Search results

The purpose of this article is to investigate the effectiveness of an International Federation of Accountants (IFAC)-aligned business ethics course in relation to its ability to positively influence the ethical sensitivity of accounting students.

Using a quantitative, quasi-experimental design, senior accounting students were subjected to a pre- and post-test, measuring ethical sensitivity, with an IFAC-aligned business ethics course as the intervention. Multivariate analysis also focused on the interrelation of demographic characteristics with ethical sensitivity.

The results indicate that the business ethics course was indeed effective in increasing the ethical sensitivity of accounting students. Students' demographic characteristics, in terms of accounting specialisation area and years of work experience, did play a role in the extent of their changes in ethical sensitivity. However, gender and previous ethics education as influencing factor in ethical sensitivity was negated.

The study focused on the first component (ethical sensitivity) of Rest's four-component model that predicts ethical behaviour. Additional research is therefore needed into the other components in Rest's model and their respective interrelations. The current study also used a small convenience sample rather than one that was randomly selected. The findings in this study do, however, add to the limited body of evidence on ethical sensitivity in accounting education world-wide.

The results can assist accounting professional bodies, associated higher education institutions and accounting firms in implementing specific educational interventions to develop greater ethical sensitivity in prospective and current accountants.

The audit failures at the start of this century placed a renewed focus on the ethical behaviour of accountants. Consequently, ethics training was included in the curriculum of aspiring accountants. The research that informed this article attempted to gauge the effectiveness of this response, given the current knowledge gap, specifically in the South African context. Professional accounting bodies, associated higher education institutions and accounting firms could use the curriculum design presented in this study to implement a similar intervention. Such interventions could enhance the ethical behaviour of both prospective and current accountants, and this, in turn, should aid in lessening ethical crises, thus protecting the social stature of the accounting profession.

This chapter explores the implications of patrimonial politics in the Dutch East India Company empire in the context of establishing a settlement at the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa in the mid-seventeenth century. The Cape extended the reach of Company patrimonial networks with elite Company officials circulating throughout the Indian Ocean empire and consolidating their familial ties through marriage both within the colonies and in the United Provinces. These patrimonial networks extended to the Cape as elite Company officials created families locally or married Cape-born women. As the colony grew, the Company created a class of free-burghers some the wealthiest of whom were tied directly into elite Company patrimonial networks. But from the early eighteenth century onwards these elite Company networks came into conflict with the evolving free-burgher patrimonial networks with which they were in direct competition. This paper argues that local patrimonial networks can evolve in a settler colony that challenge the elite patrimonial networks of the imperial elite.

Fokker–Planck equation appears in various areas in natural science, it is used to describe solute transport and Brownian motion of particles. This paper aims to present an efficient and convenient numerical algorithm for space-time fractional differential equations of the Fokker–Planck type.

The main idea of the presented algorithm is to combine polynomials function approximation and fractional differential operator matrices to reduce the studied complex equations to easily solved algebraic equations.

Based on Taylor basis, simple and useful fractional differential operator matrices of alternative Legendre polynomials can be quickly obtained, by which the studied space-time fractional partial differential equations can be transformed into easily solved algebraic equations. Numerical examples and error date are presented to illustrate the accuracy and efficiency of this technique.

Various numerical methods are proposed in complex steps and are computationally expensive. However, the advantage of this paper is its convenient technique, i.e. using the simple fractional differential operator matrices of polynomials, numerical solutions can be quickly obtained in high precision. Presented numerical examples can also indicate that the technique is feasible for this kind of fractional partial differential equations.

The overall goal of science is to build a valid and reliable body of knowledge about the functioning of the world and how applying that knowledge can change it. As personnel and human resources management researchers, we aim to contribute to the respective bodies of knowledge to provide both employers and employees with a workable foundation to help with those problems they are confronted with. However, what research on research has consistently demonstrated is that the scientific endeavor possesses existential issues including a substantial lack of (a) solid theory, (b) replicability, (c) reproducibility, (d) proper and generalizable samples, (e) sufficient quality control (i.e., peer review), (f) robust and trustworthy statistical results, (g) availability of research, and (h) sufficient practical implications. In this chapter, we first sing a song of sorrow regarding the current state of the social sciences in general and personnel and human resources management specifically. Then, we investigate potential grievances that might have led to it (i.e., questionable research practices, misplaced incentives), only to end with a verse of hope by outlining an avenue for betterment (i.e., open science and policy changes at multiple levels).

Chronic driver turnover can adversely influence a trucking firm's competitiveness through disrupted delivery services, equipment down time and excessive recruiting expenses. Thus, a key to the survival of the trucking firm rests with its ability to recruit and retain qualified drivers who are less likely to cause turnover. In an effort to develop the ways to recruit and retain those drivers, we propose data mining techniques. Based on an empirical study of trucking firms in the USA, this paper not only develops a viable driver recruitment and retention strategy, but it also demonstrates the usefulness of the proposed data mining techniques.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an appropriate symbolic representation, as well as its metaphorical interpretation, to illustrate the special role of information in the knowledge acquisition process.

Besides the literature review, this is a speculative study based on a symbolic and metaphorical point of view.

The proposed symbolic representation was derived from the conceptual designation of information “as a flow” and, accordingly, by the corresponding redrawing of the data-information-knowledge-wisdom (DIKW) pyramid. The knowledge acquisition process is symbolically represented by the growth of a “tree of knowledge” which is planted on a “data earth,” filled with “information sap” and lit by the rays of the “sun of the mind,” a new symbol of the concept of wisdom in the DIKW model. As indicated, a key concept of this metaphorical interpretation is the role of “information sap” which rises from the roots of the “tree of knowledge” to the top of the tree and it is recognized as an invisible link between “world of data” and “world of knowledge.” This concept is also proposed as a new symbolic representation of the DIKW model.

On the basis of specific symbolic-metaphorical representation, this paper provides a relatively new concept of information which may help bridge observed gaps in the understanding of information in various scientific fields, as well as in its understanding as an objective or subjective phenomenon.

This paper seeks to broaden the agenda for environmental and ecological accounting research across several dimensions, extending the form of accounting in this field by encouraging research into its historical roots and developing a definition of accounting that can address the severe environmental and ecological challenges of the 21st century.

The authors explored environmental and ecological accounts from the dawn of human consciousness across a wide variety of media and in a broad range of forms. This theoretical approach reacts to the cold capitalist commodification of nature inherent in much environmental accounting practice, which documents, values and records usage of natural capital with little attempt to address depletion and loss.

By analysing the earliest ecological and environmental “accounts” recorded by humans at the dawn of human consciousness, and considering a wide array of subsequent accounts, the authors demonstrate that rather than being a secondary, relatively recent development emerging from financial accounting and reporting, environmental and ecological accounting predated financial accounting by tens of thousands of years. This research also provides a wealth of perspectives on diversity, not only in forms of account but also in the diversity of accountants, as well as the broadness of the stakeholders to whom and to which the accounts are rendered.

The paper can be placed at the intersection of accounting history, the alternative, interdisciplinary and critical accounts literature, and environmental and ecological accounting research.

Practically, the authors can draw ideas and inspiration from the historical forms and content of ecological and environmental account that can inform new forms of and approaches to accounting.

There are social implications including the diversity of accounts and accountants derived from studying historical ecological and environmental accounts from the dawn of human consciousness especially in the broadening out of the authors' understanding of the origins and cultural roots of accounting.

This study concludes with a new definition of accounting, fit for purpose in the 21st century, that integrates ecological, environmental concerns and is emancipatory, aiming to restore nature, revive biodiversity, conserve species and enhance ecosystems.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on challenges faced by longitudinal quantitative analyses of school improvement processes and offers a systematic literature review of current papers that use longitudinal analyses. In this context, the authors assessed designs and methods that are used to analyze the relation between school improvement processes and student outcomes. Based on this the authors point out to what extent the papers consider different aspects of the complex nature of school improvement (e.g. multilevel structure, indirect and nonlinear effects, reciprocity). The choice of study designs and methods of analysis substantially determines which aspects of this complexity are taken into account.

The authors searched in four international high-impact journals and in ERIC for articles reporting longitudinal school improvement studies. The database of the review consisted of a total of 428 journal articles. In total, 13 of the 428 papers met the selection criteria and were analyzed in detail.

The analyzed papers use a wide range of designs and methodological approaches. They support the assumption that sophisticated quantitative longitudinal designs and methods can be applied effectively in school improvement research. However, considering the complexity of school improvement is accompanied by high demands on designs and methods. Due to this none of the papers met the standards applied in this review completely.

In particular, further research is needed to consider a long period of observation, reciprocal indirect and nonlinear processes in a multilevel structure. Moreover, research is required for a better and unambiguous theoretical foundation and empirical validation of the number of and intervals between measurement points.

If more consideration is given to the complex nature of school improvement in future studies, the broader knowledge base will allow a better understanding of the dynamic relation of school improvement and student learning. It would thus be possible to make more appropriate recommendations for the support of school improvement practice.

The original contribution of the paper is to show which aspects of the complexity of school improvement processes – and to what extent – are currently addressed in designs and methods of analysis applied in quantitative longitudinal studies that investigate the relation between schools’ capacity to managing change and student outcomes. Additionally the authors aim at deriving need for further research and giving guidelines how designs and methods in further studies can reflect the complexity appropriately. It is highly important to consider all aspects of this complexity to describe and understand the dynamic relation of school improvement processes and student outcomes.