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Costs associated with workplace injuries and illnesses continue to be a major concern for apparel manufacturers. A major cost is that of workers' compensation insurance, the social insurance programme that provides a means of paying for costs associated with work‐related injuries and illnesses. The purpose of this study was to examine the practice by US apparel companies of involving employees on safety teams or committees as a strategy for reducing workers' compensation costs. Data were generated from responses to a mailed questionnaire by 134 upper level managers in apparel companies located throughout the USA. Results indicated that 60 per cent of the respondents involved employees on a safety team or committee. Chi‐square analysis showed a significant difference in observed frequencies and expected frequencies for change in workers' compensation costs when employees were involved in safety teams or committees. Employee involvement was reported as a component of ergonomics and safety programmes by over two‐thirds of the companies that were developing and implementing such programmes. The findings from this study provide support for involving employees on safety teams or committees as a cost reduction strategy.

Many manufacturers have implemented a participative, team‐based approach to remain competitive in this global arena. Numerous studies have extolled the competitive advantages of implementing this approach. Few studies, however, have examined employees’ perceptions of participative management. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine issues of culture change from the employees’ point of view by investigating the transition from piece rate to team‐based production in a sewn‐products plant. Using the case study approach, 16 in‐depth interviews were conducted, observations were made, and written documents were analyzed. Employees’ perceptions of their work environment prior to the transition, the transition itself, and the resulting new corporate culture are discussed. The new corporate culture is described as an open, participative environment built on trust where employees feel empowered to make decisions for the betterment of their team and the plant as a whole. Negative outcomes of the participative approach are also addressed.

Reports on a study for which data were generated from responses to a survey by 132 US apparel manufacturers in 1993. States that the purpose of the study was to determine the extent to which companies were investing in ergonomic equipment as a prevention strategy, and whether there was a relationship between such investments and positive results in four areas: increased productivity, increased quality, decreased workers’ compensation costs and improved employee morale. Using chi‐square analysis, a significant difference was found for those who invested in automatic sewing equipment in both increased productivity and increased quality. Provides justification for companies to invest in ergonomic equipment because of additional benefits.

Examines a team system using a case study approach in a sewn products plant that transitioned to the team system almost ten years ago. The theoretical framework utilized in the analysis of data was participative management, wherein it has been found that there is a relationship between employee knowledge and performance. Specific themes that arose were successes in the transition to the new team system, including benefits to the plant, and ongoing challenges of the new team system. Data were based on 16 in‐depth personal interviews, observations, written documents, and informal conversations with plant employees. The key elements of success in the transition were commitment by upper level managers, education for all employees, and the establishment of open communication among employees and with management. The team system resulted in a number of benefits and challenges to the plant as a whole.

Examine the effectiveness of online tutoring software to ameliorate poor performance in intermediate financial accounting.

Probit regression analysis comparing users versus nonusers of online accounting tutoring software, as well as analysis of student achievement pre and post-technology adoption over a 10-year period.

We confirm prior research findings that the number of terms that have transpired since a student took introductory financial accounting, whether they took the course at a two-year college, or if they needed to repeat the introductory course, are all negatively associated with performance in intermediate accounting. We find evidence that an online tutoring system, ALEKS®, helps moderate these negative correlations. Results suggest that in upper division courses where student knowledge of underlying basic material is uneven, online tutors are an effective tool in bringing students up to an equal level of competence without sacrificing class time.

Provides empirical evidence on the usefulness of online accounting software as a review tool in intermediate accounting.

Disadvantages experienced by accounting students due to when, where, and how they learned introductory accounting can be overcome quickly.

Although vendors of intelligent online tutoring software market their product as a useful review tool for intermediate accounting, academic research has not examined the effectiveness of these products.

Although accounting professors around the globe have addressed various social aspects of accounting, very rarely does that research address the concerns of students. This is despite the fact that students are the focus of the educational mission of most universities. In an effort to address this gap, this chapter extends the field of social accounting to an issue critical to students: the cost of accounting textbooks in the United States. Textbook cost is drawing increasing attention from public interest groups and government regulators as costs are growing at a more rapid rate than many other costs, and constitute a significant portion of the total cost of obtaining a higher education degree. For accounting students, these costs are exacerbated by the fact that accounting textbooks are among the most expensive of any major, and they are being revised with increasing frequency – which eliminates students’ ability to buy less expensive used books – often with little or no discernible benefit to students. We argue that in some subfields of accounting – especially managerial/cost and introductory courses – topics are relatively stable, and that frequent textbook revisions are unnecessarily costly for our students, many of whom, along with their families, are making significant financial sacrifices to earn their degrees. In this study, we provide background on the textbook pricing issue, include data from a survey of accounting faculty demonstrating that they consider the revisions too frequent, document the increasing frequency of accounting textbook revisions over recent decades, analyze content in a leading accounting textbook, and discuss options for reducing the cost of accounting textbooks, including following student activists’ lead in advocating for open-source, free textbooks.

Transforming gender research in accounting is possible, desirable, and promising: the past few decades have included prescient work and expansive theories. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the legacy of the 1992 special issue “Fe[men]ists' account” and urge new linkages and contexts for a continuation of visionary inquiries.

By reviewing pioneering feminist research in various disciplines, the author opens the margins and boundaries of gender‐in‐accounting research. Innovative multidisciplinary works from different regions of the globe reveal methods for challenging entrenched premises and recasting new meanings.

Reflecting on our embedded ideas, expanding boundaries, and imagining new areas of inquiry are not only plausible, they are essential, for contesting repression and discrimination and advancing social justice.

Tying the current rhetoric of global neo‐liberalism to contemporary feminist struggles, the paper illustrates the significant consequences of economic globalization on women, and accounting's connection. As there is no single story regarding gender, research exploring the unexplored has precedent in accounting literature, providing a foundation for new insights and enhanced possibilities for advancing and transforming the field.

The paper re‐imagines the accounting‐gender dilemma, offering practical yet expansive research concepts regarding values, class, the construction of gender, and the impositions of economic structures.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the utilization of the social network, Facebook, as an instrument of stakeholder engagement and dialogic accounting in American charitable foundations, specifically non-profit organizations that are dedicated to philanthropy.

The research motivation involves whether online interaction through Facebook could represent a channel of dialogic accounting that engages organizational stakeholders. This paper aims to understand if this dialogue is geared to generate a consensus necessary to deliberate over decisions that are shared between all stakeholders, or if a divergent and agonistic perspective, which highlights struggles and differences between actors, prevails. The present study employs a form of content analysis that takes into account the Facebook pages of the 100 largest American philanthropic foundations.

The primary goal of the analysis is to examine the discrepancies in terms of how (and how much) large organizations are using Facebook. The study wants to provide more details on which kind of information large organizations are willing to disclose and collect on Facebook, and to evaluate the level and type of interaction between foundations and users.

Further research could build on the present study by providing in-depth case studies and extending the analysis to other social media and other types of organizations.

Social media represent a powerful mechanism to engage stakeholders in a polylogic conversation. However, the scholarly literature confirms that further studies are necessary to understand how companies and organization can exploit this potential.

The issue of accounting change, why and how accounting evolves through time and within specific organisational settings, has been addressed by an important body of literature. This paper aims to explain why, in processes of accounting change, organisations confronting similar environmental pressures show different outcomes of change.

Drawing on archetype theory, the paper analyses the case of two Italian local governments. Comparative case studies were carried out, reconstructing a period of 15 years.

Although confronted with similar environmental pressures, the two cases show two different patterns of accounting change, where only one case is able to finally reach radical change. Accounting change can be prompted by external stimuli, but, once the change is prompted, the outcomes of the change are explained by the dynamics of intra‐organisational conditions.

The study contributes to accounting change literature by adopting an approach (i.e. archetype theory) that overcomes some of the limitations of previous studies in explaining variations in organisational change. Through this, the authors are able to explain different outcomes and paces of accounting change and point out the intra‐organisational factors also affecting them in the presence of similar environmental pressures. A specification of the theoretical framework in a particular setting is also provided.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how small firms in the tattooing industry actively shape institutional expectations of value for consumers in a changing industry.

The paper draws upon interviews with key actors in the firms under study to explore their experiences with consumers and other constituents in determining how competitive advantage is constructed in this environment. These data are complemented data with interviews with governmental representatives and material from secondary sources.

The results reveal efforts of firms to construct and increase organizational legitimacy through the prominence of discourses of professionalism based on artistry and medicine/public health. These bases of competitive differentiation are not the clear result of exogenous pressure, rather they arise through the active efforts of the firm to construct value guidelines for consumers and other constituents.

Strategic management in small firms is a complex and dynamic process that does not necessarily mirror that of large organizations. Constructing competitive advantage is an interacting process between key actors of small firms and various constituents.

The paper extends the application of institutional theory in strategic management by illuminating the active role that firms play in creating industry norms, especially in industries where norms are not well established or no longer entrenched. Moreover, exploring an alternative site of study offers a means through which to see well‐studied issues in new ways.