The diffusion of balanced scorecard from the perspective of adopters: Evidence from Australia

© 2018 Academic Research Centre of Canada The purpose of this paper is to explore the shortcomings of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) as a performance measurement tool, and to examine the extent of association between its diffusion and the characteristics of its adopters in practice. This study uses a survey approach and targets registered members of Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) in Australia. The results show that ignoring the risks, environmental and sustainability factors as well as neglecting the concerns/rights of relevant stakeholders are the key shortcomings of the BSC in practice. The findings further confirm that it is vital to distinguish between the diffusion of the BSC as a practice (one single tool) and as a process (a chain of different activities). Because some attributes of adopters are only associated with the initial decisions to adopt (or not) the BSC (as a practice) but not with the sequential implementation stages of its adoption (as a process) and vice versa

The effect of managers’ optimism on competitive strategy and final cost models. El efecto del optimismo de los gerentes sobre la estrategia competitiva y los modelos de costos finales

Currently, competition in the global economy is the most complex issue that gives organizations a lot of opportunities and threats. Therefore, the manager of the organization should be able to enhance the organization's performance in this competitive environment. So the recognition of the behavioral components of managers and their impact on the performance of the organization in this competition is necessary. In this regard, the present study aims to investigate the effect of managers' optimism on competitive strategy and price leadership in the market. This research is a descriptive-correlation type and a questionnaire was used to collect information. In this research, sampling was done in a simple random that the number is 348 people. In order to investigate the research hypotheses, structural equation modeling has been used. Findings of the research showed that the correlation coefficient between managers 'optimism and competitive strategy is significant; that's mean, there is a significant and direct relationship between managers' optimism and competitive strategy; also, there is a significant relationship between managers 'optimism and employee cost leadership; that's mean, there is a significant and direct relationship between managers' optimism and employee cost leadership

Business Challenges and Opportunities, Management, Leadership and Innovations: Insights from Emerging Markets

Special Issue: Prefac

Institutional determinants of R&D investment: Evidence from emerging markets

© 2018 Elsevier Inc. Institutional environment of a country plays an important role for innovation activities. Our results confirm that external environment of emerging countries influence the R&D investment. Using Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimation of panel data for 664 firms from selected 20 emerging markets during the period of 2006–2013, we find that institutional quality has significant impact on R&D investment. The results show that government effectiveness, rule of law, and regularity quality have positive impact, while corruption and political instability have negative impact on R&D investment in the emerging markets. We also performed elasticity test to compare among the institutional factors. The results show that among the institutional determinants, corruption of a particular emerging country is found to be most important in influencing R&D investment followed by regularity quality, government effectiveness, rule of law, and political instability. These results would be helpful to investors and policy makers to assess the requirements of sustainable development. The results of this study clearly demonstrate that to attract more R&D investment as a source of sustainable development, government should ensure a sound and stable institutional environment along with strengthening other firm level factors as institutional factors are more important to explain the variation over the time and also cost effective in terms of implementation

Analyzing the relationship between social and professional identity characteristics of the audit committee and the steering system on the quality of financial reporting: a legal oriented artificial approach

The purpose of this study was to analyze the impact of the social and professional identity of the members of the audit committee and the characteristics of the governance system on the financial reporting quality. The modified Jones model was used to express the financial reporting quality. Given that part of the data was obtained through a questionnaire and another part by using financial statements. The research period was 2019 and the sample size was 79 companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange. To test the research hypotheses, the method of decision making artificial intelligence method and MATLAB software were used. The results of the section of the governance system features indicate the effect of the dual role of the CEO and the ratio of institutional owners on the financial reporting quality. It can be stated that corporate governance mechanisms can reduce opportunistic behavior; they can improve the quality of information by reducing the cost of representation. Also, the results of the audit committee's benchmarks indicate the impact of the audit committee's social identity and the number of employees in internal accounting section on the financial reporting quality, which suggests that effective audit committees, as a determining factor in the financial reporting process, increase the credibility of audited financial statements. In this study, for the first time, the impact of audit committee social identity along with other characteristics of governance system on the quality of financial reporting was analyzed by artificial intelligence

The Effects of Intra- and Extra-Organizational Factors on Management Accounting Practices in the Privatization Processes: Evidence from Iran

The specific aim of this academic study is to investigate the possible impacts of external and internal factors in the unique process of privatization on the changes of management accounting practices in listed companies of Tehran Stock Exchange which more than 51% of this companies' shares have been transferred to the private sector. For this purpose, a theoretical framework scientifically based on the key concepts of institutional theory (new institutional sociology and old institutional economy), structural theory and dialectical perspective has been applied that provide an exhaustive explanation of organizational changes by acknowledging the conflicts of internal and external determinants and the critical role of the human factor. Totally, 60 companies which their ownership transferred to the private sector during the period from 2002 to 2017 were investigated in the current paper. To collect empirical data, a questionnaire survey was adopted; moreover the structural equation modeling approach is applied to examine the hypothesis employing Smart PLS software and Friedman rank test using SPSS software. The key findings sufficiently reveal that external factors (mainly through progressively increasing of shareholders supervision), the internal factors (mainly through increasing of management influence) and through mediating variable of organizational contradictions exert a significant effect on the management accounting practices. As a result, in the process of privatization, two factors of increasing the shareholders' supervision and increasing of management influence, receive the most primary impact on the management accounting practices change. Furthermore, apparent inconsistency typically resulting from the incompatibility of external and internal factors causes differences among the members and affords the conditions of changes in the organization's systems. The results of the current research can be valuable for the effectiveness of management accounting changes in the process of mergers and acquisitions in developing countries

Assessing the Fraud Risk Factors in the Finance Statements with Benford's Law

The aim of this study is research potential fraud risk in financial statements by using some financial and nonfinancial parameters. For detection of fraud risk used conformity of financial statements with Benford's law among different groups of companies. Variables to be met by financial statement liability include sectors, risk groups, size of independent audit firms, independent auditing obligation and independent membership of directory board. To this intent balance sheet and income statements of the companies traded in BIST real sector for the years 2008-2017, taken as data set. Data set were applied Benford analysis for measuring conformity of financial statements with Benford’s law. For analyse difference between groups applied T-Test, ANOVA and TUKEY tests. As a result, investigated significant difference between company groups and variables were found to affect the fraud risk in the financial statements. These results have shown impact of different variables on financial statement as a fraud risk factor. It has expected that these factors are effective in the financial statement fraud. Company owners, professional accountants, auditors and tax authority can use this method for detecting red flags and selecting audit targets

Book review: Effective Management Control; Theory and practice by Eric G. Flamholtz

Book review of Effective Management Control; Theory and practice by Eric G. Flamholtz. Boston, Mass.: Kluwer Academic. c1996 ISBN: 0792396995, ISBN: 9780792396994, Number of Pages: 174

Smart city development, blockchain for the vehicle registry: a study in Romania

The current state of business worldwide is being challenged by technology, which completely transforms old and arduous processes. As the main modern concern is overall data protection and the greater aim is building smarter cities, companies and government agencies are increasingly focused on blockchain databases. This paper focuses on the vehicle market, as it is continuously evolving sales-wise, technology-wise and for comfort/driving possibilities. While studies (Meticulous Market Research, 2020) show that vehicle Artificial Intelligence grows in revenue, they also prove that this is an insecure market, due to miss opportune hackings. Thus, a greater need for security is being expressed all over the vehicle market and many industry players have shifted their attention towards blockchain and its benefits. This paper investigates and describes the concept of vehicle industry in Romania focusing on students sampled from a small demographic segment, due to research limitations. The aim of this study is to examine the importance of having a blockchain system implemented and what are the challenges to have this in place. By analyzing the surveys gathered from 150 students, this study has found that a huge percentage of respondents have a positive attitude towards this technology, hence this is a valid solution for future implementation as it is discussed below in this research