Salme Näsi

The evolution of corporate social responsiveness: an exploratory study of Finnish and Canadian forestry companies

In this article, the authors investigate the applicability and usefulness of three alternative perspectives on corporate issues management: issue life cycle theory, legitimacy theory, and stakeholder theory. Each perspective makes certain as- sumptions about the nature of issues management activities and certain general predictions about corporate social responsiveness. The authors test the relative applicability of the three theories through a case study of the issues management activities of four large forestry companies in Finland and Canada. The authors conclude that all three perspectives have value but differ in the level of analysis and time frame to which they apply.

The Contingency Model of Governmental Accounting Innovations: a discussion

Comparative International Governmental Accounting Research (CIGAR) has been carried out for some twelve years. CIGAR research is, however, generally unfamiliar to researchers not belonging to the CIGAR network. Therefore, the paper aims at presenting and discussing critically CIGAR research with its Contingency Model of Governmental Accounting Innovations and suggests how CIGAR research and its Contingency Model could be developed.

Accounting and business economics traditions in Finland - from a practical discipline into a scientific subject and field of research

The first three business schols in Finland were founded during the 1910s and 1920s. Today there are nine business school units with some 12000 students in Finland. Accounting forms the oldest and most fundamental branch of business economics. Bookkeeping and calculation were included from the very begining in the business school curriculum. Even today accounting has its own profile and areas of research and teaching among other functional and more comprehensive or synthetic branches of business economics. This article describes the development of accounting as an academic discipline and as a part of business economics education in Finland. This study is based on a variety of historical documents: business economics and accounting dissertations and other research studies, academic textbooks, articles in professional journals, study guides for business school programmes etc. Our aim is to produce a comprehensive picture of the development of accounting as an academic subject and a part of business economics in Finland.

Comparing Cameral and Accrual Accounting in Local Governments

Historically the accounting models applied in the governmental and business sectors differ strongly. This difference is due to the fact that there are differences between governmental and business organizations, a point to be discussed further in the next section of the paper. In spite of these differences, however, there seems to be an international trend towards the replacement of traditional governmental accounting (e.g., cameral accounting) with business accounting (i.e., accrual accounting). For example, such a change occurred in the local governmental sector in Sweden in 1986 and a similar change occurred in Finland 10 years later. Currently there are similar changes going on with regard to state accounting in these two countries.