Audit as Leviathan: Constructing Quality Registers in Swedish Health Care

This paper explores the rise of an audit practice: the national quality registers in Swedish health care. Based on actor‐network theory, the study tells the story of an actor‐network formed by physicians in the 1970s who mobilized themselves around a common object; to develop the knowledge‐base of medical professionals. However, over time more actors became persuaded of the potential of the network and associate themselves with it, resulting in reformed registers. The study shows how the network develops into a macro‐actor, a Leviathan in health care, how this macro‐actor comes to affect health care practices and how it contributes towards maintaining a new governance regime.     

The institutionalisation of unaccountability: Loading the dice of Corporate Social Responsibility discourse

This paper reports on an in-depth empirical study into recent government-led Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives in Spain. It is found, based on interviews and document analysis, that processes of stakeholder consultation relating to these initiatives are characterised by debate and a plurality of different viewpoints. However, this polyphony can be contrasted sharply with the institutional outcomes of these processes. Institutional outcomes represent the viewpoints of only a subset of the actors involved in the stakeholder consultation processes. It is consequently inferred that stakeholder consultation processes serve problematic functions: on one level, these processes legitimise dominant discourses on CSR by giving the impression that the latter are the outcome of a democratic dialogue that is free from power relations; on another level, these processes themselves show to heretic social actors the futility of their heresy and thus encourage those actors to actively adopt the dominant discourse. We conclude that business capture of Corporate Social Responsibility is ingrained into institutional processes in that domain. This raises serious questions regarding the potential for civil society actors to engage with and move the signifier of Corporate Social Responsibility in a more challenging direction.     

An institutional perspective on the changes in management accountants’ professional role

The paper theorises how a new actor of a firm can drive the institutionalisation of a new role for management accountants. Drawing on institutional theory and using insights from a single case study in a German manufacturing firm, the paper analyses the institutionalisation of the so-called “business partner” role for management accountants, which was promoted and driven by the case firm's newcomer CFO. The paper focuses on the micro-processes and especially the institutional work carried out by the new CFO that supported the entrenchment of the “business partner’ role within the case firm. In this light, we illustrate that especially three interrelated kinds of institutional work were carried out within the case firm to support the institutionalisation of the management accountants’ new role: (1) legitimising the new “business partner” role, (2) (re-)constructing the management accountants’ role identities and (3) linking the intra-organisational level with an institutional environment in which external actors aim to achieve changes in the management accountants’ role on a broader societal level. In this context, the paper also provides insights into the specific German management accounting context. Overall, the findings suggest that the institutionalisation of a new role for management accountants can be understood as the product of purposive actions carried out by actors to support a specific institutional arrangement within the firm.     

Japan’s New Special Zones for Regulatory Reform

Japan’s Special Zones for regulatory reform were established in 2003 as an endeavor to enhance nationwide regulatory reforms based on local government initiatives. These Special Zones are not like the free trade zones inviting foreign capital that have been taken on as national projects in Ireland or China. In fact, this scheme acts to stimulate regulatory competition between municipalities to attract new business activities by both foreign and domestic firms in the local areas. This approach is a significant step towards mobilizing local government initiatives under a highly centralized administrative system in Japan, and marks a shift toward a more market-based economy.JEL Code: H77, K20     

Exploring the transition potential of renewable energy communities

Renewable energy communities are grassroots initiatives that invest in ‘clean energy’ in order to meet consumption needs and environmental goals and thereby – often unwittingly – conduce to the spread of renewables. Our aim in the present study is to explore the potential of renewable energy communities in the Netherlands, as social niches, to contribute to transitions in the energy system. To do so, we propose three proxies for measuring the transition potential of social niches, based on proxies for technological innovations derived from the literature. In addition, we reinterpret the notion of niches and the way transition occurs by arguing that niches are complex systems in which both technological and social innovations develop simultaneously and that during a transition entire niches link up with the regime. Furthermore, we make a distinction between internally and externally oriented niches based on their orientation and application focus. We use a comparative case study analysis complemented by a systematic literature and documentary review to show that these communities are already changing the Dutch energy system, by connecting to regime actors. Their further advancement depends on strengthening their links to established actors, but also on providing a favorable regulatory framework.     

An elusive panacea? The impact of the regulatory valuation regime on insurers' investment behaviour

This paper develops a framework to examine how the interactions between the valuation regime and solvency requirements influence investment behaviour of long-term investors with stable liabilities, such as life insurers. The results contribute to the debate over market-based valuation regimes, and shed light on new hybrid regimes explored in policy circles. We show that solvency requirements based on fair value regime can induce procyclical asset sales, but those based on historical cost valuation encourage insurers to engage in risk-shifting to the detriment of policyholders. A hybrid valuation regime, intended to address these unfavourable outcomes, does not strictly dominate the other two regimes on its own. However, market-based regimes can be made effective, if regulators calibrate their responses to solvency breaches using supervisory information about insurers' asset quality.     

The angel investment decision: insights from Australian business angels

While much has been written about the investment criteria of business angels, few studies explore why these particular criteria are important to them. The Australian context has a diverse range of actors along with complex jurisdictional arrangements, making for an interesting background for investigation of the angel finance phenomenon. We examine 12 business angels in the rapidly changing Australian context and use nine corroborating participants to validate responses and identify four key drivers – personal experience, trust, the need to contribute and realistic expectations – that influence business angels during the initial investment process.     

The societal relevance of management accounting innovations: economic value added and institutional work in the fields of Chinese and Thai state-owned enterprises

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate about the relevance of management accounting. In doing so, we widen the definition of ‘relevance’ from the largely managerialist focus dominating this debate to examine how management accounting innovations get imbued with a broader range of societal interests and how actors representing vested interests go about entrenching and resisting such innovations. We explore these issues with reference to the institutionalisation of Economic Value Added (EVA?) as a governance mechanism for Chinese and Thai state-owned enterprises. Adopting a comparative, institutional field perspective, we theorise our observations through the conceptual lens of institutional work, or the human agency involved in creating, maintaining and disrupting institutions. We extend extant research on institutional work by exploring how the evolution of such work was conditioned by differences in field cohesiveness, defined in terms of how consistent and tightly coordinated key interests clustered around EVA? are. Our analysis also draws attention to how different types of institutional work support and detract from each other in the process of upholding such cohesiveness. We discuss the implications for future research on the societal relevance of management accounting innovations and institutional work.     

Local social knowledge management: Community actors, institutions and multilevel governance in regional foresight exercises

A key question for policymakers at the regional and local level is how to provide the right conditions for generating the growth of more knowledge-intensive forms of economic activity within the context of dynamic innovation systems or learning regions. Regional foresight exercises may provide a useful instrument in helping chart their economic strategies. Successful regions must be able to engage in regional foresight exercises that identify and cultivate their assets, undertake collaborative processes to plan and implement change, and encourage a regional mindset that fosters growth. Communities and regions, like companies, need to innovate and adapt to remain competitive. As a result, successful regions must be able to engage in regional foresight exercises that identify and cultivate their assets, undertake collaborative processes to plan and implement change, and encourage a regional mindset that fosters growth. This paper provides an overview of these issues by reviewing the most important ideas in the recent literature on innovation systems, technological dynamism and local economic development. We regard regional foresight processes to be, at their most fundamental level, socially organized learning processes involving learning by individuals, by firms, and by institutions. One of our central concerns is to show how the actions of individuals to shape collective local visioning exercises interact with larger institutional structures to produce local outcomes.     

Social Risk Management: A New Conceptual Framework for Social Protection, and Beyond

This paper proposes a new definition and conceptual framework for Social Protection grounded in Social Risk Management. The concept repositions the traditional areas of Social Protection (labor market intervention, social insurance and social safety nets) in a framework that includes three strategies to deal with risk (prevention, mitigation and coping), three levels of formality of risk management (informal, market-based, public) and many actors (individuals, households, communities, NGOs, governments at various levels and international organizations) against the background of asymmetric information and different types of risk. This expanded view of Social Protection emphasizes the double role of risk management instruments—protecting basic livelihood as well as promoting risk taking. It focuses specifically on the poor since they are the most vulnerable to risk and typically lack appropriate risk management instruments, which constrains them from engaging in riskier but also higher return activities and hence gradually moving out of chronic poverty.     

Corporate environments and international transfer pricing: an empirical study of China in a developing economy framework

This paper investigates the international transfer pricing methods adopted by multinational corporations (MNCs) in China and how their choices are affected by their specific corporate attributes in the context of the business environment in China. Empirical test results based on structured interviews indicate that MNCs having a local (Chinese) partner in management tend to adopt market-based transfer pricing methods. The influence of local partners on the choice of transfer pricing methods is modified by the impact of the source of foreign investment, as the analysis reveals that US-sourced MNCs are more likely to use cost-based pricing methods for international transfers. The influences of these two variables on the choice of transfer pricing methods are significant both directly and interactively. There is also some evidence that export-oriented enterprises are more likely to adopt cost-based transfer pricing than those aiming at China's domestic market. By providing empirical evidence on the impact of key corporate attributes on transfer pricing which have not been studied by prior research in the context of a developing economy, this research contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of transfer pricing in developing countries.     

The General Motors' variation-reduction adviser: an example of grassroots knowledge management development

One approach to developing knowledge management systems is to seed the system in key communities of practice and then encourage its customization and spread throughout the enterprise by local (‘grassroots’) initiative. This has the benefit of worker buy-in and adaptation of the local systems to their workflows. The concept is that, in exchange for some loss of control and standardization, the grassroots systems will be used and appreciated and will grow into an enterprise-wide system. In this paper, we discuss this approach and how it is emerging in General Motors' Variation-Reduction Adviser, a manufacturing knowledgesharing and lessons-learned system. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基层央行科技工作集中化和标准化探讨

县支行是我国中央银行最为基层的一级单位,也是各类信息系统的终端节点和神经末梢,科技管理工作与基层央行业务的顺利开展密切相关。本文分析了目前县支行科技管理工作中出现的新情况、新问题．提出了一种的新的工作模式——科技管理的集中化和标准化,解决目前县支行科技管理工作中的困境,以达到科技服务业务、科技引领创新的要求。     

The Implementation and Use of Benchmarking in Local Government: A Case Study of the Translation of a Management Accounting Innovation

Benchmarking is a management accounting innovation (MAI) that can be used for performance measurement and management in both the private and the public sectors. Although public sector accounting researchers have reported some success with the use of benchmarking, frequently charged problems exist in implementing and using this management technique. To look beyond the technical and institutional explanations, this paper takes a translation approach and presents a case study of a local government benchmarking network. We conclude that there is a link between benchmarking implementation problems and initiators’ failure to build a strong network of benchmarking allies. Implementation is facilitated if actors, other than the initiators, recognize the possibility of making benchmarking more relevant and less cost focused. However, even when a network of actors has a favourable attitude towards benchmarking, benchmarking may still appear as an unruly ‘actant’. Furthermore, the perception of implementation failure and success is heterogeneous and connected to various actors’ adoption of benchmarking. We also conclude that there is a connection between the use of benchmarking and 1) actors’ possibilities to use benchmarking in the struggle for resources and 2) the perception of benchmarking information as ‘factual’ or ‘factual enough’. However, the perception of benchmarking information as ‘factual’ or ‘factual enough’ seems not only a matter of correct or incorrect ratios but also of whether such information serves actors’ interests. A final conclusion is that the use of benchmarking increases when actors other than the initiators complement the original idea and ‘counter interest’ the initiators.     

人民币国际化与外汇管理体制改革

随着我国金融改革开放不断深入推进,人民币国际化和外汇管理体制改革日益成为金融改革开放的重要组成部分。当前,人民币国际化和外汇管理体制改革的关键是如何协同推进人民币“走出去”和资本项目可兑换。本文从现实出发,全面评估了两者的适应程度和面临的突出问题,提出了协调推进人民币“走出去”与资本项目可兑换的总体设想和近期主要对策建议。     

Performance Management for Community Empowerment Networks

Community participation is now highly valued in urban regeneration partnerships in Britain. The major current policy innovation is a National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal, which set up Community Empowerment Networks to engage communities. This article describes the Performance Management Framework produced for these networks, and examines themes from practitioners' responses to the draft framework, against a wider context of New Public Management and performance management. The article addresses the important question of whether the framework acts as a learning tool for those directly involved in organizing community participation or as a control mechanism applied to them by more powerful actors.     

Actor networks in Strategic Niche Management: Insights from social network theory

This paper contributes to Strategic Niche Management (SNM), an analytical technique designed to facilitate the introduction and diffusion of radically new sustainable technologies through societal experiments. According to SNM, intensive networking among social actors is a crucial process for the successful incubation of new technologies. However, the manner in which innovation success relates to different characteristics pertaining to the structure and functioning of these actor networks has remained rather unclear. In this paper we open up this ‘black box’ by bringing in social network analysis (SNA), which allows for a more systematic analysis of this issue. We review theoretical SNA contributions that shed light on the link between actor network attributes and innovation outcomes. Then we elaborate a case study about the emerging biofuels sector in Tanzania. After analysing the case from a conventional SNM perspective, we apply SNA techniques to generate more in-depth insights into the composition and functioning of the actor network and how this affects the innovation performance and development prospects of the sector. Policy implications are also discussed.     

Are insiders equal? Evidence from earnings management in closely held East Asian firms

In analyzing newly collected data on the ultimate ownership structure of publicly traded firms in nine East Asian economies, we contribute to international accounting research by providing evidence on earnings management in insider-controlled firms in this region. We find that family-controlled firms engage in less (more) accrual-based (real) earnings management than other insider-controlled firms. Our analysis suggests that controlling families, unlike other types of ultimate owners, tend to substitute real earnings management for accrual-based earnings management. To help empirically clarify the role that two incentives (entrenchment versus signaling) play in driving the substitution between real and accruals-based earnings management, we examine their valuation impact and find that both types negatively affect the future valuation of family firms. In another set of results consistent with expectations, we document that country-level investor protection and firm external financing demand shape the practice of earnings management in family-controlled firms.