Search results

Despite the importance of accountability for the oversight of projects, few studies have directly examined accountability mechanisms at the project level. While the literature already provides descriptions of governance and mechanisms of accountability, the purpose of this paper is to examine how project managers view their accountability relationships within their organizational context.

The study is guided by critical realism as a philosophy of science. The authors interviewed 15 project managers from 12 organizations and analyzed the transcripts in the light of existing project management accountability literature.

The authors observe the practice of socializing accountability through face-to-face negotiation and symmetries of power due to interdependencies happen to some extent in management of projects. This suggests ambidexterity in accountability in project-based organizations. Therefore, the current models of project accountability and governance that are solely based on the agency theory are not sufficient to explain the accountability relationships in such organizations.

Accountability arrangements happen within a system for steering projects. Managers should be aware of how project managers view their accountability and how socializing practices of accountability can help the project’s management and the organization’s management interact in order to transform organizational systems by regulating issues of project concern and defining the process and direction of how project deliverables are produced, introduced, absorbed and used within the organization.

“Theory driven” interviews and analysis are used to confirm or refine conceptualization of accountability in management of projects. Most models of project governance are based on the agency theory or governability theory. The authors have demonstrated that socializing practices of accountability should be included in investigating project governance. The authors observe that project managers are often concerned with the interdependence with their principals and the socializing processes of accountability that arise from this interdependence.

This study aims to measure the response of undergraduate accounting students to a stand-alone course in accounting theory and research. The aim of the study was to gauge students’ perceptions of the usefulness of this course and to determine if exposure to this material would increase student interest in accounting research and in pursuing a career in academia.

Three cohorts of students enrolled in the course completed an in-class survey. The study was conducted from 2015 to 2017.

The results of the survey show that student interest in accounting research and theory increased substantially as a result of the course. Students felt that learning about accounting research and the theories used in accounting research enhanced their overall understanding of accounting and would be useful to them as accounting practitioners. This study also reports that students interested in pursuing a PhD and/or an academic career also increased.

Data were only collected at a single university and represent student perceptions only.

The results of this study and the description of the course design will inform academics seeking to answer the American Accounting Association Pathways Commission’s call to integrate accounting research and education. This study also suggests a pathway towards addressing the chronic academic accounting faculty shortage. Finally, the results will be of interest to those designing undergraduate accounting curriculum.

This study contributes to the literature on the “teaching-research nexus” in accounting by providing evidence, from the perspective of undergraduate accounting students, of the usefulness of integrating research into undergraduate accounting education. While many accounting researchers view accounting research and teaching accounting as separate activities, the response from students suggests that there is value in fostering a more complementary relationship between these two activities.

This paper aims to examine the levers of control (LOC) framework in the context of managing projects. The authors explore the impact of diagnostic systems, interactive systems, beliefs systems and boundary systems on project performance and explore the association between control levers.

Using data gathered from 113 project managers representing 38 organizations, the authors used the partial least squares path modelling algorithm to analyse the data.

The analysis validates the LOC framework in the context of managing projects and reveals the interrelatedness of control systems and their impact on project performance.

The conclusions support the current emphasis on performance reporting and change control and highlight the need to consider the interdependencies between control levers.

This study re-conceptualizes project control by using the LOC framework in the context of managing projects as temporary organizations. This provides a model for investigating and understanding project management control systems that consider the interaction of control mechanisms. Furthermore, the associations between the four control systems and project performance are examined, rather than individual mechanisms in isolation.

This paper aims to describe an effort to integrate accounting research and theory into an undergraduate accounting education program through the development and delivery of a fourth-year course. Informing ideas for the course design and content are discussed, and feedback from the students and instructor is provided.

This paper takes the form of a commentary and offers the authors’ opinion based on the experience of designing and teaching the course. An in-class survey was conducted in three separate offerings of the course.

Student response to the course and material was more positive than anticipated, indicating that undergraduate accounting students are receptive to learning about research and theory, even when it is not required for entrance into a professional certification program. Also, many students often went above and beyond the course requirements in the work they submitted. This indicates that there is an appetite for engaging with material that presents accounting as a social phenomenon rather than solely as a technical activity.

While the data were collected over multiple years, the survey was conducted at a single university. These findings have implications for the design of undergraduate accounting education programs and, potentially, for addressing the gap between accounting research and practice.

This review contributes to the discourse on integrating research into undergraduate accounting education as recommended by the AAA Pathways Commission. It describes one method of doing so and identifies the literature that informed the approach taken. This paper also contributes to the accounting education literature by providing evidence of student reaction to a course that uses research and theory as a subject matter rather than a pedagogical tool. This evidence may also inform the teaching –research nexus discourse.

This review aims to summarize the extent to which sustainability dimensions are covered in the selected qualitative literature, the theoretical and ontological underpinnings that have informed sustainability research and the qualitative methodologies used in that literature.

This study uses a systematic review to examine prior empirical studies in sustainability reporting between 2000 and 2021.

This review contributes to sustainability research by identifying unexplored and underexplored areas for future studies, such as Indigenous people’s rights, employee health and safety practice, product responsibility, gender and leadership diversity. Institutional and stakeholder theories are widely used in the selected literature, whereas moral legitimacy remains underexplored. The authors suggest that ethnographic and historical research will increase the richness of academic research findings on sustainability reporting.

This review is limited to qualitative studies only because its richness allows researchers to apply various methodological and theoretical approaches to understand engagement in sustainability reporting practice.

This review follows a novel approach of bringing the selected studies’ scopes, theories and methodologies together. This approach permits researchers to formulate a research question coherently using a logical framework for a research problem.

This paper traces the development of Enron Corp. from a regulated natural gas distribution company to a worldwide energy trading company to its ultimate demise in bankruptcy in December 2001. The paper examines whether Enron should be viewed as an accounting failure, with investors and creditors being severely misled by false financial statements, or whether it was a business failure that was obscured by accounting practices that strained the limits of credibility. It is the contention of this paper that astute financial analysis would have revealed the instability of the Enron business model, thereby alerting investors and creditors to the lack of credit worthiness of the company. At the same time, the paper argues that had there been an appropriate level of transparency in the financial statements, investors and creditors would have been provided with a more realistic view of the company’s financial position and its results of operations, thereby facilitating their ability to assess the viability of the company and avoid their bankruptcy losses.

Examines the transformation in image, manufacturing, and profitability of a UK automotive supplier, through the adoption of an advanced manufacturing facility. Discusses the use of Japanese techniques, a CAD facility, simulation, and computer controlled machines. Surmises that while the company is proud of its achievement, it is still suffering from the burden of interest rates that suppliers in other countries are free of.

This case arose from the 1995 collapse of the Barings Banking Group caused by the enormous losses resulting from Nick Lee‐son's unauthorised derivatives trading in Singapore, while general manager of Barings Futures (Singapore) Ltd. The holding company of the Barings Group, Barings plc, and a number of its subsidiaries were placed in administration as soon as the scale of the losses became apparent and in July 1995 the administrators submitted a report to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry as they were bound to do by s.7(3) of the Company Directors’ Disqualification Act 1986 (CDDA 1986). Section 6 CDDA 1986 provides that it is the duty of the court to disqualify unfit directors of insolvent companies:

While a number of IS security researchers consider the threat posed by employees who perpetrate computer crime, there is currently a lack of insight into how the offender interacts with the criminal context both prior to and during commission. A greater understanding of this relationship may complement existing security practices by possibly highlighting new areas for safeguard implementation. To help facilitate a greater understanding of the offender/environment dynamic, this paper, therefore, aims to assess the feasibility of applying three criminological theories to the IS security context. Rather than focusing on why people become criminals, these theories entitled routine activity theory, environmental criminology and the rational choice perspective, focus on the criminal act.

Drawing on an account of the Barings Bank collapse, events highlighted in the case study are used to assess whether concepts central to the theories are supported by the data.

Analysis indicates support for the concepts central to environmental criminology and the rational choice perspective. While case study evidence supports two of the concepts advanced by routine activity theory, as a whole the theory is found wanting, as the “guardianship” and “handled offender” concepts appear to lack the necessary sophistication to theoretically accommodate and explain supervisory and control failings cited in the case study.

While future research could encompass continued application of the theories to further assess their suitability for the IS domain, consideration could also be given to the application of the preventive tools and methods which have been developed in tandem with the three criminological approaches. Another stream of future research may involve the application of the theories in conjunction with existing security practices.

Greater knowledge of the offender/context dynamic may feasibly enhance existing security practices by possibly highlighting new areas for safeguard implementation.

From an IS security perspective, there is currently a lack of insight into the offender/context dynamic. The paper presents a group of criminological theories, which have previously not been considered for application in the IS context. The theories may feasibly throw light on the behaviour of offenders in the criminal context, both prior to and during commission.