Understanding participation in accounting standard-setting: the case of AASB ED 192 Revised Differential Reporting Framework

This paper explores the motives of participants in the standard-setting process, based on the premise that standard-setters strive for standards that are useful for decision-making by a wide range of financial statement users. Our setting is the development of a contentious but contained Australian accounting standard, Reduced Disclosure Requirements. A consultative process initiated by the Australian Accounting Standards Board to create a specific Australian accounting standard for differential reporting provided an opportunity for interested parties to participate. We analyse the motives of participants through semi-structured interviews with members of the Australian Accounting Standards Board and comment letter writers who responded to the relevant exposure draft. Our findings identify participants’ economic and political motivations and question the ability of the current standard-setting process to extract decision-making requirements from a wide range of users of financial statements and to reflect these in financial reporting standards. We find that the perspectives gathered are homogenised and that the process privileges the voices of powerful elites.     

Cost Efficiency Analysis of Local Commercial Banks in Taiwan

This study uses a stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) model to evaluate the relative cost efficiency of commercial banks in Taiwan in the wake of liberalization. The model is estimated using data made available through Taiwan's Banking Bureau and Financial Supervisory Commission. With data from before and after the 2008 financial crisis, our central result is that banks affiliated with bank holding companies (BHC) have become increasingly more efficient. While unaffiliated banks have generally increased their efficiency, they have not kept pace with respect to efficiency gains. Secondary findings are that, independent of ownership structure, both balance sheet and income statement composition affect efficiency. In particular, bank efficiency increases with growth in loans and capital prices. We also find evidence that labor productivity is a key explanatory factor behind efficiency differences across banks. As a result, a policy recommendation is made that banks invest in maximizing worker productivity. Finally, in addition to the insights gained from this study we contribute to the general literature on both bank efficiency and the use of the SFA model by applying it to new data in a new setting.     

Information Management in Aged Care: Cases of Confidentiality and Elder Abuse

Typically seniors like others choose to avoid institutional care. However, when age-related infirmity requires it, they not only enter into the care of others, but they also do so as vulnerable members of society. As their frailty increases with age, so does their dependence on the professionals who care for them and on the enforcement of policies concerning their care. A qualitative case study involving seniors and their carers revealed that breaches of confidentiality, unprofessional behaviour and the non-enforcement of policy, continue to hide the physical and emotional abuse perpetrated by nursing and other staff on vulnerable consumers. Professional ethics, including at a corporate level, enforcing policy, protecting whistleblowers and creating reporting mechanisms for aged care researchers, are amongst the recommendations arising from this study.     

High‐performance work systems and creativity implementation: the role of psychological capital and psychological safety

Unimplemented creative ideas are potentially wasted opportunities for organisations. Although it is largely understood how to encourage creativity among employees, how to ensure this creativity is implemented remains underexplored. The objective of the current study is to identify the underlying mechanisms that explain the relationship between high‐performance work systems and creativity implementation. Drawing from the job demands–resources model, we explore a model of psychological capital and psychological safety as mediators in the relationship between high‐performance work systems and creativity implementation. Based on 505 employee survey responses, the findings show support for the mediating relationships, highlighting the importance of psychological mechanisms. The study has important implications for HRM, uncovering how people management practices can encourage creativity implementation in the workplace.     

Cracks in Diversity Research: The Effects of Diversity Faultlines on Conflict and Performance

In this quasi-field study, we investigate the effects of diversity faultlines on the conflict experience, performance, and morale of 79 groups. This is one of the first studies to operationalize the construct of diversity-related faultlines (Lau and Murnighan 1998). One of the most important contributions of this research is that faultlines incorporate multiple characteristics of group members simultaneously rather than assessing just one demographic characteristic at a time as most past diversity research has done. We develop a measure to capture the complexity of the faultline construct and to examine the effects of various group diversity faultline profiles on group outcomes. Linear results with a limited range of data show that faultlines are negatively related to conflict and positively related to morale and performance. Supplemental analyses that take into account the unique characteristics of our dataset indicate curvilinear relationships between diversity faultlines and relationship conflict, process conflict, group morale, and group performance. Groups with either virtually no faultlines (very diverse members) or strong faultlines (split into 2 fairly homogeneous subgroups) had higher levels of conflict and lower levels of morale and performance than groups with medium faultlines. The results suggest a more complex relationship between diversity and group process and outcome variables than typically described in diversity research. A detailed discussion of the faultline measure we developed and the methodological issues associated with measuring and interpreting faultlines are reported.     

A global perspective on diversity and inclusion in work organisations

This Academy of Management, Human Resources Division, Ambassadors' Programme special issue presents a collection of empirical papers examining workplace diversity and inclusion in a global context. We introduce this topic raising three overarching challenges: to develop more context-specific definitions of diversity and inclusion; to include dimensions pertinent to a global context in the definition of diversity and inclusion; and to consider the impact of diversity and inclusion practices on performance outcomes across countries as well as within multinational corporations. We explore these challenges through three diversity and inclusion lenses – gender, age and nationality – exploring global perspectives at the national, organisational and team levels of analysis. In conclusion, we present an agenda for future research.     

Changing Routine: Reframing Performance Management within a Multinational

This paper seeks to extend the literature on how change occurs in organizational routines by examining the link between routines and schemata and showing the cognitive and motivational factors involved. Using an in‐depth analysis of a Japanese multinational, we develop an account of how a newly‐implemented centralized performance management routine is interpreted by managers at two subsidiaries. We show how different performances of subroutines emerge into a new ostensive pattern of a routine, and how the cognitive and motivational aspects of individual agency are manifested in this process and how they affect the espoused organizational schema.     

Accounting students' approaches to group-work

Employers and universities emphasize the need for students to be able to work in groups and be good team members, yet there is often limited understanding of what this involves and how it might be developed. This paper examines how students studying an accounting for management subject made sense of working in a group. Six different approaches to group-work are found. They range from a view that group-work gets in the way of learning to a view that the group provides a collaborative mechanism which ensures knowledge grows and develops through interactive debate and stimulation. The paper considers the implications for teaching accounting through groupwork.     

The traditional marketplace: serious leisure and recommending authentic travel

ABSTRACT

Services reliant on revenue generated from tourism are often beholden to how authentic visitors perceive their offering to be. From a managerial perspective, this is exacerbated when they serve a dual-purpose, as both actively ingrained in local culture and showcased international tourist attractions. As such, this study contributes to Kolar and ?abkar’s (2010) consumer-based model of authenticity by assessing the relationships between serious leisure, object-based and existential authenticity, and visitor word-of-mouth (WOM) recommendations in Iranian cultural tourism. Utilising partial least-squares structural equation modelling, and drawing upon responses from 615 visitors to the Tabriz Grand Bazaar, it thus extends the model’s applicability to the developing Middle Eastern context. The results extend extant research by emphasising the importance of object-based authenticity, as opposed to existential authenticity, in stimulating positive visitor WOM recommendations. Consequently, this study advances the prevailing understanding of the role of authenticity in stimulating positive behavioural intentions by highlighting how destinations can stimulate visitor recommendations.