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Article
Publication date: 13 December 2023

Indrit Troshani and Nick Rowbottom

Information infrastructures can enable or constrain how companies pursue their visions of sustainability reporting and help address the urgent need to understand how corporate…

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Abstract

Purpose

Information infrastructures can enable or constrain how companies pursue their visions of sustainability reporting and help address the urgent need to understand how corporate activity affects sustainability outcomes and how socio-ecological challenges affect corporate activity. The paper examines the relationship between sustainability reporting information infrastructures and sustainability reporting practice.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper mobilises a socio-technical perspective and the conception of infrastructure, the socio-technical arrangement of technical artifacts and social routines, to engage with a qualitative dataset comprised of interview and documentary evidence on the development and construction of sustainability reporting information.

Findings

The results detail how sustainability reporting information infrastructures are used by companies and depict the difficulties faced in generating reliable sustainability data. The findings illustrate the challenges and measures undertaken by entities to embed automation and integration, and to enhance sustainability data quality. The findings provide insight into how infrastructures constrain and support sustainability reporting practices.

Originality/value

The paper explains how infrastructures shape sustainability reporting practices, and how infrastructures are shaped by regulatory demands and costs. Companies have developed “uneven” infrastructures supporting legislative requirements, whilst infrastructures supporting non-legislative sustainability reporting remain underdeveloped. Consequently, infrastructures supporting specific legislation have developed along unitary pathways and are often poorly integrated with infrastructures supporting other sustainability reporting areas. Infrastructures developed around legislative requirements are not necessarily constrained by financial reporting norms and do not preclude specific sustainability reporting visions. On the contrary, due to regulation, infrastructure supporting disclosures that offer an “inside out” perspective on sustainability reporting is often comparatively well developed.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 37 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

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Article
Publication date: 29 November 2018

Indrit Troshani, Joanne Locke and Nick Rowbottom

Corporate reporting infrastructure and communication are being transformed by the emergence of digital technologies. A key element of the digital accounting infrastructure…

4085

Abstract

Purpose

Corporate reporting infrastructure and communication are being transformed by the emergence of digital technologies. A key element of the digital accounting infrastructure underpinning international corporate reporting is the IFRS Taxonomy, a digital representation of international accounting standards that is required by firms to produce digital corporate reports. The purpose of this paper is to trace the development, governance and adoption of the IFRS Taxonomy to highlight the implications for accounting practice and standard-setting.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors mobilise Actor Network Theory and a model of transnational standardisation to analyse the process surrounding the formation and diffusion of the IFRS Taxonomy as a legitimate “reference” of the IFRS Standards. The authors trace the process using interview, observation and documentary evidence.

Findings

The analysis shows that while the taxonomy enables IFRS-based reporting in the digital age, tensions and detours result in the need for a realignment of the perspectives of both accounting standard-setters and taxonomy developers that have transformative implications for accounting practice and standard-setting.

Originality/value

The study explains how and why existing accounting standards are transformed by technology inscriptions with reflexive effects on the formation and diffusion of accounting standards. In doing so, the paper highlights the implications that arise as accounting practice adapts to the digitalisation of corporate reporting.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 32 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

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Article
Publication date: 18 September 2018

Joanne Locke, Nick Rowbottom and Indrit Troshani

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the process by which “analogue” corporate reports produced under a “paper paradigm” are translated into a machine language as required by…

1345

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the process by which “analogue” corporate reports produced under a “paper paradigm” are translated into a machine language as required by digital reporting. The paper uses Austin and Searle’s linguistic speech act theory to examine how digitally translating reporting information into atomised data affects the infrastructure and practice of accounting.

Design/methodology/approach

Extensive interview and observation evidence focussed on the IFRS Foundation’s digital reporting project is analysed. An interpretive approach is informed by the concepts of L compatibility, illocution and perlocutionary acts which are drawn from speech act theory.

Findings

Two key sites of translation are identified. The first site concerns the translation of accounting standards, principles and practices into taxonomies for digital tagging. Controversies arise over the definition of accounting concepts in a site populated by accounting and IT-orientated experts. The second site of translation is in the routine production and dissemination of digital reports which impacts the L compatibility between preparers and users.

Originality/value

The paper highlights a previously unexplored field of translation in accounting and contributes a unique perspective that demonstrates that machine translation is no longer marginalised but is the “primary” text with effects on the infrastructure and practice of accounting. It extends speech act theory by applying it to the digital domain and in the context of translation between languages.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 31 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

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Article
Publication date: 14 September 2010

Richard Slack and Philip Shrives

This editorial aims to provide an overview of the four papers included in this special issue. It discusses the development of voluntary disclosure research and its potential…

1576

Abstract

Purpose

This editorial aims to provide an overview of the four papers included in this special issue. It discusses the development of voluntary disclosure research and its potential future directions.

Design/methodology/approach

The editorial adopts a review approach, identifying key issues and provides a context for future research.

Findings

The editorial highlights some of the difficulties with research into voluntary disclosure, calls for further reflection and suggests factors to consider in future research in this area.

Originality/value

The editorial provides a review of current issues in disclosure research and reviews these papers which demonstrate a particular approach to research that is relevant to both practitioners and academics.

Details

Journal of Applied Accounting Research, vol. 11 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0967-5426

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Available. Content available
Article
Publication date: 20 February 2017

444

Abstract

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 30 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

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Article
Publication date: 28 March 2022

John W. Cadogan and Nick Lee

This study aims to determine whether partial least squares path modeling (PLS) is fit for purpose for scholars holding scientific realist views.

1084

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to determine whether partial least squares path modeling (PLS) is fit for purpose for scholars holding scientific realist views.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors present the philosophical foundations of scientific realism and constructivism and examine the extent to which PLS aligns with them.

Findings

PLS does not align with scientific realism but aligns well with constructivism.

Research limitations/implications

Research is needed to assess PLS’s fit with instrumentalism and pragmatism.

Practical implications

PLS has no utility as a realist scientific tool but may be of interest to constructivists.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to assess PLS’s alignments and mismatches with constructivist and scientific realist perspectives.

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Article
Publication date: 16 August 2022

John W. Cadogan and Nick Lee

This study aims to correct errors in, and comment on the claims made in the comment papers of Rigdon (2022) and Henseler and Schuberth (2022), and to tidy up any substantive…

441

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to correct errors in, and comment on the claims made in the comment papers of Rigdon (2022) and Henseler and Schuberth (2022), and to tidy up any substantive oversights made in Cadogan and Lee (2022).

Design/methodology/approach

The study discusses and clarifies the gap between Rigdon’s notion of scientific realism and the metaphysical, semantic and epistemological commitments that are broadly agreed to be key principles of scientific realism. The study also examines the ontological status of the variables that Henseler and Schuberth claim are emergent using emergence logic grounded in the notion that variables are only truly emergent if they demonstrate a failure of generative atomism.

Findings

In scientific realism, hypothetical causal contact between the unobserved and the observed is a key foundational stance, and as such, Rigdon’s concept proxy framework (CPF) is inherently anti-realist in nature. Furthermore, Henseler and Schuberth’s suggestion that composite-creating statistical packages [such as partial least squares (PLS)] can model emergent variables should be treated with skepticism by realists.

Research limitations/implications

Claims made by Rigdon regarding the realism of CPF are unfounded, and claims by Henseler and Schuberth regarding the universal suitability of partial least squares (PLS) as a tool for use by researchers of all ontological stripes (see their Table 5) do not appear to be well-grounded.

Practical implications

Those aspiring to do science according to the precepts of scientific realism need to be careful in assessing claims in the literature. For instance, despite Rigdon’s assertion that CPF is a realist framework, we show that it is not. Consequently, some of Rigdon’s core criticisms of the common factor logic make no sense for the realist. Likewise, if the variables resulting from composite creating statistical packages (like PLS) are not really emergent (contrary to Henseler and Schuberth) and so are not real, their utility as tools for scientific realist inquiry are called into question.

Originality/value

This study assesses PLS using the Eleatic Principle and examines H&S’s version of emergent variables from an ontological perspective.

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Article
Publication date: 1 February 1987

Paul M. Cashman and David Stroll

A major challenge facing a business manager is to achieve a sustainable level of success, which in turn means being able to sustainably master the complexity with which s/he must…

258

Abstract

A major challenge facing a business manager is to achieve a sustainable level of success, which in turn means being able to sustainably master the complexity with which s/he must deal. Information technology providers must understand the relationships between the levels of complexity with which managers deal, the importance of support for cooperation and coordination, and the resulting information system requirements. In this paper we describe a theoretical framework which sheds some light on these relationships, and describe a real‐life experiment in using prototype advanced information technology to support strategic business unit management within a large corporation.

Details

Office Technology and People, vol. 3 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0167-5710

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Book part
Publication date: 29 May 2023

Inakshi Kapur, Pallavi Tyagi and Neha Zaidi

Purpose: This chapter aims to identify and evaluate the various components of business model disclosures in an Integrated Report and ascertain how the notion of business model is…

Abstract

Purpose: This chapter aims to identify and evaluate the various components of business model disclosures in an Integrated Report and ascertain how the notion of business model is perceived among practitioners.

Need for the Study: According to previous research, the International Integrated Reporting Council’s (IIRC) objective of improving corporate reporting by encouraging organisations to disclose their business model has not found the desired recognition. Therefore, the study elaborates on the various components of business model reporting and their implications on corporate reporting in general.

Methodology: A review of literature was conducted to identify and analyse research based on business models and their disclosures in integrated reporting. A narrative review was undertaken for selected literature.

Findings: The findings suggest that most large-sized organisations use integrated reporting for impression management and are not inclined to disclose too much about their business models for fear of competition. There is still a lack of clear understanding of what a business model should entail.

Practical Implication: This study adds to the research on business model disclosures in integrated reporting. Voluntary disclosure and a better understanding of such disclosures will prepare organisations of all sizes and industries for an event when Integrated Reporting becomes statutory.

Details

Smart Analytics, Artificial Intelligence and Sustainable Performance Management in a Global Digitalised Economy
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80382-555-7

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Article
Publication date: 1 October 2001

Paul Cozens, David Hillier and Gwyn Prescott

The first paper, entitled “Crime and the design of residential property: exploring the theoretical background” (Property Management, Vol. 19 No. 2), has argued that “perceptions”…

2536

Abstract

The first paper, entitled “Crime and the design of residential property: exploring the theoretical background” (Property Management, Vol. 19 No. 2), has argued that “perceptions” and the “image” of housing designs remain a largely untested avenue of investigation in the design‐effects‐crime debate. Presents and discusses exploratory research into the perception of crime/deviancy, fear of crime and “defensible space”, in relation to a range of characteristic UK housing designs. This investigation concerns the perceptions of planning professionals, convicted burglars and other users and provides both qualitative and quantitative analysis of results from a series of interviews which presented slide representations of terraced, semi‐detached and detached housing designs in addition to low‐rise/walk‐up flats and high‐rise flats. Where possible, two contrasting versions of the same design were presented to probe the influence of “image” in the perception of crime and “defensible space”. The results from this exploratory investigation underpin Newman’s theory of “defensible space” in that a “hierarchy of place” appears to exist with regard to housing designs. However, the “image” of each design is perceived to be a significant contributing factor in relation to the criminogenic capacity of each design presented. Wilson and Kelling’s “Broken Windows” theory is also supported by these research findings.

Details

Property Management, vol. 19 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0263-7472

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