The Accounting Profession’s Engagement with Accounting Standards: Conceptualizing Accounting Complexity through Big 4 Comment Letters

Regulators, standard setters, and the accounting profession maintain that complexity in accounting standards is a significant issue. However, it is unclear what complexity means in the context of accounting standards. This study examines, via comment letter submissions, the accounting profession’s engagement with complexity in accounting standards. We analyze comment letters submitted to the Financial Accounting Standards Board over a 12-year period and find the profession characterizes complexity through three dimensions – multiplicity, diversity, and interrelatedness. We examine the Big 4’s discourse on these dimensions and observe consistency between audit firms in their discourse on several features. For instance, we find that firms primarily oppose proposed FASB changes when firms perceive those changes to increase rather than decrease complexity. Additionally, firms perceive proposed changes to affect financial statement preparers more often than other stakeholders. However, the Big 4 do not hold universal opinions as to the root causes of complexity. At the cross-firm level, we find inconsistencies that imply heterogeneity in the Big 4’s discourse on root causes. Such inconsistency may, in and of itself, construct accounting complexity. Ultimately, we maintain that the Big 4’s engagement with accounting standards has consequences for how complexity is thought and acted upon in accounting standards

Towards Conceptualizing Information Transparency and its Role in Internet Consumers' Concerns: A Literature Review

In recent years, calls for a safer online shopping environment are growing louder. Empirical studies on consumers’ expectations of ethical e-commerce practices have found that the top concerns among e-shoppers revolved around security of transactions, privacy protection of personal data, deception and reliability issues. Consumer generally desire richer and truthful information to make purchase decisions. By addressing the information needs of consumers, transparency presents itself as a promising concept for firms to leverage towards strategizing its role in ethical practices. This paper revisits the consumer-perceived ethical issues in e-commerce literature, presents the disclosure paradox faced by e-seller firms, reviews the various conceptualizations of transparency in multidisciplinary literature and suggests extending the transparency strategy to map to consumers’ informational needs and concerns

Knowledge organization: conceptual analysis

[Resumo] A organização do conhecimento é uma área de estudos interdisciplinar e que, portanto, encontra dificuldades na delimitação de seu conceito. O periódico da ISKO caracteriza-se como um importante meio interdisciplinar de comunicação científica para discussões voltadas à organização do conhecimento, tornando-se uma rica fonte de estudos sobre o panorama internacional de aplicação desse conceito. Partindo do conceito de organização do conhecimento proposto por Brascher e Café (2010), o objetivo deste artigo é verificar, na literatura internacional, o emprego do termo organização do conhecimento, buscando-se convergências com o conceito norteador. A metodologia utilizada foi a pesquisa bibliográfica na base de dados LISA de artigos publicados no periódico ISKO, no período entre 2000 e 2010. A busca foi realizada com o termo ?knowledge organization? no campo ?descriptor?, em que foram recuperados 31 artigos. Os documentos passaram por uma análise de conteúdo e foram posteriormente fichados. A pesquisa apresenta uma abordagem quanti-qualitativa do problema, e seus resultados apontam que 45% dos artigos apresentaram conformidade total com o conceito norteador.[Abstract] The organization of knowledge is a multi-disciplinary area of studies, therefore, it finds difficulties on the determination of its concept. ISKO?s journal is characterized as an important multi-disciplinary scientific media of communication on the discussions around the knowledge organization, which makes it a rich source of studies about the international perspective of this concept?s application. Based on the knowledge organization?s concept proposed by Brascher and Café (2010), the objective of this article is to verify, in the international literature, the use of the term ?knowledge organization?, searching for matches with the guiding concept. The methodology utilized was the bibliographical research on the LISA database of published articles on ISKO?s journal, in the period between 2000 and 2010. The search was accomplished with the term ?knowledge organization? in the ?descriptor? field, from which 31 articles were retrieved. The documents went through an analysis of content and were further filed. The research presents a quantitative-qualitative approach of the problem and its outcome reveals that 45% of the articles present total compliance with the guiding concept

Reconciling visions and realities of virtual working: findings from the UK chemicals industry

The emergence of advanced technologies such as Grid computing will, some suggest, allow the final realisation of visions of virtual organisations. This will, according to its advocates, have entirely positive impacts, creating communities of experts, increasing flexibility, reducing the need for travel and making communications more efficient by crossing boundaries of time and space. Such predictions about future patterns of virtual working are, unfortunately, rarely grounded in real working practices, and often neglect to account for both the rich and varied interpretations that may exist of what constitutes virtual working and the constraints and concerns of those who would do it. This chapter gives attention to the consequences of different views over what virtuality might mean in practice and, in particular, considers virtuality in relation to customer and supplier relationships in a competitive and commercial context. The discussion is based upon a three year study that investigated contrasting visions of what was technically feasible and might be organisationally desirable in the UK Chemicals industry. Through interviews with managers and staff of companies both large and small that research provided insights into the different meanings that organisations attribute to the virtuality of work and to the acceptability of potential implementations of a middleware technology. It was found that interpretations of virtuality amongst the potential users and participants were strongly influenced by established work practices and by previous experiences of relationships-at-a-distance with suppliers and customers. There was a sharp contrast with the enthusiastic visions of virtual working that were already being encapsulated in the middleware by the technical developers; visions of internet-only interaction were perceived as rigid, alienating from well-established ways of working with suppliers and customers and unworkable. In this chapter we shall capture these differences by making a distinction amongst compet

HOW BLOCKCHAIN FACILITATES SMART CITY APPLICATIONS– DEVELOPMENT OF A MULTI-LAYER TAXONOMY

A decade after Sathosi Nakamoto published his famous whitepaper, blockchain technology (BT) has started to become widely recognized and used beyond the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. While the financial sector is the most prominent adopter of the technology, numerous other fields of application for the ground-breaking innovation are discussed by researchers and practitioners alike. One key area in which blockchain-based applications are expected to drive radical and disruptive innovation is smart cities. BT provides unique benefits which smart cities can leverage to improve quality of life, adminis-trative processes, and environmental sustainability. However, due to the entrepreneurial dynamics and abundant fields of application for BT in smart cities, an integrated and boundary-spanning analysis is lacking. Thus, our paper aims at analysing how BT is used in different smart city business models to present a multi-layer taxonomy. For this purpose, we identified a global sample of 80 startups which offer products or services for smart cities and examined their business models. The paper explores economic and technological characteristics of blockchain based smart city applications. These unique insights will be useful for researchers, practitioners, and regulators

Abuse of Power on Managing the Health Care Services Policy for the Indonesian National Army Forces and its Implication on Marginalized Soldier’s Health

This research aims to understand the abuse of power on managing the health service policy and its implication that is very significant in reducing marginalized soldiers’ health due at the ontological level and sociological level. The problem is very interesting to be analyzed by conducting a qualitative research method based on public policy theory, abuse of power theory, and health services theory. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, observation, and documentation related to managing the health service policy cases in Indonesia. Data were analyzed by using interactive models are data reduction, data display, data verification, and supported by triangulation. The results were based on ontological level and sociological level using public policy perspective and power perspective for improving health service policy and practice for The Indonesian Army Forces. Vision and mission of public policy on managing health service policy are needed for providing information to stakeholders related, regarding the regulations and sanctions in health service policy. This result provides inputs for making better regulation on health service policy in Indonesia for state agencies as public officials and practitioners

ANALYSIS OF THE MARINE CORPS EXPEDITIONARY CONTRACTING WORKFORCE COMPETENCY ASSESSMENT

This research provides an analysis of competency assessment results obtained from the contracting workforce that makes up the three Marine Corps Expeditionary Contracting Platoons and co-located Regional Contracting Offices. The data analyzed were collected through a Contracting Workforce Competency Assessment based on the new Department of Defense Contracting Competency Model. The purpose of this research was to establish a baseline of current workforce competency in two areas: proficiency in performing buyer activities and knowledge in seller activities. The research revealed a buyer proficiency rating of Intermediate in the pre-award and post-award phases, and Basic in the award phase of the contract life cycle. The research also revealed seller knowledge rating of Aware for all three phases of the contract life cycle. These results indicate the need for additional or supplemental contract management training. Recommendations provided could help shape future training for the Marine Corps contracting workforce members procuring goods and services for Marines deployed or training to deploy.Captain, United States Marine CorpsApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Rigorous, transparent, and eye-catching: Exploring the universalistic parameters of impactful theory building in management

In the management discipline, scholarly impact is most commonly measured using a researcher perspective, by counting the number of times a particular article is mentioned in the references section of other articles (Aguinis, Shapiro, Antonacopoulou, and Cummings, 2014). This approach conceptualizes scholarly impact using a measurable indicator, the citation count an article receives. Several studies have been conducted to examine what drives scholarly impact in the field of management. The originality of the idea, rigor of the study, and clarity of writing have been identified as the most significant universalistic parameters of scholarly impact (Judge, Colbert, Cable, and Rynes, 2007). This dissertation sets out to do a detailed examination of these parameters. The six articles included in the thesis do so in two ways: either by offering recommendations for improving these universalistic parameters of scholarly impact or by further exploring the relationship between the universalistic parameters and scholarly impact. Our first empirical article, here relayed in Chapter II, focuses on case studies, and analyzes the methodological rigor of all case studies published during the period 1996-2006. We point out different types of replication logic, and illustrate how their individual research actions have differential effects on the internal and external validity (in that order of priority) of the emerging theory. Chapter III follows up on the previous chapter, extending the investigation to quantitative as well as qualitative research, and offers replication logic as a tool for analyzing deviant cases identified during the course of a qualitative or quantitative study. We call this technique the \u2018Deviant Case Method\u2019 (\u2018DCM\u2019). Through this study, we explain the theoretical consequentiality (Aguinis et al., 2013; Cortina, 2002) of analyzing three different kinds of outliers (construct, model fit, and prediction outliers/ deviant cases) and offer DCM for analyzing prediction outliers/deviant cases. In Chapter IV, we extend this method to have a look at medium-N studies. Here we focus on inconsistent or deviant cases which turn up during a fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). We offer a method called \u2018Comparative Outlier Analysis\u2019 (\u2018COA\u2019) which combines DCM and Mill\u2019s canons (1875) to examine these multitude of inconsistent cases. We explicate this using exemplars from fields like politics, marketing, and education. Unlike in other disciplines or methods, it is far from clear what the label \u2018transparent research procedures\u2019 constitutes in management field studies, with adverse effects during write-up, revision, and even after publication. To rectify this, in Chapter V, we review field studies across seven major management journals (1997- 2006) in order to develop a transparency index, and link it to article impact. Chapter VI is a sequel to the previous chapter. We propose a new method for assessing the methodological rigor of grounded theory procedures ex-post using an audit trail perspective. While existing research on the methodological sophistication of grounded theory was typically done from the perspective of the author or producer of the research, our perspective is customer-centric, both in terms of the end-customer (i.e. the reader or other author), as well as the intermediate customer (i.e. reviewers and editors). The last empirical article in the thesis, Chapter VII, focuses on yet another parameter influencing impact: the style of academic writing. Specifically, we focus on the attributes of article titles and their subsequent influence on the citation count. At this early stage of theory development on article titles, we do this in the specific application context of management science. We conclude with Chapter VIII where we sum up the findings and implications of all preceding studies and put forth suggestions for future research

A Key Challenge in Global HRM: Adding New Insights to Existing Expatriate Spouse Adjustment Models

This study is an attempt to strengthen the existing knowledge about factors affecting the adjustment process of the trailing expatriate spouse and the subsequent impact of any maladjustment or expatriate failure. We conducted a qualitative enquiry using grounded theory methodology with 26 Indian spouses who had to deal with their partner’s expatriate assignment relocation. The open and axial coding techniques and the process of theoretical sampling are discussed at length. Our investigation reveals the recurrence of several factors earlier studied in previous models such as cultural novelty, family and peer support, the organization’s support and the spouse’s personality. Additionally, we found that the Indian spouses’ adjustment to expatriate assignments was influenced greatly by their perceived gender-role ideology and their marital obligations to their partners. The resulting extended model of spousal adjustment to expatriate adjustments may help management practitioners to enhance expatriate success in global assignments

The experience of hope for informal caregivers of palliative home care patients : a grounded theory exploration

The purpose of this study was to explore the processes of hope in informal caregivers of palliative patients. Interviews were conducted with caregivers who were living with and currently providing care to a palliative patient at home. Saturation was reached with 10 caregivers, five females and five males, from 2 cities in Saskatchewan, Canada. The design of this qualitative study was Glaser’s (2001) grounded theory. Broad, unstructured face to face audio taped interviews were conducted in the participants’ homes. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using constant-comparative method of analysis in order to identify the main concern of the participants related to hope, and the basic social processes used to resolve that concern. “Eroding hope” was the main concern relating to hope during caregiving for a palliative patient. Eroding hope was a result of bad days, negative messages, and experiences with the health care system. The participants deal with eroding hope by using the basic social process of “hanging on to hope.” Hanging on to hope has 4 sub-processes: a)doing what you have to do, b)living in the moment, c)staying positive, and d)writing your own story. The support of friends, family, and health care professionals and connecting with something bigger and stronger were sub-processes of hanging on to hope that together directly affect the other sub-processes.The findings of this study have direct application for the care and support of informal caregivers providing palliative care at home, as a basis for assessment and interventions that will assist caregivers to hang on to hope. Nurses and other health care professionals need to recognize and value the experience of hope for caregivers by addressing, teaching, and reinforcing the sub-processes and ways of hanging on to hope into their practice