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The purpose of this paper is to present a new method to account for investments in human capital, which the authors have named investment capitalization. This method uses investments in training and hiring of employees as a surrogate for their intellectual capital, capitalizing and amortizing the investment over its useful life. Investment capitalization is compared to the more conventional Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and the newer intellectual capital accounting methods.

Scenarios comparing the effects of downsizing or organizational performance are used to demonstrate the effects of decisions based on intellectual capitalization and GAAP.

Results of the scenario analysis show that the investement capitalization method causes less destruction of intellectual capital during downsizing decisions than does GAAP.

This paper presents a new method of accounting for intellectual capital and demonstates the benefits of this method when making downsizing decsions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which strategic orientation (SO) and strategic renewal (SR) could create the possibility for improving strategic performance (SP). The indirect effect of SO was also tested in this study. Furthermore, by using the moderated mediation model, the authors also investigated the moderating role of organizational ambidexterity (OA).

The results of this cross-sectional study are based on a survey conducted on 1,430 owner/managers of SMEs. To analyze the relationship among variables, this study used descriptive, correlation and hierarchical multiple regression approach.

Results revealed that SO positively affects SR and SP in SMEs. Furthermore, the mediating role of SR between the relationships of SO and SP was also confirmed. Moreover, OA strengthens the connection between SO, SR and SP.

The current study provides new insights for strategic planning and management by focusing on SO along with its different dimensions. Therefore, it provides new guidelines and a roadmap that would be helpful in achieving the objectives of SP.

The study makes significant contributions to the extant literature by adding new knowledge about the positive impact of SO on SP. Moreover, with the analysis of mediating role of SR in this relationship, the study has made significant addition to the existing literature on SP. Furthermore, moderated mediation model adds value to the existing body of knowledge.

In an age where morality requires economic justification, it is a compelling task to explicate the deeper affecting implications of moral judgment than its mere financial costs. In this chapter, we explore the emotional, behavioral, and cognitive ramifications of moral leadership at both the individual and macro organizational levels; specifically, by summoning literature on leadership, affect, and organizational justice to build a conceptual model of affect and interactional justice in moral leadership. The aim of the model is to extend current theoretical frameworks and highlight the important ramifications that moral decision-making has on employee and organizational welfare including that of the decision maker. The chapter concludes with a call for research comparing moral and immoral leadership in terms of different influence and strategy processes adopted by leaders and their followers’ attributions, emotions, attitudes, and behaviors.

Studies of strategic change are mainly characterized by a linear time view, treating time as a variable, a package of narrative events or as a path that the organization “travels” over time. The purpose of this paper is to move beyond this view providing an alternative, nonlinear conception of time.

Framed by the logics of consequence and appropriateness an empirical example of strategic change within the Scandinavian consumer co‐operation is given, illustrating the exploration of business opportunities and the exploitation of socially and historically rooted values and principles. Drawing on philosophical hermeneutics a qualitative method is chosen, the basis on which the empirical material through interviews and documents is generated.

The empirical study illustrates that the logic of consequence communicates with the logic of appropriateness in a nonlinear manner while interrelating the future and the past. The exploration of business opportunities shapes the past, which is brought to light when opportunities are expressed through the present, continuously forming and reforming the present and in turn shedding new light on the past.

Although various forms of intellectual bridging and transfer are encouraged within the field of strategic management, notably lacking are studies that focus on time. This paper brings to the fore an alternative conception of time. It acknowledges the past in its hermeneutical significance when ascribing the past a dynamic repetitive role.

This paper takes a structured literature review (SLR) approach to identify gaps in the literature and suggest future research opportunities. It focuses on corporate governance (CG) performed outside the formal board of directors’ structure and examines research of alternative CG of small and medium-sized entities (SMEs).

The authors use the SLR method to search the Scopus database, extracting and synthesising findings relating specifically to SMEs’ CG. These are tabulated and described using bibliometric software.

The authors highlight an absence of tailored theoretical approaches to understanding CG in SMEs, which differs from the governance of larger entities. They also find evidence of alternative governance structures in SME CG.

Further research should embrace management and other theoretical perspectives and expanded methodologies, nuances in understanding offered in contextualised settings and awareness of practical implications to better understand the specific setting of CG in SMEs.

SMEs seek to access the scarce resources and skills external to their formal CG structures. Regulators and resource providers should mobilise facilitation and training for this expansion.

The authors synthesise a large body of literature to extract findings specific to SMEs. A unique contribution is our focus on alternative forms of CG in SMEs. Evidence of alternative boards points to resolutions for human capital shortages in SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to boost multidisciplinary research by the building of an integrated catalogue or research assets metadata. Such an integrated catalogue should enable researchers to solve problems or analyse phenomena that require a view across several scientific domains.

There are two main approaches for integrating metadata catalogues provided by different e-science research infrastructures (e-RIs): centralised and distributed. The authors decided to implement a central metadata catalogue that describes, provides access to and records actions on the assets of a number of e-RIs participating in the system. The authors chose the CERIF data model for description of assets available via the integrated catalogue. Analysis of popular metadata formats used in e-RIs has been conducted, and mappings between popular formats and the CERIF data model have been defined using an XML-based tool for description and automatic execution of mappings.

An integrated catalogue of research assets metadata has been created. Metadata from e-RIs supporting Dublin Core, ISO 19139, DCAT-AP, EPOS-DCAT-AP, OIL-E and CKAN formats can be integrated into the catalogue. Metadata are stored in CERIF RDF in the integrated catalogue. A web portal for searching this catalogue has been implemented.

Only five formats are supported at this moment. However, description of mappings between other source formats and the target CERIF format can be defined in the future using the 3M tool, an XML-based tool for describing X3ML mappings that can then be automatically executed on XML metadata records. The approach and best practices described in this paper can thus be applied in future mappings between other metadata formats.

The integrated catalogue is a part of the eVRE prototype, which is a result of the VRE4EIC H2020 project.

The integrated catalogue should boost the performance of multi-disciplinary research; thus it has the potential to enhance the practice of data science and so contribute to an increasingly knowledge-based society.

A novel approach for creation of the integrated catalogue has been defined and implemented. The approach includes definition of mappings between various formats. Defined mappings are effective and shareable.

This paper aims to provide an assessment of the decision-usefulness and quality of governmental financial reports in Greece under the recently adopted modified-cash basis. The evaluation is performed within the wider debate regarding the actual benefits of a transition toward an accounting paradigm that lies closer to accrual accounting as the Greek modified-cash basis borrows several accrual characteristics.

The transition to modified accruals is analyzed through the prism of the new institutional theory. The approach adopted builds on the characteristics of the accounting information pertaining to the conceptual frameworks of public and private sector accounting standard setting bodies. The assessment is conducted on the basis of the perceptions of public sector financial information users on a Web-based questionnaire.

The findings provide empirical evidence, albeit of moderate magnitude, in favor of the benefits associated with a move to full accruals.

The study moves the debate on the merits of accounting systems’ changes toward the worldwide witnessed trajectory a step forward by providing practical evidence on the matter.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of export barriers at two different points in time, 1995 (t ₀) and 2010 (t ₁), respectively. Using “confidence” as a surrogate for affect, the study proposes an inverse relationship between affect and export barrier intensity with the influence of export barriers increasing as exporter confidence subsides.

The study draws two random probabilistic samples (1995/2010) of New Zealand’s SME exporters, from the same working population, using an identical survey instrument. Preliminary analysis combines exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis techniques. The research proposition is tested using binary logistic regression.

The results found that the influence of export barriers changes substantially across time. There was support for the proposition in that the 2010 sample of exporters were two to nine times more likely to consider export barriers influential than the 1995 group. Such evidence was particularly strong in the context of logistics and distribution factors, internal resource constraints, trade-related barriers, home market factors and currency and payments obstacles.

This research suggests managerial evaluation of the prevailing business atmosphere, as captured by exporter’s confidence, can influence perception of export barriers. Specifically, barriers tend to be evaluated as influential when there is a sense of pessimism within the export sector. Thus over time export barrier influence can be traced to the manager’s evaluation of export prospects as opposed to the frequently researched organizational and internationalization variables.

This is the first study to use theory to predict and empirically test the change in export barrier influence across time. While the majority of export barrier research adopts the cognitive or “objective-verifiable” view, the study supports the contention that export barrier influence can also be understood in the context of the emotive or “subjective-moot” perspective. Additionally, export managers should adopt long-term orientation towards exports while policymakers are encouraged (contrary to mainstream research) to move from targeted export support programs to inclusive or mass market approaches.

The purpose of this paper is to show how previous studies have demonstrated that non‐professional users prefer using event‐based conceptual descriptions, such as “a woman wearing a hat”, to describe and search images. In many art image archives, these conceptual descriptions are manually annotated in free‐text fields. This study aims to explore technologies to automate event‐based knowledge extractions from these free‐text image descriptions.

This study presents an approach based on semantic role labeling technologies for automatically extracting event‐based knowledge, including subject, verb, object, location and temporal information from free‐text image descriptions. A query expansion module is applied to further improve the retrieval recall. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is evaluated by measuring the retrieval precision and recall capabilities for experiments with real life art image collections in museums.

Evaluations results indicate that the proposed method can achieve a substantially higher retrieval precision than conventional keyword‐based approaches. The proposed methodology is highly applicable for large‐scale collections where the image retrieval precision is more critical than the recall.

The study provides the first attempt in literature for automating the extraction of event‐based knowledge from free‐text image descriptions. The effectiveness and ease of implementation of the proposed approach make it feasible for practical applications.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate ontologies with respect to the linked data principles. This paper presents a concrete interpretation of the four linked data principles applied to ontologies, along with an implementation that automatically detects violations of these principles and fixes them (semi-automatically). The implementation is applied to a number of state-of-the-art ontologies.

Based on a precise and detailed interpretation of the linked data principles in the context of ontologies (to become as reusable as possible), the authors propose a set of algorithms to assess ontologies according to the four linked data principles along with means to implement them using a Java/Jena framework. All ontology elements are extracted and examined taking into account particular cases, such as blank nodes and literals. The authors also provide propositions to fix some of the detected anomalies.

The experimental results are consistent with the proven quality of popular ontologies of the linked data cloud because these ontologies obtained good scores from the linked data validator tool.

The proposed approach and its implementation takes into account the assessment of the four linked data principles and propose means to correct the detected anomalies in the assessed data sets, whereas most LD validator tools focus on the evaluation of principle 2 (URI dereferenceability) and principle 3 (RDF validation); additionally, they do not tackle the issue of fixing detected errors.