Lee D. Parker and Lai Hong Chung
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the construction of social and environmental strategies and the related implementation of management control by a key organisation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the construction of social and environmental strategies and the related implementation of management control by a key organisation located in a pivotal Asian location in the global hospitality industry. In doing so, it sets out to elucidate the forms and processes of strategic social and environmental control as well their relationship to the traditional financial control system.
Design/methodology/approach
The study employs field-based case study of a single case operating in both regional and global context. Drawing upon documentary, survey and interview sources, the study employs structuration theory to inform its design and analysis.
Findings
The findings reveal the interaction of top-down global corporate framing and bottom-up local-level staff initiatives that combine to develop a locally focussed and differentiated social and environmental programme and expedite an associated management control and accountability system. The study also reveals the dominance of the traditional financial control system over the social and environmental management control system and the simultaneously enabling and constraining nature of that relationship.
Practical implications
Signification and legitimation structures can be employed in building social and environmental values and programmes which then lay the foundations for related discourse and action at multiple levels of the organisation. This also has the potential to facilitate modes of staff commitment expressed through bottom-up initiatives and control, subject to but also facilitated by the dominating influence of the organisation’s financial control system.
Social implications
This study reveals the importance of national and regional governmental, cultural and social context as both potential enablers and beneficiaries of organisational, social and environmental strategy and control innovation and implementation.
Originality/value
The paper offers an intra-organisational perspective on social and environmental strategising and control processes and motivations that elucidates forms of action, control and accountability and the relationship between social/environmental control and financial control agendas. It further reveals the interaction between globally developed strategic and control frameworks and locally initiated bottom-up strategic initiatives and control.
Details
Keywords
J. Barton Cunningham, Philip Gerrard, Herbert Schoch and Chung Lai Hong
Managers and entrepreneurs are increasingly being challenged to respond to a world where it is harder to effectively make and implement their decisions. Over half the decisions…
Abstract
Managers and entrepreneurs are increasingly being challenged to respond to a world where it is harder to effectively make and implement their decisions. Over half the decisions managers make are never implemented. We have observed entrepreneurs and managers in a wide range of situations in various countries, who illustrate a different set of assumptions for making decisions. They illustrate an entrepreneurial logic, a process of creatively defining and taking action to make sense out of situations which require new frameworks, assumptions and understandings. They assume that many challenges are not predictable and controllable. Certain control‐oriented attitudes and behaviors inhibit people from thinking this way, such as attempts to make decisions without fully understanding the right question, and overly relying on statistics. Certain reframing attitudes and behaviors – diversity in thinking, asking the right questions, and reframing and adapting quickly – illustrate ways to make sense of the paradoxes and uncertainties in the new economy.
Details
Keywords
Lai Hong Chung, Patrick T. Gibbons and Herbert P. Schoch
This study examines the control issues related to three major flows among MNC subsidiaries: knowledge flows, product flows and capital flows. It also investigates the relationship…
Abstract
This study examines the control issues related to three major flows among MNC subsidiaries: knowledge flows, product flows and capital flows. It also investigates the relationship between the strategic management style of headquarters and the control approaches employed. The results show the dominance of output control, even in situations where researchers have argued that they should not be relied upon. The study also found that as knowledge flow increases, reliance on financial control decreases and reliance on socialisation control increases. Consistent with other studies, the dominant management style is the strategic control style, while the least popular is the financial control style. The paper calls for using alternative theoretical lenses, such as institutional theory, to provide additional insights not available through the contingency lens.
Details
Keywords
David R Goodwin and Ross G Bloore
This paper examines the impact of perceived inequity on knowledge transfer within an accounting environment. It hypothesizes that when perceived inequity exists, knowledge…
Abstract
This paper examines the impact of perceived inequity on knowledge transfer within an accounting environment. It hypothesizes that when perceived inequity exists, knowledge transfer, in the form of budgetary communication, is likely to be impeded. Lowered budgetary communication then has negative consequences including higher levels of role ambiguity and lower job satisfaction and performance. Other behavioral responses to perceived inequity include Type A behavior. These issues are examined using survey data collected in Malaysia. Analysis using Partial Least Squares (PLS) supports the study hypotheses. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings for management and identifies a number of ideas for future research.
Wilson K.S. Leung, Sally P.M. Law, Man Lai Cheung, Man Kit Chang, Chung-Yin Lai and Na Liu
There are two main objectives in this study. First, we aim to develop a set of constructs for health task management support (HTMS) features to evaluate which health-related tasks…
Abstract
Purpose
There are two main objectives in this study. First, we aim to develop a set of constructs for health task management support (HTMS) features to evaluate which health-related tasks are supported by mobile health application (mHealth app) functions. Second, drawing on innovation resistance theory (IRT), we examine the impacts of the newly developed HTMS dimensions on perceived usefulness, alongside other barrier factors contributing to technology anxiety.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a mixed-method research design, this research seeks to develop new measurement scales that reflect how mHealth apps support older adults’ health-related needs based on interviews. Subsequently, data were collected from older adults and exploratory factor analysis was used to confirm the validity of the new scales. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze survey data from 602 older adults.
Findings
The PLS-SEM results indicated that medical management task support, dietary task support, and exercise task support were positively associated with perceived usefulness, while perceived complexity and dispositional resistance to change were identified as antecedents of technology anxiety. Perceived usefulness and technology anxiety were found to positively and negatively influence adoption intention, respectively.
Originality/value
This study enriches the information systems literature by developing a multidimensional construct that delineates how older adults’ health-related needs can be supported by features of mHealth apps. Drawing on IRT, we complement the existing literature on resistance to innovation by systematically examining the impact of five types of barriers on technology anxiety.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to theorise on the nature of property management broadly understood as resource management and demonstrate the actual and potential contribution of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to theorise on the nature of property management broadly understood as resource management and demonstrate the actual and potential contribution of innovative property management to sustainable development.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach is analytical and backed by real life examples, using concepts of property rights informed by Coasian neo‐institutional economics and Yu's ideas on the Schumpeterian process in innovation.
Findings
There is a fast spread of gated communities in the Pearl River Delta and some private shopping centres provide public facilities and entertainment as a public relation method.
Research limitations/implications
The transformation of negative externalities into positive ones is the crux to achieve win‐win solutions to property management for sustainable development.
Practical implications
A good property manager does not simply perform the role of a passive housekeeper or management fee collector. S/he is, above all, an innovator who applies updated technology and concepts with great sensitivity to the externalities generated by or affecting the resource s/he manages.
Originality/value
This is the first paper that defines for property management a research agenda anchored in Coasian economics and demonstrate the actual and potential contribution of property management.
Details
Keywords
Survey′s the impact of the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) on officerental structures and locations in Hong Kong. Follows up earlier work byGareth Williams on Mass Rapid Transport…
Abstract
Survey′s the impact of the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) on office rental structures and locations in Hong Kong. Follows up earlier work by Gareth Williams on Mass Rapid Transport (MRT). Reports that the results falsify the commonsense theory that improvement in accessibility would reduce the relative primacy of the Central Business Districts (CBD) as an office centre. Concludes that attempts by strategic planners to implant high‐grade offices in off‐CBD locations along the MTR line need serious reconsideration.
Details
Keywords
Lawrence Wai Chung Lai, Kwong Wing Chau, Daniel Chi Wing Ho and Frank T. Lorne
The purpose of this paper is to discuss a Coasian interpretation of a model of sustainable development for Hong Kong that incorporates three segments, namely economy, society, and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss a Coasian interpretation of a model of sustainable development for Hong Kong that incorporates three segments, namely economy, society, and environment.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach is analytical, using concepts of property rights informed by Coasian neo‐institutional economics and Yu's ideas on the Schumpeterian process in innovation.
Findings
First, the sustainable development criteria must be non‐dictatorial, decentralized, and compatible with market economics. The emphasis is contractarian rather than legislative or administrative. Second, the essence of segment cooperation is to create a win‐win situation rather than an “integrated” rent seeking game, which will likely result in more values being created. Third, the requirement that it be progressive over time implies that programs and policies that are duplicative need to be avoided, and innovations are to be encouraged. Fourth, the requirement of satisfying only two aspects of the three segments of cooperation implies a less stringent standard of making stepwise improvements, and thus makes entrepreneurial efforts more likely. Last, the three segments of cooperation, if practiced simultaneously and improved over time, can achieve most, if not all, the principles in the Rio Declaration without aiming at a specific principle in the Declaration.
Research limitations/implications
This paper should focus on a “win‐win” rather than a mutually exploitative approach to public participation in sustainable development promotion.
Practical implications
This paper should assist policymakers and politicians in understanding how sustainable development may be conceptually modelled.
Originality/value
The paper is the first paper that defines for Hong Kong a model of sustainable development on the basis of Coasian economics, and contrasts it with other proposed models.
Details
Keywords
Kwok Yip Cheung and Chung Yee Lai
This study aims to investigate the impact of the audit committee chair’s trust on the quality of interactions between the external auditor and the audit committee chair in Hong…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the impact of the audit committee chair’s trust on the quality of interactions between the external auditor and the audit committee chair in Hong Kong.
Design/methodology/approach
The research uses a questionnaire survey to gather data from the audit committee chairs of the listed companies in Hong Kong, with a response rate of 19.2%. Partial least squares structural equation modelling is used in this study.
Findings
The results reveal that the audit committee chair’s trust in the external auditor’s competence, integrity and goodwill is an important determinant of the interaction quality. The findings also show that interaction quality during the pre-engagement stage is important to mediate the relationships between the three dimensions of trust and interaction quality during the audit performance stage.
Originality/value
This is the first study, to the best of the author’s knowledge, that examines the impact of the audit committee chair’s trust in the external auditor on the quality of their interactions. The findings provide insights for board of directors, auditors and policymakers to implement policies that enhance trust between them to improve audit quality.
Details
Keywords
Lawrence Wai‐Chung Lai, Daniel Chi‐Wing Ho and Hing‐Fung Leung
This paper was motivated by the absence of a government examination of and professional interest in planning conditions as a means of development control in Hong Kong. Proposes to…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper was motivated by the absence of a government examination of and professional interest in planning conditions as a means of development control in Hong Kong. Proposes to examine this situation.
Design/methodology/approach
The research objective is achieved by a field survey and legal analysis of its findings. The field survey of all the 60 residential development projects in Hong Kong under comprehensive development area zoning subject to conditional planning permissions from 1998 to 2000 involving 119 planning applications was conducted to assess factual compliance with planning conditions.
Findings
The findings show that, while most physical planning obligations have been duly fulfilled in these projects, the non‐depositing of master layout plans for development poses actual and potential public domain problems of planning enforcement, building permission, conveyancing and property management. The major problems of non‐compliance are property purchasers being unable to fully appreciate the environment of a development when making a decision to buy; subsequent titles defects, unauthorised building works and operations. Suggestions are made to close the loopholes in planning law and to introduce a formal channel for retrospective rectification in the light of the social consequences of non‐compliance.
Originality/value
This paper is the first serious attempt to evaluate the importance of compliance with planning conditions in Hong Kong and its analysis should be of interest not only to local policy makers and professional people in particular, but also to researchers in comparative development control in general.