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This paper aims to show that business intelligence (BI) is a key component of a sustainability-reporting framework for higher education institutions (HEIs).

Four questionnaires were administered to Registrars and managers at 21 South African HEIs and at selected international HEIs. The data analysis entailed both descriptive and inferential statistics.

The study confirmed that factors such as management buy-in, the availability of BI reports and the provision of reporting guidelines were positively related to effective strategic planning. The study shows that the use of BI by South African HEIs is still at a low maturity level.

The case study used is the Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The implications are relevant for all 26 HEIs in South Africa.

HEIs must invest in technological tools, including BI to provide information in understandable and usable formats for management and other relevant stakeholders.

BI reporting can assist all stakeholders to obtain the relevant and required information relating to HEI operations and strategic management initiatives and activities.

The study concludes that HEIs ought to invest in BI technologies that can assist the sustainability reporting process to ensure stakeholder satisfaction and regulatory compliance.

Contemporary entrepreneurial ecosystem models and frameworks advocate that culture is a criterion for entrepreneurial intention and central to entrepreneurship discourse. However, there is limited research from resource-constrained economies, such as sub-Saharan Africa and at a sub-national level. Responding to calls for bottom-up perspectives hinged on local context and heterogeneous nature, this paper aims to provide an in-depth understanding from multiple perspectives about the effect that culture and entrepreneurial intention have on the entrepreneurship process and performance in Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa.

A mixed-method research design followed a sequential independent process consisting of two phases. Phase 1 included the dissemination of questionnaires to economically active participants, and 300 responses were statistically analysed. In Phase 2, 15 semi-structured interviews with influential economic development agents were conducted.

The results indicated that social legitimacy towards entrepreneurship existed and self-employment was viewed positively. However, self-employment endeavours were mainly necessity driven, and the systemic low levels of innovation, poor business competitiveness and the inability to scale were highlighted. The findings indicated that individuals venturing into business had a culture of being dependant on the government, lacking a risk appetite, fearing failure, with disparate groups suffering from a poor legacy of entrepreneurship.

Despite research done on the role of culture and entrepreneurial intention on entrepreneurial ecosystems, there are few case studies showing their influence at a sub-national level. This study responds to calls for studies on a sub-national level by exploring the influence that culture and entrepreneurial intention have on entrepreneurship in a resource-constrained metropole.

Boards of directors are assumed to exercise three key accountability roles – control, monitoring and oversight roles. By researching one board type – investment fund boards – and the power relations around those boards, the purpose of this paper is to show that such boards are not capable of operating the three key roles assumed of them.

The authors conducted 25 in-depth interviews and a focus group session with investment fund directors applying a grounded theory methodology.

Because of their unique position of power, the authors find that fund promoter organisations (that establish and attract investors to the funds) exercise control and monitoring roles. As a result, contrary to prior assumptions, oversight is the primary role of investment fund boards, rather than the control role or monitoring role associated with corporate boards. The findings can be extended to other board-of-director contexts in which boards (e.g. subsidiary boards, boards of state-owned entities) have legal responsibility but limited power because of power exercised by other parties such as large shareholders.

Shareholders and regulators generally assume boards exercise control and monitoring roles. This can lead to an expectations gap on the part of shareholders and regulators who may not consider the practical realities in which boards operate. This expectations gap compromises the very objective of governance – investor protection.

Based on interviews with investment fund directors, the authors challenge the control-role theory of investment fund boards of directors. Building on our findings, and following subsequent conceptual engagement with the literature, the authors differentiate control, monitoring and oversight roles, terms which are often used interchangeably in prior research. The authors distinguish between the three terms on the basis of the level of influence implied by each.

RLG is a not-for-profit international alliance of about 160 members, including universities and colleges, national and public research libraries, archives, historical societies, museums, and independent research collections devoted to improving access to information that supports research and learning. Founded in 1974 as the Research Libraries Group by four visionary library directors from Columbia, Harvard and Yale universities and the New York Public Library, the consortium formed to allow research institutions to tackle tough challenges via collaborative action. Key issues were managing the transition from locally self-sufficient and independently comprehensive collections to a system of interdependencies that would preserve and enhance the capacity for research in all fields of knowledge and improving the ability to locate and retrieve relevant research resources (RLG, 1986). At its inception, four activity areas were identified for collaborative action: cooperative bibliographic control and access; effective mechanisms for sharing information and resources among member institutions; expanded and coordinated collection development efforts; and preservation of the collections, either in the original or surrogate format.

The primary objective of this study is to examine the moderating influence of professional commitment (PC) on the associations among ethical climate, organizational‐professional conflict (OPC) and organizational commitment (OC) among public accountants. It aims to replicate recent findings on the relationships among ethical climate, OPC and OC. It also aims to extend prior research by investigating the association between ethical climate and both functional specialization and organizational rank in an accounting firm.

The authors surveyed all professional employees in the Singapore office of an international accounting firm.

Significant associations were found between ethical climate, OPC and OC. Participants' degree of affective commitment to their profession moderated the relationship between the public interest (benevolent/cosmopolitan) climate and perceived conflict and OC. Specifically, professionally committed employees reported less conflict and greater commitment when they felt the firm placed more emphasis on the public interest. These relationships were not present for employees with lower levels of professional commitment. It was also found that taxation specialists perceived the least emphasis in the firm on serving the public interest.

No prior study has documented the moderating influence of affective professional commitment on the association between ethical climate and accountants' OPC or OC. This finding has important implications, suggesting that accounting firms' ability to retain professionally committed employees will depend in part on the degree to which the firm upholds professional ideals such as serving the public interest. The fact that tax specialists perceived less emphasis on serving the public interest than other functional areas implies that tax practices may be overemphasizing client advocacy at the expense of public service.

The aim of this study is to examine the relations among organizational ethical climate, goal interdependence (cooperative vs competitive goals), and organizational and professional commitment among auditors in Asia.

The authors conducted a field survey of 293 auditors employed in two offices of an international accounting firm: one in Hong Kong and one in Singapore.

Structural equation analyses indicate that instrumental ethical climates that focus on the pursuit of self‐interest and firm profitability promote more competitive and less cooperative goals among auditors. Benevolent/cosmopolitan (public interest) climates appear to enhance cooperative goals among employees. Cooperative goals in turn were associated with increased affective and normative organizational and professional commitments. Competitive environments significantly reduced affective and normative organizational commitment as well as affective professional commitment. Compared with their Hong Kong counterparts, Singaporean auditors perceived the ethical climate in their firm to be more positive or supportive of ethical values, and also felt the work environment in the firm was more cooperative and less competitive. In addition, the Singaporean auditors exhibited somewhat higher levels of emotional attachment to both their firm and the public accounting profession.

No prior accounting study has examined the influence of cooperative/competitive goals on work outcomes in a public accounting setting, or the role of ethical climates as potential antecedents of such goals. The results of the current study indicate that the development of cooperative and competitive goals is significantly related to the perceived ethical climate in public accounting firms, and that such goals may have significant effects on employee commitment not only to their organization but also to their profession. The significant differences between auditors in Hong Kong and Singapore have not previously been documented, and raise questions for future research.

For their part, GSE went into 2002 with a vision of how they saw the year unfolding. 2002 would see the holding of a general election, and the momentum of GSE's petition gathering and public meetings could be utilised in an attempt to politicise the incineration issue as part of the overall election campaign. The shifting dynamic of the political opportunity structure surrounding the incineration issue had seen GSE and their local political allies losing momentum, due to the removal of the councillors’ powers on the waste issue. However, the response of a public now concerned at this perceived undermining of democracy allowed GSE to extend their democratic deficit frame.

The history of Catholic Teacher Education is linked to the growth and development of Catholic schools that began in the early nineteenth century. The Catholic Church struggled to recruit enough certificated teachers and relied heavily on pupil teachers. This began to be resolved with the opening of Notre Dame College, Glasgow, in 1895 and St Margaret's College, Craiglockhart, in 1920. The two Colleges would merge into the national St Andrew's College in 1981. This national college would undertake a further merger with the University of Glasgow in 1999 to become part of the newly formed Faculty of Education, later School of Education. The School of Education continues to discharge the mission to prepare teachers for Catholic schools.

To present a complete and comprehensive model by which business‐to‐business (B2B) e‐commerce transactions for sales and purchases between organisations may be categorised.

Literature from the e‐commerce and operations management fields was studied, and the findings were synthesised to develop a preliminary conceptual model of B2B interaction. The conceptual model was tested empirically using a qualitative research procedure involving focus groups. From this, its structure and content were validated and refined.

The research found that the developed model, incorporating nine exclusive e‐commerce trading scenarios, covers all B2B selling and purchase transactions, which suggests that it is comprehensive. It further found that trading occurs in each of the nine scenarios within the model, thus suggesting that it is complete. These findings support the conclusion that the model represents a valid taxonomy for the classification of B2B e‐commerce transactions.

Although the literature findings are international, the empirical study was restricted to the UK. The model has been validated through this research, and now provides a framework by which the mechanisms of B2B trade may be further investigated.

The model allows commercial organisations and researchers to recognise and understand the complexity and multiple dimensions of e‐commerce use for B2B sales and purchases. It provides a framework onto which individual trading scenarios may be mapped. The framework offers guidance to operations and supply chain managers in organisations as to the most appropriate approach to adopt in particular e‐commerce implementation projects and supply chain transactions.

This paper furthers knowledge in the areas of e‐commerce and operations management by proposing a new model of B2B interaction. This provides a comprehensive means of classifying all available transaction types, the characteristics of these and the likely technology used within them. It offers the ability, systematically, to identify, map and understand all available B2B e‐commerce trading mechanisms.