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The purpose of the study is to examine the use of management controls by a public partner to minimise risks associated with a public-private partnership (PPP) in a developing country.

Using case study method, management controls used in a power project formed as a PPP are examined based on data gathered from semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis.

The study reveals that the public partner of the PPP used multiple controls depending on the nature of risks in different phases of the project. While bureaucratic control was the predominantly used control pattern throughout the three phases (namely, selecting, building and operating) of the PPP, trust-based controls also played an important role. Market controls on the other hand played, somewhat, a nominal role, particularly in the selecting phase of the project. The study also highlights the problematic nature of forming PPPs in developing countries despite the various benefits associated with such organisational arrangements. Additionally, the study provides insights into how certain contextual features of developing countries affect the way in which controls are applied.

The insights provided in this paper would be beneficial to policy makers, in developing countries in particular, when making decisions in relation to implementation, management and risk control of PPPs.

This study makes an original contribution to the existing literature on PPPs by examining the way in which management controls are used to minimise risk in a PPP in a developing country.

This paper uses a stakeholder approach to examine how the role of accounting and the status of accountants changed over a 30 year period (1970 to 2000) in a major Australian government trading enterprise. Data are gathered from semi‐structured interviews with organizational participants and documentation. The study provides support for the importance of stakeholders in shaping organizational processes and practices, including accounting practices, and for the effects of changes in stakeholder constituency and agenda on such practices. The study also provides evidence of the roles accounting and accountants may play in implementing a stakeholder agenda, including both instrumental and symbolic roles, and how the status of accountants may rise and fall commensurate with those roles.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the understanding of the relationship between board involvement and corporate performance within the context of developing countries.

A number of aspects related to board involvement, including board’s shareholdings, frequency of board meetings, availability of independent board committees, board size, CEO duality, and CEO is being a promoter, were examined in order to explore their influence on corporate performance measured in terms of earnings per share. The study mainly draws on agency theory, and is supplemented by resource dependence and stewardship theories. Multiple regression analysis is utilized to analyze the data gathered from a sample of 212 publicly listed companies in 20 industries in the Colombo Stock Exchange in Sri Lanka.

Among the aspects of board involvement considered, board’s shareholdings, board meetings frequency, independent committees, and CEO duality showed a positive influence on corporate performance. However, two other aspects, namely CEO being a promoter, and the size of corporate boards showed a negative effect. The findings also suggest that the use of multiple theories, rather than depending on a single theory, is more effective in understanding the relationships examined in this study. Further, the study highlights the need to be cautious in utilizing the theories that are more applicable to matured western economies when analyzing issues relating to developing countries.

This study makes an original contribution to corporate governance literature by examining the relationship between board involvement and corporate performance in a developing country, namely Sri Lanka. The study also adds to the existing literature by utilizing multiple theories to examine the issue under investigation.

This study aims to describe and understand performance measurement system (PMS) change in an emerging economy bank.

Using institutional theory as a theoretical lens, the study uses Kasurinen's accounting change model to explain management accounting change as a product of motivators, catalysts and facilitators. The model also focuses on how confusers, frustrators and delayers inhibit PMS change and the role of leaders in the change process. Data were gathered from multiple sources including relevant internal and external documents covering a ten‐year period (1997‐2007), and semi‐structured interviews with managers from different hierarchical levels.

The bank's PMS experienced two significant changes from 1997 to 2007. While uncertain economic conditions, increasing competition, and pressures to improve performance and enhance accountability motivated changes in the bank's performance measurement system, the major catalysts of change were the financial losses experienced, major regulatory changes, and the appointment of a new board of directors and president. The change leader played an important role in overcoming resistance to change and in ensuring adequate technical support and training was provided to facilitate the change.

Bank managers must be aware of the influence of institutional factors on PMSs. In particular, they need to be aware of the factors that can necessitate change (motivators), initiate change (catalysts) and the prevailing conditions required to support change (facilitators) in order to maintain the utility of PMSs.

The paper provides a more detailed insight into the impact of institutional factors on changes in PMSs in the context of an emerging economy, which will assist practitioners in addressing issues concerning PMSs changes in similar contexts.

By using Latour’s notion of “action at a distance” (Latour, 1987), the purpose of this paper is to examine the ways in which the government acts at a distance to achieve corporate governance of public sector banks, and the extent to which accounting enables such actions of the government.

This study follows the qualitative research approach and adopts the case study research method. A major public sector bank in Sri Lanka was selected as the case organization for this study. Data were gathered from semi-structured interviews with organizational participants and document study.

The study provides evidence to suggest that inscriptions produced through four areas of accounting, namely external reporting, external auditing, management accounting and internal auditing, have the capacity to develop strong explanations enabling action at a distance and good corporate governance in the case organization. The study also provides evidence to show how the role of accounting in long-distance control and corporate governance in the case organization is influenced by various contextual factors. In particular, the study finds that undue government interference over the case organization to gain the long-distance control have resulted in deteriorating the level of corporate governance.

The findings support the literature that examines the accounting in its social context.

The findings suggest that actors should be allowed to operate independently, particularly without political expedience and undue influences from pressure groups, which ensure effective utilization of accounting inscriptions by the actors in long-distance control as well as good corporate governance of public sector banks.

Although research into accounting in public sector organizations has gained considerable importance in recent times, those studies examining public sector banks are still lacking. The paper aims to fill this gap.

The purpose of this study is to help the researchers, public, industries and government to realize the tremendous trends to improve the power quality of both sources and load side.

The work carried out in the Facts device and power quality issues.

Maintaining the quality of electric power is always a challenging task. The effect of power electronics devices leads to improper power quality. The use of FACTS devices is preferably the best approach to treat power-quality-related problems. Usually, all FACTS devices are constructed to operate on the side of either the source side or the load.

This paper explores a broad comprehensive study of various types of power quality problems and classification of FACTS devices with its recent developments. Furthermore unified power quality conditioner (UPQC) is particularly reviewed to highlight the advantages over other compensating devices. An exhaustive study of literature has been carried out and most significant concepts are presented

This study aims to examine the experiences of UK higher education students and the impact that emergency-imposed changes had on their learning, teaching and assessment (LTA) during the lockdown. It reflects on the views of students on how these changes impacted their education and personal circumstances. It makes suggestions, based on student observations, on how educators might support students’ LTA learning experiences more effectively.

The study uses an anonymous online questionnaire, imposed by lockdown and closure of universities, to gather the views of HE students across the UK on how COVID-19 and lockdown affected their education and personal circumstances. Using a cross-sectional study, participants were asked to complete several questions, providing quantitative and qualitative data which is analysed for the study. A total of 349 participants took part in the questionnaire and data were analysed descriptively.

Key findings suggest that the use of online virtual classrooms as a substitute for traditional face-to-face LTA has its positives and its negatives. The most significant positives are the “flexible assessments” and “digital content” and, in contrast, one of the significant drawbacks is the lack of interactions, this being true for both male and female students. However, as compared to females, males found to be missing “the campus life” more during the lockdown. Finally, the majority of student felt that there was a lack of support from the university and teaching staff during the lockdown. Universities’ governance must take control of how this issue is driven forward and learn from the experience of students.

The study makes three contributions: firstly, using students’ views to open a fresh debate on LTA approaches during the pandemic; secondly, examining the impact on student experiences due to the changes introduced because of lockdown; and finally, suggesting strategies to be implemented by HE management based on the opinions of participating students.

This study aims to assess the facilities management (FM) strategies used in multi-tenanted purpose-built office buildings (Mt-POBs) in Ghana and the drivers that influence the decision to use such strategies.

This study was conducted via a survey and key informant interviews. The survey was conducted using a questionnaire targeted at 65 multi-tenanted office building owners in the Greater Accra region. The data from the survey revealed the views of building owners on FM strategy and the extent to which 20 facility management decision drivers influenced their decisions to use a particular strategy and the responses were descriptively analysed. The key informant interviews were conducted among six leaders of the property owners’ association who use in-house FM to further understand their perspectives and decisions on using such strategy. The interviews were conducted over telephone using an interview guide and analysed using thematic analysis.

The results showed that 88% of Mt-POBs in Ghana are managed in-house. The results also showed that the decision to use the in-house strategy was driven by the innovative, strategic and cost-saving advantages associated with the in-house strategy.

This study shows the factors that drive the decision of multi-tenanted office building owners in Ghana to use the in-house strategy. The findings of this study will be useful for prospective owners of office buildings in Ghana.