bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Knowledge strategy and business model conditions for sustainable growth of SMEs
Authors: Yun JinHyo Joseph , Jung WooYoung , Yang JeongHo 
Published: September 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this study is to figure out the factors for sustainable growth of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).Design/methodology/approach– In all, 27 SMEs in the area of IT (Information Technology) in Korea were analysed through interview method basically.Findings– It is found that sustainable development of SMEs requires two kinds of open innovation which are knowledge strategy and business model. According to developing process, SMEs change their open innovation strategy in knowledge strategy and business model. The highest growth limit of SMEs depends on open innovation in knowledge strategy and business model in sequence from closed innovation in both, through open innovation in both, to open innovation in knowledge strategy and closed innovation in business model and to closed innovation in knowledge strategy and open innovation in business model.Research limitations/implications– First, the present study was conducted with IT sector SMEs in Korea. It is true that the IT sector is one of the most rapidly changing industrial sectors and is one of representative business types of SMEs in which manufacturing and service industries coexist and diverse sizes of SMEs exist (Malerba, 2002). Second, the present study relies on case study methods. It is true that case study is a method that gives excellent qualitative analysis in firm studies (Yin, 2008).Practical implications– SMEs cannot survive if they do not accept open innovation in knowledge strategy and business model. SMEs that show absolute limitations in resources and manpower should absolutely implement open innovation strategies to secure more diverse resources from markets and external knowledge bases rather than preparing all resources and capabilities by themselves (Van de Vrandeet al., 2009; Yun and Mohan, 2012a, 2012b).Social implications– SMEs should bear in mind the two different levels of open innovation, such as knowledge strategies and business models (Chesbrough, 2007; Chesbrough and Appleyard, 2007).Originality/value– SMEs should not confuse between temporally sustainable development and infinite sustainable development. Firms that take closed innovation strategies in both knowledge strategies and business models can also grow for some time. However, because of the deepening of knowledge-based economy, not only the amount of knowledge existing in the world and the speed of knowledge distribution increased but also the customers’ demands and expectations have been observed to increase in the market immediately through social networking sites (SNS), etc. (Yun and Ryu, 2012).
Factors affecting the development of e-government using a citizen-centric approach
Authors: Sorn-in Kanda , Tuamsuk Kulthida , Chaopanon Wasu 
Published: September 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to study the factors affecting the development of e-government by using a citizen-centric approach.

Design/methodology/approach
– This paper is a mixed-methods study consisting of qualitative and quantitative research. Data were collected from government agencies using a structured interview and questionnaire about e-government services. The research was collected from the people responsible for the management of an e-government project in 75 government agencies. In addition, the researcher collected data from 1,400 citizens by using an e-Survey questionnaire that grouped participants by age.

Findings
– By using a citizen-centric approach, the paper identified the factors affecting the development of e-government. There were five factors from the viewpoint of government agencies and citizen groups: quality of e-government services, policy and governance, information technology infrastructure, organization and economy and society.

Research limitations/implications
– The research covered the development patterns of e-government for services from government to citizens only.

Practical implications
– Seeing the importance of environmental factors for both service providers and service users would facilitate continuous improvement of e-government service provision by government agencies.

Social implications
– The results reflect citizens’ need for e-government services; quality is their priority. Hence, government agencies must consider the quality of the delivery of information and e-government services as they relate to the lifestyles and needs of citizens.

Originality/value
– The creation of knowledge from merging e-government concepts with citizen-centric principles is a modern government sector management theory. This research stresses the need for the government sector to see the need for e-government and to recognize the factors for its successful development. This means the design and development of e-government services should respond to the increasing needs of the citizens.
The impact of demographic characteristics of CEOs and directors on audit fees and audit delay
Authors: Harjoto Maretno Agus , Laksmana Indrarini , Lee Robert 
Published: September 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of gender and ethnicity of CEO and audit committee members (directors) on audit fees and audit delay in the US firms.Design/methodology/approach– Audit-related corporate governance literature has extensively examined the determinants of audit fees and audit delay by focusing on board characteristics, specifically board independence, diligence and expertise. The authors provide empirical evidence that gender and ethnicity diversity in corporate leadership and boardrooms influence a firm’s audit fees and audit delay.Findings– This study finds that firms with female and ethnic minority CEOs pay significantly higher audit fees than those with male Caucasian CEOs. The authors also find that firms with a higher percentage of ethnic minority directors on their audit committee pay significantly higher audit fees. Further, the authors find that firms with female CEOs have shorter audit delay than firms with male CEOs and firms with a higher percentage of female and ethnic minority directors on their audit committee are associated with shorter audit delay. Results indicate that female CEOs and both female and ethnic minority directors are sensitive to the market pressure to avoid audit delay.Research limitations/implications– The results suggest that gender and ethnic diversity could improve audit quality and the firms’ overall financial reporting quality.Practical implications– This study provides insights to regulators and policy-makers interested in increasing diversity within a firm’s board and top executives. Recently, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the European Commission have been pressing publicly traded companies to improve diversity among their directors. This study provides evidence and perspective on how diversity can enhance financial reporting quality measured by audit fees and audit delay.Originality/value– Previous studies have not given much attention on the impact of racial ethnicity in addition to gender characteristics of top executives and audit committee directors on audit fees and audit delay.
The management audit as a tool to foster corporate governance: an inquiry in Switzerland
Authors: Brender Nathalie , Yzeiraj Bledi , Fragniere Emmanuel 
Published: September 2015

Purpose
– This paper aims to investigate management auditing, a thorough examination of an organization and the management in place, through an empirical research to gather data about how management audits are perceived and implemented among Geneva’s (Switzerland) business community. The board of directors is in charge of a corporation’s overall supervision. The internal auditing function works under the aegis of the board to ensure that the directors will properly execute their responsibilities as defined by corporate governance rules. Management auditing could thus be used to improve corporation performance. However, management audits are not commonly used or referred to as a tool to address corporate governance. Findings enable the authors to both explain why management audits are not commonly used or referred to as a tool to address corporate governance and generate related research hypotheses.

Design/methodology/approach
– In this paper, the authors rely on an ethnographic study aimed at exploring perceptions of management audits in service companies from the Geneva region. This study is based on transcripts from 85 semi-directed interviews, conducted over a three-year period, of professionals with managerial and auditing backgrounds. The economic context during these three years was consistently characterized by the Swiss and international financial crises, ensuring that the findings remain comparable over this time period.

Findings
– This paper identified three main factors that influence the integration of management audits into corporate practices: the degree of acceptance of the tools and requirements of management audits, the national culture and values embodied in the practice and the degree of corporate governance maturity. This paper presents the findings in the form of hypotheses that can be tested on any adoption of good corporate governance practices – not on management audits alone.

Research limitations/implications
– Notwithstanding the limitations due to its nature and extent, this study’s main limitation is its lack of validation of the hypotheses. In further research, the authors intend to use a quantitative survey to validate the research hypotheses and make statistical inferences.

Originality/value
– This paper contributes to the literature because it is, to the authors’ knowledge, the first study to empirically examine the significant link between management audits and corporate governance. The findings could be interesting for an international audience because they indicate possible action points that boards of directors can leverage to carry out management audits. The findings also bridge a gap between the literature on management audits and the expanding role of the internal audit function. This study also examines the way companies – in the Swiss context – understand, perceive and may be ready to apply management audits as a good corporate governance practice.
An investigation into the roles, characteristics, expectations and evaluation practices of audit committees
Authors: Martinov-Bennie Nonna , Soh Dominic S.B. , Tweedie Dale 
Published: September 2015

Purpose– This paper aims to investigate how the roles, characteristics, expectations and evaluation practices of audit committees have adapted to regulatory change and what practices are most conducive to effective audit committees.Design/methodology/approach– This paper uses semi-structured interviews with audit committee chairs and chief audit executives.Findings– While new regulation is a primary driver of changes in the roles of audit committees, the audit committee’s role has evolved beyond regulatory requirements. Audit committees are taking a more active role in organisational governance and performance in key areas such as risk management. However, while audit committees have a clear concept of what characteristics committee members require, conceptual frameworks and mechanisms for evaluating the performance of committees and their members remain underdeveloped.Research limitations/implications– The responses of audit committees in Australia to broader regulatory trends suggest that more research is required into how audit committees function in practice, and into developing new frameworks for evaluating the committees’ performance. This paper provides an in-depth exploration of key areas of audit committee performance, and identifies aspects that might be further investigated.Practical implications– The paper identifies key attributes of effective audit committees and especially the characteristics of audit committee members. The paper also identifies a need to improve – and in many cases create – performance evaluation frameworks and mechanisms. Given the international regulatory trend towards greater reliance on audit committees to improve governance, more policy attention is required on developing guidelines and assessment processes that evaluate whether audit committees are fulfilling their legislative mandate in practice.Originality/value– The paper contributes to the relatively new and more specific discussion on reviewing and evaluating the performance of the board and its subcommittees.
Transparency report disclosure by Australian audit firms and opportunities for research
Authors: Fu Yi , Carson Elizabeth , Simnett Roger 
Published: September 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this study is to compare the information disclosed by leading Australian audit firms in their first-time audit firm transparency reports. Australia has mandated the preparation and release of transparency reports by audit firms in 2013 to provide better information to stakeholders about audit firms, their governance and their internal governance systems. These reports promote increased transparency regarding issues which are believed to contribute to audit quality.

Design/methodology/approach
– The paper takes the form of an archival analysis where the authors summarise the governance and other information for the 21 leading Australian audit firms as disclosed in their first-time 2013 transparency reports.

Findings
– The authors find that audit firms meet the minimum transparency report disclosure requirements, but have different approaches to governance in the areas which may impact audit quality. These areas include: the internal quality control systems, independence practices, continuing education and partners’ remuneration structures. The authors identify specific areas where transparency reports may give rise to future research opportunities.

Originality/value
– Australia is one of the first countries to require audit firms to publish transparency reports, and this is the first study to examine these reports. By summarising transparency report disclosures, we present a comprehensive picture of how Australian leading audit firms govern and oversee their business activities. This is useful to transparency report preparers, report users and regulators.
Was Andersen’s audit quality lower than its peers?
Authors: Kumar Krishna , Lim Lucy 
Published: September 2015

Purpose– This paper aims to examine whether Andersen’s audit quality in the five years preceding its collapse lagged that of other Big-Five auditors.Design/methodology/approach– This paper compares Andersen’s audit quality and the other Big-Five auditors using five methodologies, namely, earnings response coefficients, magnitudes of abnormal accruals, propensities to issue going-concern opinions, usefulness of going-concern opinions in predicting bankruptcy and the frequency of Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases. The comparisons are based on both pooled samples of all observations and propensity-score-based matched-pairs.Findings– The preponderance of evidence shows that Andersen’s audit quality did not differ materially in audit quality from other Big-Five auditors prior to its failure. However, it was found that Andersen’s independence was compromised in the year leading to its collapse (2000), as indicated by the lower likelihood to issue going-concern opinions.Originality/value– This paper complements and improves on Cahanet al.(2011) by using more measures of audit quality, as no one measure is perfect, showing that their results using discretionary accruals are sensitive to the model used and showing that there is a more powerful direct measure of audit quality, namely, going-concern opinions.
Barriers to Open Access uptake for researchers in Africa
Authors: Fox Moya , Hanlon Susannah Micaela 
Published: September 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent of visibility of researchers in African countries, in the Open Access (OA) arena and aims to identify main causes of reduced uptake in OA in Africa.

Design/methodology/approach
– Extent of visibility is explored by quantitative analysis of institutional repository and OA journals data sets followed by qualitative analysis of OA foundation documents and literature on OA in Africa published mainly between 2003 and 2013.

Findings
– Visibility in institutional repositories or OA journals for African researchers remains low. Causes include insufficient educational support for librarians and administrators in required new roles; inability of national, organisational and technological infrastructures to support OA; impracticality of western-based and costly publishing models; and disincentives relating to intellectual property and researcher perceptions. Complex language and literacy issues also inhibit engagement. Recommendations include strong OA advocacy, development of support initiatives, integration of international knowledge for local conditions and vice versa, sensitive preservation of indigenous knowledge and development of mechanisms of funding and research assessment mechanisms, which are economically and technically viable.

Originality/value
– Earlier attempts were made to raise awareness about the lack of uptake of OA in Africa. This paper shows that the situation has hardly changed and now requires urgent attention. Otherwise OA will not “become the default method for distributing new peer-reviewed research in every field and country” by 2022 (BOAI, 2012).
Turning the inside out: the microbiology of atopic dermatitis
Authors: Brüssow Harald 
Published: September 2015

SummaryAllergy is on the rise worldwide. The hygiene hypothesis of atopic diseases linked microbes with atopic dermatitis (AD) both as drivers and modulators of skin pathology. The earlier literature favoured an inside–outside model of AD where an immunological abnormality compounded by a gut microbiota dysbiosis is the primary event. Probiotic intervention trials with lactobacilli and bifidobacteria as well as the application of bifidogenic oligosaccharide prebiotics showed indeed promising clinical results, but no consistent gut microbiota dysbiosis could be linked with AD. An alternative hypothesis known as outside–inside model of AD considers a genetic skin barrier effect compounded by a skin microbiota dysbiosis as primary pathogenic event. Cultivation microbiology has demonstrated strong skin colonization with superantigen‐encoding Staphylococcus aureus in AD patients; microbiota and molecular microbiome analyses demonstrated that S. aureus abundance fluctuates and parallels clinical symptoms. In a mouse model, δ‐toxin of S. aureus induced mast cell degranulation, leading to AD‐like symptoms. Mutant mice developing AD symptoms showed increased skin colonization with S. aureus; antibiotic treatment alleviated the symptoms. Clinical trials showed that various treatments reducing S. aureus skin load also reduced AD symptoms, suggesting S. aureus as a potential critical driver of AD and a target for antimicrobial interventions other than antibiotics.
Seeing the world differently: variability in the photosensory mechanisms of two model fungi
Authors: Dasgupta Arko , Fuller Kevin K. , Dunlap Jay C. , Loros Jennifer J. 
Published: September 2015

SummaryLight plays an important role for most organisms on this planet, serving either as a source of energy or information for the adaptation of biological processes to specific times of day. The fungal kingdom is estimated to contain well over a million species, possibly 10‐fold more, and it is estimated that a majority of the fungi respond to light, eliciting changes in several physiological characteristics including pathogenesis, development and secondary metabolism. Two model organisms for photobiological studies have taken centre‐stage over the last few decades – Neurospora crassa and Aspergillus nidulans. In this review, we will first discuss our understanding of the light response in N. crassa, about which the most is known, and will then juxtapose N. crassa with A. nidulans, which, as will be described below, provides an excellent template for understanding photosensory cross‐talk. Finally, we will end with a commentary on the variability of the light response among other relevant fungi, and how our molecular understanding in the aforementioned model organisms still provides a strong base for dissecting light responses in such species.
Dynamic exometabolome analysis reveals active metabolic pathways in non‐replicating mycobacteria
Authors: Zimmermann Michael , Kuehne Andreas , Boshoff Helena I. , Barry Clifton E. , Zamboni Nicola , Sauer Uwe 
Published: September 2015

SummaryAn organism's metabolic activity leaves an extracellular footprint and dynamic changes in this exometabolome inform about nutrient uptake, waste disposal and signalling activities. Using non‐targeted mass spectrometry, we report exometabolome dynamics of hypoxia‐induced, non‐replicating mycobacteria that are thought to play a role in latent tuberculosis. Despite evidence of active metabolism, little is known about the mechanisms enabling obligate aerobic mycobacteria to cope with hypoxia, resulting in long‐term survival and increased chemotherapeutic tolerance. The dynamics of 379 extracellular compounds of Mycobacterium smegmatis were deconvoluted with a genome‐scale metabolic reaction‐pair network to generate hypotheses about intracellular pathway usage. Time‐resolved 13C‐tracing and mutant experiments then demonstrated a crucial, energy‐generating role of asparagine utilization and non‐generic usage of the glyoxylate shunt for hypoxic fitness. Experiments with M. bovis and M. tuberculosis revealed the general relevance of asparagine fermentation and a variable contribution of the glyoxylate shunt to non‐replicative, hypoxic survival between the three species.
Urban Policy Mobilities Research: Introduction to a Debate
Authors: Baker Tom , Temenos Cristina 
Published: September 2015

AbstractAn increasing number of scholars are focusing attention on the circulation of urban policies and the concept of ‘policy mobilities’. This collection of short commentaries identifies emerging areas of interest and contention for urban policy mobilities researchers. Exploring issues from conceptual dualisms and topological thinking to interdisciplinarity and slow methodologies, the commentaries offer refinements and suggest new pathways for urban policy mobilities research in the future.
Effectiveness of Coupled Application of AmpFℓSTR Yfiler Kit and Reduced Size Y‐chromosomal Short Tandem Repeat Analysis for Archeological Human Bones
Authors: Oh Chang Seok , Lee Soong Deok , Shin Kyoung‐Jin , Shin Dong Hoon 
Published: September 2015

AbstractThe AmpFℓSTR Yfiler PCR Amplification (Yfiler) kit continues to be improved for a better analytical efficiency in cases of highly degraded DNA. The authors endeavored to determine whether coupling of the Yfiler kit with supplemental multiplex amplification of some Y‐STR loci is a more efficient analytical mode for poorly preserved human femurs (n = 15) discovered at Korean archeological sites. To reveal locus profiles not easily obtained by Yfiler analysis, custom‐designed primers were adopted for the DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS438, DYS439, and DYS635 loci. The success rate for 16 Y‐STR locus profiles obtained from the 15 femurs was improved from 18.33% (in the use of Yfiler kit only) to 49.17% (the coupled use of Yfiler and custom‐designed primers). In this study, the authors established that the custom‐designed primers offer a markedly improved success rate for obtainment of Y‐STR profiles from degraded aDNA not easily identified by sole use of the Yfiler assay.