Accounting and accountability in Fiji: A review and synthesis

This paper reviews accounting and accountability research in Fiji. The review is based on 41 papers which were published in accounting refereed journals, professional journals, edited book chapters and thesis and other refereed journals outside accounting. The reviews are over the years 1978 and onwards. In addition to categorization of the reviewed papers according to accounting topics, theories and methods of data collection, some themes to which the papers could be related are discussed. Financial reporting/ accountability research is the most popular research in Fiji followed by the new public management. Corporate governance research treads third. The paper findings suggest some directions for future accounting history research in Fiji and where the data can possibly be sourced for such research. We conclude that more future work is needed in the areas of accounting history which entails topics such as accounting and the state, performance auditing, indigenous accounting, financial reporting, SMEs and accountability in general

University accounting and business curricula on sustainability: Perceptions of undergraduate students

The challenge to embed sustainability in the formal curriculum has been troublesome for accounting academics. This study investigates sustainability in the accounting curriculum at a regional university in New Zealand. Sustainability practices are becoming an important issue given that many business activity problems have arisen over the years, unsustainable practices have resulted in societal and environmental damages. There has been an increasing recognition of the need for sustainability teaching in tertiary education. Education plays an important role in equipping graduates with the relevant sustainability skills to make informed decisions towards a more sustainable world. There is a need to examine how students respond to the teaching of sustainability in their courses. This will allow education providers to find out how student perceive sustainability education, and make changes to improve the teaching of sustainability. Literatures have claimed that students have positive attitudes towards sustainability; however, this does not mean that students are familiar with the concept of sustainability. There are business students who seem to perceive the study of sustainability to be less important when compared to other subjects. There still seems to be a shortage of research done on how students perceive sustainability. This paper contributes to the discussion needed to understand what sustainability skills are required by managers and how tertiary education programs in accounting may need to incorporate sustainability. The role of accounting schools in leading and managing change towards sustainability must be further informed

New public management and employee share ownership plan in Fiji’s public sector

This article provides insights into the implementation of new public management (NPM) practices in Fiji Telecom and whether the use of the employee share ownership scheme was helpful in the organisational change process. The NPM practices were influenced by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund who were the lenders to Fiji government. The adoption of NPM practices was part of a political, economic and public sector reforms introduced after 1989. The paper discusses the background and obstacles of the reform and how the employee share ownership scheme practice at a privatised Telecom Company assists employees to assimilate commercial business norms. The authors finally make recommendations for policy-makers in Fiji and other developing nations

Corporate governance practices in Fiji: An empirical investigation

This study investigates the nature and extent of compliance to the principle-based corporate governance initiatives by the listed companies in the South Pacific Stock Exchange (SPSE) in Fiji. Three important questions are addressed: (i) whether listed companies in Fiji have complied with the principle-based governance practices: (ii) did compliance with principle based recommendations lead to an improvement in the listed company‟s financial performance? and (iii) how the institutional factors have contributed towards corporate governance practices in Fiji? Panel data for the SPSE companies over the period 2008-2010 are analysed using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. Tobin‟s Q, Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE) and Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation to Total Revenue (EBITDA2REV) metrics are used as dependent variables. Findings indicate that listed companies have adopted the Capital Market Development Authority‟s (CMDA) recommendations, establishing subcommittees for audit and remuneration, and having nonexecutive/ independent directors on the board. The result supports the view that the CMDA recommendations of board sub-committees (Audit and Remuneration) have had positive influence on company performance measured by Tobin‟s Q. The findings of this study give support to the principle-based corporate governance practices adopted in Fiji. The results of this study provide useful insights to both regulators and policy analysts (in Fiji and internationally) seeking to enhance both governance and firm performance in their own jurisdiction

Power relations, ethnicity and privatisation: A tale of a telecommunications company

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the confluence of political and economic interests of the Fijian elite in transforming state assets into private property and financial gain. Drawing on a Habermasian theoretical framework applied to a privatised state monopoly (Telecom Fiji), it is demonstrated how an implementation of privatisation concealed social and political interests. Thus privatisation provided a convenient rhetoric and tool of implementation for social and political gain by a ruling elite. For those inside the Telecom company, the ethos of public service could not withstand the messengers of capitalism with their rhetoric of the need for greater efficiency, effectiveness and consumer awareness. However, as for many other privatisation programmes around the world, the results are not reflected in the improved organisational performance or wellbeing of the ordinary citizen when state monopolies are privatised

Developments in non-mandatory disclosures in annual reports of companies: A case study

The paper investigates the extent of non-mandatory disclosure of information (NMD) in the annual reports of the 17 companies listed on the South Pacific Stock Exchange (SPSE) in Fiji, a developing country, and whether NMD by these companies has changed over time providing additional and useful information to stakeholders. The empirical data was gathered from the years 2008 to 2010 to provide a clear picture of the change in the level and extent of NMD, and its influences over the periods 2008 to 2010. It can be seen from the Fiji perspective that the mandatory requirements tend to have a financial focus. However, it would be expected that the level of company disclosures would have changed over time, with not only global market forces but through differing societal values which have increased the frequency and demand of non-mandatory reporting by companies. All companies showed some degree of NMD, and on average this demonstrates an increasing trend. The stakeholders are receiving more information about a company’s activities. The companies were analysed in light of recent developments in corporate governance by the Capital Markets Development Authority (CMDA) implementing their 10 corporate governance principles. This became a major driver of the increase in NMD levels of the disclosures in the annual reports of the listed companies. However, a large variation still exists between the level and extent of the NMD and the different listed companies. The minimum disclosure level found over the three years was 9.09 percent, which has increased to a minimum of 13.66 percent in 2010, and the maximum disclosure level over the three years was 81.82 percent. The findings for the extent of NMD was also similar where the minimum words used in NMDs was 114, increasing to 854 in 2010, and the maximum disclosure extent over the three years was 21,414 words. However, it was found that the measurement of counting words tended to fluctuate over different periods where significant events took place that affected the company. Therefore, it was established that disclosure is impacted by what happens in the reporting period, and can explain why one period may have greater disclosure than another. The paper aims to extend earlier work of Sharma & Davey (2013) on the extent of NMD in Fijian context. While Sharma & Davey (2013) considered voluntary disclosure from 1999-2005, our study reviews NMD over 2008-2010. The study has shown that corporate governance code issued in 2009 by Capital Market Development Authority has influenced the level of NMD

Context and change in management accounting and control systems: A case study of Telecom Fiji Limited

This thesis aims to contribute to research in management accounting and control systems (MACS) in a developing country context: that of Fiji. It seeks to gain a theoretical understanding of how MACS reflect the social and political contexts in which they operate by using a case study of Telecom Fiji Limited (a major supplier of telephone communications in Fiji). The definition of MACS for the purpose of the thesis is broad- a social constructivist perspective is adopted in which systems are used to align employee behaviour with organisational objectives and to assist external relationships (with the State, Commerce Commission, aid agencies and customers). The thesis draws on institutional theory while raising questions as to how to refine and extend institutional theory. This theory has often been associated with institutional embeddedness (stability). The social constructivist approach helps to incorporate agency and cultural issues normally missing in conventional applications of institutional theory to accounting change. Telecom Fiji Limited (TFL) was restructured under the Fiji government's public sector reforms. Such reforms were insisted upon by the international financial agencies of the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Under the reform policy, TFL was transformed from a government department into a corporatised organisation and was subsequently privatised. The MACS changes which eventuated helped to change TFL management and employees' interpretive schemes. However, employees resisted initial changes to commercial business routines and it took some years for TFL actors to assimilate commercial practices. While the literature dealing with MACS changes has mostly portrayed changes as occurring with little resistance, MACS changes at TFL took several years to become institutionalised, partly because of cultural and political factors specific to Fiji. The study has practice implications as it shows that management accountants can act as institutional entrepreneurs in organisations, shaping new accounting technologies in reformed entities, and changing actors' interpretive schemes. The study has implications for policy makers, consultants and other stakeholders in terms of promoting a need for better understanding of the sensitivity to cultural and political circumstances in Less Developed Countries (LDC's) like Fiji in relation to the introduction of MACS changes. The study has implications for other recently corporatized/ privatised and state-sector organisations in Fiji and elsewhere. It also has implications for other researchers as institutional theory can be refined on the basis of new empirical evidence

Modified SPLICE and its Extension to Non-Stereo Data for Noise Robust Speech Recognition

In this paper, a modification to the training process of the popular SPLICE algorithm has been proposed for noise robust speech recognition. The modification is based on feature correlations, and enables this stereo-based algorithm to improve the performance in all noise conditions, especially in unseen cases. Further, the modified framework is extended to work for non-stereo datasets where clean and noisy training utterances, but not stereo counterparts, are required. Finally, an MLLR-based computationally efficient run-time noise adaptation method in SPLICE framework has been proposed. The modified SPLICE shows 8.6% absolute improvement over SPLICE in Test C of Aurora-2 database, and 2.93% overall. Non-stereo method shows 10.37% and 6.93% absolute improvements over Aurora-2 and Aurora-4 baseline models respectively. Run-time adaptation shows 9.89% absolute improvement in modified framework as compared to SPLICE for Test C, and 4.96% overall w.r.t. standard MLLR adaptation on HMMs.Comment: Submitted to Automatic Speech Recognition and Understanding (ASRU) 2013 Worksho

Integration of Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Diseases (NAFLD) into NPCDCS programme: A recent initiative in India

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is an emerging public health problem globally. NAFLD is one of the most common liver diseases worldwide and is the most common cause of abnormal liver enzymes in many developed countries. NAFLD is estimated to afflict approximately 1 billion individuals worldwide. An estimated 20-30 % of general population is afflicted from it globally. In India NAFLD could be a silent epidemic with its prevalence ranging from 9-32%. Studies have shown, strong association of NAFLD with major Non Communicable diseases (NCD) like Diabetes, Obesity, CVD, Chronic Kidney diseases, Cancers, etc. Perceiving the threat of NAFLD and the central role of hepatic accumulation of fat in the pathogenesis of other NCD, the Government of India (GoI) has taken steps to include NAFLD in the public health agenda. It has included it in the national NCD programme, i.e., National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke (NPCDCS) in 2021. India has become the first country in the world to start a national programme for preventive efforts for NAFLD. The present review describes public health relevance of NAFLD and the process of integration of Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Diseases (NAFLD) into NPCDCS programme in India