Lee David Parker

Lee David Parker
RMIT University | RMIT · School of Accounting

About

147
Publications
51,632
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
13,460
Citations

Publications

Publications (147)
Article
Purpose This article centres on the pertinence of redefining accounting for tomorrow, particularly for facilitating the attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and, thereby, for shaping a better world. In aspiring for accounting to reach its full potential as a multidimensional technical, social and moral practice, this paper aims...
Article
Conducting comparative country-based case studies of the US, the UK, and Australia over a twenty-four-year period and employing discursive and linguistic lenses, this paper scrutinizes the historical development of the founding principles of corporate governance. We aim to interpret and study the underlying meanings of public accountability within...
Article
Full-text available
Reflecting on the third year of the global Covid-19 pandemic, this paper addresses critical issues in the accounting research agenda. Departing from the current vogue for structured and systematic literature reviews, it specifically targets a number of major accountability issues whose importance will be reinforced by the institutional, economic, p...
Article
The aim of this paper is to investigate how politically based trade union power can determine the fate of a regulatory body's organizational reform and undermine public accountability in a purportedly democratic developing country (DC). A large regulatory organization in Bangladesh was examined as a case study to uncover how political actors and po...
Article
This paper aims to critically assess the impact of public university commercialisation on research engagement and practice relevance. Recent decades have seen dramatic changes in university environments, identities and missions, as well as in government and private sector funding and involvement. As increasingly commercialised and corporatised orga...
Article
Full-text available
The International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board of the International Federation of Accountants issued exposure draft ED78 Property Plant and Equipment in April 2021. It proposes valuing ‘heritage items’ for recognition as ‘heritage assets’ in statements of financial position. This proposed requirement for global application casts the spo...
Article
The office has become a large scale organisational phenomenon accommodating large numbers of organisational employees most often housed in open plan and Activity Based Working settings that arguably resemble the new factory. This study examines contemporary Big 4 accounting firm office design innovations and their representation with a view to elic...
Article
Historical accounting research has a substantial track record of using a variety of theoretical insights to better understand of how and why accounting has contributed to, and been affected by, organisational change and development. The article outlines the emergence of a range of theories that have been employed by accounting historians, against t...
Article
In the context of contemporary public sector performance audit practice in Australia, this study provides significant insights into performance auditors’ and auditees’ apparent logics and attitudes to performance audits. Employing a documentary analysis and in‐depth semistructured interviews with senior audit leaders from all Australian Auditor‐Gen...
Article
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the issue of research relevance from the frame of reference of university leaders. Its specific aim is to gain insights into how “relevance” is conceptualised, and the underlying assumptions upon which such conceptualizations are based. Design/methodology/approach Adopting an inductiv...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon the focus and changing nature of measuring academic accounting research quality. The paper addresses contemporary changes in academic publishing, metrics for determining research quality and the possible impacts on accounting scholars. These are considered in relation to the core values of interd...
Article
Purpose In the context of global New Public Management reform trends and the associated phenomenon of performance auditing (PA), the purpose of this paper is to explore the rise of performance audit in Australia and examines its focus across audit jurisdictions and the role key stakeholders play in driving its practice. Design/methodology/approac...
Article
Full-text available
Traditional business-to-government reporting is a core remit of the accounting function but is associated with a significant administrative burden on business. This burden is a major obstacle hindering business efforts to achieve core efficiency and innovation objectives. We use the conceptual lens of institutional work to examine how traditional b...
Article
This study offers foundational insights into the ways in which perceptions of different interview media—principally, face‐to‐face, telephone and videoconferencing channels of communication—may influence researcher choices and practices. Informed by the reflections of 23 senior accounting researchers, our evidence identifies a duality of practices i...
Article
This article investigates organisational responses to emerging concerns about how accountability–autonomy tensions can be managed within the context of university research commercialisation. The findings suggest that changed expectations of university research practices, which result from the introduction of a commercialisation logic, can be manage...
Article
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to reflect on 30 years of Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal ( AAAJ ), and contemplates the future. It makes a case for diversity, including a broad range of theories and research methodologies, as a defining feature of AAAJ . As we have done since 1988 in AAAJ ’s first editorial, we continue to urge...
Article
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify and articulate concepts and approaches to qualitative generalisation that will offer qualitative accounting researchers avenues for enhancing and justifying the general applicability of their research findings and conclusions. Design/methodology/approach – The study and arguments draw from multidi...
Article
Henri Fayol has traditionally been reputed as a leading French industrialist of his day who pioneered the development of early management theory in the classical management school tradition. However the influence of his ideas has spread far beyond his shores and the school of thought with which he has been stereotyped. This study reflects upon his...
Article
Purpose This paper aims to examine the employment of the military metaphor by the management thinker and writer Lyndall Urwick who in the twentieth century developed and articulated his ideas over a 60-year period, arguably the longest continuous period of any management writer of his day. Design/methodology/approach This study draws on published...
Article
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the phenomenon of activity-based working (ABW), an office design and management system that has emerged in the past 20 years. It investigates its manifest and underlying agendas with a view to determining its degree of cost management focus and scientific management foundations. Design/methodology/ap...
Article
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a comment on “The struggle to fabricate accounting narrative obfuscation: An actor-network-theoretic analysis of a failing project” by Brian Rutherford. Design/methodology/approach The paper discusses issues highlighted by Rutherford regarding the unresolved limitations of the Flesch formulaic appr...
Article
Purpose – This commentary reflects on possible disruptions for the accounting profession, accountants and academics in the next 25 years. The traditional and highly valued role of the accounting professional, accountants and academic scholarship is rapidly changing in an intensely networked and interdisciplinary world. The purpose of this paper is...
Article
Full-text available
The rising incidence of co-authorship in academia generally is well documented. Research collaboration has been argued to bring some specific benefits to researchers, yet the process and outcomes of collaboration is not without its risks and challenges. The crucial decision to collaborate has both short and long-term implications for the research a...
Article
Purpose – This paper aims to contextualise and critically evaluate the state of accounting historiography, its past and future agenda as a foundation for future scholars’ design and pursuit of accounting history research. Design/methodology/approach – Focussing on the historiographic accounting history literature, the paper draws on prior state-...
Article
The literature on the impression management of discretionary narrative disclosures has largely focused on selectivity in the presentation and content of information. We argue that selectivity involves ‘including’ or ‘omitting’ certain items of information – ‘concealment’ (Merkl-Davies & Brennan, 2007 Figure 1) – which can be achieved either by mani...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a critique of published research access and peer review, considering their impacts on accounting scholarship. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on literature and publishing document review, experiential reflections and argument. Findings – The authors reveal changes in publishing fo...
Chapter
Within the accounting discipline and its literature, attention to the role of social and non-profit organizations has been growing, particularly with respect to issues of accountability and social accounting. In response, the aim of this introductory article is to present the background for the book by highlighting (i) the relevance and rise of the...
Article
Full-text available
By integrating and streamlining financial information within and among various organisations, eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) has been developed with a view to enhancing the efficiency, accuracy, and transparency of corporate accounting information. Taking an inter-organisational focus, this paper investigates the process of how XBRL...
Article
Corporate social and environmental responsibility has become a major contemporary focus of business, government and community attention globally. With this increased attention and activity have come debates ranging across corporate authenticity, legislative necessity, and the scope of appropriate strategies. Through an historical analysis of four l...
Article
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address and critique the current state and trajectory of the interdisciplinary accounting movement. Design/methodology/approach – An interdisciplinary literature sourced analysis and critique of the movement's positioning and trajectory. Findings – It observes the creeping currency of the financial econom...
Article
Social and environmental accounting (SEA) research has experienced significant developments over recent decades. Based upon Lee Parker's published study (2011. “Twenty-One Years of Social and Environmental Accountability Research: A Coming of Age.” Accounting Forum 35 (1): 1–10), this paper reviews and critiques 21 years of research in the field pu...
Article
Purpose – This paper aims to offer an insight into the emergent qualitative methodological profile and its distinctive contribution to accounting and management scholarship, particularly reflecting upon the contribution of Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management (QRAM). Design/methodology/approach – It examines the range of qualitative met...
Article
Purpose – This editorial aims to consider the global accounting academic and the environment in which we research and teach, including consideration of the challenges that confront us now and into the future. Design/methodology/approach – Document review, personal reflections and argument. Findings – The paper acknowledges that the accounting aca...
Article
The office is a ubiquitous feature of daily life. This paper examines a particularly important period in its history: the early decades of the twentieth century. Our contemporary conceptions of the routines conducted within this organizational form, or indeed the structure of the space which houses it, were significantly shaped during this era. Wit...
Article
While many studies of the motivations behind the corporate social responsibility reporting (CSRR) practices of large corporations have been reported internationally, few have focussed on multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiaries. Most importantly, we still do not know how host country institutional norms, or parent corporation policies, influenc...
Article
This article presents the second stage of a study that engages with the debate that has occurred within the nonprofit literature about the propensity and relative merits of nonprofit organizations adopting for-profit approaches to management. Specifically, this qualitative investigation examines the ways in which nonprofit organizations use managem...
Article
The relationship between management control systems (MCS) and strategy has received considerable attention in the management control literature. Contingency-based approaches, however, have traditionally dominated this research, with limited attention devoted specifically to how MCS and strategy may combine in organizations operating within highly i...
Article
Purpose This paper aims to examine and critique the accounting literature's dominant readability formula, the Flesch formula. Furthermore, the paper sets out to propose refinement and augmentation to the formula with a view to expanding its applicability and relevance to researchers' attempts at better understanding and critiquing the effectiveness...
Article
Purpose This aim of this study is to explore the relationship between management control systems (MCSs) and the formulation of strategy in not‐for‐profit (NFP) organisations. Design/methodology/approach The paper views the relationship between MCS and strategy through the contrasting lenses of new‐institutional and contingency theory, using data c...
Article
This paper examines the financially focused strategies now evident amongst institutions competing for space in the global higher education system. In their search for increasing financial self‐sufficiency, universities and other higher education providers are examined for their primary competitive strategies. The study provides comprehensive eviden...
Article
Full-text available
This study presents a history of the Islamic banking sector, its accountability and regulation in Pakistan, set in its contexts of the rise of Islamic banking internationally in a global finance marketplace alongside the localized Islamization of Pakistan’s economy. The historical analysis is informed by the Economic Theory of the State and the pri...
Article
Purpose This editorial aims to consider contemporary issues for accounting scholars, in particular journals rating and benchmarking, arguing that current international trends are risking academic research quality. Design/methodology/approach This paper takes the form of an editorial review and argument. Findings The paper acknowledges that accoun...
Article
This paper presents a reflective critique of the current university environment and the state of accounting research with a view to envisaging the latter’s forward trajectory, particularly in terms of emerging subject areas, theoretical perspectives and methodological traditions. It considers the contemporary fixation upon research performance indi...
Article
Motivated by repeated observations in the management accounting literature concerning the relevance of academic research to policy and practice communities, this study reports on an exploratory investigation of the perceptions and attitudes of a sample of 64 senior management accounting academics from 55 universities in 14 countries about the exten...
Article
This study addresses the emerging financial management focus of publicly and privately funded universities in the global marketplace, focusing on their financial management strategies. Despite regional and national differences, both public and private universities are found to exhibit a global trend towards operating as predominantly market funded...
Article
The predominant proportion of research into environmental accounting published in the accounting literature to date has focussed upon annual report disclosures of corporate social and environmental activity and impact for external stakeholders. This paper draws attention to the growth in corporate activity and management research concerning the dev...
Article
This paper examines the positioning of qualitative research to date in the field of management accounting. It offers a critical reflection and an appraisal of its profile relative to the dominant positivist quantitative accounting research literature. In the accounting literature, management accounting research is arguably a leader in applying qual...
Article
This milestone editorial benefited from the constructive comments of several colleagues. Thanks to Gloria Parker, Julz Stevens and Fiona Crawford for their editorial assistance. The Editors also thank Rainbow Shum for her tireless efforts over the past nine years as AAAJ administrator in its Adelaide editorial office. They are grateful for support...
Article
Building upon panel discussion held at the sixth Accounting History International Conference, a resounding “yes” is offered in response to the question of whether accounting history matters. However, reflecting the viewpoint that accounting history can and should matter more, various suggestions are presented for advancing the quality, relevance an...
Article
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse and critique Lyndall Urwick's long‐term advocacy of scientific management and its influence upon management thought. Design/methodology/approach An analysis and critique of Urwick's published writings across 60 years, on the subject of scientific management and organizations, particularly linking his...
Article
Lyndall Urwick was the dominant figure in British management between the late 1920s and the early 1960s. His writings and his passion in pursuit of management as a scientific and systematic activity rather than the rule-of-thumb approach to decision-making all too prevalent in Britain exercised a huge influence on management at the time; and ultima...
Article
The historical classical management roots of contemporary accounting are still embedded in theory and practice, but invariably unacknowledged. This paper revisits the discourses and philosophies of three leading management writers generally regarded as proponents of scientific and classical management: Frederick Taylor, Henri Fayol, and the longest...
Article
Drawing on international research into changing university environments, profiles, and structures, this study applies a neo-institutional perspective to the analysis and critique of underlying developed country trends in public sector university corporatisation and commercialisation. Identifying primary environmental and historical influences, the...
Article
Social and environmental accounting research has been contributing to the accounting and management research literatures for several decades. Yet it has been marginalised by the majority of accounting and management researchers in their focus upon economic development and corporate financial management. The emergence of global warming and carbon em...
Article
This study extends upon previous research into the profile and direction of social and environmental accounting research, analysing and critiquing 21 years of contemporary research in social and environmental accounting published particularly in four leading interdisciplinary accounting research journals covering the period 1988–2002 inclusive. It...
Article
Purpose This editorial aims to consider the relationship between academic accounting research and professional practice. Design/methodology/approach The paper takes the form of an editorial review and argument. Findings The paper acknowledges that accounting academic research is important to the higher education system, careers and publishers. Ho...
Article
This study investigates a contest of ideas that took place between public sector accrual accounting (PSAA) and Government Finance Statistics (GFS) in the Australian state of New South Wales. The debate, its context and its course is historically analysed from a neo-institutional theory perspective, employing both documentary and oral history source...
Article
This exploratory study examines the phenomenon of corporate social and environmental accountability and management in two particular contexts that have received very limited attention from accounting researchers to date. Addressed in this paper are corporate social and environmental reporting and management with specific reference to the hospitalit...
Article
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to consider the role of the business school now and in the future. Design/methodology/approach The paper takes the form of an editorial review and argument. Findings The paper acknowledges the impact of globalization and “marketization” on business schools. Research limitations/implications The editorial offe...
Article
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to put forward a “next step” research agenda for investigating accountants' professional identity. Design/methodology/approach The visual nature of identity construction is discussed, issues of media stereotyping are revisited and recruitment/educational implications are reviewed. Attention is also paid to the...
Article
Purpose The purpose of the paper is to explore the methodological dimensions and potential of photo‐elicitation, particularly as a historical research tool for archival, oral and critical accounting, and management historians. Design/methodology/approach The analysis draws upon the methodological, theoretical and empirical literatures of visual an...
Article
Purpose – This editorial seeks to argue for intellectual pluralism and adventurous enquiry in an era of status badging of publication venues and institutions and to review AAAJ's role, strategies and international recognition in this context. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is an editorial review and argument. Findings – The paper acknowled...
Article
The purpose of this study is to determine how alignment in a performance management system is achieved through actions and processes that span from the articulation of strategic business priority areas in the strategic framework through to various hierarchical levels within the organization including the individual level. The study is conducted in...
Article
Environmental strategies and their related costs have received little formal attention from Australian accountants. Yet, internationally as well as in Australia, green strategies and their related costs are now being recognised by a range of corporations. In this paper, international corporate examples are reviewed. Environmental cost categories an...
Article
Environmental impact and management is becoming a major priority for corporate strategists. while considerable information on corporate environmental disclosure practices in annual reports is now available, little is known about the internal environmental decision and control information systems in use, and corporate attitudes particularly to envir...
Article
This paper presents a case for reversing the order of priority given to general-purpose financial reporting objectives so that accountability becomes the objective of primary focus and decision-making becomes the objective of secondary focus. It proposes a wider concept of accountability aimed at serving a broad community-based constituency. The di...
Article
This paper comments on the debate amongst European scholars regarding the development, place and role of interpretive research in the contemporary accounting research community and literature. It locates the presence, place and distinctiveness of the interpretive and qualitative research tradition in an increasingly unitary global accounting resear...
Article
Purpose This paper sets out to investigate and critique the corpus of recent research into gender dimensions of strategic management and accounting processes with a view to establishing the current state of knowledge and offering both future research and policy implications. Design/methodology/approach A literature‐based analysis and critique are...
Article
This study addresses the development of environmental strategies and associated management control in the international hotel industry, a sector of major economic and environmental impact hitherto largely neglected in the environmental management and accountability literature. The low key level of commitment to environmental management currently ex...
Article
This study examines the control processes and their dynamics at the board level of two non-profit organizations with a view to penetrating and exploring directors' control orientations, discourse and decisions in their holistic context. In comparison with the predominantly survey- and interview-based prior research on board-level control, this stud...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose This editorial seeks to reflect on seven contributions to this AAAJ special issue and on the interdisciplinary accounting, auditing and accountability movement and its future directions. The seven papers were invited plenary contributions to the APIRA 2007 conference, which in part served to celebrate 20 years of AAAJ . The important role o...
Article
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate and evaluate the roles of research journal editorial boards in fostering scholarship and nurturing new knowledge areas and research approaches, typified by the growing qualitative methodological tradition, in the accounting and management disciplines. Design/methodology/approach Editors and their...
Article
This paper presents the results of a longitudinal complete member researcher participant observer study of two nonprofit association boards with particular reference to their internal corporate governance processes. In doing so, it offers one of the very few available insider observational studies of boardroom behaviour currently available in the m...
Article
This study examines strategic decision-making at the boardroom level of two non-profit professional associations, penetrating directors' strategic orientations, discourse and decisions in their holistic context. In comparison with the predominantly survey and interview based literature on board level strategy behaviour, this study employs a longitu...
Article
This study provides a critical examination of contemporary financial and external reporting research from a corporate governance perspective. Adopting Hines' social constructionist approach to financial reporting, the study investigates research into accounting publishing patterns, published reviews of major subject areas within financial and exter...
Article
Purpose The paper seeks to explore the ongoing development of an array of interdisciplinary specialist research areas in the accounting research community and its literature. It sets out to explore developments over the last 25 years with the aim to identify a number of important trends for the accounting scholarly community and to consider the rol...
Article
Purpose The management profession has a long and well‐documented history adopting and abandoning “fads” promulgated by a series of thinkers, practitioners, and opinion leaders who enjoy a “guru” like status. The purpose of this paper shows that stereotyping contributes to the existence of this guru‐fad phenomenon. Design/methodology/approach The p...
Article
This study argues that in classifying Fayol as a founding father of the Classical Management School, we have to some extent misrepresented this still important management theorist. The received Fayol portrayed in contemporary texts invariably emerges as a caricature of a much more insightful, complex, visionary and rounded management thinker. This...
Article
This paper traces the forerunners of the present-day ethical rulings of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia and the Australian Society of Accountants from the earlies professional Australian accounting bodies of the 1880s and 1890s. Various codes of ethics, articles, and memoranda of association, by-laws, charters, and professional...
Article
Australian and New Zealand accounting academic responses to corporate governance and reporting failures is a story not simply told in the context of high profile international corporate failures such as Enron and WorldCom. This study notes a sequence of major Australian corporate failures that predate Enron and WorldCom. Through research into profe...
Article
Purpose The paper explores the rapidly changing environment affecting universities and their research communities. It sets out to explore the effect of university corporatisation on research and teaching, and aims to identify likely coping strategies for researchers. The role of AAAJ in supporting research in this turbulent environment is then cons...
Article
Purpose To investigate, analyse and critique contemporary research in social and environmental accounting. Design/methodology/approach An analysis and critique of the social and environmental accountability (SEA) research field since the late 1980s. The study revisits two key prior seminal papers on the field, examines the remit for SEA researcher...

Network

Cited By