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This paper studies the accounting system reform practised in Greek universities since January 2000, and more particularly at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH). It specifically examines the allocation of resources to faculties by university management based on certain criteria. The AUTH is the largest public university in Greece and one of the largest in Europe. Following a study of financial data on variances in expenditure over the past 12 years, the application of a new method for allocating funds to departments is proposed through use of a certain formula. The results from the application of the formula for resource allocation have shown that the latter needs to be modified in order to be considered fairer and be accepted by the academic community.

This paper examines the impact of decisions stemming from the new ERP system on the accounting information and management implemented at a large public university in Greece, based on perceived benefits according to users’ expectations and perceptions.

Structured questionnaires were used in two measurement points (pre‐ and post‐implementation) in the frame of longitudinal research. The statistical analysis methods employed factor analysis and Cronbach's alpha to evaluate the scale and t‐test to assess the significance of the means values between the two periods.

The results show that, one‐year post‐implementation, users’ perceptions are more positive compared with their expectations from the pre‐implementation period. The empirical data confirm a number of benefits derived from the new ERP system, particularly in relation to accounting information and management. The new ERP system significantly contributes towards increased flexibility in information provision, through effective monitoring and exploitation of the university's assets and revenue‐expenditure flow, and improved decision making.

The empirical evidence can help the university and other public organisations to establish the best way forward in fully exploiting the ERP system's potential as an innovative tool for management.

This paper aims to address the extant and arguable role of enterprise systems (ES) in relation to management accounting practices (MAPs) through an inclusion relative neglect account of business process management (BPM). This is also extended to draw out an analytical framework to advance our understanding of how BPM mediate ES-MAPs interplay.

A cross-sectional case study was adopted as a research strategy with which to collect data about the ES-BPM-MAPs interplay as a unit of analysis. The latter, in the first stage, was examined across (89) mini-case studies operating in the UK context through reports and documentations collected from cases’ websites, vendors and consultants of information systems. Drawn insights from cross-sectional analysis and contributions made by prior studies are blended together to inform the second stage that outlines an analytical framework for ES-BPM-MAPs interplay.

Different ES are mobilised to address different orientations of BPMs and being used for different managerial functions and purposes. Different patterns of ES-BPM-MAPs interplay are identified across (89) UK-case studies and the BPM is a fulcrum understanding. These patterns are centred around three key BPM including customer, logistics and control processes and all oriented by a continuum of an organisation intention focus on control, understanding and strategising. Both processes and orientations explain ES development and MAPs evolution processes. Standardisation, integration and intelligence are key characteristics sought through ES mobilisations. By complementary, information provision, analytics and simulation are three sophisticated ways of using MA information facilitated by ES characteristics.

Dynamic processes of MAPs change over time and are beyond the reach of this study. Such approach requires full access to case studies. BPM is fulcrum understanding of MAPs change and/or stability in relation to ES implementation including other components.

Findings and analytical framework could be used as a base for establishing the best approach in adopting ES to fully exploit the potential of future ES applications as well as to avoid organisations pitfalls of implementations. Organisations are advised to understand their existing business processes, characteristics of MA information would be achieved first upon which decision of ES components selection and implementation could be outlined.

The indirect interplay between ES and MAPs through business processes is rarely examined. By the inclusion of BPM and using cross-sectional case studies, this research contributes to the existing shortcomings of ES-MAPs interplay by broadening the picture and proposing an analytical framework. The latter advances our understanding by focusing on attributes of ES-BPM-MAPs upon which informal changes in-the use of MAPs are recognised.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on promotional strategies, on which there has been relatively little research. The aim of this paper is twofold: first to review promotional strategies used by Greek wine producers to differentiate their products and second to develop and test a model that evaluates the relative importance of advertising expenses and other promotional expenses in explaining profit rates across Greek wine firms.

An extensive literature review relative to the question under investigation is presented. A survey among 43 Greek wine firms was carried out to identify the main categories of promotional expenses and their contribution to the total promotional expenditures for 2000. Annual balance sheet and income statements data for these firms were collected for the period 1993‐2000. The fixed effects method is used to estimate the coefficients of the specified empirical model using time series cross‐section panel data for the 43 Greek wine firms over the period 1993‐2000.

The non advertising promotional expenses were found to be the major part of promotional expenses, in the case of the Greek wine firms. For the Greek wine firms promotional expenses include promotion through the development of new informational labelling referred to origin and specific wine attributes, coupons, free samples, catalogues, new market channels through “wine routes”. These ways of promotion seem to be more effective to create goodwill for the company and to increase consumer loyalty than advertising. The fixed effects results show that total promotional expenses along with market share affect profitability.

This paper provides an outline of promotional strategies (advertising and non advertising) – a topic that has not been widely discussed in the literature.

Advertising is one of the most important components of food marketing. However, there is uncertainty over the optimal means of convincing consumers to buy a product. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of advertising content comprising text (sensory, functional and symbolic messages) and pictures (product image) on food product evaluation.

Two online experiments investigating strawberry advertisements were performed. Study 1 incorporated only text, whereas study 2 investigated combinations of text and pictures. Analyses of variance were conducted to determine any significant differences among the three texts (sensory, functional and symbolic) and among the combinations of text and pictures.

Study 1 revealed no significant differences. All three texts were well received, which shows the relevance of all the product benefits – sensory, functional and symbolic – for food products. In contrast, study 2 identified significant differences. The data analysis indicated that advertising effectiveness increases with the complementarity of the text and picture. Notably, the combination of the product picture and symbolic text was scored the highest for effectiveness.

The findings provide new insights into advertising design that food firms can use to enhance consumer product evaluations in terms of expected taste, perceived experience and quality, overall attitude and purchase intention. Further, the results contribute to the research stream of food product benefits by highlighting the relevance of sensory, functional and symbolic design elements.