This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing methodological discussions surrounding the adoption of ethnographic approaches in accounting by undertaking a comparative analysis of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing methodological discussions surrounding the adoption of ethnographic approaches in accounting by undertaking a comparative analysis of ethnography in anthropology and ethnography in qualitative accounting research. By doing so, it abductively speculates on the factors influencing the distinct characteristics of ethnography in accounting and explores their implications.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses a comparative approach, organizing the comparison using Van Maanen’s (2011a, 2011b) framework of field-, head- and text-work phases in ethnography. Furthermore, it draws on the author’s experience as a qualitative researcher who has conducted ethnographic research for more than a decade across the disciplines of anthropology and accounting, as well as for non-academic organizations, to provide illustrative examples for the comparison.
Findings
This paper finds that ethnography in accounting, when compared to its counterpart in anthropology, demonstrates a stronger inclination towards scientific aspirations. This is evidenced by its prevalence of realist tales, a high emphasis on “methodological rigour”, a focus on high-level theorization and other similar characteristics. Furthermore, the scientific aspiration and hegemony of the positivist paradigm in accounting research, when leading to a change of the evaluation criteria of non-positivist research, generate an impoverishment of interpretive and ethnographic research in accounting.
Originality/value
This paper provides critical insights from a comparative perspective, highlighting the marginalized position of ethnography in accounting research. By understanding the mechanisms of marginalization, the paper commits to reflexivity and advocates for meaningful changes within the field.
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The purpose of this paper is to suggest that the mechanics of the neoliberal mindset is governed paradigmatically by a peculiar notion of “time,” which leads, in turn, to a kind…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to suggest that the mechanics of the neoliberal mindset is governed paradigmatically by a peculiar notion of “time,” which leads, in turn, to a kind of amoral consequentialism that projects meaninglessly and amorally into the future. The author proposes, in comparison, the pre-modern and ancient sense of the temporal which has the potential to yield moral insights for guiding policy thinking.
Design/methodology/approach
The author employs a philosophical approach and historical approach. The authors analyze philosophically the notion of the temporal in the consequentialist neoliberal agency, and draws on continental, ancient and medieval philosophical sources of temporality to develop an alternative.
Findings
The author argues that a rich notion of the temporal can be retrieved from medieval sources. This notion of the temporal is located in our experience of changing embodied beings, or physis, and gives rise to thuamazein or awe, which shows moral insights. The latter is a valuable source of guidance in policy thinking.
Research limitations/implications
This paper also suggests that epistemological commitment to an authority as numbers, feeding a policy as numbers, needs to be challenged. This paper does not draw on empirical data but nevertheless aspires to develop a thoughtful conceptual case on behalf of its conclusions.
Practical implications
A moral, neoliberal consequentialism is harmful to professional agencies. This paper offers a different way to think policy that puts what truly matters in front of us.
Social implications
Neoliberalism breeds the terrors of performativity that forgets what as a society we need to aim for on behalf of happiness, and instead drives us to compete without restraint after particular quantitative achievements. By challenging this paradigm, it is possible to offer policy thinking a different set of conceptual tools with which to think ourselves out of this performative irrationality.
Originality/value
This paper retrieves a medieval notion of time that is related with the showing of moral insights, opposed to amoral neoliberal consequentialism. In this way, there is a proposal of an alternative to neoliberalism, and not merely the worry of its damaging effects. It is also an original developmental study of Heidegger’s retrieval of ancient philosophy’s sense of temporality and its connection with ethics in the light of the resources in medieval philosophy.
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Philip Gerrard and J. Barton Cunningham
Undergraduates constitute an attractive segment of customers for retail banks in many countries of the world, including Singapore. This study, using a sample of Singapore’s…
Abstract
Undergraduates constitute an attractive segment of customers for retail banks in many countries of the world, including Singapore. This study, using a sample of Singapore’s undergraduates, sets out to establish a ranking of the various dimensions which influence their bank selection decision and seeks to determine how homogeneous undergraduates are in relation to their selection decision. Seven bank selection dimensions were identified, the most important being undergraduates should “feel secure”, while the least important dimension was “third party influences”. Responses between those “attending engineering courses and non‐engineering courses” were compared, as were those between “males and females” and “single and multiple bank users”. More significant differences were found when engineering undergraduates were compared with non‐engineering undergraduates. Irrespective of these differences, the sequencing of the seven selection dimensions was invariably in the same order.
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The purpose of this paper is to introduce the literary authority of qualitative management accounting field research (QMAFR) and its interconnectedness with the scientific…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the literary authority of qualitative management accounting field research (QMAFR) and its interconnectedness with the scientific authority of this form of research.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopts a non‐positivist perspective on the writing/authoring of QMAFR. The paper illustrates its arguments by analysing how the field is written/authored in two well‐known examples of qualitative management accounting research, using Golden‐Biddle and Locke's framework as a way of initiating an understanding of how field research attains its “convincingness”.
Findings
The paper finds that these two examples of QMAFR attain their convincingness by authoring a strong sense of authenticity and plausibility, adopting writing strategies that signal the authority of the researcher and their figuration of the “facts”.
Research limitations/implications
The paper argues for a more aesthetically informed consideration of the “goodness” of non‐positivist QMAFR, arguing that its scientific and aesthetic forms of authority are ultimately intertwined.
Practical implications
This paper has practical implications for informing the ways in which QMAFR is read and written, arguing for greater experimentation in terms of its narration.
Originality/value
The value of this paper lies in its recognition of the authorial and aesthetic nature of QMAFR, as well as it potential to encourage debate, reflection and changed practices within the community of scholars interested in this form of research.
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Sebastian Robson and Snehasish Banerjee
With the growing trend of omni-channel marketing, brands are increasingly looking to offer a seamless experience to their online fan base by connecting with them across multiple…
Abstract
Purpose
With the growing trend of omni-channel marketing, brands are increasingly looking to offer a seamless experience to their online fan base by connecting with them across multiple social media platforms. This paper explores the relationship between brand posts' characteristics and popularity for start-ups across four different social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 1,200 social media posts from 10 start-ups were subjected to content analysis. Regression analysis was employed with brand posts' popularity (likes, comments and shares/retweets) as the dependent variable.
Findings
The results reveal several nuances in brand post popularity for start-ups across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Antecedents of the popularity measures of likes, comments and shares/retweets also fared differently.
Originality/value
The paper reports one of the earliest empirical studies to better understand how the qualities of brand posts are related to their appeal across multiple social media platforms. It advances the literature on social media marketing and offers insights to social media managers of brands, particularly start-ups, on how to offer smoother customer journeys across numerous digital touchpoints.
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This paper seeks to examine the social construction of the racialised, colonial subaltern accountant in the British imperial centre in the early twentieth century..
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to examine the social construction of the racialised, colonial subaltern accountant in the British imperial centre in the early twentieth century..
Design/methodology/approach
Primary sources are used to provide an historical analysis of the British accountancy arena in the 1920s, this being the period when “race thinking” first became explicit. Secondary histories of race and empire are used to contextualise this analysis by highlighting: the growth of “race thinking” in the latter part of the nineteenth and the early decades of the twentieth centuries; and the American challenge to British imperial hegemony after the First World War.
Findings
This paper tracks the struggles of British accountants in the imperial centre in the 1920s to find a path between racialist attitudes in the imperial centre, their own included and countervailing discourses of non‐discrimination. For the Scottish chartered bodies, this involved the development of a de facto barrier to entry when a proposed de jure one aroused, surprisingly enough, the prospect of retaliation from American accountants.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations in the primary sources preclude detailed examination of the attitudes of individuals or for all variations in the positions adopted by particular bodies.
Practical implications
The troubling thing about the demise of explicit race talk by the end of the 1920s is that de facto barriers to the entry of the racialised, subordinated Other remained in place.
Originality/value
This paper shows that the rise of race thinking in Britain did not leave British accountancy untouched; largely through the pressure it placed upon the identity of British accountants qua Britons and the consequential issue of inclusion/exclusion of non‐Britons.
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This paper aims to provide insights into how organizational performance in a prior period may influence the nature of control subsequently used by senior not-for-profit (NFP…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide insights into how organizational performance in a prior period may influence the nature of control subsequently used by senior not-for-profit (NFP) managers.
Design/methodology/approach
This investigation is based on data collected from semi-structured interviews of CEOs and senior executives in 32 Australian NFPs.
Findings
Although performance has a considerable influence on the subsequent use of control, the findings point to a broad conceptualisation of performance as it is perceived to apply within a NFP context. Moreover, the roles of formal management control systems and informal control are quite distinct, with the latter predominating in responding to prior performance.
Originality/value
Despite recognition in the management accounting literature of the likely influence of organizational performance in previous periods on control, empirical studies investigating organizational performance as an antecedent to the use of control have been surprisingly limited. The current study directly responds to this gap in our knowledge, and also, to prior calls for the need for more management control research into the NFP sector. This contribution is important in view of the considerable economic and social impact of this sector in most Western economies, coupled with the increasing recognition of the importance of both performance and control within this sector.
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The purpose of this paper is to identify process-related value propositions in terms of process execution when using enterprise social media (ESM) for external communication…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify process-related value propositions in terms of process execution when using enterprise social media (ESM) for external communication purposes. Additionally, capabilities of ESM technologies to realize the value propositions are identified.
Design/methodology/approach
A literature review of case studies, describing ESM usage for external communication purposes, is performed. Further, face-to-face interviews with employees from companies are conducted to complement the findings retrieved from the literature.
Findings
It is shown that manifold process-related value propositions for different business processes can be realized by ESM application for external communication purposes. However, certain value propositions and the corresponding capabilities of ESM technologies are particularly emphasized.
Research limitations/implications
This research is different from existing studies about ESM usage because an explicit perspective on business processes is taken. Therefore, the findings contribute to the existing body of knowledge of beneficial ESM usage. Analyzing the literature and interview transcripts underlies a certain amount of subjectivity, a circumstance addressed by engaging two researchers in the coding procedure.
Practical implications
Practitioners discussing potentials of ESM application are provided with concrete hints as to which business processes will most likely profit from the use of social technologies for the external communication with customers.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to a better understanding of the beneficial impact of social technologies on business processes and thus prepares the ground for a better alignment of ESM and processes. An extensive overview of value propositions for a company’s business processes has so far not been compiled in this form.
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Hong Anh Vu, Viet Hung Cu, Lian Xing Min and Jian Qiong Wang
As in other developing countries, increased highway development in Vietnam provides enormous opportunities for international construction companies (ICCs). However, a prolonged…
Abstract
Purpose
As in other developing countries, increased highway development in Vietnam provides enormous opportunities for international construction companies (ICCs). However, a prolonged schedule delay (SD) can have an extremely detrimental impact on a project’s efficiency, cost and investment reputation. The purpose of this paper is to identify potential SD risk factors in international highway projects (IHPs) in Vietnam, and to explore the effects of and influences on such factors. A specific risk management framework is proposed as a useful tool for ICCs.
Design/methodology/approach
A system of SD risk indicators is presented for IHPs in Vietnam through a questionnaire survey. The system comprises 50 indicators that are grouped into 12 main factors. A structural equation model (SEM) is then used to assess the influences and mechanisms of these factors. Based on the obtained results, corresponding suggestions for preventing SD risks are presented and discussed.
Findings
First, among the 12 aforementioned major factors, the authors identify eight facors that have significant effects on IHP SDs. Second, the SEM analysis reveals that policy flaws and the fiscal ability of the owner play the most important roles, on account of their direct and indirect influences on SDs.
Originality/value
Considering stakeholders and external environmental effects, a system of indicators is introduced to explore SD risks to IHPs. In particular, an SEM is used to assess the effects of potential SD factors and characterize their interacting influences. This study could help ICCs to avoid or mitigate project delays and cost overruns in Vietnam, and also provide valuable lessons for other developing countries.
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Samuel Mafabi, John Munene and Joseph Ntayi
The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of the mediation effect of innovation in the relationship between knowledge management and organisational resilience.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of the mediation effect of innovation in the relationship between knowledge management and organisational resilience.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopts a cross‐sectional design to collect data used to carry out mediation analysis.
Findings
Innovation had an effect on organisational resilience. Knowledge management did not have a direct effect on organisational resilience, except through the full mediation of innovation. This suggests that without organisational innovation, parastatal organisations may not improve their level of resilience.
Research limitations/implications
The sample size was small, covering only parastatals. The results may be different in the private sector. The study was cross‐sectional which is limited to trace long‐term effects of knowledge management and organisational innovation on organisational resilience. Therefore, a longitudinal study may be undertaken, subject to resource availability.
Practical implications
Managers in parastatals should carry out organisational innovations as a gateway for knowledge management to build organisational resilience.
Originality/value
The study generates empirical evidence on less studied phenomena in the parastatal sector. The evidence highlights the powerful influence of organisational innovation in building resilience based on knowledge management.