The adoption of internet banking: An institutional theory perspective

Several models have been proposed in the literature to understand technology acceptance in which social environmental factors are not primarily addressed. Drawing upon the social contagion theory and institutional theory, this study proposes a model to examine three social environmental factors of normative, coercive and mimetic pressures within the internet banking (IB) context. The model is tested using survey data from 124 respondents. The results reveal that normative and coercive pressures significantly influence the attitude and intention of adopting IB, while mimetic pressures appear not to. Attitude plays a mediating role between institutional pressures and IB adoption. This study spearheads an institutional analysis at the individual level within the IB context. The findings also provide valuable insights for bank managers to manage the IB services.     

Early regulatory actions by the SEC: An institutional theory perspective on the dramaturgy of political exchanges

It has been urged that research be directed at understanding the development of political institutions, particularly administrative institutions, in the American governance structure, as well as their role in providing order and change in American politics. Toward this end, the purpose of this paper is to examine the development of one specific administrative institution, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the effect of its regulatory actions in establishing the SEC's own legitimacy with Congress, the press and regulatees, particularly in terms of the McKesson and Robbins enforcement action. Our archival analysis, using primary and secondary material, probes the SEC's efforts at developing a dramaturgy of exchange relations with its external constituents in terms of its:

• 1. 

  (a) conformity to sanctioned language forms;

• 2. 

  (b) use of both the acquiescence and compromise strategies in dealing with external constituents and in balancing needs for the appearance of regulation with de facto inaction in regulating audit practice;

• 3. 

  (c) development and application of a ritualistic pattern of interacting with regulatees. We conclude that in order to understand the SEC as a political institution, it is necessary to incorporate an appreciation of its self-interested behavior in terms of the form, content and rhetoric of its regulatory actions. A critical facet of early SEC efforts and success did not concern whether it did good in terms of applying effective regulations, or bad in terms of preserving the status quo in power relations among the business and political communities. The ability of the SEC to legitimate its existence and institutionalize its role in the financial markets and in the financial reporting and auditing communities proved more essential.

     

Islamic Banks and Financial Stability: An Empirical Analysis

The relative financial strength of Islamic banks is assessed empirically based on evidence covering individual Islamic and commercial banks in 19 banking systems with a substantial presence of Islamic banking. We find that (a) small Islamic banks tend to be financially stronger than small commercial banks; (b) large commercial banks tend to be financially stronger than large Islamic banks; and (c) small Islamic banks tend to be financially stronger than large Islamic banks, which may reflect challenges of credit risk management in large Islamic banks. We also find that the market share of Islamic banks does not have a significant impact on the financial strength of other banks.     

An institutional theory perspective on the DRG framework, case-mix accounting systems and health-care organizations

Case-mix accounting systems have been advanced as both reflecting the economic reality that underlies a hospital's various “product lines”, as defined by DRG prospective payment categories, and facilitating rational decision making regarding resource acquisition, deployment and use. This article uses the institutional perspective to extend this conceptualization of case-mix accounting systems. The institutional perspective proposes that many elements of organizational structure, like case-mix accounting systems, reflect as much a need to conform to societal expectations of acceptable practice as the technical imperative of fostering rationality. This article also extends institutional theory regarding the issues of power and decoupling by considering institutionalization to be an unfinished process in the health-care context, wherein the active agency of individuals and organizations is subjected to systematic examination. In this specific context, case-mix accounting may play a significant role in establishing and perpetuating — not merely supporting — the very social structure of legitimacy, and may consequently be considered an interest-oriented activity having the potential to penetrate and alter the internal operating processes of financially strained hospitals.     

On the emergence of strategic management accounting: An institutional perspective

Strategic management accounting (SMA) has been presented as an efficacious approach to strategy formulation and implementation. It also suggests accountants move away from purely financial concerns to give consideration to wider business issues. Management accounting change has attracted significant research attention in recent years. This case study explores the issues which surround change and which enable the adoption of SMA and the repositioning of management accountants to become more strategic. The empirical enquiry is based in one company through a prolonged series of interviews and meetings which enabled activities over a number of years to be reviewed. This revealed an increasing strategic role for management accountants in informing strategic decision‐making and how this role came into being. The research is informed by institutional theories and neoinstitutionalism in particular, to interpret the external and internal influences on the change in roles of some management accountants and the outputs of their work.     

Decoupled earnings: An institutional perspective of the consequences of maximizing shareholder value

Recent accounting scandals have brought focus on the role of management in financial statement manipulation. This focus on micro-behavior does not capture the complexities of earnings management. Taking an institutional rather than agency theory approach, earnings management is posited as a decoupled behavior. A behavior that results from not only agency-based motivations of self-interests, but also regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive legitimacy pressures. Conformity to the central logic of “maximizing shareholder value” found in the “US financial market” institutional field provides the context in which to explore earnings management as a decoupled behavior. Insights for earnings management include the blending of agency and institutional theory perspectives to gain a more complete understanding of the behavior and the positing of a continuum of earnings management conducive to this merger. Institutional theory benefits from exploring the nesting in multiple institutional fields.     

Budgetary governance and accountability in public sector organisations: An institutional and critical realism approach

This paper analyses the impact of the institutionalisation of governance and budgetary policies on the accountability of organisational actors from an institutional and critical realism perspective. The study extends the framework by Burns and Scapens (2000) to critical realism. Findings from field studies conducted in two public hospital districts in Finland show two institutions of budgetary governance: the political and the technical. Accountability practices depend on how the institutionalised policies have reduced or increased the gaps between the real, the actual and the empirical domains of reality of the organisational actors involved and the governance policy that prevails at a given domain of reality. The use of budgetary information as a tool of governance and accountability in the empirical field of the study cannot be taken for granted.     

A theory of the corporate decision to resist FASB standards: An organization theory perspective

This paper develops a theoretical framework that specifies the conditions under which corporations are likely to resist financial reporting standards proposed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Determinants of corporate resistance to FASB standards are identified at three levels of analysis: the standard, the corporation, and the corporation’s industry. Propositions are formulated summarizing the effects of the determinants at these three levels, and guidelines are suggested for testing the propositions. Implications for the theory and the practice of accounting regulation are also discussed. The overall goal of the paper is to enhance our understanding of the drivers of corporate resistance to FASB standards, so that accounting regulators can manage the implementation of accounting standards more effectively.     

The sector perspective in social development

Agricultural society, industrial society, and post-industrial society are well-known terms for societies at different stages of development. All three are named after the dominant sector in the economy. These terms reflect a sector perspective in social development. This article discusses four different types of sector models, against the background of the future prospects that the respective models give rise to. The image of the future is influenced by the choice of sector classification.     

让所有人平等地享受金融服务

今后一个时期,为穷人提供全方位微型金融服务,大力构建普惠金融体系,在保证可持续发展的前提下,实现从扶贫到培育其发展能力的转变,将成为我国金融改革和发展中不可忽视的一个重要课题。     

Changing institutional logics: shifting to a new service model in the Finnish public sector

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the implementation of corporatized shared services (CSS) in Finnish municipalities and the shift of operating logics. The diffusion of the new logics gradually proceeded to two levels: the individual level and the collective level. At the individual level, identity and cognitive skills were important to the diffusion of the new logics. At the collective level, shared services encouraged managers and employees to share not only practical experiences, but also collective identity.     

Wealth effects and committed cost allocation: An agency theory perspective

In this article we examine the effects of committed costs (CC) on compensation and effort (production) decisions in a principal-agent (P-A) setting. In the case where moral hazard is present, the compensation and effort (production) decisions are independent of CC whenever P has constant absolute risk aversion. When P has decreasing absolute risk aversion, he demands as increased risk premium, therefore increases the spread of the compensation schedule, and induces A to increase effort (production) and vice versa. The optimal compensation scheme can be decomposed to conform to incentive schemes that are generally observed in practice. In particular, we decompose the optimal compensation scheme that depends on CC into two parts—a part that is based on cash flows and a part that is based on income (after allocating committed costs). In the case where effort is observable, CC does not effect the compensation scheme and effort decisions, when P has constant absolute risk aversion. In contrast to earlier studies that examine the owner-manager case, when P has decreasing absolute risk aversion, effort (production) could either increase or decrease. The presence of moral hazard affects the effort (production) decision differently than when risk-sharing considerations alone exist. The reduction in A's compensation induced by increased CC never exceeds the amount of CC.     

Financial regulation in Japan: a sixth year review of the Financial Services Agency

The paper provides a critical review of the Financial Services Agency (FSA) of Japan since its establishment in June 1998 (as the Financial Supervisory Agency) to June 2004. During the six year period, the FSA faced the challenge of addressing severe insolvency problems in banking as well as life insurance industries. The paper argues that the initial separation of the supervisory role (in the Financial Supervisory Agency and the Financial Reconstruction Commission) and the policy planning role (in the Ministry of Finance) was useful in the sense it allowed the FSA to have a firm stance on the insolvency problem that was partially created by the failure of the past financial regulatory policy. Even after the creation of the FSA, the Bank of Japan remained as another bank supervisor. This seems have made the central bank reluctant in relaxing monetary policy out of the fear that such loose monetary policy would actually discourage re-organization of banking industry. This suggests a problem of having the central bank as a bank supervisor. For the life insurance companies, the FSA (both old and new) has not been successful in intervening (using prompt corrective action) before the failures. Finally, the paper also points out the important role of the leadership at the FSA that shapes the financial regulation, and suggests a problem of appointing a politician to this role.     

金融服务业：如何简化信息技术

目前大多数机构面临的主要信息技术问题是:如何应对日益增长的复杂性。IT复杂性造成的问题可以通过大幅简化IT系统来解决。简化IT系统,第一步是对当前的IT环境做出诊断,第二步是确定整体目标IT系统,第三步是制定一系列程序以简化IT。在实施这些具体步骤时,还要注意一个重要方面:组织结构。IT简化不应是一次性事件,而应是一个不断进行的过程。     

Corporate governance from the Islamic perspective: A comparative analysis with OECD principles

There is a growing concern emerged with a great profile regarding the Islamic principles of corporate governance. A major ethical component of any economic activity in Islam is to provide justice, honest and fairness and to ensure all parties their rights and dues. Islamic economy has progressed a great deal during these last two decades with impetus as an important concern in developing an Islamic corporate system. This paper is an attempt to discuss the nature, applications and comparison of Islamic principles of corporate governance (IPCG) with conventional principles of corporate governance considering special reference to Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). After the discussion, it can be concluded that the dimension of Islamic perspectives of corporate governance has broader horizon and cannot compartmentalize the roles and responsibilities in which all actions and obligations fall under the jurisdiction of the divine law of Islam whereas, the OECD principles implements a firm with six different issue and obligations. Furthermore, this paper can provide some insight view in fettering mechanism to controlled, direct and organized economic activity from the Islamic point of view.     

如何使金融创新转化为盈利

即使在高度成熟的金融产品领域,也依然有无数方法进行创新以及在创新过程中创造价值。问题是很少有金融机构能够在创新的同时持续地将新点子转化为利润。创新不仅是产品、服务、程序、商业模型或其他方式的创新,而且是一个过程,因此与任何其他过程一样,需要严格管理和不断投入。     

新型城镇化进程中的基础金融服务均等化路径研究——以重庆地区为例

新型城镇化的顶层设计要求金融必须发挥更加务实、高效的支持作用。基础金融服务均等化是从资源配置的角度促进金融与经济协调发展,其外在要求是多层次、广覆盖,内在要求是服务契合和商业可持续。故对其的评价标准应兼顾合理的供给与高的投入产出效率。基础金融服务均等化的实现路径是,以市场为基础,通过政策手段创造条件,引导金融资源和服务围绕高产出效率目标动态调整供给方式与水平。本文通过构建对金融服务均等化的分析评价框架和工具,并以重庆四级城镇化体系下的金融服务状况对其进行实证,发现金融服务供给与产出效率评价反向梯级排列等五个需关注的规律性现象(问题)。在此基础上,本文提出了改善金融服务均等化路径的政策建议。