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The overall aim of this paper was to examine the impact of the Australian research assessment exercise on the research approaches (positivist/non-positivist) favoured by accounting disciplines in Australia. Our key research question examined how the outputs and foci of research in elite accounting disciplines changed over a 16-year period. Our analysis was informed by Bourdieu's notions of academic elitism and symbolic violence.

We analysed all papers published in 20 major accounting journals across a 16-year period by Australian accounting disciplines that were highly rated in the research assessment exercise. We also compared our results from this group against two case study accounting disciplines that were not rated as “world class”.

Our key finding is that the introduction of a research assessment exercise in Australia has resulted in research outputs of elite accounting disciplines over this period being increasingly focused on positivist rather than non-positivist research. Our findings evidence a narrowing of accounting disciplines' research agendas and foci across the period.

Our findings highlight a considerable narrowing of the research agenda and paradigms in accounting disciplines that is not in the public interest. Our findings also have implications for the literature on academic elitism. The narrowing of the research agenda and greater foci on positivist research exhibited in our findings demonstrates the role of dominant elites in controlling the research agenda through a research assessment exercise.

A practical implication is that proper research, regardless of the approach used, must be appropriately recognised and accepted by Accounting Disciplines, not ostracised or discouraged. Research implications are the breadth of accounting research should be celebrated and concentration eschewed. Australian accounting discipline leaders should not fall for the illusion that the only good research is that which is published in a small number of North American positivist journals.

Our findings provide insights into Bourdieu's work through demonstrating how dominant players have successfully exploited an external regulatory mechanism, a research assessment exercise, to strengthen their position within a field and exert control over the research agendas of accounting disciplines. Previous work by Bourdieu has not directly examined how actors utilise these outside forces as instruments for shaping their own field.

The purpose of this paper is to document a leading UK cannabis activist’s efforts to bring about policy change and to convey his human story as a medical consumer. The paper contends that it is not enough to present evidence-based policies to effect change in drug policy, it is also vital to tell human stories, which people can relate to, in order to develop narratives which speak to people’s values.

An in depth, unstructured interview was conducted between Dr Melissa Bone and Cannabis Activist, Greg de Hoedt in December 2017. The interview was recorded, transcribed and formed the basis of the paper, which was co-edited and co-created by both authors.

The paper charts Greg’s journey from being a cannabis consumer – to being diagnosed with Crohn’s – to being a cannabis activist. The paper interweaves a drug policy discussion with a personal narrative. It connects unique insights into Greg’s life with the broader forces and institutions which influence cannabis policy at a local, national and international level.

Incorporating Greg’s personal narrative within an academic platform integrates his experiential knowledge into the “expert” evidence base. Alongside the potential of personal narratives to facilitate the production of knowledge, Greg’s emotive story could help to shape the public’s perception of cannabis, which could subsequently influence policy.

This paper provides a researcher's account of fieldwork experience in conducting audit research in China. By illustrating on-site fieldwork encounters, the paper reflects stages of access negotiation and management in the fieldwork, reveals the researcher's embodied “affects” in the fieldwork and reasserts the value of researcher's openness and attention in the fieldwork.

This paper uses autoethnography as its overall epistemology. Fieldwork diaries and vignettes are written in the first-person voice to present the researcher's embodied account of fieldwork experience, researcher’s learning and coping skills in managing the fieldwork.

The research findings are not detached from the researcher's experience of the fieldwork. The fieldwork experiences in this study highlight that the fieldwork access is an ongoing process. Different stages of access negotiations, from rejection to acceptance, reveal the tensions between researcher and participants. This study draws attention to the online platform, WeChat, in connecting with auditors to learn from them and suggests openness to the fieldwork encounters and a resilient engagement with auditors.

In reflecting on the researcher's transformation during the fieldwork, this paper argues for a relational and engaged way of conducting fieldwork, rather than a disengaged and judgemental approach in studying auditors' working lives. The paper pays attention to fieldwork as a process and how the knowledge learned in the field is infused with researcher's fieldwork experiences.

The purpose of the paper is to examine the ways that the largest private sector organizations in Sweden and Turkey communicate the intent of their codes of ethics to their employees.

Primary data were obtained via a self‐administered mail questionnaire distributed to a census of the top 500 private sector organizations based on revenue in each country.

The research identified some interesting findings that showed that the small group of companies in Turkey that have a code may appear to be more “advanced” in ethics artifacts usage than Sweden. Such a conclusion is counter‐intuitive as one would have expected a developed nation like Sweden to be more advanced in these measures than a developing nation such as Turkey. Culture may play a large role in the implementation of ethics artifacts in corporations and could be a major reason for this difference.

As this is such a new area of investigation in Turkey, the responses amount to only 32 companies that have a code. The small sample is indicative of the formative evolution toward having codes of ethics within companies operating within Turkey.

This study enables those organizations that comprise corporate Turkey to view the current state of codes of ethics in Turkish companies and to compare these with the responses of a developed country of the European Union.

A review of the literature indicates that this is the first time that such an international study specifically focused upon codes of ethics and the artifacts to inculcate the ethos of the code into every day corporate affairs has included Turkey as one of the participating countries.

International mergers are becoming more widespread among medium‐sized companies that for decades have held a prime position in their home country market, but who now feel threatened that they may not be of a significant size to continue to be viable in the international marketplace. The purpose of this paper is to examine the merger of one Australian company and one of its former competitors in the international marketplace from the perspective of the congruence between their espoused ethical cultures in business prior to the merger.

A questionnaire comprising 46 questions was sent to the public relations manager of each organisation prior to the merger. These managers were asked to fill in the questionnaire and to provide a copy of their code of ethics.

The research found that organisations need to not only have a code of ethics, but also need to focus especially on the area of code augmentation to ensure that they communicate the ethos of their code to their employees. The examination of the content of the code and the artefacts in place to communicate the ethos of each company's code would enable one to compare for ethical congruence between the two companies. The examination of these ethical artefacts highlighted that the companies appeared to have been quite divergent in their commitment to business ethics when they entered the merger. If companies are to merge across country, and thus cultural boundaries, they need to examine the ethical standpoints of potential partners in order to alleviate any potential conflicts from an ethical, corporate culture perspective.

This paper provides useful information for those companies planning to merge across country, and thus cultural boundaries.

The purpose of this paper is to test the measurement and structural properties in a model of organizational codes of ethics (OCE) in Sweden.

The measurement and structural properties of four OCE constructs (i.e. surveillance/training, internal communication, external communication, and guidance) were described and tested in a dual sample based upon private and public sectors of Sweden.

Results show that the measurement and structural models of OCE in part have a satisfactory fit, validity, and reliability.

The paper makes a contribution to theory as it outlines a set of OCE constructs and it presents an empirical test of and OCE model in respect to measurement and structural properties. A number of research limitations are provided.

It provides a model to be considered in the implementation and monitoring of OCE. The present research provides opportunities for further research in refining, extending, and testing the proposed OCE model in other cultural and organizational settings.

The OCE model extends previous studies that have been predominately descriptive, by using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the measures put in place by the largest public sector organizations in Sweden in order to communicate the ethos of their codes of ethics to their employees.

This paper is based upon a longitudinal survey approach.

In the public sector organizations of Sweden the use of regulations and staff support is rather modest in respect to the inculcation of codes of ethics artefacts into the organisations. This longitudinal approach indicates an overall increase across the examined areas in the usage of measures to support the ethos of public sector codes of ethics.

The artefacts to support the ethos inherent in public sector codes of ethics are rarely explored in the literature. This paper helps to fill this gap with the present longitudinal approach.

One could speculate that society at large and its public sector organizations may have been influenced not only by the scandalous happenings of recent years in Swedish business, but also by the impact of an Anglo‐Saxon style of “corporatisation”, whereby public authorities take on the form of a corporation or business brought on by globalisation.

The present paper may be used as a point of reference for further research efforts.

The purpose of the study is to examine and describe the use of codes of ethics in the top 100 companies operating in the Swedish corporate sector. This paper reports on the responses of those companies that possessed a code of ethics.

A three‐stage research procedure was used. First, a questionnaire was sent to the public relations managers of the top 100 companies operating in the Swedish corporate sector (based on revenue). Companies were asked to answer up to 29 questions and to supply a copy of their code of ethics. The second stage involved content analysis of the codes of ethics supplied by survey respondents. The third stage involved a more detailed follow‐up of a smaller group of firms that appeared to be close to best practice. Findings for Stage 1 of the research are reported in this paper. The areas of questioning were: how common are codes of ethics? Who was involved in the development of these codes? What are the reasons for the codes? How are they implemented? Do companies inform internal and external publics of the codes? What are the prescribed benefits of the codes?

It would appear that business ethics has only recently become a topic of interest in corporate Sweden and that many companies are in the early stages of code development and assimilation into company policies. The incidence of codes in the population (of 100) suggested by this survey (56 per cent) is lower than a US study finding (in 1995) that over 84 per cent of comparable US companies had codes of ethics. It would appear that Sweden today lags behind the US situation of 1995. When one investigates the special measures to support the inculcation of ethical values at the organizational level, there appears to be some shortfall. The supporting measures of ethics committees, ethics training committees, ethics training, ombudsman, an ethical audit and procedures to protect whistleblowers appear to be under‐utilized in companies that possess codes. This lack of utilization tends to suggest that companies in Sweden, as yet, either have not developed a high commitment to supporting business ethics in their corporations, or they may have developed other methods to support their codes in their organizations that they view are as beneficial as the traditional methods practised in other western industrial democracies.

This research was limited to internal ethical expectations. The commitment to business ethics is usually explored in terms of internal ethical expectations, but the simultaneous consideration of the external ethical expectations in the marketplace (e.g. among suppliers and customers or other publics) is desirable. A dyadic approach considering a company's internal ethical expectations and the external ethical expectations of a company's business activities may give a more balanced and in‐depth approach.

Evidence is now available to show that codes of ethics are well developed in many of Sweden's largest corporations: organizations that, from their responses, appear to see a diverse range of benefits in developing the area of business ethics. Companies are beginning to implement not only a code of ethics, but other complementary initiatives that reinforce the need for the culture of the organization to be ethical. Codes of ethics are perceived by organizations to have assisted them in their dealings in the marketplace and many companies use their ethical values to underpin their strategic planning process. It appears that many companies now see the formalisation of business ethics as an integral part of their commercial practices.

This study is the first one of its kind on codes of ethics in corporate Sweden. It will enable all sectors of Swedish business to benchmark their efforts against the major companies in the Swedish corporate sector.

The purpose of this research is to determine the commitment to business ethics in UK corporations. This study reports on the responses of those organizations that participated in the survey and possessed a code of ethics.

An unsolicited questionnaire was sent to the top 500 private sector organizations by market capitalization in the UK. A total of 92 companies responded, of which 56 possessed a code of ethics.

The empirical findings indicate that the processes involved in developing business ethics commitment have begun to be recognized and acted upon at an organizational level. The supporting measures of business ethics commitment appear to be under‐utilized by many of these UK organizations. This suggests that many organizations have not so far developed a strong organizational commitment to embedding their codes of ethics into organizational practices.

While the responses provided a rich picture of organizational actions, further research exploring internal culture and attitudes would add to an understanding of organizational commitment.

It is found that in order to influence practice, it is not enough to have the artefacts of an ethical culture, such as codes, without ensuring that all employees are assisted in understanding what is required of them.

Despite a history of business ethics research, there are a limited number of studies seeking to understand UK companies' commitment to ethical codes. The paper provides guidance on steps that organizations can take to develop a higher level of commitment.

This article examines the results of a study conducted of the top 100 public sector units in Sweden. These units are comprised of entities of government, municipalities, and county councils. The aim of the study was to examine and describe the commitment to codes of ethics in these Swedish public sector units. This article reports on the responses of those public sector units that possessed a code of ethics. The construct of commitment was measured by a consideration of the inputs, objectives and outputs of the code across six areas. The commitment to codes of ethics has an interest for those involved in the public sector in Sweden and society in general. Most public sector units are in the early stages of development and assimilation into overall ethics policies in code artefacts. On a specific level there are customized codes of ethics that are not always documented in a generic artefact. Theoretical and managerial implications are provided. Furthermore, suggestions for further research are proposed.