Editor’s note

Citation

Hoque, Z. (2009), "Editor’s note", Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change, Vol. 5 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jaoc.2009.31505aaa.001

Editor’s note

Article Type: Editor’s note From: Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change, Volume 5, Issue 1

With this first issue of 2009, the Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change (JAOC) completes the fourth year of its journey. Due to increasing number of submissions, we have decided to publish four issues per year from 2009.

I would like to emphasize that JAOC is devoted exclusively to accounting’s role in organizational (and social) change. Its primary objective is to contribute to the accounting and organizational change literatures by publishing scholarly work on how and why organizations change and how the change process affects accounting control systems. JAOC welcomes empirical and field-based articles from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives. It is committed to timely and constructive feedback to authors. The current policy is to get back to authors within six to eight weeks of their first submission. I thank my associate editors and editorial board members for their extraordinary, continuing support which facilitates the quality outcomes for JAOC. I am also grateful to several ad hoc reviewers (see the list in this issue) for their support in the review process of the journal during 2007 and 2008.

First Global Accounting & Organizational Change Conference 2008

The first biennial Global Accounting and Organisational Change (GAOC) Conference was held at Hilton on the Park Melbourne, 9-11 July 2008. The Conference was hosted by the School of Business, La Trobe University in association with the Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change, Emerald Publishing. Keynote speakers at the Conference were Professor Colin Ferguson from the University of Melbourne, Australia and Professor John Burns from the University of Dundee, UK.

In his presentation, Professor Ferguson, focusing on misappropriation of assets fraud, provided insights into the most common types of fraud among organizations, industries that seem most susceptible to this fraud and his recent research that identifies specific corporate governance mechanisms associated with the incidence and magnitude of fraud within these organizations. Following these insights, Professor Ferguson identified a number of potential areas for future research that are likely to enable entities, through organizational change and adaptation, to manage the risk of fraud.

Professor Burn’s presentation described the initial findings of a research project that investigates management accounting innovations in their broader context. This project is sponsored by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA); and the research team comprises Gudrun Baldvinsdottir (University of Dundee), John Burns (University of Dundee), Hanne Norreklit (Aarhus University) and Robert Scapens (University of Groningen & Manchester Business School). There have been numerous calls in recent times to better understand the processes by which new management accounting innovations become infused (or not) into organisational change programmes. Such better understanding, it can be argued, may help practitioners to be more circumspect and discriminating when considering the steady stream of software packages that bundle new and improved techniques together to support real or perceived problems and challenges. In their research, they draw on discourse analysis; and focused primarily on two aspects of management accounting innovations through discourse analysis. First, they explore the extent to which a change in the social identity of accountants can be seen through the discourse used in accounting software adverts that have appeared in the professional publications of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) over the last four decades. The second dimension of their research comprises a re-examination of interview transcripts spanning 25 years (including present-day), in which they explore the changing roles of management accountants (as well as the techniques and technologies they use) over the years, through a discourse analysis lens. Burns et al. observe that overall the changes in management accountants’ roles reflect broader social (and organisational) changes; and, they draw together some possible implications for the management accounting profession.

A total of 96 delegates representing 17 countries registered for the Conference; 66 papers were presented. Feedback from a number of delegates that attended the Conference has been exceptionally positive both in terms of the organization of the Conference and the venue. I am extremely pleased with the outcome and feel that the Conference was an enormous success. A special issue of the conference will come out in issue 2, 2009.

Second Global Accounting & Organizational Change Conference 2010

I am also pleased to announce that the second biennial international conference of the Global Accounting and Organizational Change network will be held in Boston, USA in July/August 2010 (final dates yet to confirm). It will be hosted by Babson College, USA with Professor Janice Bell as a co-chair of the conference organizing committee. The focus of this conference would be on accounting’s role in promoting social change (economic development, sustainability, quality of life for the underprivileged, etc). See the announcement in this issue. I look forward to seeing you in Boston in 2010.

Call for ideas for special issues

I also welcome ideas for special issues. Please email me if you wish to guest edit a special issue with a one-page proposal and a copy of your CV.

Zahirul Hoque