Radical Change, Accounting and Public Sector Reforms: A Comparison of Italian and Canadian Municipalities

NPM has been generally regarded as an administrative reform for which resilience and consequences have been mainly investigated at a country level. Although accounting played a central role in NPM reforms over the last decades, how accounting change actually took place, and through what organizational dynamics, has been under-investigated. This paper adopts a new perspective, archetype theory, and looks into how intra-organizational dynamics (values, interests, power, capabilities) combine with reform processes to influence the outcome of accounting change. Evidence from Italian (disruptive process) and Canadian (sedimented process) municipalities shows that radical change is associated with specific configurations of intra-organizational dynamics.

Procurement and the Public Sector Equality Duty: Lessons for the Implementation of the Equality Act 2010 from Northern Ireland?

The use of public sector equality duties that require public authorities to do more than simply not discriminate and that in addition require such authorities in exercising their functions to actively promote equality has increasingly been considered as relevant for procurement. This article examines the Northern Ireland experience regarding the application of a public sector equality duty to procurement and addresses whether, and if so to what extent, this experience provides any useful lessons for the operation of the ‘equality duty’ in the recently enacted British Equality Act 2010.

Information disclosure and depositor discipline in the Chinese banking sector

We investigate the relationship between information disclosure and depositor behaviour in the Chinese banking sector. Specifically, we enquire whether enhanced information disclosure enables investors to more effectively infer a banking institution's risk profile, thereby influencing their deposit decisions. Utilising an unbalanced panel, incorporating financial data from 169 Chinese banks over the 1998–2009 period, we employ generalised-method-of-moments (GMM) estimation procedures to control for potential endogeneity, unobserved heterogeneity, and persistence in the dependent variable. We uncover evidence that: (i) the growth rate of deposits is sensitive to bank fundamentals after controlling for macroeconomic factors, diversity in ownership structure, and government intervention; (ii) a bank publicly disclosing more transparent information in its financial reports, is more likely to experience growth in its deposit base; and (iii) banks characterised by high information transparency, well-capitalised and adopted international accounting standards, are more able to attract funds by offering higher interest rates.

Implementation of workplace-based smoking cessation support activities and smoking cessation among employees:the Finnish Public Sector Study

We investigated the relationship between implementation of workplace smoking cessation support activities and employee smoking cessation.

Workplace social capital and all-cause mortality:a prospective cohort study of 28,043 public-sector employees in Finland

We examined the association between workplace social capital and all-cause mortality in a large occupational cohort from Finland.

Is the public healthcare sector a more strenuous working environment than the private sector for a physician?

Aims: The present study examined the differences between physicians working in public and private health care in strenuous working environments (presence of occupational hazards, physical violence, and presenteeism) and health behaviours (alcohol consumption, body mass index, and physical activity). In addition, we examined whether gender or age moderated these potential differences. Methods: Cross-sectional survey data were compiled on 1422 female and 948 male randomly selected physicians aged 25-65 years from The Finnish Health Care Professionals Study. Logistic regression and linear regression analyses were used with adjustment for gender, age, specialisation status, working time, managerial position, and on-call duty. Results: Occupational hazards, physical violence, and presenteeism were more commonly reported by physicians working in the public sector than by their counterparts in the private sector. Among physicians aged 50 years or younger, those who worked in the public sector consumed more alcohol than those who worked in the private sector, whereas in those aged 50 or more the reverse was true. In addition, working in the private sector was most strongly associated with lower levels of physical violence in those who were older than 50 years, and with lower levels of presenteeism among those aged 40-50 years. Conclusions: The present study found evidence for the public sector being a more strenuous work environment for physicians than the private sector. Our results suggest that public healthcare organisations should pay more attention to the working conditions of their employees.

Constant scale factor, on-line CORDIC algorithm in the circular coordinate system

Real time digital signal processing requires the development of high performance arithmetic algorithms suitable for VLSI design. In this paper, a new online, circular coordinate system CORDIC algorithm is described, which has a constant scale factor. This algorithm was developed using a new Angular Representation (AR) model A radix 2 version of the CORDIC algorithm is presented, along with an architecture suitable for VLSI implementation.