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Making sure that a higher education distance learning course meets student expectations is critical to ensuring the quality of the student experience. Judging whether a course delivers to its promise is a particular challenge when the course is delivered by distance learning and there is no regular face‐to‐face contact with students, the more so when courses are faced with alternative conceptions, and external audits, of quality. The paper identifies the contested nature of quality, examines models of evaluation, relates them to existing forms of evaluation facing education courses, and offers an alternative constructivist approach based on the notion of a service template.

Explores contributions to the process of organizing the interests of professional labour through a study of the debate on the governance of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. The Tricker and Wersley Reports have illuminated the tensions and contradictions associated with the organization and regulation of labour. Shows specifically that, by striving to secure and maintain their powers and privileges, “professional” associations are caught on the horns of their dual responsibility as “self‐interested” sellers of labour and as guardians of “the public interest”.

The papers compiled in this special issue have been presented at the conference on “Corporate Governance and Ethics: Beyond Contemporary Perspectives” that has been held in June 2004 in Sydney, Australia.¹ The conference has brought together the three disciplines that impact on governance issues: accounting, management, and law. This issue reflects this interdisciplinary approach to the subject matter.

This exploratory study attempted to determine the level of formalization and implementation of corporate governance and risk management practices, and the role of human resource management in the design and formulation of such practices. This study also attempted to derive some patterns of association among the variables studied, including the degree to which specific human resource management practices were linked with the overall corporate governance and risk management objectives. Human resource management was consulted from time to time during the formulation of strategic plan, the design of behavioral control mechanisms, and the development of risk management guidelines and formal corporate culture programs. However, it was consulted only during implementation of corporate governance structures at the board level. Generally, human resource management involvement in the formulation of corporate governance and risk management mechanisms was related to the degree of formalization and implementation of such mechanisms, but not to the degree of congruence of human resource management functions with corporate governance and risk management objectives. However, the degree of formalization and implementation of corporate governance structures at the board level was related to the degree of congruence of human resource management functions with corporate governance and risk management objectives and the driver measures of performance. The latter was likewise related to mechanisms of behavioral control.

For decades the majority of contributions to governance practice have been compliance-focused while much governance research has been grounded in an agency view (Daily, Dalton & Rajagopalan, (2003), Academy of Management Journal, 46(2), 151–158). Much of that effort has failed to observe the key drivers of boardroom decision making. The objective of this research was to explore the shareholder–stakeholder tension within an organisation as it progressed through sequential forms of ownership. The results presented in this paper are primarily drawn from the immediate ex poste and ex ante events surrounding the collapse of Ansett Holdings Ltd and the latter government bailout of Air New Zealand. New Zealand's national airline provided a relevatory case (Yin, (1989), Case study research: Design and methods (Rev.ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage), the opportunity to study a phenomenon previously inaccessible to research, because data hitherto unavailable ‘entered’ the public domain. However, when reinterpreted in light of direct input from key executives involved – benevolent informants – much of that data needs to be reconsidered to better understand why critical decisions were made. The Ansett collapse subsequently became the single largest corporate collapse in Australian history while the loss to Air New Zealand became New Zealand's largest-ever corporate loss. The decision by Brierley Investments Limited (BIL) to ‘block’ Singapore Airline's (SIA) entry into the Australian market, implemented through the high risk acquisition of the balance of Ansett, directly resulted in both ‘collapses’. Decisions by the organisation's governance were found to have a direct impact on the performance of Air New Zealand through various phases of its ownership. While the ‘collapses’ are attributed to a failure of governance to act in the organisation's (stakeholders) interests. Growing tensions between shareholders and stakeholders were observed to be suppressed as the BIL dominated and led Board achieve complete control over decision making. There remains considerable opportunity to further governance research through the examination of business ethics, notably the view that appropriate ethics can be met by way of legislation (e.g. Diplock, (2003, April), Corporate governance issues. Securities Commission of New Zealand. Available from: http://www.sec-com.govt.nz/speeches/jds240403.shtml). However, the role of governance, particularly whom it is there to serve requires far greater attention on behalf of researchers. In the cases of Ansett and Air New Zealand the Board ceased to act in best interests of the organisation in favour of the major shareholder.

At any time, there will be differing views on what needs to be done to be properly accountable, because accountees are likely to be in favour of more accountability, and accountors, of less (Perks, 1993). This leads to a tension between these two groups (Ijiri, 1983).

This article sets out the main conclusions of a research project into how UK local authorities are managing within limited resources (MLR). Frameworks are developed to aid authorities to plan their approaches to MLR and to situate what they have already done and what they plan to do within a wider portfolio of tactics and strategies. An evaluation is made of how well local government is learning its way through to getting “more from less” and of what local authority support agencies need to do to help authorities to accelerate their learning. Finally, the authors argue that existing learning systems like benchmarking and quality management, while developing rapidly in local government, need further, significant refinement if the costs and benefits of resource management strategies are to be systematically evaluated.