Behavioral changes following the collaborative development of an accounting information system

This research examines physician response to implementation of an activity-based costing (ABC) system developed and designed with physician input. We analyze changes in resource utilization for treatment of cataract patients and find changes in practice patterns, where physicians redeployed resources toward more severely ill patients and decreased average length of stay. We also find preliminary evidence of improvement in financial performance. We contribute to research investigating the influence of user participation on accounting system success, ABC system success, and hospital accounting information systems.     

Visioning 2035: The future of the higher education sector in the UK

The concept of ‘university’ has been around for centuries and yet the majority of British Universities have yet to reach their 50th birthday. The higher education sector has been through extensive change over a relatively short period of time and this is likely to continue in the future. This paper presents the results of a futures study focussed on the Higher Education sector in the UK in 10 and 25 years time. Following an extensive, broad ranging literature review covering business, education, futures, and socio-political texts and studies, a series of scenarios were developed for the future of the sector as a whole. This study differs from other studies in its field as it is does not focus on individual institutions, but rather at the environmental factors that are going to impact on the sector, setting out a range of scenarios within which institutions will need to shape their individual futures. Five scenarios are presented in this paper with their underlying driving factors, and their implications for the academic workforce being employed in the sector.     

A systemic approach to interpersonal relationships and activities among French teleworkers

Within a systemic and interactional approach, this study seeks to understand how French teleworkers (re)organise their relationships with others as well as their activities. Lexical analysis of interviews with 24 telecommuters (nomadic, alternating and working at home full‐time) confirms and complements the results in the literature in this field. On one hand, the findings confirmed a decline in the quality of professional relationships due to their being mediated through technology. On the other hand, there was a distinction between the ways in which different types of teleworkers ascribed meaning and adapted their activities and business, family and social relationships.     

Do individual disclosure rules for parliamentarians improve government effectiveness?

The pros and cons of stricter disclosure rules for parliamentarians are hotly debated. Some argue that disclosure rules for parliamentarians increase transparency of the legislative branch, leading to lower levels of rent-seeking and corruption, increased citizen trust in parliament, and better quality of law-making. Others argue that disclosure rules endanger the privacy of parliamentarians, that their introduction would stop businesspeople and lawyers from running for seats, which would decrease the quality of law-making. This is the first attempt to empirically test these conjectures on the composition of parliament empirically. We find that the introduction of disclosure rules is usually not accompanied by a significant shift in the proportion of lawyers and businesspeople in parliament.     

Human resource management and industrial relations in multinational corporations in and from China: Challenges and new insights

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview on the state of research in the field in human resource management (HRM) issues in multinational corporations (MNCs) in and from China. We integrate previous studies from multiple disciplines to articulate the contextual importance of research on this topic, and suggest overarching themes to expand the field of research. HRM research in the intercultural, interinstitutional context of MNCs in and from China has the potential to provide contextualized insights for longstanding debates in the field such as HRM standardization versus localization and convergence versus divergence and contextual factors behind these patterns. To this end, we call for future research to center on the changing cultural, institutional, technological, and globalization context in understanding HRM and industrial relations issues in these MNCs. Practically, knowledge in this area can help global managers and top management teams in multinational organizations navigate various context complexity, foster more productive coordination and cooperation across borders, and gain legitimacy and MNCs in and from China additional competitive edge in the global marketplace.     

Corporate Reporting： An Integrated Approach to Legitimacy Claims

With the increasing pressure on companies to engage in corporate social responsibility （CSR）, it is paramount for businesses and organizations to gain social legitimacy through building trust and credibility towards their stakeholders. Corporate reporting is a major tool whereby they can demonstrate their transparency and their will to contribute to society. However, reporting is often addressed as a narrow and restricted discipline based on specific areas of communication like financial and CSR communication, which potentially can lead to ＂disconnected reporting＂. The aim of this paper is to address reporting within a framework of corporate communication, introducing the concept of corporate reporting as ＂an issue of integration＂ and to discuss the opportunities and challenges of corporate reporting as a driver for gaining social legitimacy. Recent research in corporate reporting and the development of standards by distinguished reporting agencies （e.g., Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler （KPMG）, A4S, PricewaterhouseCoopers （PwC）） seem to support this position, arguing that integrated reporting is ＂the way forward＂. Accordingly, the authors conclude that there is a need to include a broader range of aspects in the corporate reporting literature applying a strategic integrated approach by which corporate reporting may more explicitly help businesses and organizations gain social legitimacy towards their internal and external stakeholders.     

Effect of participative intervention on organisational justice perceptions: a quasi-experimental study on Finnish public sector employees

Changes in the perception of organisational justice have received limited attention in earlier studies. The purpose of this study is to examine whether a 2-year large-scale participative intervention had an effect on justice perceptions among employees. We conducted surveys in three towns (two case towns, one control town) on a total of 1584 municipal employees in 114 work groups that were observed before and after the interventions. Multilevel regression analysis showed that the participative intervention approach was associated with improvement in employees' justice perceptions. Moreover, the employees' evaluation of the implementation of intervention played an important role. Only among those who evaluated that the intervention had been successful, there was an improvement in their perceptions of interactional and procedural justice. The changes in organisational justice were seen at both individual and work group levels.