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Comparative analyses in education science have traditionally focused on the category of geographic location as the comparative unit. However, comparison may involve many other units of analysis, such as culture, politics, curricula, education systems, social phenomena, and other categories of the lives of societies. Still, categories are inseparably linked to one or several geographic locations. Comparative approaches are often also dictated by the availability heuristic. Studying geographic units as the foci of comparative research is a necessary step for comparative presentation of the topic. According to Bray and Thomas, a researcher must always seek preliminary insight in the geographic unit to be analyzed before making the comparison. In social science research, a unit of analysis relates to the main object of the research, as it answers the question of “who” or “what” is going to be analyzed. The most common units of analysis are people, groups, organizations, artifacts or phenomena, and social interactions. Ragin and Amoroso have noted that comparative methods can be used to explain the commonness or diversity of results. This paper shows how comparative research can be approached in ways that have not been discussed, grounded in the historically variable understanding of the very term “comparison.” They are, for example, The Ogden-Richards triangle, The Porphyrian Tree, Classification strategies – Mill’s Canons, The chaos of the world – the order of science, Weber’s ideal types, Raymond Boudon’s formula, and the Möbius strip in comparativism.

This study aims to explore an emerging collection of smart building technologies, known as smart workplace solutions (SWS), in the context of facilities management (FM).

This study is based on semi-structured interviews with facility managers in Finland, Norway and Sweden who have deployed SWSs in their organizations. SWS features, based on empirical data from a previous study, were also used to further analyse the interviews.

It analyses the benefits that SWSs bring from the facility management point of view. It is clear that the impetus for change and for deploying SWS in the context of FM is primarily driven by cost savings related to reductions in office space.

This research has been conducted with a focus on office buildings only. However, other building types can learn from the benefits that facility managers receive in the area of user-centred smart buildings.

SWSs are often seen as employee experience solutions that are only related to “soft” elements such as collaboration, innovation and learning. Understanding the FM business case can help make a more practical case for their deployment.

SWSs are an emerging area, and this study has collected data from facility managers who use them daily.

This study aims to examine whether information asymmetry (IA) mediates the relationship between women directors and the cost of equity (COE). Specifically, this study posits that women directors tend to lower the COE through the channel of IA.

This study uses the US-listed firms’ data from 2002 to 2014, comprising 11,189 firm-year observations. This study measures the COE by aggregating the four unique market-based COE models and apply pooled ordinary least square to estimate our results.

This study documents that women directors are linked to IA, and that IA is linked to the COE. Furthermore, in the mediation test, IA fully mediates the relationship between women directors and the COE. This study's results also validate the critical mass hypothesis, as the IA shows full mediation between the critical mass of women directors and COE. This study also discusses the limitations and major implications of the results along with possible future directions.

This study also supports the positive role of females in improvising the economic performance of the firms and supporting the sustainable development goals-5 (gender equality).

The originality of this study lies in its theoretical as well as empirical contributions. First, this study follows the line of inquiry of the mediation analysis, thereby contributing by examining whether the relationship between women directors and financial value, i.e. COE, is indirect. Second, in addition to ex post measures of the COE, this study used four ex ante unique market-based models to measure the COE. Most of the prior studies just rely on book-based measures or use a single market-based mode. Third, the findings contribute insights into how women directors add value and benefits firms.

Merchant and Van der Stede (2006) produced a comprehensive analysis of 24 years (1981–2004) of field-based accounting research. This study aims to analyse how the publication of field research in accounting has changed since 2005. In addition, it aims to analyse contributions from specific individuals, institutions and countries, and whether the field studies have contributed to accounting research and textbooks.

The authors identified and classified 1,115 field-based accounting articles published in 14 accounting journals from 2005 to 2022 to uncover any changes. Thereafter, bibliometric analysis was conducted using data from SciVal.

The results show several significant changes. Firstly, the growth of field studies has more than trebled as nearly all journals published at least some field studies. Secondly, field research is no longer as confined to management accounting as before. It is gaining increasing traction in auditing, financial accounting and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Thirdly, while interview-based accounting research was clearly the most popular, the fastest growth was seen in mixed-methods non-management accounting research. While public sector management control case studies and content analysis of CSR were the most popular topics of interview-based studies, audits were the most popular topic in mixed-methods research. Authors based in large universities in large English-speaking countries have been most productive, followed by authors based in Europe and Asia. Based on citation analysis, the field studies have contributed to academic research substantially more than to textbooks.

An analysis of changes and trends improves the understanding of what has happened in accounting research and the development over time.