1,720,961 research outputs found
Performance reporting : assessing the annual reports of Malaysian local authorities
No full textThere have been calls for Malaysian local authorities to be more transparent and accountable in the discharge of their functional responsibilities. This study empirically evaluates the extent and quality of current performance reporting by local authorities. The disclosure of relevant information for discharging accountability obligations, as defined by a broad range of stakeholders, falls short of best practice. Therefore, the performance of Malaysian local authorities lacks transparency. The findings could assist in the development of more comprehensive guidelines for local authority reporting and raise awareness of information stakeholders expect to be reported in the context of accountabilit
An index of best practice performance reporting for\ud Malaysian local authorities
No full textAbstract\ud
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify stakeholders’ expectations of information to be conveyed in local authorities’ annual reports and to develop an index of best practice performance reporting.\ud
Design/methodology/approach – The paper describes the development of a disclosure index emphasizing the public interest aspect of reporting and the need to provide relevant and meaningful information to stakeholders. The index was crafted from a public accountability perspective and based on the expectations of stakeholders as reconciled and validated by a Delphi panel of experts.\ud
Findings – The wide scope of information that was dentified as being important for disclosure by local authorities is consistent with the public accountability paradigm which requires the reporting of comprehensive information (both financial and non financial), about the condition, performance, activities and progress of the entity.\ud
Originality/value – The research posits a model of best practice performance reporting for Malaysian, and other, local authorities to meet the need for greater accountability by these entities
Stakeholders' perceptions on the accountability of Malaysian local authorities
No full textPurpose – This paper aims to identify stakeholder perceptions on the service performance accountability of Malaysian local authorities. Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire survey provides the primary source of information, and both descriptive and analytical methods are employed to support the analysis of the empirical findings. Findings – The paper shows that despite a strong interest amongst stakeholders for greater accountability of Malaysian local authorities, a standard definition and scope of accountability has not emerged. However, the findings do indicate a new bond of accountability emerging between local authorities and its broader public than previously existed. Research limitations – The findings and discussion are limited to the propositions put forward in the questionnaire. Alternative research methods would complement the findings. Originality/value – The findings contribute to our understanding of accountability as interpreted by key stakeholders of local authorities located within the context of a developing country. This could potentially assist Malaysian public sector administrators whereby, and arguably, enhancing the public accountability of local authorities may contribute to an improvement in the performance management of Malaysian local authorities
An investigation into the performance reporting practices and accountability of Malaysian local authorities : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Accountancy at Massey University (Wellington) New Zealand
Full text linkWithin the context of New Public Management (NPM), the research aims to investigate the practices of annual reporting of performance-related information and accountability of Malaysian local authorities and whether such practices meet the local authorities' stakeholders' expectations of information necessary for assessing and monitoring the performance of local authorities. The aim is to make recommendations about the future direction of external performance reporting of Malaysian local authorities. To achieve this and associated aims, the research addresses the following research questions: (1) What do stakeholders of Malaysian local authorities understand by the term 'accountability' with regards to local authorities? (2) What type of information do the stakeholders expect and consider necessary for assessing and monitoring the performance of local authorities? (3) How important is it for each informational item to be disclosed in annual reports of local authorities to the stakeholders? (4) What type of information items do expert stakeholders agree is necessary for assessing and monitoring the performance of local authorities and what is the importance of such items for disclosure? (5) How can the information and its importance for disclosure, as agreed by the experts, be organised as a disclosure index for assessing the extent and quality of information disclosure? (6) What is the extent and quality of disclosure of information within the annual reports of Malaysian local authorities? (7) Does the information being disclosed in the annual reports meet the expectations of stakeholders? (8) To what extent is accountability being discharged through annual performance reporting of local authorities? The research employs a questionnaire survey, a Delphi exercise (a means of seeking consensus of expert opinions), and a content analysis of annual reports. Both descriptive and analytical approaches are employed to support the analysis of the results. The findings of the research indicate that despite a strong interest amongst stakeholders for greater accountability of Malaysian local authorities, a standard definition and scope of accountability has not emerged. The need to give an account has been recognised by the stakeholders with an emphasis on performance reporting within the context of NPM. The findings also show that the extent and quality of annual reports of Malaysian local authorities is relatively low in that the information disclosed lacks detailed information and is insufficient for the assessment and monitoring of the performance of such authorities. Further, the findings suggest the discharge of accountability by local authorities through external annual performance reporting should and could be improved. The findings contribute to our understanding of accountability as interpreted by key stakeholders of local authorities located within the context of a developing country. In addition, the findings contribute to the body of literature that documents aspects of NPM, namely performance reporting, accountability for performance and public accountability. With regards to Malaysia specifically, the findings could potentially assist public sector administrators and will be of significance to policy makers interested in improving the performance management of Malaysian public entities, particularly that of local authorities
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Keperluan Pemegang Kepentingan Institusi Zakat Terhadap Item Maklumat Pelaporan Prestasi
No full textZakat memainkan peranan penting dalam ekonomi Islam sebagai salah satu alat ekonomi bagi memartabatkan golongan miskin. Justeru, keyakinan pembayar zakat terhadap proses pengurusan zakat yang dilakukan oleh institusi zakat adalah penting dalam meningkatkan jumlah kutipan zakat. Keyakinan pembayar zakat ini dan pihak awam secara umumnya boleh ditingkatkan melalui pendedahan maklumat kewangan dan prestasi institusi zakat secara telus dan menyeluruh. Bagi meningkatkan keyakinan dan seterusnya menjelaskan akauntabiliti institusi zakat kepada pelbagai pihak pemegang kepentingannya, pelaporan prestasi yang mendedahkan maklumat mengikut keperluan pemegang kepentingan merupakan salah satu medium penting yang telah diiktiraf dalam kebanyakan kajian lepas. Kajian ini bertujuan untuk mengkaji keperluan pemegang kepentingan terhadap pendedahan item maklumat di dalam pelaporan prestasi institusi zakat. Tujuan ini dicapai dengan melaksanakan kaedah tinjauan soalselidik terhadap tiga kumpulan pemegang kepentingan iaitu pembayar zakat, penerima zakat dan pentadbir zakat. Hasil kajian menunjukkan secara keseluruhan pemegang kepentingan menyatakan maklumat kewangan dan bukan kewangan adalah penting untuk didedahkan di dalam pelaporan prestasi dan tiada perbezaan keperluan pendedahan bagi kebanyakan item maklumat di kalangan pembayar, penerima dan pentadbir zakat. Hasil kajian boleh dijadikan panduan kepada pihak institusi zakat dan agensi kerajaan lain bagi meningkatkan ketelusan dan memperkasakan akauntabiliti dalam mencapai urus tadbir ekonomi yang adil.
Kata kunci: Zakat, pelaporan prestasi, pemegang kepentingan, akauntabiliti.
Klasifikasi JEL: H75, H83, M41
 
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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