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Critical analysis of observed practice.

Field study.

To expose accounting and MBA students to Lean management and the performance measures that support Lean management by presenting a case of a comprehensive and very successful Lean transformation; to give accounting and MBA students the opportunity to construct a strategy map and a balanced scorecard based on a rich case description; and to critically assess the suitability of balanced scorecards for a company that embraces Lean management.

The case describes a comprehensive transformation from conventional management to Lean management and business practices, with an emphasis on the largely non-financial performance measures used to support the transformation. Around the time of the Lean transformation, the balanced scorecard, a multi-dimensional measurement approach, was introduced to address the problems of excessive reliance on financial performance measures. Students are asked to compare and contrast Wiremold’s approach to the balanced scorecard.

Graduate or upper level undergraduate courses in cost accounting, managerial accounting and strategic management.

The purpose of this paper is to study management control mechanisms (social, behavioral, and output control mechanisms) and their complementary effects on firm performance in lean manufacturing firms.

The study uses second-order structural equation modeling to analyze survey data from 368 different lean manufacturing facilities.

The paper finds that the complementary effects of management control mechanisms in lean manufacturing firms outweigh their additive effects on firm performance.

Applying isolated lean management control mechanisms leads to inferior performance, as these management control mechanisms are complementary. Thus, to realize the full potential of lean manufacturing, this paper suggests that lean management control mechanisms should be implemented as an integrated control system.

Firms seeking to benefit from the implementation of lean manufacturing should understand the complementarity among the management control mechanisms, as the performance effects of lean management control mechanisms when applied together are greater than their isolated additive effects.

This paper is the first to provide empirical evidence of the superior firm performance effects of complementary lean management control mechanisms compared with their additive effects. This paper also expands the understanding of how to conceptualize lean management control mechanisms. Specifically, this is the first paper to distinguish between social cultural control and social visual control mechanisms as well as between non-financial and financial control mechanisms. This paper is also the first to use a second-order structural equation model to properly test and account for the complementary effects on firm performance that stem from multiple control mechanisms.

This study investigates the relationship between lean manufacturing practices, management accounting and performance measurement (MAC & PM) practices, organizational strategy, structure, and culture, and facility performance. We extended past research by examining the relationships between lean manufacturing, MAC & PM practices and performance in a broader organizational context. Our study was performed using survey data provided by managers and executives at 368 facilities that had contacted the Shingo Institute for information or that had entered a Shingo Prize competition. Consistent with past research we found a significant positive association between lean manufacturing practices and lean MAC & PM practices. We found that greater employee empowerment, use of process performance measures, and use of lean accounting practices were driven primarily by lean strategy and secondarily by the extent of lean manufacturing practices. We also found that changes in organization structure to support lean are driven primarily by lean strategy and secondarily by lean manufacturing practices. Change toward lean culture, on the other hand, is driven by the extent of lean manufacturing practices. Further, we found that emphasizing process performance measures does not reduce emphasis on results performance measures and emphasizing results performance measures leads to improved financial performance. Process and results measures are being used in tandem and value stream costing has not replaced traditional accounting. The results of our study provide important insights for managers of companies engaged in lean transformation and for academics who teach or research lean accounting.

The accommodation sector has a strong impact on the host destination in terms of waste production, use of natural resources, physical impact on landscape and natural environment, greenhouse gas emissions, etc. (Hall et al., 2016). For this reason, the increasing attention to sustainability, also in the tourism sector, requires us to rethink the planning of the tourist accommodation development with reference to this approach. Moreover, it is necessary to take into consideration some important emerging trends in tourist consumption, in particular the greater interest in experiential holidays, the deep impact of sharing economy and the phenomena of ‘home stay tourism’ and ‘living like a local’. All of these are significantly orientating the demand and the offer towards a greater attention to authenticity (Grayson & Martinec, 2004; Paulauskaite, Powell, Coca-Stefaniak, &, Morrison, 2017; Tussyadiah & Pesonen, 2016a and 2016b; Tussyadiah & Pesonen, 2018).

The sustainability, environmental, socio-cultural and economic dimensions must be respected to develop forms of sustainable accommodations (Boley & Uysal, 2013; Elkington, 1997, 1998, 2004; Farrell, 1992). They have to be respectful of local communities and their identity and culture, not going beyond the host environmental and social carrying capacities (Graefe & Vaske, 1987; Hernandez-Maskivker, Ferrari, & Cruyt, 2019; Van Der Borg, 1992; Van der Borg, Costa, & Gotti, 1996; Vargas-Sánchez, Porras-Bueno, & de los Ángeles Plaza-Mejía, 2011). Those aspects must be referred not only to environmental ecosystems (Buckley, 2000; Sánchez-Cañizares, Castillo-Canalejo, & Cabeza-Ramírez, 2018) but also to the art, cultural heritage and local socio-cultural tissue of the destination (García-Hernández, la Calle-Vaquero, & Yubero, 2017). This is especially true in tourist destinations that are characterized by a remarkable fragility and sensitiveness. As explained by Jeong, Zielinski, Chang, and Kim (2018, p. 2), sensitive tourist destinations are areas that support responsible tourism, but do not necessarily have all the characteristics of ‘ecotourism’ or ‘responsible tourism’ destinations, as provided in their common definitions (Dolnicar & Leisch, 2008). Responsible tourism is a kind of tourist behaviour that occurs when tourists understand the impact of their behaviour on the environment and local people, and abide by the socio-cultural and environmental norms of the site (Jeong et al., 2018, p. 1).

Our research is focused on Matera. This southern Italian town, which has been the European Capital of Culture in 2019 and World Heritage Site since 1993, has an ancient and very peculiar history. It is a complex urban cave situated in a deep natural canyon, continuously inhabited since the Palaeolithic period. Today Matera, which has frequently been the location of important movies, is a successful international tourist destination and has shown an uninterrupted increase in tourism over the last 20 years. Unfortunately, this rapid tourist growth is threatening the town centre and its surroundings that are part of a protected area. In fact, the dimensions of visitors' flows are endangering a delicate destination with a fragile equilibrium, together with its priceless cultural heritage, traditions and way of living. In addition, it is giving rise to a residents' negative attitude towards tourists. For all these reasons, investments should be made to favour the development of different types of tourist accommodations (e.g. diffuse hotels or some forms of sharing accommodations) that are respectful of local economy, physical environment and cultural heritage as well as of the host community and its culture, traditions and identity (Gilli & Ferrari, 2016).

In this analysis a qualitative approach was adopted by carrying on face-to-face interviews with stakeholders. The main aims were to study to what extent tourist accommodations are perceived as sustainable by the main stakeholders' categories in Matera today, how their sustainability could be improved and if town innovations in this field already exist or could be promoted.

Professional skepticism has been an essential part of every audit. Recently, Hurtt (2010) introduced the concept of trait skepticism (an enduring aspect of an individual's psychology). The current study examines trait professional skepticism using a sample of accounting students and investigates its potential relationship with ethical perception of earnings management actions. Results indicate that more skeptical students viewed earnings management actions as more unethical compared to less skeptical students. More specifically, higher skeptics viewed earnings management actions that benefited the manager and accounting manipulations as more unethical than actions that benefited the firm and were considered normal operating decisions. These results offer guidance to accounting instructors as they emphasize ethical issues in the classroom and are important to Certified Public Accountant (CPA) firms as they train their auditors in professional skepticism.

There is a great deal of research examining the factors that lead people to start protesting in their youth, but little work has been done on first-time protesters later in life. In this research we examine these “late bloomers,” those who protest for the first time later in life, to see if and how they differ from those who protest at different periods in life. We use data from the Youth-Parent Socialization Survey, which is a panel study of people in four waves from 1965 to 1997. We find, of the people who protested later in life, half had never protested previously. Additionally, there are significant differences between people who never protested, people who only protested early in life, people who protested repeatedly throughout life, and those who protested for the first time later in life. The latter group is more likely to attend church more, never have been married, and have lower incomes than people who protested early in life and then did not protest again. Late Bloomers are also more likely less educated and to be Independents than Democrats compared to the Repeat Protesters. This research adds to contemporary research examining differential protest participation patterns.