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Municipalities commonly ask the public to give input by answering questions about their preferences. There is some belief that input enhances the public's confidence in government. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether different types of input activities (obtained by phone or online surveys, or via face‐to‐face engagements) differentially impact confidence.

Data were collected over two years from different input activities undertaken to inform a city's budgeting and performance measures' determinations.

Significant amounts of variance in the public's confidence in municipal governments are accounted for by independent predictors such as current satisfaction, perceived trustworthiness, legitimacy, and loyalty to the institution. Compared to online and phone surveys, face‐to‐face input methods seem to have a particularly strong, positive relationship with the public's perceptions of the trustworthiness (e.g. competence, integrity, benevolence) of municipal government officials. Persons who participate in face‐to‐face, online, or phone events differ both in extent of confidence and, to a small extent, in the bases of their confidence.

The study design is correlational rather than experimental and data were not originally gathered to test the identified hypotheses. In addition, it is not prudent to put too much stock in results from only one jurisdiction that relied primarily on convenience samples.

In instances in which enhancing confidence in the institution is a specific objective of public input, this work provides researchers and practitioners with guidance to better anticipate which input technique(s) works best and why.

This chapter weaves the finding from the previous chapters together to explain how perceptions of and responses to a pandemic are not static but change over the course of the pandemic and in between the governance and social welfare structures of the nations they affect. We consider the cross-national differences in outcomes and relate these to a variety of strategies used to curb the pandemic’s spread. We then conduct a series of analyses that examine our underlying arguments using data collected in November 2023, approximately 6 months after the pandemic was declared to be over. We find that compliance with health-protective recommendations is correlated with positive health outcomes. Specifically, we investigate how compliance correlates with the number of times an individual became ill with COVID-19. We then use variables discussed throughout the book to investigate how these factors correlate with complying with protective health measures, including being vaccinated and wearing face coverings during the pandemic. We find that collaborative factors are good predictors of compliance with health-protective recommendations. We then investigate how factors such as planned behavioral changes to mitigate the pandemic’s effect, attitudes toward government spending, media consumption, political party, and exposure to hate materials relate to the compliance factors. Ultimately, we demonstrate how the behavior of elites and the perceptions and attitudes of citizens during the initial stages of the pandemic shaped the pandemic’s long-term consequences. The chapter concludes by summarizing the findings from the previous chapters to set the stage for the concluding chapter.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the limitations of current accounting practices in an inter‐organisational context; introduce contemporary costing approaches used in inter‐organisational costing (IOC) programmes; and identify the inhibitors of successful implementation of IOC programmes.

The paper uses a structured review of empirical and theoretical literature.

Traditional accounting practices do not adequately fulfil their role in the inter‐organisational context. Contemporary accounting practices overcome only some limitations of traditional accounting practices. The paper uncovers part of the complexity surrounding the implementation of IOC programmes and suggests that we are dealing with a broad inter‐disciplinary phenomenon.

Conclusions are drawn on a conceptual level and further empirical investigation is encouraged.

The paper raises the awareness of the complexity surrounding the implementation of IOC programmes. The broad set of inhibiting factors could be effectively used by managers to assess the readiness of organisations involved in implementation of IOC programmes.

This research is the first that systematically addresses the problem of inhibitors in the implementation of IOC programmes. The broad scope of the paper sets the foundations for more focused research into specific inhibiting factors.

The purpose of this paper is to adopt “whole network” perspective and analyzes the governance and control mechanisms in the Universal Postal Union (UPU), one of the oldest and largest inter-governmental networks, through the lens of institutional entrepreneurship theory. The purpose is to introduce a typology of network governance forms to the accounting literature and to analyze the governance and management control mechanisms within the UPU, a “participatory federation” (Provan, 1983) type of network that has managed the challenges of collective collaboration since 1875.

The study benefits from unlimited access to all archival materials of the UPU such as minutes of Congress and committee meetings since 1875 as well as secondary documents and market studies related to the postal sector. The data reported in this study are derived from the archives of the UPU in Berne, Switzerland and interviews conducted with senior officials.

Drawing on the work of Provan (1983) and Provan and Kenis (2008) the authors identify five “ideal type” network governance forms based on such variables as differences in the relative power of network participants and whether these networks have arisen spontaneously or due to external coercion, the authors classify the UPU as a “participatory federation.” Within the theoretical boundaries of this typology the authors identify the multi level governance structures and the use of management control mechanisms by each level of governance. The authors introduce a distinction between the “network constitutional organization” that focusses on the socialization of network members and strategy-level orchestration of the overall network and the “network administrative organization” (NAO) that mobilizes management accounting and control mechanisms to monitor, encourage and facilitate member collaboration. The authors propose that control within a participatory federation is enacted through collective entrepreneurship by governance bodies using management accounting and control mechanisms as institutional carriers.

The paper is focussed on the current state of the UPU’s network structure and processes and did not explore the dynamics around the emergence of the different network governance and control mechanisms. An exploration of the collective construction by network participants of the need for these mechanisms would provide insights into how they emerge and might lead to a better understanding of the role of NAOs in networks.

The paper highlights the challenges faced by collaborative networks and identifies enabling characteristics of a participatory federation’s governance bodies. The empirical observations within the context of the UPU contribute to the theoretical understanding of the desirable characteristics of participatory federations that might be applicable to similar public and private collaborative networks

This study expands the knowledge of management accounting and control systems in networks. It bridges a gap in the accounting literature by adopting a “whole network” perspective and by differentiating types of network governance structures that use management accounting and control systems. This contributes to the understanding of accounting and control across the full range of organizational forms.

The hardware technology for an intelligent machine is available. We see no contraindication to the construction of the software of such a machine. This paper reviews and lists the functional properties of intelligent machines as seen by many authors, and attempts to formulate then in terms of basic computational methods and a program structure. It is suggested that an interchange between brain scientists and artificial intelligence workers could be more fruitful than before. The question of the validity of comparing brains and computers remains unsettled.

This paper aims to examine the remedies currently available in Ireland to resolve boundary disputes to assess the importance of the role played by adverse possession in this context. It also examines the potential impact of certain reforms in this area of law.

The research methodology is primarily doctrinal, although a comparative approach is adopted for the purposes of assessing whether certain lessons can be learned from recent reforms to the English law on adverse possession and the Australian approach to resolving boundary disputes, which relies heavily on mistaken improver and building encroachment legislation.

This paper demonstrates how the current law leaves certain mistaken improvers or encroachers on neighbouring land without a remedy, as they cannot rely on the doctrine of proprietary estoppel or adverse possession. If Ireland decides to replicate the English good faith requirement in relation to adverse possession of boundary land, the remedial vacuum facing these mistaken improvers or encroaching builders will become more pronounced. It is submitted that any such reform should be supplemented by the introduction of legislation akin to that operating in Australia which would facilitate the consideration of a broad range of factors and provide for flexible remedies to resolve such difficulties. It is also submitted that the legislation imposing such a good faith requirement should be carefully drafted to avoid the potential interpretative difficulties associated with the English reforms.

Boundary disputes are an unfortunate fact of life. The prevalence of boundary disputes and high costs associated with boundary litigation makes this review and critique of the current law and potential reforms highly relevant.

Stanford contributed significantly to the organizational culture movement that occurred in organization studies from 1970–2000. This chapter traces developments at Stanford and puts the contributions of its researchers and scholars in the context of the many influences that shaped the study of organizational culture during this period. In addition to the historical account, there is speculation about why the culture movement at Stanford more or less ended but might yet be revived, either by those studying institutionalization processes or by those who resist them.

This paper illustrates a story of “rise and fall” of a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) project in a Sri Lankan firm. The “rise” was due to a series of attempts made by CIMA (SL) for popularising BSC practice among business leaders and local consultants, and the “fall” was due to professional rivalry between engineering managers and accounting personnel and the decline of interest on the part of the owner-manager. In relation to these two opposing phenomena, the paper shows how and why the firm first receives the BSC project as a useful management system device, and later, how and why the management tends to undermine the use of BSC. The argument advanced is that the popularisation of BSC is part of a project of accounting knowledge diffusion which comes through the broader globalisation process, but the failure in sustaining BSC is due to the upsurge of professional rivalry and the rise of alternative management fads and the owner-manager's inclination to look at financial matters, rather than a BSC, as a basis for the appropriation of surplus. The underlying public interest implication is that even though globalisation project seems to be functional and positive, it provokes contradictions and resistance when new accounting knowledge is diffused from the centre to the periphery.

National Library Week was first launched in America in the spring of 1958 with the slogan “Wake Up and Read”. It is now an established, continuing, year‐round programme to help build a reading nation and to spur the use and improvement of libraries of all kinds. The sponsors seek the achievement of these objectives because they are the means of serving social and individual purposes that are immeasurably larger.