Habiba Al-Shaer, Aly Salama and Steven Toms
The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of the volume of environmental disclosures and their quality, with particular focus on the role of audit committees (ACs…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of the volume of environmental disclosures and their quality, with particular focus on the role of audit committees (ACs) and the effects of the Smith report recommendations for the UK Corporate Governance Code.
Design/methodology/approach
Quantitative large sample analysis of UK FTSE350 companies for the period 2007-2011.
Findings
Firms with higher quality ACs make higher quality disclosures. Larger firms with block shareholders have greater volume of disclosures, whilst AC quality does not increase disclosure volume.
Research limitations/implications
Findings are based on evidence from single country and imply further international comparative research.
Practical implications
ACs mitigate the requirement for prescriptive legislation on narrative accounting disclosures relating to environmental issues.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to research that has examined the relationship between corporate governance mechanisms, specifically ACs, and the quality of financial reporting by considering voluntary narrative disclosures on environmental matters.
Details
Keywords
This paper aims to argue that the principal components of the Resource‐Based View (RBV) as a theory of sustained competitive advantage are not a sufficient basis for a complete…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to argue that the principal components of the Resource‐Based View (RBV) as a theory of sustained competitive advantage are not a sufficient basis for a complete and consistent theory of firm behaviour. Two missing elements are value theory and accountability mechanisms.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper proposes a link between value theory and accountability using a Resource Value‐Resource Risk perspective as an alternative to the Capital Asset Pricing Model. The link operates first from the labour process, where value is created but is imperfectly observable by intra‐firm mechanisms of organizational control and outside governance arrangements without incurring monitoring costs. Second, it operates through contractual arrangements which impose fixed cost structures on activities with variable revenues.
Findings
The paper thereby explains how value originates in risky and difficult to monitor productive processes and is transmitted as rents to organizational and capital market constituents. It then reviews recent contributions to the RBV, arguing that the proposed new approach overcomes gaps inherent in the alternatives, and thus offers a more complete and integrated view of firm behaviour.
Originality/value
The RBV can become a coherent theory of firm behaviour, if it adopts and can integrate the labour theory of value, associated measures of risk arising from the labour process and mechanisms of accountability.
Details
Keywords
Mihir Ajgaonkar and Keith D’Souza
The subject areas are organizational management, organizational behaviour and human resource management.
Abstract
Subject area
The subject areas are organizational management, organizational behaviour and human resource management.
Study level/applicability
The study is applicable for courses in human resource management and organizational behaviour as part of masters-level programmes in business administration and management, executive development programmes on organization design and development for middle/senior management.
Case overview
In 2003, Elizabeth and Sunil Mehta had founded a voluntary organization, “Muktangan”, focussed on child-centric education through innovative pedagogy for the community of the urban poor. Elizabeth, an educationist, and Sunil, a highly successful business person, joined hands to contribute to the well-being of urban poor to make a difference to their lives. Elizabeth and Sunil presented a proposal to impart education for “the children of the community, by the teachers drawn from the community” to the residents of the slums in central Mumbai. With a humble beginning of running a small pre-school, Muktangan now manages seven schools with 3,400 children and 500 teachers, and a teachers’ training centre with a capacity to train 100 teachers a year. Muktangan won acclaim for its unique pedagogy and a very effective child-to-teacher ratio. Over the years, Elizabeth and Sunil led Muktangan with a strong passion and a “hands-on” approach. Of late, Elizabeth and Sunil faced questions from their donors about the sustainability of Muktangan with respect to leadership and management succession. Elizabeth and Sunil had a vision for Muktangan for self-directed growth with an empowered team. Muktangan embarked on the journey to create a leadership for self-directed growth. Sunil, Elizabeth and team Muktangan conceptualized and implemented a change management intervention with help from an external consultant to build the desired organization.
Expected learning outcomes
Outcomes are understanding issues involved in the leadership, organization design and management of change, particularly of those organizations engaged in social change and development in developing societies.
Supplementary materials
The Muktangan Story: Part A – An Organizational Study; The Muktangan Story Part B – Winds of Change; Teaching Note; References: Bradach J. (1996), Organizational Alignment: The 7-S Model, Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02,163. Cooperrider D. and Whitney D. (2005), “A Positive Revolution in Change: Appreciative Inquiry”, In The Change Handbook. The Definitive Resource on Today’s Best Methods for Engaging.Whole Systems, by Peggy Holman, Tom Devane, and Steven Cady. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Cooperrider D., Whitney D., and Stavros J.M. (2008), Appreciative Inquiry Handbook for Leaders of Change (Second Edition), Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Greiner, L.E. (1998), “Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow”, Harvard Business Review, May-June, 3-11. www.muktanganedu.org/ accessed 12 April, 2018. Kessler, E. H., (2013) (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Management Theory, Sage Publications Kotter, J. P. (1996), Leading Change, Harvard Business School Press, Boston. Lewin K. (1951), Field Theory in social science, Harper & Row, New York. Waterman, R. H., Peters, T. J., and Phillips, J. R. (1980), Structure is not organization. Business Horizons, 23(3), 14-26.
Subject code:
CSS 6: Human Resource Management.
Details
Keywords
Tom R. Tyler and Steven L. Blader
A comparison of two motivations for engaging in work organizations suggests that people are motivated by both the resources they receive from their organizations and by the role…
Abstract
A comparison of two motivations for engaging in work organizations suggests that people are motivated by both the resources they receive from their organizations and by the role that the organization plays in creating and sustaining a favorable view of ones status. Status issues are especially central as motivators of voluntary behavior within the organization.
The purpose of this paper is to reflect back over his career as a management and business historian so far as to consider opportunities for the future of management and business…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to reflect back over his career as a management and business historian so far as to consider opportunities for the future of management and business history as a disciplinary area.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper consists of two segments – the first half is an auto-ethnographic personal reflection looking at the author’s research journey and how the discipline as experienced by the author has evolved over that time. The second half is a prescriptive look forward to consider how we should leverage the strengths as historians to progress the discipline forward.
Findings
The paper demonstrates opportunities for management and business history to encompass new agendas including the expansion of the topic into teaching, the possibility for the advancement of empirical contributions and opportunities for findings in new research areas, including the global south and public and project management history.
Originality/value
The paper demonstrates that historians should be more confident in the disciplinary capabilities, particularly their understandings of historic context, continuity, change and chronologies when making empirical and theoretical contributions.
Details
Keywords
Chris Carter, Stewart Clegg and Martin Kornberger
This paper aims to analyse the rise and institutionalization of the discourse of strategic management. It seeks to advance an agenda for studying strategy from a sociologically…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyse the rise and institutionalization of the discourse of strategic management. It seeks to advance an agenda for studying strategy from a sociologically informed perspective. Moreover, it aims to make a case for a critically informed, interdisciplinary approach to studying strategy.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper provides an overview to studying strategy critically. It is a theoretically informed paper.
Findings
The findings can be summarised as: first, strategy emerged as a major discipline in the 1970s; second, as a body of knowledge strategy has remained close to its industrial economics origins; and third, an agenda for the sociological study of strategy revolving around concerns of performativity and power is outlined.
Originality/value
The paper offers a sociologically informed account of strategy.
Details
Keywords
Catalogues how Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda are meeting, individually, the AIDS epidemic with governmental and non‐governmental organizations (NGOs). Uses data from the United…
Abstract
Catalogues how Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda are meeting, individually, the AIDS epidemic with governmental and non‐governmental organizations (NGOs). Uses data from the United Nations and World Bank. Gives background of NGOs in East Africa and their field work. Concludes that the social dimensions of each country are very restrictive in slightly differing ways, with the various religious beliefs also having an effect which is deleterious in nature. States that, even so, there are more similarities than there are differences in the three countries.
Details
Keywords
Increasingly, the content that libraries collect is no longer on paper, a long-lived, medium whose technology changes very slowly and with which they have centuries of experience…
Abstract
Purpose
Increasingly, the content that libraries collect is no longer on paper, a long-lived, medium whose technology changes very slowly and with which they have centuries of experience. Instead, it is stored on relatively short-lived digital media whose technology appears to change rapidly and with which they have little history. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
The storage media industry is highly competitive and is currently evolving rapidly as flash, a solid state medium, displaces spinning disk from many applications. Long-term archival storage is a small part of the total storage market. It typically re-uses media and systems intended for more general bulk storage.
Findings
What are the medium-term prospects for change in this market?
Originality/value
Much of this material has appeared in blog posts and talks aimed at storage experts, such as the recent DARPA workshop on future of storage. It is presented here for a librarian audience with the necessary additional exposition and background.
Details
Keywords
James E. McNulty and Aigbe Akhigbe
Directors help determine the strategic direction of a corporation and are responsible for ensuring the institution has a good system of internal control. Banking institutions…
Abstract
Directors help determine the strategic direction of a corporation and are responsible for ensuring the institution has a good system of internal control. Banking institutions without a strategic direction emphasizing sound lending practices that promote the long-run financial health and viability of the institution will be sued more frequently than peer institutions. Institutions that do not have a good system of internal control will also be sued more frequently. Hence, legal expense is a bank corporate governance measure. We compare the performance of bank legal expense and a widely cited corporate governance index in a regression framework to determine which better predicts bank performance. The regressions indicate legal expense is a much better predictor, hence a better measure of bank corporate governance. Regulators should require legal expense reporting and rank institutions by the ratio of legal expense to assets to help identify institutions with weak governance. Seven case studies illustrate the role of legal expense in corporate governance.
Details
Keywords
Short-term military simulations of scenarios or conditions that U.S. military personnel might meet are generally the largest, in terms of cost and personnel, of all operational…
Abstract
Short-term military simulations of scenarios or conditions that U.S. military personnel might meet are generally the largest, in terms of cost and personnel, of all operational training events. That at least six such exercises were scheduled for September 11, 2001 raises serious questions about whether or not the events of 9/11 were at least partially orchestrated by U.S. command.
In light of the aforementioned military exercises and the fact that the 9/11 Commission's Final Report barely mentions them, neither were they significantly discussed nor investigated during the hearings, this essay briefly explores four key questions that will hopefully stimulate further inquiries, investigations and perhaps subpoenas that will ultimately break the silence and force declassification of the information surrounding the war games.1.Has there been a high-level suppression of information about the military drills?2.Might the military drills have been a significant factor in the success of the attacks?3.Who was in charge of the military drills and what motives may have been operating for this person?4.In what way might Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in the United States for the attacks, be a link that connects to the person in charge of the games to another tragedy that may have been “an inside job” – i.e. Senator Paul Wellstone's death, and how might Moussaoui connect all of this to the Pentagon?