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Despite the literature highlighting the relevance of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) as strategic options for organizations’ evolution, such events maintain a high failure rate. All stages of M&As generate considerable stress on management accounting systems (MASs) and related actors. This study aims to investigate management accounting change (MAC) throughout M&As to expand knowledge on the technical side of these changes. A deeper understanding of these changes and their relationship to the implementing agents could illuminate the causes of M&A success and failure.

The study uses an in-depth, qualitative case study analysis of two companies that completed an M&A. The MAC process was investigated based on Sulaiman and Mitchell’s (2005) typology. The authors collected information from internal documents, interviews, external reports and public information.

The findings indicate that MAC in M&As represents a comprehensive change that goes beyond the modifications outlined in Sulaiman and Mitchell’s (2005) original framework; the post-deal integration period can be broken down into early and full sub-phases; and the success of the MAC process rests on the different roles played by various change agents.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to apply and deepen a MAC framework focused on technical changes to MASs in the context of M&As. To date, the literature on M&A has mainly focused on behavioral or organizational changes while neglecting the technical dimension. In addition, by considering all the stakeholders of MASs, this study’s analyses expose the role of change agents who are not generally considered in the accounting literature.

The study aims to explore the role of non-mainstream financial schemes in supporting innovation within SMEs in developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. It investigates how informal credit, business group affiliation and foreign and state ownership arrangements influence SMEs’ innovative activities in environments with limited access to formal financial resources.

The research utilizes data from the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys, focusing on 8,466 firms across 11 sub-Saharan African countries from 2011 to 2020. A logistic regression analysis was conducted to assess the impact of various financial sources on SMEs’ innovation outputs, particularly incremental innovations, due to data constraints on radical innovations.

The findings reveal that informal credit significantly supports SME innovation, while business group resources can hinder innovative activities by restricting firms to routine tasks. State ownership positively influences innovation, whereas the impact of foreign ownership is inconclusive. These results highlight the critical role of alternative financial mechanisms in the innovation activities of SMEs in resource-limited settings.

This study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence on the effects of non-mainstream financial schemes on SME innovation in developing countries. It offers new theoretical insights into how SMEs navigate financial constraints to foster innovation and suggests policy implications for improving financial support systems for SMEs in such contexts. The research underscores the importance of contextualizing entrepreneurship studies to better understand the unique challenges and opportunities faced by SMEs in developing regions.

Applying critical analysis as the methodological framework for assessing the literature, the review seeks to present a summary and evaluation of the existing body of knowledge. This approach helps to establish the basis for developing forthcoming recommendations.

The articles were selected through a Systematic Literature Review following the PRISMA guidelines, and utilising Scopus, Web of Science, Science Direct, and the Education Resources Information Center database. Field taxonomy is presented based on the outcomes.

Through a critical review, we offer narrative arguments that document the shortcomings in the existing literature by scrutinising study designs and highlighting suboptimal approaches. Finally, we issue a call to action for future research, envisioning its potential to reorient and reconstruct the field while enhancing the quality of future studies. This proactive stance aims to foster the development of more competent and insightful perspectives, theories, and policy recommendations within design thinking in management education and training.

The research in this field holds significant potential for providing valuable practical and policy insights, contingent upon the rigorous and thorough execution of studies.

This article presents a robust critical review of 57 state-of-the-art articles investigating design thinking in the context of management education and training.

Prior research has emphasised the importance of the early phases of construction projects, as well as the difficulties of procuring engineering services – especially due to the uncertainties. Despite that, studies on the public procurement of engineering services are scarce. Although scholars have shown that uncertainty may affect the choice of control modes, the level of uncertainty that characterises services is not addressed by the two task characteristics: knowledge of the transformation process and output measurability. The purpose is to investigate organisational control in public procurement of engineering services.

The existing control model was adjusted in this study by conceptually adding uncertainty as a third aspect to the two task characteristics. A single case study of the Swedish Transport Administration was used. The empirical data, comprising 14 interviews with managers from the client and engineering consulting companies, were analysed using flexible pattern matching and visual mapping approaches and then illustrated using the model.

The public client did not base its choice of control modes on uncertainty, but rather on the other two task characteristics. Consequently, the service providers argued that the chosen control modes reduced their creativity, increased their financial risks and caused unclear responsibilities. This study therefore shows that uncertainty is an important factor to consider in the choice of control modes, both from a theoretical perspective and from the service providers' point of view. The developed model may therefore be useful for researchers as well as practitioners.

This study is the first attempt to add uncertainty as a task characteristic when choosing control modes. The results contribute to the scarce control literature regarding the procurement of engineering services for construction projects and the procurement of other services with high uncertainty.

Millions of children participate in community sports clubs and leagues each weekend across the UK, and other countries. The rates of participation and the cultural significance of these sports in different countries are not always matched by recognition or support from governments. Policy interest in sport in the UK has, in recent years at least, tended to focus on elite performance and the hosting of events such as the Olympics and the UEFA European Championships. Commitment to grassroots and community sports has waned, or been limited to how sport and/or physical activity can help to deliver other policy goals. The lack of funding provided to community sports clubs can lead to young people with limited resources being excluded from clubs. Inequalities in participation in sport and physical activity were exacerbated during lockdowns and restrictions imposed during the coronavirus pandemic. This chapter explores some of the contemporary challenges facing grassroots youth sports clubs and highlights the possible advantages of adopting a different approach to them, including consideration of the informal care provided by sports clubs and the role that they can play during critical moments in children and families' everyday lives.

The aim of this paper is to find out why women artisans in Peru avoid the sole ownership of their enterprises while preferring to work in associations.

The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 28 women artisans in Peru during their participation in a fair organized by the Peruvian Ministry of Culture in Lima (Peru). Thematic analysis was subsequently used to develop the main themes and sub-themes of the study.

The authors of the present study have found that women artisans in Peru choose to work in associations instead of via the sole ownership of their enterprises because of the following three categories of motives: contextual (low operational cost of family-owned associations, more compliance with the surrounding institutional context), cultural (commitment to parenting, experiencing less marginalization, zero responsibility, and greater work flexibility) and marketing-related motives (eliciting more social support, guaranteeing more invitations to participate in artisanal fairs).

This paper contributes by filling a gap in the literature on artisan entrepreneurship in which studies on women artisans in Latin American contexts and why they choose to work in associations have been limited so far.

Through focusing on the Peruvian context, this paper aims to identify the main determinants of the continuity of entrepreneurial activity among women artisans.

The empirical sample comprises semi-structured interviews with 28 women artisans in Peru during their participation in a fair organized by the Peruvian Ministry of Culture in Lima (Peru). Thematic analysis was subsequently used to determine the main ideas in the transcripts from the interviews conducted.

The findings empirically identified the following job-related (number of work hours, perceived income, future of artisanal jobs), functional (availability and relevance of workstations, the necessity to travel) and socio-cultural determinants (government support, perceived recognition, level of affiliation with Peruvian traditions) as the main drivers of the continuity of entrepreneurial activities among women artisans.

This paper contributes by filling a gap in the literature on women entrepreneurship and artisan entrepreneurship in which empirical studies of Latin American women artisans continuing with their entrepreneurial activities have been limited so far.

This paper aims to present insights on the governance of sustainability transitions in higher education in Africa. The authors interrogate the research literatures on the governance of socio-technical transitions in water, electricity, transport and waste management, and identify barriers and enabling factors that enhance transformative practices in universities.

The analytical framework proposed in this paper combines the elements of governance network theory (GNT) and transition topology. The framework of this study is grounded in an actor-centric approach using GNT to understand networks conducive to sustainability transitions. Events and governance networks were mapped on a transition topology to visualise organisational and institutional changes over time. The study engaged students, management, academic and administrative staff in building a community of practice towards sustainability. This research is based on qualitative content analysis grounded in interview data, focus group discussions, workshops, webinars and secondary data analysis.

The findings show that the university has consolidated a sustainability vision and targets, but several factors prevent the community from achieving these targets, including hierarchical decision-making processes, a multitude of disjointed committees and fragmentation in the campus community.

This research adds to an emerging body of literature in the field of sustainability in higher education with two contributions. Firstly, the study presents a novel perspective(s) on the governance of sustainability transitions by combining the literatures on governance and sustainability transitions using a new methodological approach of transition topology to show organisational and institutional changes. Secondly, the study presents new empirical evidence for improving the governance of sustainability transitions in a diverse and highly unequal African university community in the process of (de)colonisation of knowledge and governance.

While much attention has been given to work-related factors influencing turnover intention through affective commitment, little focus has been directed to non-work factors affecting the service industry. Hence, this study aims to investigate the impact of links, fit and sacrifice, representing off-the-job embeddedness in the community, on turnover intention in the hospitality industry of Ghana: Sub-Sahara Africa using the theory of conservation of resources (COR) and social exchange. The model has been extended to include affective commitment as the mediating mechanism.

A multi-wave technique was used to collect data through a questionnaire from 341 full-time frontline hospitality employees in Ghana. The responses were analysed using AMOS software structural equation modelling.

The findings show that links, fit and sacrifice significantly influence employees’ turnover intentions. Moreover, it has been observed that affective commitment decreased the negative relationship and partly mediated the main relationship between the dimensions of off-the-job embeddedness and turnover intention.

The study’s results and academic, practical implications and limitations are discussed for future research.

This study emphasises the theory of COR to demystify community factors employees deem as valued resources, which lighten up their commitment to their organisation and decrease their intent to leave.