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Article
Publication date: 22 August 2022

Mona Nikidehaghani, Jane Andrew and Corinne Cortese

The paper aims to investigate how accounting techniques, when embedded within data-driven public-sector management systems, mask and intensify the neoliberal ideological…

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Abstract

Purpose

The paper aims to investigate how accounting techniques, when embedded within data-driven public-sector management systems, mask and intensify the neoliberal ideological commitments of powerful state and corporate actors. The authors explore the role of accounting in the operationalisation of “instrumentarian power” (Zuboff, 2019) – a new form of power that mobilises ubiquitous digital instrumentation to ensure that algorithmic architectures can tune, herd and modify behaviour.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors employ a qualitative archival analysis of publicly available data related to the automation of welfare-policing systems to explore the role of accounting in advancing instrumentarian power.

Findings

In exploring the automation of Australia's welfare debt recovery system (Robodebt), this paper examines a new algorithmic accountability that has emerged at the interface of government, technology and accounting. The authors show that accounting supports both the rise of instrumentarian power and the intensification of neoliberal ideals when buried within algorithms. In focusing on Robodebt, the authors show how the algorithmic reconfiguration of accountability within the welfare system intensified the inequalities that welfare recipients experienced. Furthermore, the authors show that, despite its apparent failure, it worked to modify welfare recipients' behaviour to align with the neoliberal ideals of “self-management” and “individual responsibility”.

Originality/value

This paper addresses Agostino, Saliterer and Steccolini's (2021) call to investigate the relationship between accounting, digital innovations and the lived experience of vulnerable people. To anchor this, the authors show how algorithms work to mask the accounting assumptions that underpin them and assert that this, in turn, recasts accountability relationships. When accounting is embedded in algorithms, the ideological potency of calculations can be obscured, and when applied within technologies that affect vulnerable people, they can intensify already substantial inequalities.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 36 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 April 2013

Felix Requena

The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical analysis of factors that affect support networks among retirees in 13 countries.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical analysis of factors that affect support networks among retirees in 13 countries.

Design/methodology/approach

It examines two propositions drawing from support network theory and the classification of countries by welfare systems. It uses fixed‐effect causal models to examine how retirement and socio‐demographic variables influence kinship and friendship support networks. Data are drawn from the Social Relations and Support Systems module of the International Social Survey Programme 2001.

Findings

The results show that retirees' friendship‐based support networks are almost one‐third smaller than those of working persons. Furthermore, this difference is greater in welfare systems that spend more on social well‐being.

Research limitations/implications

However, the relationship between informal support networks and welfare systems is complex, which indicates a need to further the debate on the co‐existence of formal and informal aid systems.

Originality/value

This study's main sociological confirmation is that the relationship between the size of support networks and the type of welfare system is irregular and complex. The results make a significant contribution to the debate on the relationship between formal and informal care among a group of people during a critical life‐cycle phase, such as retirement.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 33 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 January 2013

Lusine Aramyan, Paul Ingenbleek, Gé Backus, Kees de Roest and Richard Tranter

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the likelihood of adoption of a recently designed Welfare Assessment System in agri‐food supply chains and the factors affecting the…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the likelihood of adoption of a recently designed Welfare Assessment System in agri‐food supply chains and the factors affecting the adoption decision. The application is carried out for pig and poultry chains.

Design/methodology/approach

This research consisted of two main components: interviews with retailers in pig and poultry supply chains in eight different EU countries to explore their perceptions towards the adoption possibilities of the welfare assessment system; and a conjoint analysis designed to evaluate the perceived adoption likelihood of the assessment system by different Standards Formulating Organisations (SFOs).

Findings

Stakeholders were found to be especially concerned about the costs of implementation of the system and how it could, or should, be merged with existing assurance schemes. Another conclusion of the study is that the presence of a strong third independent party supporting the implementation of the welfare assessment system would be the most important influence on the decision whether, or not, to adopt it.

Originality/value

This research evaluates the adoption possibilities of a novel Welfare Assessment System and presents the views of different supply chain stakeholders on an adoption of such a system. The main factors affecting the adoption decision are identified and analysed. Contrary to expectations, the costs of adoption of a new welfare assessment system were not considered to be the most important factor affecting the decision of supply chain stakeholders about the adoption of this new welfare system.

Details

International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, vol. 30 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0265-671X

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Economic Growth and Social Welfare: Operationalising Normative Social Choice Theory
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-44451-565-0

Article
Publication date: 14 December 2021

Tauchid Komara Yuda

The Indonesian healthcare system has been reformed in tune with economic and political changes. The reform was pursued by encouraging growing reliance on individual contributions…

Abstract

Purpose

The Indonesian healthcare system has been reformed in tune with economic and political changes. The reform was pursued by encouraging growing reliance on individual contributions. Consolidating citizens' support has become increasingly important for the long-term sustainability of the programme. This study explores individual views and experiences in negotiating solutions for health security under the situation where pre-industrial modes of informal network remain intact, while private healthcare continues to be in demand by population segments targeted by the system.

Design/methodology/approach

Individual attitudes toward the current healthcare system were explored using online interviews (N = 75) in the cities of Jakarta and Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The qualitative exploratory approach resorted to personal views on the importance of the state, family and market in health risk management. Perceptions on who should be responsible for healthcare, and the political legitimacy of the welfare-state approach to healthcare were also observed. A thematic coding strategy was used for the data analysis.

Findings

Those interviewed value and support the formal system (either state and market), yet place reliance on informal support (family and relatives). Intertwining views of religious teaching, filial piety, moral obligation were the most common reasons for individuals to support such dual welfare systems. The findings reflect the common attitudes toward welfare in the context of changing realities of individualised society at the early stage.

Originality/value

This article represents a valuable contribution at the empirical level because it provides an assessment of individuals' attitudes toward Indonesia's recent health arrangements. Such individuals are those belonging to the targeted population of the contributory system. This study also offers an alternative framework for understanding the nature of the healthcare regime generated from the perspectives of individuals.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 42 no. 11-12
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 14 April 2023

Francisco Fermín Mallén-Broch, Ricardo Chiva, Alma Rodríguez-Sánchez and Jacob Guinot

The paper analyzes and develops Chiva's (2014) proposal on the common welfare HRM system and uncovers its relationship with innovativeness, using altruism as a mediator.

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Abstract

Purpose

The paper analyzes and develops Chiva's (2014) proposal on the common welfare HRM system and uncovers its relationship with innovativeness, using altruism as a mediator.

Design/methodology/approach

The common welfare HRM system implies a certain human and organizational development of the classic control and commitment HRM systems, and its main goal is to promote innovation through a prosocial approach. To this end, the authors investigated its HRM practices, developed a measurement instrument and provided initial illustrative evidence of some of its main implications for innovativeness and altruism. They tested these relationships on a sample of 269 Spanish firms using structural equations and bootstrapping to confirm the significance of the mediated effect.

Findings

Results confirm the study’s hypotheses, thus supporting the common welfare HRM system as a relevant tool for developing innovativeness through the power of altruism. This paper therefore provides empirical evidence of these relationships.

Practical implications

This study has implications that can help managers to increase innovativeness through a specific HRM system. The findings reveal that a coherent set of HRM practices based on common welfare principles and a high level of consciousness creates a climate of altruism that results in innovativeness.

Originality/value

This research shows that humanistic HRM practices also have an impact on performance variables such as innovativeness, through altruistic employees' behaviors. It also develops a measurement instrument for the common welfare HRM system and provides some initial illustrative evidence of some of its main implications.

研究目的

本文分析並發展Chiva (2014) 關於共同福祉人力資源管理系統的建議;同時,擬以利他主義為中介變量、揭示共同福祉人力資源管理系統與創新意念之間的關係。

研究設計/方法/理念

共同福祉人力資源管理系統暗示了典型的管制和承諾型人力資源管理系統的人類與組織發展;而共同福祉人力資源管理系統的主要目的是以親社會理念去鼓勵創新。為此,我們探討了共同福祉人力資源管理措施,制訂了測量儀器,並為共同福祉人力資源管理可幫助帶來創新意念和利他主義的啟示,提供了初步的例證。研究的樣本為269間西班牙公司;我們以結構方程去檢測共同福祉人力資源管理與創新意念和利他主義之間的關係,並創造環境,俾能確認有關之中介效應的重要性。

研究結果

研究結果證實了我們的假設,就是說,研究結果確認了透過利他主義的影響力,共同福祉人力資源管理系統是可以成為促進創新意念的工具的。就此而言,本文提供了關於這些關係的經驗證據。

研究的原創性

本研究顯示了人文主義的人力資源管理措施,亦可透過僱員無私的行為,影響著各個績效變量,像是創新意念。研究亦為共同福祉人力資源管理系統制訂了測量儀器,並提供了初步的例證,確認了該人力資源管理系統所給予我們的主要啟示。

實務方面的啟示

本研究為管理人員提供了啟示,協助他們透過特定的人力資源管理系統去增強創新意念。研究結果顯示、建基於共同福祉的原則和高度意識水平的一整套連貫的人力資源管理措施,能創造一個引來創新意念的利他主義氣氛。

Details

European Journal of Management and Business Economics, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2444-8451

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Economic Growth and Social Welfare: Operationalising Normative Social Choice Theory
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-44451-565-0

Article
Publication date: 13 June 2017

Patricia Frericks

Much has been said about institutional change and the forms it can take, whether it is abrupt or incremental, path breaking or path dependent. This strand of research is highly…

Abstract

Purpose

Much has been said about institutional change and the forms it can take, whether it is abrupt or incremental, path breaking or path dependent. This strand of research is highly relevant in times of welfare institutional reforms and changes. A puzzle, however, remains, and it concerns the empirical phenomena that there might be institutional inertia despite seeming change. One reason for this remaining puzzle is, as argued here, that the ongoing theoretical reflections have a certain blind spot: “institutional constellations” and their characteristics. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to analyse the “layering” of a welfare institution which results in an institutional constellation.

Design/methodology/approach

Such newly established institutional constellations, though they look roughly similar and are formed of comparable ingredients, can differ profoundly between themselves. This could be due to the fact that the characteristics of institutions depend on the regulating principles (the “spirit”) implemented in them. To validate this hypothesis, the author analyses in depth the institutional layering in two traditionally different social protection systems: the Dutch and the German pension systems.

Findings

In both cases, as the author shows, the traditional regulating principles are also implemented in the newly established institutional constellation, so that in the end pension systems do not change but differ as they did before.

Originality/value

The empirical phenomenon of institutional inertia despite seeming change has not yet been explicitly addressed. This is the case since the ongoing theoretical reflections have a certain blind spot: “institutional constellations” and their characteristics which are the focus of this paper.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 37 no. 5/6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1983

R.G.B. Fyffe

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and…

11005

Abstract

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and economic democracy, which centres around the establishment of a new sector of employee‐controlled enterprises, is presented. The proposal would retain the mix‐ed economy, but transform it into a much better “mixture”, with increased employee‐power in all sectors. While there is much of enduring value in our liberal western way of life, gross inequalities of wealth and power persist in our society.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 3 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Designing the New European Union
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-863-6

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