accounting and management research arenas. Argues that rigorous grounded theory research can offer the accounting and management literatures unique understandings that provide additional perspectives to those already being offered by major schools of thought, and discusses implications of grounded theory for informing contemporary professional practice.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the origins and development of the “Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal (AAAJ) Community”, a flourishing international interdisciplinary accounting research community. This scholarly community has emerged over some 30 years from the publication in 1988 of the inaugural issue of AAAJ under the joint editorship of James Guthrie and Lee Parker. This historical account discusses the motivation for establishing the journal and the important publishing initiatives, developments and trends across this period. The study positions the journal as a key thought leader, the catalyst for other Community activities such as the Asia-Pacific Interdisciplinary Research in Accounting conference.

The investigation involved a selective review of the contents of AAAJ, particularly the annual editorials published since inception, and other relevant literature, analysis of the main research themes and the most cited papers, and oral history interviews with the joint editors. The future prospects for the AAAJ Community are addressed.

The AAAJ Community has shaped and led developments in interdisciplinary accounting research. Recognised for innovation and with a reputation for nurturing scholars, AAAJ continues to grow in stature as one of the world’s leading accounting journals, challenging the status quo and fostering inclusive scholarship.

The study does not examine the journal’s publication patterns nor assess in detail the research studies that have been published in the journal.

The study recognises AAAJ as central to the development of an interdisciplinary accounting research community, firmly located in the sociological, critical and interpretative tradition also associated with some other leading accounting journals.

The purpose of this study is to analyze millennial generation purchase behavior on halal cosmetic products in Indonesia.

The research approach used is a quantitative approach with the research method in the form of a survey and the sampling technique using purposive sampling. The respondents in this study are 206 Muslim females of the millennial generation. Structural equation modeling (SEM) with AMOS software is used for analyzing the data of this study.

This study found that of the 11 hypotheses tested, 10 of them were accepted: H1, H2, H3, H4, H6, H7, H8, H9, H10 and H11. The accepted hypotheses are the influence of perceived value on trust, brand image on trust, brand image on attitude, religious belief on attitude, halal certification on halal awareness, trust on attitude and halal awareness on attitude. As for trust, attitude toward product, halal awareness affects the intention to purchase halal cosmetics. Moreover, H5 was not accepted, namely, the influence of religious belief on halal awareness. The findings of this study are expected to contribute to the development of marketing theory, specifically related to consumer behavior of halal cosmetic products, as well as the development of the concept of consumer behavior based on demographics, namely, the millennial generation.

This study is more comprehensive than previous studies, and this study is focused on the millennial generation.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on thermal characteristics behavior of forced convection flow in a duct over forward facing step (FFS), in which all of the heat transfer mechanisms, including convection, conduction and radiation, take place simultaneously in the fluid flow.

The fluid is treated as a gray, absorbing, emitting and scattering medium. The Navier‐Stokes and energy equations are solved numerically by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques to obtain the velocity and temperature fields. Discretized forms of these equations are obtained by the finite volume method and solved using the SIMPLE algorithm. Since the gas is considered as a radiating medium, all of the convection, conduction and radiation heat transfer take place simultaneously in the gas flow. For computation of the radiative term in the gas energy equation, the radiative transfer equation (RTE) is solved numerically by the discrete ordinate method (DOM) to find the radiative heat flux distribution inside the radiating medium. By this numerical approach, the velocity, pressure and temperature fields are calculated.

The effect of wall emissivity, optical thickness, albedo coefficient and the radiation‐conduction parameter on heat transfer behavior of the system are also investigated. The numerical results for two cases of convection‐conduction and conduction‐radiation problems are compared with the available data published in open literature and good agreement was obtained.

This is the first time in which flow over FFS in a duct, considering all heat transfer mechanisms including conduction, convection and radiation, is solved numerically.