The purpose of this paper is to offer a reflection on what evidence might be persuasive, powerful, and influential in decision making.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to offer a reflection on what evidence might be persuasive, powerful, and influential in decision making.
Design/methodology/approach
Fictional poem.
Findings
Meditation on the way that we decide what to do, account for it, be responsible for it to others, and be accountable to them.
Research limitations/implications
Stimulates thought about how organisations construct an agreed set of terms and language for measuring progress and organising accountability.
Originality/value
An individual comment on assessing what language is appropriate for building organisations.
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This paper aims to examine the accounting challenges faced by indigenous businesses in the wholesale and retail market in Tonga.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the accounting challenges faced by indigenous businesses in the wholesale and retail market in Tonga.
Design/methodology/approach
The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 24 participants, from a mix of individuals from the wholesale and retail market in Tonga. This paper uses institutional logics framework to inform the study.
Findings
The research findings suggest an inability of indigenous businesses to adapt to significant changes in the market and overcome the economic and social challenges faced in the business environment involving accounting values. A lack of business skills and accounting knowledge, restrictive traditions and religious obligations and a poor business investment climate are key factors behind the inability of the indigenous Tongan businesses to succeed.
Research limitations/implications
The paper is limited to a study on Tonga only. The paper suggests better accountability from government sector on their effort to encourage inclusion of indigenous businesses.
Practical implications
The paper suggests better accountability from government sector on their effort to encourage inclusion of indigenous businesses. As a way forward, participants suggest that an inclusive approach for the government, businesses and stakeholders in policy formulation and consultation would create a better business environment that would foster the development and growth of the wholesale and retail business sector in Tonga. There is a dearth of cultural studies in accounting in countries within the developing world, particularly in the Oceania region.
Social implications
There are many accounting challenges faced by the indigenous Tongan business people in the market, which indicate specific areas where the attention of the policymakers should be directed. A better accountability from the government is needed on their efforts to encourage inclusion of indigenous businesses.
Originality/value
This paper extends the literature by considering inclusivity challenges for ethnically marginalised collectives of individuals in small business. The research findings suggest a gap in knowledge in the current business environment with respect to the Western accounting practices in the indigenous society.
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Semisi M. Prescott and Keith C. Hooper
The purpose of this paper is to examine Tongan businesses in New Zealand, bearing in mind that they have shared mixed success. Faced with the challenges of competition…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine Tongan businesses in New Zealand, bearing in mind that they have shared mixed success. Faced with the challenges of competition, compliance, and financial and operational management, these businesses are characterised by a relatively higher failure rate.
Design/methodology/approach
A series of open‐ended interview‐type sessions called talanoa were carried out to study their business practices and how these were linked to sustainability. These data were then triangulated with talanoa sessions carried out with business advisers who had worked with many of those Tongan businesses. Further information was collected during individual and group sessions with members of the Tongan community regarding Tongan businesses practices from both a general and a customer perspective.
Findings
The results of the talanoa sessions support a theoretical framework that suggests that an entrenched Tongan culture based on a “commons” mentality of sharing is partly responsible for a relatively high failure rate in an “anti‐commons” environment. The findings also suggest that certain aspects of the Tongan culture, in the form of social capital, support business sustainability.
Research limitations/implications
The data gained from the talanoa sessions are based on a small number of Tongan businesses, Pacific business consultants and members of the Tongan community in New Zealand. The findings are therefore not statistically generalisable, although they do provide insights to guide further research in this area.
Practical implications
The findings are likely to provide benefits to a number of key stakeholders including Tongan businesses, policy makers, Government business assistance programmes and the wider small business community.
Originality/value
The research project introduces traditional talanoa to qualitative business research. The findings are specific to Tongan business operating in a western commercial context and provide insights into the drivers of business success and failure for the growing Pacific business community in New Zealand.
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Cambridge, Harvard, Oxford: the names of these universities instantly conjure up images of the highest attainments of higher education. Of course, great universities also operate…
Abstract
Cambridge, Harvard, Oxford: the names of these universities instantly conjure up images of the highest attainments of higher education. Of course, great universities also operate great university presses. So any reference book with the name of Oxford, Cambridge, or Harvard in the title possesses immediate credibility and saleability. But it was not always so. Prior to the latter half of the nineteenth century the Oxford and the Cambridge University Presses were known to the public primarily as publishers of the Bible. Oxford broke into reference publishing, and along with it widespread public recognition, by means of its famous dictionaries, of which the pinnacle was the massive Oxford English Dictionary. The Cambridge University Press [hereafter referred to as CUP] took a different approach to publishing scholarly reference works by producing authoritative and encyclopedic histories. According to S.C. Roberts, a long‐time secretary to the Syndics of the CUP, “apart from the Bible, the first book that made the Press well known to the general public was the Cambridge Modern History.”
The first ever presentation of the Joule Award was made last month by Professor G. A. Gamlen, Chairman of the Manchester Section of the Society of Chemical Industry, to Mr. A. A…
Abstract
The first ever presentation of the Joule Award was made last month by Professor G. A. Gamlen, Chairman of the Manchester Section of the Society of Chemical Industry, to Mr. A. A. S. Rae, CBE, Chairman of Ciba‐Geigy (UK) Ltd at the SCI's 99th Annual Meeting at the Midland Hotel, Manchester.
Details the creating of a library by Edmund and Ruth Frow. Describes the initial partnership and the gradual transition to a library representing the ideals, trials and…
Abstract
Details the creating of a library by Edmund and Ruth Frow. Describes the initial partnership and the gradual transition to a library representing the ideals, trials and tribulations of ordinary working people. Summarizes the scope of the present collection of over 30,000 items and gives details of a number of rare books and documents.
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What's in a name? What we're doing is Estimating Energy. And every school‐boy knows at least two things about energy: that it is conserved, and that it is interconvertible. The…
Abstract
What's in a name? What we're doing is Estimating Energy. And every school‐boy knows at least two things about energy: that it is conserved, and that it is interconvertible. The first law of thermo‐dynamics, as enunciated by Flanders and Swann, sets this out very plainly: ‘Heat is Work and Work is Heat’.
C. Ahamed Saleel, Saad Ayed Alshahrani, Asif Afzal, Maughal Ahmed Ali Baig, Sarfaraz Kamangar and T.M. Yunus Khan
Joule heating effect is a pervasive phenomenon in electro-osmotic flow because of the applied electric field and fluid electrical resistivity across the microchannels. Its effect…
Abstract
Purpose
Joule heating effect is a pervasive phenomenon in electro-osmotic flow because of the applied electric field and fluid electrical resistivity across the microchannels. Its effect in electro-osmotic flow field is an important mechanism to control the flow inside the microchannels and it includes numerous applications.
Design/methodology/approach
This research article details the numerical investigation on alterations in the profile of stream wise velocity of simple Couette-electroosmotic flow and pressure driven electro-osmotic Couette flow by the dynamic viscosity variations happened due to the Joule heating effect throughout the dielectric fluid usually observed in various microfluidic devices.
Findings
The advantages of the Joule heating effect are not only to control the velocity in microchannels but also to act as an active method to enhance the mixing efficiency. The results of numerical investigations reveal that the thermal field due to Joule heating effect causes considerable variation of dynamic viscosity across the microchannel to initiate a shear flow when EDL (Electrical Double Layer) thickness is increased and is being varied across the channel.
Originality/value
This research work suggest how joule heating can be used as en effective mechanism for flow control in microfluidic devices.
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This paper examines the implications of standard barter models of market equilibrium for financial security returns in New Zealand. The key question addressed is: does the ‘equity…
Abstract
This paper examines the implications of standard barter models of market equilibrium for financial security returns in New Zealand. The key question addressed is: does the ‘equity premium puzzle’ of Mehra and Prescott (1985) found in the U.S. also hold in ?ew Zealand? To examine the existence of the equity premium puzzle, quarterly financial security returns and consumption data are examined from 1965 to 1997 to calibrate parameters in the Consumption Based Asset Pricing Model. Unlike much of the existing international evidence, this paper corrects for durable goods consumption following the assumptions of the model that all consumption be consumed in a given period. Numerical analyses indicate that the class of models examined are unable to generate equity premia consistent with historical estimates of the equity premium in New Zealand. Due to small sample variability however, while this discrepancy is material in size, the result is not statistically significant.
Dan Marlin, James J. Hoffman and Bruce T. Lamont
This study reports an examination of the relationships between Porter's (1980) generic strategies, dynamic environments, and performance. In me study, profile deviation is used to…
Abstract
This study reports an examination of the relationships between Porter's (1980) generic strategies, dynamic environments, and performance. In me study, profile deviation is used to test strategy—environment fit. A sample of 173 acute care hospitals was used to test the proposed relationship. Results from the study indicate that adherence to an externally specified ideal strategy profile has a positive effect on firm performance. From a methodological standpoint, results suggest that empirical and theoretical profiles have equal predictive validity, and both have a higher predictive validity, than a random profile. Results also suggest that profiles can not be assumed to be robust to differences in performance measures used.