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This paper argues that the World Wide Web provides a unique opportunity for sociological explication. It contends that sociological uses of the Internet for publication purposes have not as yet taken full advantage of the technology available, producing web facsimiles of printed pages. It highlights the potential for undertaking inquiries which employ the multimedia aspects of WWW technology and extends some of the insights from ethnomethodology and conversation analysis regarding retrievable data.

In government, the challenges of governance and anti-corruption are exacerbated by accounting not being fit for purpose. In developing countries, many governments adopt accrual accounting as a panacea. Drawing on Goffman's frame analysis, and rhetorical appeals to logic, credibility and emotion, this paper examines the adoption of accrual accounting in Malaysia. It was found accrual accounting has potential for keying governance and anti-corruption. However, rhetorical appeals that attempt to legitimate neo-liberalism and engender public support in the name of progress were hindered by perceptions of endemic corruption and relatively weak democratic institutions of 'good' governance common to developing countries.

While responding to calls for research and regulatory concerns regarding the influence of country level characteristics on the completeness and quality of financial statements, we examine the simultaneous influences of corruption and culture on levels of compliance with mandatory disclosure requirements. We use a panel dataset of European companies, for 2008–2011, and measure compliance with IFRS goodwill disclosure requirements utilising a disclosure index. Corruption is measured using the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and Schwartz (2008) bipolar cultural dimensions are used as measures of culture. We find that compliance levels vary significantly across sample firms, countries and over time. The level of corruption and two of the three cultural dimensions (Hierarchy and Mastery) are significantly related to these levels of compliance. These findings also hold for the changes in compliance levels over time. On that basis, the paper makes original contributions to our understanding of determinants of compliance levels with IFRS mandatory disclosure requirements.

This paper examines internal auditor roles to support public governance in a developing country context, through interviews with chief audit executives across 17 Malaysian Local Government Authorities. Drawing on critical theory, the research shows that internal auditors seek to legitimise their position through compliance (watchdog) and performance (helper and protector) audits. At the micro level of practices, in performing these dual roles, internal auditors are not colonised by governance rules and managerial influence, but instead are enabled by them to perform communicative action. Nevertheless, this was undermined by financial and managerial capacity issues that are a challenge in developing countries.

STUDY OBJECTIVE--Resource allocations from the central government to the English health regions are determined by population levels adjusted by relative standardised mortality ratios (SMRs). The White Paper Working for Patients proposes that allocations should in future be based on capitation adjusted by some other measures of health. The aim of this paper was to investigate the effect of using morbidity data in the weighting algorithm instead of relative SMRs. DESIGN--Morbidity data were obtained from the Health and Lifestyle Survey, 1986. Three different measures of self reported morbidity were used (Long Standing Illness, Any Declared Condition, Any Handicap). Population weightings were calculated by national average bed use for these conditions and again for SMRs. SETTING--This was a national survey using data from all the English health regions. MAIN RESULTS--All three measures of morbidity showed a wider variation between regions than SMRs, and the weighted populations showed a correspondingly wide variation (approximately double that obtained when using SMRs). CONCLUSION--The weighting of populations will be crucial in determining resource allocations to budget holders, whether in the hospital or primary care sector. However without a prior agreement on what counts as "need", the choice of these alternative measures will be arbitrary.