Related Party Transactions (RPTs) have been considered recently in research as a phenomenon which is associated with several financial scandals, shareholder’s wealth expropriation and is used for earnings management (EM) purposes by the reporting entity. This study aimed to: (i) assess the extent of EM and RPTs i Greece; (ii) investigate the association between RPTs and EM; (iii) investigate the association between corporate governance and EM; (iv) investigate the association between corporate governance and RPTs; and (v) investigate the impact of RPTs on Accounting Quality. Greece was selected for this study as it provides a special context due to poor investor protection, high levels of EM and unhealthy financial reporting environment where wealth extraction and EM are more likely. This study examines the relationship between earnings management and RPTs for the firms listed on the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). Moreover, it examines the association between earnings management and corporate governance activities. The results show a negative and significant relationship between EM and RPTs. This finding does not support the conclusion that RPTs are necessarily conducted to mask fraud or the extraction of firm resources. The results show that firms audited by one of the Big 4 audit firms are associated with less EM. Additionally, the study investigates the relationship between RPTs and accounting quality. The findings show that that there is no significant difference in accounting quality between RPTs firms and non-RPTs firms. This study contributes to the EM, accounting quality and corporate governance literatures. This research suggests recommendations for researchers, data providers and policy makers on ways to reduce the problems associated with RPTs.

The primary aim of this research is to understand what constitutes management accounting and control (MACs) practice and how these control processes are implicated in the day to day work practices and operations of the organisation. It also examines the changes that happen in MACs practices over time as multiple actors within organisational settings interact with each other. I adopt a distinctive practice theory approach (i.e. sociomateriality) and the concept of imbrication in this research to show that MACs practices emerge from the entanglement between human/social agency and material/technological agency within an organisation. Changes in the pattern of MACs practices happens in imbrication processes which are produced as the two agencies entangle. The theoretical approach employed in this research offers an interesting and valuable lens which seeks to reveal the depth of these interactions and uncover the way in which the social and material imbricate. The theoretical framework helps to reveal how these constructions impact on and produce modifications of MACs practices. The exploration of the control practices at different hierarchical levels (i.e. from the operational to middle management and senior level management) using the concept of imbrication process also maps the dynamic flow of controls from operational to top management and vice versa in the organisation. The empirical data which is the focus of this research has been gathered from a case study of an organisation involved in a large vertically integrated palm oil industry company in Malaysia specifically the refinery sector. The palm oil industry is a significant industry in Malaysia as it contributed an average of 4.5% of Malaysian Gross Domestic Product, over the period 1990 -2010. The Malaysian palm oil industry also has a significant presence in global food oil supply where it contributed 26% of the total oils and fats global trade in 2010. The case organisation is a significant contributor to the Malaysian palm oil industry. The research access has provided an interesting opportunity to explore the interactions between different groups of people and material/technology in a relatively heavy process food industry setting. My research examines how these interactions shape and are shaped by control practices in a dynamic cycle of imbrications over both short and medium time periods.

The profusion of performance measurement models suggested by Management Accounting literature in the 1990’s is one illustration of the substantial changes in Management Accounting teaching materials since the publication of “Relevance Lost” in 1987. At the same time, in the general context of increasing competition and globalisation it is widely thought that national cultural differences are tending to disappear, meaning that management techniques used in large companies, including performance measurement and management instruments (PMS), tend to be the same, irrespective of the company nationality or location. North American management practice is traditionally described as a contractually based model, mainly focused on financial performance information and measures (FPMs), more shareholder-focused than French companies. Within France, literature historically defined performance as being broadly multidimensional, driven by the idea that there are no universal rules of management and that efficient management takes into account local culture and traditions. As opposed to their North American brethren, French companies are pressured more by the financial institutions that fund them rather than by capital markets. Therefore, they pay greater attention to the long-term because they are not subject to quarterly capital market objectives. Hence, management in France should rely more on long-term qualitative information, less financial, and more multidimensional data to assess performance than their North American counterparts. The objective of this research is to investigate whether large French and US companies’ practices have changed in the way the textbooks have changed with regards to performance measurement and management, or whether cultural differences are still driving differences in performance measurement and management between them. The research findings support the idea that large US and French companies share the same PMS features, influenced by ‘universal’ PM models.

Recent advances in the corporate use of information systems, commonly referred to as enterprise systems (ES), they have been shown to have varied impacts on the management accounting function across organisations. Enterprise resource planning systems represent the primary ES form, but ES often consist of supplementary systems, such as business intelligence systems. Although a considerable body of research has been devoted to examining the impact that ES have on management accounting practice and the management accountant's role, there still remains a limited understanding of the explanatory variables of those impacts (e.g. under what circumstances can ES facilitate the adoption of advanced management accounting techniques and the execution of advanced tasks by the management accountant?). This thesis addresses this gap in the literature. To this end, the critical realism (CR) philosophy has been adopted. From an ontological perspective, CR research begins with some accepted phenomenon and attempts to identify what the circumstances must be like for this phenomenon to occur. From a methodological perspective, CR research endorses the application of mixed research methods, both quantitative and qualitative, which should be underpinned by pertinent theoretical approaches. This research project consists of three main research phases which incorporate one quantitative and two qualitative studies. In the first phase, a review of the related literature was undertaken in order to obtain insights regarding possible explanatory variables of the impact that ES have on the management accounting function. In the second phase, these insights were organised into pertinent measurable constructs by drawing on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology, resulting to the development of a conceptual model of causal relationships which was then empirically examined via a survey of large and medium-sized organisations operating in Greece. Finally, based on sociomaterial theory, case studies were conducted in phase 3 of the research project.

The UK’s historically low cost of energy has encouraged a culture that considers energy to be in limitless supply and excessive levels of consumption acceptable. Now that supplies are becoming restricted and costs rising, it is slowly becoming recognised that this energy culture has created a legacy stock of buildings with poor building fabric, limited energy efficiency equipment and even lower levels of energy awareness. Cost effective technologies are readily available but are not being adopted by UK SMEs in non-domestic buildings, as rational economic theory would expect. A gap exists between availability of technically feasible, cost effective energy improvements and what is implemented. Policy-makers attribute this to inaccessibility of information and investment and design policies accordingly. However, as escalation of demand continues an alternative driver of this paradox must exist. This research hypothesises that this driver is the ownership structures of non-domestic buildings. To explore this hypothesis a new framework for energy research is adopted; the segmentation of non-domestic buildings based on ownership and the purchase of energy. A survey of members of these segments is undertaken to test this hypothesis. This research identifies an energy-efficiency gap caused by building ownership and finds that tenure of business premises prevents the adoption of energy conservation opportunities; 64% of research participants encounter barriers to energy efficiency from building ownership; 50% have relationships with owners/tenants that prevent energy improvements being implemented. When this is increased pro rata to reflect the UK population of 4.99 million SMEs it emerges that almost 2.5 million businesses are unable to benefit from financial savings available from energy improvements and around 0.7 million occupy premises in which the owner chooses to have no involvement in energy management. Non-domestic building owners participating in this research consider that energy costs are not a significant issue for their tenants. This thesis proposes that an alternative approach to UK energy policy based on regulation and provision of grant funding for energy efficiency improvements could improve the likelihood of SMEs adopting energy efficiency and conservation activities. 75% of research participants highlight legislation as their key driver for change with 70% responding positively to the provision of grant funding for energy improvements. This knowledge of energy behaviours is used to propose the Carbon Allowance Scheme, a simple form of energy rationing based on non-tradable energy quotas, as an alternative framework for energy policy.

Background : The contours of today’s corporate landscape are strongly shaped by finance investors who own businesses, either in part or fully. This thesis analyses the processes of cooperation and interaction between businesses and finance investors regarding technology strategy. In addition to the question of the direct influence finance investors might have on technology strategy, indirect influences are also investigated. An evaluation of the finance investors’ capabilities and responsibilities is carried out in parallel to understand what “real potential” investors have to influence the technology strategy of companies in their portfolio. This work addresses a gap in current existing literature and research in this area as the elements of direct involvement of investors in technology strategy of firms they own are not yet studied in depth. Methodology : A purely qualitative approach of case study research was chosen as the method most suitable for obtaining the desired insights. A pilot project involving two cases, confirmed the efficacy of the semi-structured questionnaire for conducting in-depth interviews. A further 12 case studies were carried out with companies that were selected following defined criteria to ensure the reproducibility of results. The final work has a fundament of 14 cases, consisting of 43 interviews with finance investors and portfolio company representatives. Conclusion : Finance investors consider the technology strategy of their portfolio companies to be vital as it impacts the market value of the company and financial results. Besides the financial impact of technology strategy, finance investors show no specific interest in technology strategy nor are they likely to have major expertise in this area. Responsibility for driving technology strategy is clearly in the hands of the corporate managers. But finance investors do exert strong indirect influence by controlling and steering budgets, investments, etc. and also through their consultancy role in the organisational development process.

This thesis aims to generate an understanding on entrepreneurial finance in Egypt. Furthermore it explores the opportunities for a venture capital industry as a promising tool in entrepreneurial finance. As one of the MENA region’s emerging economies, Egypt is facing economic challenges and high unemployment rates. The Arab spring uprisings added to the pressures upon the economy of Egypt; however, it managed to ignite an entrepreneurial spark among the youth population. Access to finance is an evident hurdle facing entrepreneurship in Egypt. Thus promoting entrepreneurial finance as a growth engine in anticipation to overcome unemployment and slow rates of start-ups might be a plausible solution. Through utilising an institutional theory lens and its institutional determinants, regulatory, normative, and cognitive forces, were found useful to analyse the current entrepreneurial finance environment. This research is an exploratory research; it takes into account both the supply side and demand side of entrepreneurial finance in Egypt. It adopts a qualitative approach for in-depth understanding of the domain and a grounded approach in regard to data gathering for its limited availability on the subject taking the form of a naturalistic enquiry. In doing so it follows an inductive approach to understand the interaction among the supply and demand of finance and the determinants shaping it. This thesis built on secondary data supplied by current research and reports and the primary research conducted via in-depth interviews and participant observations and analysed it from an institutional perspective. According to the findings of this research, it was plausible to argue that the regulatory pillar was held most accountable for the under development of entrepreneurial finance in Egypt. The normative and cognitive pillars both have supportive and inhibiting factors. However, the overall effect of normative and cognitive pillars could be positive if policy makers were able to factor in the cultural and normative forces in policies promoting entrepreneurial finance. The thesis further suggests policy recommendations to enhance entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial finance, and a vivid venture capital industry in Egypt.

Purpose- Megaprojects are large, complex, and expensive projects that often involve social, technical, economic, environmental and political (STEEP) challenges. Despite these challenges, project owners and financiers continue to invest large sums of money in megaprojects that run high risks of being over schedule and over budget. While some degree of cost, schedule and quality risks are considered during planning, the challenge of understanding how risk interactions and impacts on project performance can be modelled dynamically still remains. The consequences learnt from past experiences indicate that there was a lack of dynamic tools to manage such risks effectively in megaproject construction. In seeking to help address these problems, this research put forward an innovative dynamic systems approach called SDANP to risk assessment in megaprojects construction. Design/methodology/approach – The research has developed an innovative SDANP method which involves an integrative use of system dynamics (SD) and analytic network process (ANP) for risk assessment. The SDANP model presented in the thesis has been testified by using data and information collected through a questionnaire survey and interviews from supply-side stakeholders involved in the Edinburgh Tram Network (ETN) project at the Phase One of its construction stage. The SDANP method is a case study risk assessment driven process and can be used against STEEP challenges in megaprojects. Findings – The result of the case study project revealed that the SDANP method is an effective tool for risk assessment to support supply-side stakeholders in decision making in construction planning. The SDANP model has demonstrated its efficiency through case study, and has convinced construction practitioners in terms of its innovation and usefulness. Research limitations/implications – Although the SDANP model has been developed for generic use in risk assessment, data and information used to run the simulation were based on the ETN project, which is in Edinburgh, Scotland. The use of the SDANP model in other megaprojects requires further data and information from local areas. Practical implications – The SDANP method provides an innovative approach to a comprehensive dynamic risk assessment of STEEP issues at the construction planning stage of megaprojects for the first time. It provides an interactive quantitative way for developers to prioritise and simulate potential risks across the project supply network, to understand and predict in advance the consequences of STEEP risks on project performance at the construction stage. Originality/value - The research made an original contribution in quantitative risk assessment with regard to the need for a methodological innovation in research and for a powerful sophisticated tool in practice. The SDANP has shown its advantages over existing tools such as the program evaluation and review technique (PERT) and the risk assessment matrix (RAM).

This thesis develops Bayesian models to explain credit default and migration risk. Credit risk models used in practice are based on an assumption of conditionally independent events given a realization of systematic risk factors. The systematic risk can be modelled with both observed and unobserved factors. On the one hand we consider generalised linear mixed models (GLMMs) for default count data where random e ects account for unobserved factor risk. On the other hand we consider survival models with shared frailties to model unobserved factors in time-to-default and time-to-rating-transition data. The latter models are developed in the Anderson-Gill counting process framework for the Cox proportional hazards model to allow multiple events and time-dependent covariates. Using Standard and Poor's data on default and rating transitions we control for observed macroeconomic factors in the xed e ect parts of the models. We allow the latent factors to have autoregressive time series structure. The results from both kinds of model show clear evidence of heterogeneity between industry sectors/countries and time period suggesting that di erent latent factor effects are present in di erent sectors. This is an important message that should be accounted for in risk analyses. We implement Bayesian inference for all our models and use the MCMC approach (Gibbs sampling). We show some tractable model formulations that capture the main sources and implement Bayesian model choice procedures to select the most explanatory models. There are couple of contributions in this thesis: First, this is an analysis of industry e ects on default and migration rates using vector-valued random e ects in default count models and vector-valued dynamic frailties in time-to-event/survival models. While this has been done before in models for default counts (McNeil-Wendin) it is quite novel for time-to-event models. Koopman, Lucas and Schwaab (2012) which has some similarities but the estimation is by Monte Carlo maximum likelihood, not by Bayesian methods. Second, estimation of rating transition model with shared dynamic frailties for di erent industry sectors and macroeconomic covariates using Bayesian techniques (MCMC). This is a new model which is based on a simpler model used in medical statistics (Manda & Mayer(2005)) that has been adapted and extended for the credit risk application. We show how to estimate the new model using a Bayesian approach. Finally, we use the model to compute point-in-time dynamic estimates of rating transition probabilities for di erent industry sectors and forecast these into the future, while taking into account macroeconomic factors. This can be very useful for risk management applications and economic scenario generation.

Public-Private Partnership (PPP), as an arrangement to involve the private sector in the provision of public services, has been extensively adopted in both developed and developing countries. However, the adoption of PPP in developing countries is believed to be more challenging as it encounters unique local contexts. Accordingly, this research aims to explore the implementation of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in Indonesia by seeing PPP as a practice situated by local settings that relate to socio-economic, political, cultural and religious contexts of Indonesia. Specific attention is paid to the process of PPP diffusion, the development of PPP rationales and the evolution of PPP. To investigate such issues, this study employs an open interpretive methodology, in which a grounded approach is used to extract findings and potential theories from the data. Qualitative methods are employed to collect and analyse the data. Accordingly, the research conducts in-depth interviews with 25 officials of the Indonesian government, international financial institutions and PPP consultants. In addition, to enrich the analysis and complement the main approach, the research also uses quantitative methods to take and analyse a survey involving more than 100 stakeholders of PPP in Indonesia. Key findings on PPP diffusion suggest the central role of the international financial institutions, notably the World Bank, in introducing PPP to Indonesia, facilitated by other channels such as the international community and local actors with Western educational backgrounds. In such a way, the diffusion may occur voluntarily, but it may also be coercive in that Indonesia is driven by conditions obligated by international agencies. On PPP rationales, the findings show that although the lack of government capacity to finance infrastructure provision is developed as the main government rhetoric in adopting PPP, other motives are revealed for implementing PPP. These motives include non-economic motivations such as maintaining access to donor agencies and exploiting benefits directed to personal and political interests. Moreover, findings on PPP evolution suggest that the Indonesian local setting has transformed PPP in Indonesia from a “sector issue” to a “reform issue”, a “planning issue” and, more recently, a “financing issue”. The research contributes to the PPP literature by offering a new framework to study the implementation of PPP, through which a thick description can be provided to show how PPP is both shaped by and shapes its socio-economic, political, cultural and religious settings, suggesting a number of unique characteristics of PPP implementation in Indonesia.