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This study analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of the electoral mechanism of local education superintendents in South Korea, draws conclusions and makes suggestions for future reforms.

The research method of this study included document analysis and interviews. Document analysis was used to collect and analyze the relevant official documents of education superintendents across countries. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four professors and two superintendents.

The results of the interviews indicate the following: 1) Korean stakeholders are getting more familiar with the direct election of superintendents, as the interviews indicate a more mature direct election system due to previous experience and public officials taking direct election into account; 2) The direct election of superintendents has advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include increasing the participation of the general public in education, and the disadvantages include conflict between the central government and local superintendents belonging to different political parties. However, the current system is likely to be retained; 3) The superintendent systems in various countries differ due to their respective traditions and social contexts. However, the authors can always learn lessons and implications from foreign countries if the authors compare their education systems with their foreign counterparts.

As far research limitations, although this was a small study, it shows the importance of collecting multiple stakeholders' views on the direct election of education superintendents as a basis for future reform of education management.

The Korean system for electing superintendents provides a good model for other countries reflecting on the educational autonomy and accountabilities of their own systems.

The direct election of superintendents provides an example of professionalism, independence and political neutrality in education that other countries can learn from. The separation of general and educational administration in Korea through direct elections protects educational activities from political influence.

In terms of originality/value, this study adds a new perspective to the debate about whether the general public should directly elect education superintendents, as well as to the literature on local education management.

The purpose of this paper is to test the overshooting effects of monetary expansion on prices of agricultural products at farm production, processing and circulation stages in China, and to investigate the heterogeneity of the overshooting mechanisms in these three links.

Empirical results are obtained through the vector error correction model and the overshooting framework proposed by Saghaian et al. (2002b). Specifically, we first apply the Dickey–Fuller generalized least squares (DF-GLS) method to test the stationarity of the key variables, and then use the Johansen’s (1991) method to conduct the cointegration test. Finally, the vector error correction model is employed to examine the overshooting hypotheses in the three stages of China’s agricultural sector.

Empirical results indicate that overshooting of prices relative to monetary expansion in China’s agricultural sector is a common phenomenon, but with significant heterogeneity. Firstly, at the stage of agricultural production, the overshooting degree and restoration rate of material price are greater than those of agricultural products price. Secondly, at the processing stage of agricultural products, both the purchase price of agricultural products and industrial producer price have an overshooting effect, but the overshooting effect of the former is more significant than the latter. Thirdly, at the circulation stage of agricultural products, the overshooting coefficient of the wholesale price index of agricultural products is the most significant, while that of the retail and purchase price of agricultural products is not significant.

The paper contributes to proposing a comprehensive framework on testing the overshooting effects for three main stages of agricultural sector in China and empirically investigating the heterogeneity of the overshooting mechanisms in different stages with time series methods.

Financial services industry is increasingly showing interest in automated financial advisors, or robo-advisors, with the aim of democratizing access to financial advice and stimulating investment behavior among populations that were previously less active and less served. However, the extent to which consumers trust this technology influences the adoption of rob-advisors. The resemblance to a human, or anthropomorphism, can provide a sense of social presence and increase trust.

In this paper, we conduct an experiment (N = 223) to test the effect of anthropomorphism (low vs medium vs high) and gender (male vs female) of the robo-advisor on social presence. This perception, in turn, enables consumers to evaluate personality characteristics of the robo-advisor, such as competence, warmth, and persuasiveness, all of which are related to trust in the robo-advisor. We separately conduct an experimental study (N = 206) testing the effect of gender neutrality on consumer responses to robo-advisory anthropomorphism.

Our results show that consumers prefer human-alike robo-advisors over machinelike or humanoid robo-advisors. This preference is only observed for male robo-advisors and is explained by perceived competence and perceived persuasiveness. Furthermore, highlighting gender neutrality undermines the positive effect of robo-advisor anthropomorphism on trust.

We contribute to the body of knowledge on robo-advisor design by showing the effect of robot’s anthropomorphism and gender on consumer perceptions and trust. Consequently, we offer insightful recommendations to promote the adoption of robo-advisory services in the financial sector.

This study aims to examine why tax reforms fail and explores how tax collection can be improved within a developing country context.

Data comprise 28 semi-structured interviews with taxpayers, tax experts and tax authority personnel based in Pakistan. The results are analysed using a combined lens of taxpayer trust and tax agencies’ capabilities.

Tax reforms failed to build taxpayers’ trust and tax agencies’ capabilities. Building trust is challenging and demands extensive ongoing engagement with taxpayers while yielding gradual permanent results. This requires enhancing confidence in government; educating taxpayers; removing complexities; introducing transparency and accountability in tax agencies’ operations and the tax system; promoting procedural and distributive justice; and reversing perceptions of corruption through reconciliation and stakeholder inclusivity. Developing tax agencies’ capabilities requires upgrading outdated technologies, systems and processes; implementing governance and organisational reforms; introducing an oversight board; and recruiting and training skilled professionals.

The findings can assist policymakers and tax collection authorities in understanding why tax reforms fail and identifying potential solutions.

This study contributes to the emerging literature by exploring tax administration failures in developing countries. It contributes to the literature by engaging stakeholders to understand why reforms fail and potential solutions to stimulate tax revenues.

In this study, the authors look at the case of Ferdinand Marcos, President of the Philippines between 1965 and 1986. Documenting the life and career of Marcos on Wikipedia provides an excellent example of the pitfalls confronting those seeking to address disinformation without first reflecting deeply on the reasons why people subscribe to views deemed outlandish by the intellectual or cultural mainstream.

The authors sampled the version of the Marcos article on Wikipedia as it existed after the first edit of each year since its inception (2002). This resulted in 22 texts for analysis. Content and thematic analyses were conducted on these texts as well as on the entire body of talk page comments for the article.

The authors' work suggests that the basic elements of responsible encyclopedic writing have prevailed in the case of Wikipedia's biography of Marcos. However, this is not an unalloyed victory, as issues of polarization remain unaddressed.

Underlying revisionist or distorted claims about Ferdinand Marcos (and other controversial topics) lie very real grievances that give these claims traction for many people. Hence, it is not enough to “just present the facts” to readers. Rather, the authors argue that what is needed is a synthesis of positions that would allow for common ground to be found between them. This could be done in the case of Wikipedia by cultivating editors who are capable and willing to engage with the subject literature in a deeper and richer fashion.

The study examines the instigating factors behind the development of the local content (LC) policy in Ghana and it further investigates the accountability mechanisms that drive the LC policy implementation to promote sustainable development.

The study reports on a series of interviews with key actors using Institutional Theory and the application of Bovens’ (2010) Global Accountability Framework as a lens for discussion and interpretation of results.

The results reveal that two forces instigated LC policy enactment. One is external funding pressure from the Norwegian government and the World Bank. The other is the government’s engagement of Civil Society Organisations and other internal stakeholders to justify its activities and missions to signal adherence to impartiality, neutrality, and, to a lesser extent, solidarity. The analysis also reveals tensions in how accountability legitimacy relates to implementation of the LC policy. The study further discovers that while participation, transparency, monitoring, and evaluation are frequently invoked as de jure institutional legitimacy in oil and gas contracts, actual practices follow normative (de facto) institutionalism rather than what the LC policy law provides.

The interview had a relatively small number of participants, which can be argued to affect the study’s validity. Nevertheless, given the data saturation effect and the breadth of the data obtained from the respondents, this study represents a significant advancement in LC policy enactment knowledge, implementation mechanisms and enforcement in an emerging O&G industry.

The findings of this study suggest that future policy development in emerging economies should involve detailed consultations to increase decision-maker knowledge, process transparency and expectations. This will improve implementation and reduce stakeholder tension, conflict and mistrust.

The findings of this study build on earlier investigations into legitimacy, accountability and impression management in and outside the O&G sector. Also, the findings reveal the legitimising tactics used by O&G actors to promote local content sustainable development targets.

Football exists and evolves in a dynamic ecosystem, displaying a massive and multidimensional influence on most contemporary societies, and football has grown into a significant industry with a plethora of stakeholders. This research is the first to comprehensively identify the key industry stakeholders and their distinct value, from the individual club perspective, and to conceptualise and test their interrelationship toward the development of a corresponding framework of club benefits.

The study applied a multilevel approach to collect and verify qualitative data. It initially developed a preliminary conceptual framework, which was first validated by an expert panel and was subsequently extensively tested in the Cyprus-specific context, which offered fertile ground for such a study. The empirical stage rested on 41 semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with very high-ranking individuals from the top nine football clubs, as well as with key industry stakeholders.

Though the examined industry is partly in line with international norms, it is also highly affected by unique characteristics that alter the various stakeholders' role, producing (even negative) value of varied typologies that is directly linked with the industry's financial, sporting, cultural and social conditions.

The research ultimately presents scholars, practitioners and policymakers with a systemic and comprehensive understanding of the individual club stakeholder value offerings, delivers a tested framework as a tool for social and business management and prescribes future avenues for research, governance and practice.

Extant studies on the subject are either partial or focus on individual stakeholders and evidently lack requisite scientific comprehensiveness. The current research bridges this significant gap in knowledge by exhaustively identifying the key industry stakeholders, explicating their relative social, economic or other value in the individual club perspective and developing a value-based stakeholder framework.

This paper aims to offer insight into how strategies within the accounting profession, which has been becoming more global, might be changed by the recent outbreak of the Second Cold War between the West and the Rest of the World.

We explore the strategies of those who called themselves “Confucian accountants” in China, a country which has recently discouraged its state-owned enterprises from using the services of the Big 4. We do this by employing qualitative research methods, including reflexive photo interviews, in which Big-4 accountants, recognised as the most Westernised accounting actors in China, and Confucian accountants are asked to take and explain photographs representing their professional lives. Bourdieu’s notions of “economy of practices” and “vision-of-division strategy” are drawn upon to understand who the Confucian accountants are and what they do strategically in their pursuit of a higher revenue stream and improved social standing in the Chinese social space.

The homegrown Confucian accountants share cultural-cognitive characteristics with neighbouring social actors, such as their clients and government officials, who have been inculcated with Confucianism and the state’s cultural confidence policy in pursuit of a “socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics”. Those accountants try to enhance their social standing and revenue stream by strategically demonstrating their difference from Big-4 accountants. For this purpose, they wear Confucian clothes, have Confucian props in their office, employ Confucian phrases in their everyday conversations, use Confucian business cards and construct and maintain guanxi with government officials and clients.

This paper is the first attempt to explore Confucian accountants’ strategies for increasing their revenue and social standing at the start of the Second Cold War.

This paper aims to explain the implications of the impending establishment of national blockchain infrastructure by governments around the world, and how these structures can be integrated with existing legislation and assist in the prevention of financial crime.

The methodology used is a literature review and analysis of progress being made to establish national blockchain infrastructure. It provides a discussion of the connection between blockchain and financial crime, and how this infrastructure will interact with existing regulatory frameworks, and particularly, financial crime legislation.

This paper documents financial crime risks posed by digital currencies and smart contracts and the role that national blockchain infrastructure can potentially play in mitigating these risks. It highlights the need for governments to devote resources to developing this infrastructure and associated regulatory frameworks.

There are few, if any, academic papers in the financial crime, or wider literature, that have examined the potential for national blockchain infrastructures prevent financial crime, including the implications for existing regulation in the field.

The 170-year-old Master in Business Administration (MBA) program is becoming obsolete and inefficient to address today's real-world problems, and is facing mounting criticism from business scholars, management deans, and academic scholars alike. Reviewing major criticisms, this chapter suggests a new design for the MBA program that will not only address the criticisms but also accept a paradigm shift that will spearhead it in coming decades. The redesigned MBA “structure” proposes a four-semester full-time program, during which each semester delves into deeper marketplace problems of increasing complexity (i.e., from simple to complex to unstructured to wicked problems) and deals with these problems with new levels of critical thinking skills and ethical reasoning processes tempered by corresponding entrepreneurial knowledge, skills, and values. The “content” of the redesigned program is anchored around five major themes of business learning: namely, intrinsic motivation management, creativity and innovation management, productivity management, revenue management, and eco-sustainability management, each geared to generate professional entrepreneurial knowledge, and skills and values urgently needed today. Numerous beneficial features of this newly redesigned integrated business management program (MBA) are also discussed.