ABSTRACT
Institutional theory research on institutional intermediation typically focuses on how institutional intermediaries address voids in market-based institutions that inhibit entrepreneurship. In doing so, the research rarely studies what types of institutional intermediaries entrepreneurs prefer to use. We address this gap with a microinstitutional inquiry of how entrepreneurs in a rudimentary market-based economy differ in the relevance they place on different types of institutional intermediaries. Using a sample from the Indrachok market in Kathmandu, Nepal, and using a three-stage qualitative and quantitative abductive investigation of a cascading set of increasingly refined research questions, we identify two key preferences for institutional intermediaries. First, we find a key institutional intermediation tripod consisting of three locally focused institutional intermediaries: family, suppliers, and peer entrepreneurs. The tripod is supplemented by institutional intermediaries with more moderate preference in this context: four other locally focused institutional intermediaries (local politicians, police, religious figures, and political gangs) and three broad-based institutional intermediaries (government, microlenders, and nongovernmental organizations). Second, the importance of suppliers and peers as institutional intermediaries reflects entrepreneurs' registration status (registered versus unregistered) and microgeographic location (dispersed versus clustered businesses). The research reconceptualizes institutional intermediation in rudimentary market-based economies from the entrepreneurs' perspective, identifying mechanisms that shape entrepreneurs' preferences and providing proposition for future testing.
ABSTRACT
PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the COVID-19 pandemic risk disclosures in a sample of annual reports of Australian public universities. These universities rely heavily on fee-paying onshore overseas students. Analysing these risk disclosures is essential to understanding the COVID-19 crisis and the implications for organisational change.Design/methodology/approachDocument analysis and content analysis of the 2019 annual reports of all Victorian public universities were undertaken to identify the disclosure of COVID-19 risk impacts. Applying Laughlin's Habermasian insights of change, the study explores the pathways of change adopted by universities to overcome the risk impacts. However, financial risk disclosures about income from this source were virtually non-existent.FindingsAny risk associated with COVID-19 disclosed was minimal in a qualitative, neutral and constant format. The quality of disclosures was low. Media statements, however, pointed to significant income loss and suggested a strategy of substantial cost-cutting, including employee redundancies, which we identified as morphostatic changes of universities to overcome the risk impacts.Research limitations/implicationsThe study reveals the risk associated with sector's aggressive growth strategy, jeopardising their financial viability and quality of teaching and research.Practical implicationsThe findings provide insights to the Australian higher education sector. The low quality of external risk disclosures of these universities suggests an urgent need for transformation.Originality/valueAustralian public universities play a crucial role in society. This role will be diminished by a failure to disclose and manage significant risks adequately.
ABSTRACT
PurposeThe monetary valuation of cultural heritage of a selection of 16 major public, not-for-profit Australian cultural institutions is examined over a period of almost three decades (1992–2019) to understand how they have responded to the paradoxical tensions of heritage valuation for financial reporting purposes.Design/methodology/approachAccounting for cultural heritage is an intrinsically paradoxical practice;it involves a conflict of two opposite ways of attributing value: the traditional accounting and the heritage professionals (or curatorial) approaches. In analysing the annual reports and other documentary sources through qualitative content analysis, the study explores how different actors responded to the conceptual and technical contradictions posed by the monetary valuation of “heritage assets”, the accounting phraseology of accounting standards.FindingsFour phases emerge from the analysis undertaken of the empirical material, each characterised by a distinctive nature of the paradox, the institutional responses discerned and the outcomes. Although a persisting heterogeneity in the practice of accounting for cultural heritage is evident, responses by cultural institutions are shown to have minimised, so far, the negative impacts of monetary valuation in terms of commercialisation of deaccessioning decisions and distorted accountability.Originality/valueIn applying the theoretical lens of paradox theory in the context of the financial reporting of heritage, as assets, the study enhances an understanding of the challenges and responses by major public cultural institutions in a country that has led this development globally, providing insights to accounting standard setters arising from the accounting practices observed.
ABSTRACT
[...]two key things are essentially happening! [...]the toys related to the work of Santa, which are later donated for the advancement of the public good, are not treated as tax-deductible, so their written down cost or to (be more modern) their “fair value” at the time is not of any relevance to anyone. [...]the government is effectively discharging a responsibility to provide equity in toys enjoyment in society without really doing anything.