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This study assesses how and in what circumstances tourists’ perceived value of nature-based tourism (NBT) attributes differ among various types of national parks. A novel discrete choice experiment is used employing data collected from 343 international tourists in four national parks in Sri Lanka. We find that the improvements in frequency of large species’ encounters, habitat quality and proximity to encountered wildlife produce greater utility. A surprising finding is that tourists are shown to prefer to spend only a limited amount of time at national parks. They also tend to choose less-visited parks that have large mammals for which they would be willing to pay more compared to those national parks that are more frequently visited. Our article contributes to the empirical evidence that time is a key factor that determines the tourism destination choice and less-visited parks offer considerable potential for future growth of tourism

Climate change and its impact on the agricultural sector in developing economies is a matter of considerable academic and political debate. This paper examines the impact of climate change and variability on Sri Lankan agriculture and identifies the potential adaptation practices and their impacts on rice productivity. More specifically, this study investigates how farming households’ decisions to adapt to climate change affects agricultural productivity in the Batticaloa district of Sri Lanka. The data were collected through a primary survey of 238 farming households. We employ a simultaneous equations model with endogenous switching to investigate the differing effects of adaptation on adapters and non-adapters. The findings show that most farmers perceive there are adverse climate change impacts on their agricultural production. We also find that farmers’ adaptation measures substantially boost rice yields. Moreover, it is shown that such strategies would benefit both adapters and non-adapters. Farmers’ access to climate related information, education, membership in farmer organizations and size of plots are found to play a key role in the adaptation process. Overall, this study provides empirical evidence of the positive impact of adaptations on food productivity and farm income, thus suggesting the need for policy interventions that enhance farmers uptake of strategies against climate change impacts.

Purpose – Governments worldwide have earmarked unprecedented amounts of emergency funding in response to COVID-19 to help maintain health services and minimize economic harm. This article examines the transparency processes that three Australian state governments have used to provide accountability for their economic response to COVID-19. Design/methodology/approach – We adopt a comparative case study design to examine the performance of transparency by three state governments as they developed and implemented an economic response to COVID-19. Findings - We find the utility of the information that Government provided to be questionable. The Government decided against providing information about budget modelling. They also failed to explain whom they consulted in developing the response. Furthermore, parliamentary sitting rules intervened in processes meant to promote constructive debate. Because of these issues, MPs found it difficult to debate whether the high levels of expenditure are justifiable and fair in supporting those most affected. Originality/value – This paper raises important questions about state governments' fiscal accountability frameworks and the level of oversight, transparency, and accountability for emergency spending. The paper provides a framework for understanding transparency measures and considers potential inhibitors to constructive debate. The framework may help governments and other organisations improve transparency for emergency spending.

Grand challenges are complex, large-scale problems requiring collaborative, multidisciplinary attention if we are to go some way towards solving them. Cross-sector collaborations can play an important role in improving global social outcomes, yet we still know little of the dynamics of how diverse stakeholders work together to address grand challenges and the consequences of doing so. Our paper contributes to the literature at the intersection of management and grand challenges by identifying how cross-sector collaborations can be used more effectively in addressing grand challenges. Drawing on a longitudinal study of Australia’s offshore processing of refugees, we develop a cross-sector collaboration governance framework to guide future inter-organisational relationships directed at grand challenges. We also highlight a number of key management problems associated with the formation, implementation and outcomes of collaboration across-sectors and suggest potential solutions derived from the literature. We then apply these insights to other global challenges facing society.

Grand challenges are complex, large-scale problems requiring collaborative, multidisciplinary attention. Cross-sector collaboration can potentially play a significant role in addressing these challenges by capturing the diverse vision, experience, knowledge and resources of different sectors. Yet we still know little of the inter-organisational dynamics of how sectors work together to address grand challenges and the consequences of doing so. Our article contributes to the literature at the intersection of management and grand challenges by identifying how cross-sector collaborations can be used more effectively to address grand challenges. Drawing on a study of Australia’s offshore processing of refugees, we highlight the inter-organisational issues that emerge and develop a collaborative governance framework to overcome these problems and guide future cross-sector collaborations directed at grand challenges. JEL Classification: M5, H11.

This article outlines an innovative project to encourage knowledge sharing and engagement between academics and a policy team within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C). The project was designed to enhance policy advice by drawing on a group of academics outside the policy ranks to act as a sounding board, to question, and provide differing perspectives within the policy process of crafting advice to government. External expertise and particularly academic research has the potential to improve evidence‐based policy but often fails to be specific or timely for those at the “pointy end” of policy decision making. An informal knowledge sharing framework has the potential to improve the exchange of information through confidential and targeted conversations between researchers and public servants as one way of overcoming these barriers.

This study examines the accounting and accountability practices of Fairtrade International (FLO), one of the largest Fair Trade umbrella organizations. Our aim is to explore whether new forms of accounting and related disclosures emerge in the reporting practices of FLO and how these reflect their self-declared social mission towards the emancipation and sustainability of producers. Using thematic analysis and reflecting on Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic power, we analyse FLO’s reporting practices from 2006 to 2013. Our findings reveal that FLO mobilises the taken-for-granted images and symbols of ’fairness’ in the Fair Trade system by using descriptive statistics of Fair Trade premium distributions and pictures of producers but keeps silent to current concerns surrounding the limitations of Fair Trade. Such findings extend important insights into how new forms of accounting and related disclosure are used to legitimise the practice of Fair Trade.

The emergence of climate change as an object of concern for organisations can be viewed as the most recent example of social and environmental concerns permeating organisational boundaries. We know the theoretical potential that accounting techniques and practices can play in making organisations more sustainable and enacting widespread organisational change however there has so far been little evidence of any material impact beyond a series of glossy annual reports. This paper challenges these ideas by drawing on insights from a case study of a large energy company to show how ideas of accounting and organisational change come together to turn climate change into a new performance measure. It shows the constitutive power of accounting as a two way process that shapes how managers come to view climate change and in doing so drives management action to reduce emissions. Organisational change is viewed as a constantly negotiated process that evolves over time rather than a pre-determined process. These findings suggest that accounting plays a significant role in embedding social and environmental commitment through processes of organisational change.

This paper examines the modern power of accounting to permeate new spheres and create new objects by examining how climate change becomes a new category for accounting’s attention. It outlines the socio-political problem space where accounting and climate change connect by tracing the emergence of the UK’s Climate Change Act (2008) to a specifically modern calculating attitude described here as ‘managing by the numbers’. It suggests the intersection of accounting and climate change was made possible by accounting’s role in tying disciplinary subjectivities and objectivities together whilst operating simultaneously at the level of individuals, organisations and government. Such that when faced with new unknowns we revert to previous ways of managing we have come to know and experienced throughout our formative years in schools, hospitals, firms and government departments. In this way, accounting’s emergence in the domain of managing climate change implies a transformation that cannot be explained merely as a practical response to a global warming problem, but rather as an example of a new power-knowledge regime that makes possible the management and control of a new organisational phenomenon called climate change.

This paper examines how ideas and practices of accounting come together in turning the abstract concept of climate change into a new non-financial performance measure in a large energy company in the UK. It develops the notion of ‘governmental management’ to explain how the firm’s carbon dioxide emissions were transformed into a new organisational object that could be made quantifiable, measureable and ultimately manageable because of the modern power of accounting in tying disciplinary subjectivities and objectivities together whilst operating simultaneously at the level of individual and the organisation. Examining these interrelations highlights the constitutive nature of accounting in creating not just new categories for accounting’s attention, but in turn new organisational knowledge and knowledge experts in the making up accounting for climate change. Significantly, it appears these new knowledge experts are no longer accountants: which may help explain accounting’s evolution into evermore spheres of influence as we increasingly choose to manage our world ‘by the numbers’.