Suchergebnisse

A major difï¬culty facing governments around the world is how to monitor the performance of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) (Aharoni 1981). This paper reports on research that examines the performance monitoring process in Ghanaian State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). The analysis presented is based on a case study in three large-scale SOEs. Data is gathered from multiple sources including discussions with accounting ofï¬cials. a review of documents, and interviews with relevant managers in the three SOEs. The results suggest that, the persistent poor performance ot the SOEs resulted in performance monitoring delegated to an external agency established by the government. In theory, the external agency is to monitor all aspects of operations and performance of the SOEs. ln practice. however. major investment and corporate decisions are made by the sector ministry, the ministry of ï¬nance and the respective Board of Directors of each SOE with the external agency having minimal inï¬'uence in such decisions. KEY WORDS: Management Controls, Budgetary Controls, State- Owned Enterprises, Developing Country, Ghana.

Accounting research in emerging economies has been growing significantly over the last two decades due to the increasing recognition of the roles that accounting systems play in these environments. Globalization of capital markets and competition; the emergence of international accounting standards and structural adjustment programmes have all brought accounting issues in emerging economies to the fore. Research papers in the current volume have highlighted the implications of the aforementioned issues. The papers have examined various issues including the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSASs), management accounting change in the context of public sector reforms, corporate reporting disclosures, auditing, etc. The papers published in this volume have provided us the opportunities to further engage with wide ranging empirical and theoretical issues that will have policy implications and also generate future academic debates. Overall, the volume advances debate on the role of accounting reforms in areas such as accounting standards, disclosures, and corporate governance in both the public and private sectors in emerging economies. We believe the audience will find the papers interesting and insightful in terms of theoretical development, practices, policy implications and future research directions.

Accounting research in emerging economies has grown over the last two decades. This is partly due to the increasing realisation that accounting has a central role to play in the development of these economies. Accounting can contribute to enterprise development, governance improvements and promote foreign direct investment. In addition, the increasing integration of the world economy has led to a significant interest in understanding accounting systems in emerging economies. The articles in the volume contribute immensely to our understanding of how accounting functions in emerging economies. The papers have examined various issues including the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), internet financial reporting, the impacts of ownership concentration and board characteristics on firm performance, governance practices of firms, corporate social responsibility and environmental accounting, related party transactions, budgetary practices, activity-based costing, and females and the accounting profession. The papers have provided wide ranging empirical and theoretical issues that will have policy implications and also generate future academic debates. Overall, the volume advances debate on the role of accounting in different forms of organisations in emerging economies. We believe the audience will find the papers interesting and insightful in terms of theoretical development, practices, policy implications and future research directions

Covers -- Editorial advisory board -- Accounting and governance in Africa - contributions and opportunities for further research -- The impact of corporate governance code on earnings management in listed non-financial firms -- The effects of board experience and independence on mitigating agency conflict -- Audit report qualification/modification -- State of government accounting in Ghana and Benin: a "tentative" account -- Audit quality, family business and corporate governance mechanisms: the case of Morocco.

This innovative and informative Handbook brings together leading international researchers on accounting and development to review empirical evidence, issues, policies and practices both past and present. The perspectives of the expert contributors reflect the strong growth of research on the topic, as accounting is increasingly recognised as an important factor in development. The book draws commentary and analyses together to inform future research, practice and policy and raises awareness of the actual and potential role of accounting in formulating and executing development policy. With theoretical and empirically focused chapters, this Handbook will appeal to academics and postgraduate students in accounting and development studies, practitioners, policymakers and development partners.

This study compares government accounting reforms in an Anglophone and a Francophone African country, namely Ghana and Benin, with respect to neo-colonialism. The data draws from interviews with local officials concerned with government accounting, documents and documentaries. The focus lay on the perceived effectiveness of reforms, and their formulation and implementation. In both countries their former colonial powers, Britain and France, still influence accounting through economic means (through monetary systems), international financial institutions, political advisors, Northern accounting associations and neo-patrimonialism. However, their use of these differs. While France structures her control mostly around the monetary system established during colonialism, Britain relies on its post-colonial infrastructure and accounting profession, and concedes much influence to the USA, essentially through international financial institutions. France exerts more direct control through advisors than Britain (with the USA). The French approach is conceptualized as coercive-neo-colonialism and the British as soft-neo-colonialism. Despite international financial institutions' pervasive presence, they are not monolithic agents with a uniform role and influence in Ghana and Benin, and good governance aims to increase civil service capacity, financial transparency and accountability remain problematic.

The paper introduces methodological and theoretical premises of critical management accounting research and provides some guidance for researchers. We see critical management accounting research in terms of three overlapping and interrelated 'analytical acts' that researchers often perform: contextualising, historicising and theorising. To contextualise, researchers need to establish connections between local, everyday management accounting occurrences and changes taking place in the wider socio-political and cultural spheres. Historicising relates micro-histories to macro-histories. Thus, critical researchers need to locate management accounting technologies in historically-specific social and political contexts, and understand their emergence and reproduction as outcomes of the evolution of political-economic systems. Given the empirical findings are often site-specific and idiosyncratic in critical research, theorisation is important. Although they may be quite interesting in their peculiarity, especially to the local readership in those countries, these findings need to be made interesting for wider consumption. Theorising, in this sense, is a critical act signifying local occurrences by raising and placing them in a higher-order schema of meaning.

Parent-subsidiary relationships are commonplace nowadays, yet surprisingly there is a paucity of research analysing their dynamics over time. This paper presents a (longitudinal) case study, illuminating the dynamics implicated when a UK chemicals company imposed its systems and rules on a new subsidiary. Drawing on observations from a longitudinal case study (from 1993 to 2001), the study considers: (1) the extent to which a parent imposes its (management accounting) systems, rules and procedures on a subsidiary; (2) the role which (local) political, cultural and institutional factors in a subsidiary play in shaping the dynamics of such change implementation; (3) how new systems and practices become accepted and take root as values and beliefs and how they supplement earlier norms? The study provides insight for the questions above, and draws on institutional theories and a power mobilisation framework to assist in the interpretation of observations. We find that the operations of the subsidiary company are influenced by inter-related forces, both inside and outside the organisation encompassing issues of power, politics and culture. As such, existing institutions in a subsidiary organisation are influenced, sustained, and changed by the socio-economic context in which the subsidiary is located. Organisational practices designed to secure external legitimacy are not however always symbolic and decoupled from internal operations. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This study compares government accounting reforms in an Anglophone and a Francophone African country, namely Ghana and Benin, with respect to neo-colonialism. The data draws from interviews with local officials concerned with government accounting, documents and documentaries. The focus lay on the perceived effectiveness of reforms, and their formulation and implementation. In both countries their former colonial powers, Britain and France, still influence accounting through economic means (through monetary systems), international financial institutions, political advisors, Northern accounting associations and neo-patrimonialism. However, their use of these differs. While France structures her control mostly around the monetary system established during colonialism, Britain relies on its post-colonial infrastructure and accounting profession, and concedes much influence to the USA, essentially through international financial institutions. France exerts more direct control through advisors than Britain (with the USA). The French approach is conceptualized as coercive-neo-colonialism and the British as soft-neo-colonialism. Despite international financial institutions' pervasive presence, they are not monolithic agents with a uniform role and influence in Ghana and Benin, and good governance aims to increase civil service capacity, financial transparency and accountability remain problematic.