If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The demand for Accounting Information Systems (AIS) knowledge has increased exponentially over the past two decades, but studying AIS has not proved easy for many accounting students. The aim of the study is to understand the challenges accounting students face in studying AIS through investigation of the factors which may be contributing to their difficulties. Design/methodology/approach -A survey instrument was developed for this study, and data were gathered from 618 students enrolled in AIS courses, 95 per cent of whom were accounting students. The data were analysed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) with the Partial Least Squares (PLS) technique. Findings -The results show that course structure, pre-existing knowledge of Information Systems (IS), assessment of critical thinking, teaching style and the availability of academic assistance to students all have a significant influence on students' learning experience in AIS courses.Research limitations/implications -The study has important implications for AIS educators through its identification and analysis of possible difficulties faced by students. It is hoped that remedial measures to enhance this experience will be explored and implemented. Practical implications -The study was conducted in one university context, so caution should be exercised in generalising the results. Future research could further validate, question, or extend the findings in multiple tertiary education institutions, in various countries. Originality/value -This is one of the first studies to introduce scales to measure students' perceptions and experiences in AIS courses. It is hoped that this paper will initiate a discussion that leads to a better understanding of students' perceptions of challenges, and thus make AIS learning a richer and more enjoyable experience for students.

Over the past few decades, information technology (IT) has played a central role in transforming society and enabling the knowledge economy. Such transformation has also introduced new problems, leading to a growing need among organisations to adopt IT governance frameworks in order to provide assurance that their IT operations meet required standards and community expectations. However, the adoption of such frameworks is a complex phenomenon fraught with risks and challenges, and is yet to attract adequate research attention. This study explores factors influencing the success of IT governance frameworks adoption by proposing an integrated research model that draws upon the technology-organisation-environment (TOE) framework and the Delone and McLean's information systems (IS) success model. Data were collected from 126 Australian organisations that have adopted IT governance frameworks through mail surveys and analysed using the partial least-squares (PLS) method. The findings demonstrate that ease of use, innovation compatibility, training and external pressures were significant to the success of IT governance frameworks adoption, assessed through user satisfaction; while ease of use, top management support, external support and user satisfaction were found significant to organisational performance. These findings are of relevance to researchers, practitioners and a broad range of organisational stakeholders, given the growing global importance and implications of IT governance frameworks adoption to organisations.

Reflective teaching practice is often heralded as a pillar of effective tuition. However, the perceptions of multiple forms of feedback among learners and their contributions to reflective learning is yet to attract significant attention, particularly in the IS context. This research investigates the antecedent constituents of feedback and how they contribute to an overall perception of feedback in an introductory IS course. A research model grounded in the pedagogical literature was operationalised and quantitative data collected and analysed using PLS. The results indicate that summative and generic assessment feedback were found to be significant towards formulating an overall perception of feedback, and that such perception is significant in influencing a learner"s experience. This further highlights the fact that students are overwhelmingly assessment focused and may not engage in reflective practice pertaining to their overall learning experiencenecessitating the establishment of Learner"s reflective lenses to guide them towards such reflection.

Abstract. The spectacular corporate collapses over the past decade, along with the introduction of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and similar legislations across the world, have promoted significant awareness of IT governance. However, the causes of success and failure in IT governance framework adoption are yet to be adequately studied. This study aims to address this deficiency by proposing a research model to investigate factors influencing the success of IT governance adoption. The research model draws upon the information systems success model by Delone and McLean (2003) and the Technology-OrganisationEnvironment framework by Tomatzky and Fleisher (1990), to provide an integrated conceptual perspective for examining IT governance adoption and success.

The Internet is now a central enabler for sharing sustainability information. Yet, such enablement is complicated through an exponentially increasing array of information. What is lacking in the digital economy are objective and transparent mechanisms to provide reliable assessments of the published sustainability information in a timely and efficient manner. In addressing such limitation, this research proposes an objective automated mechanism for measuring transparency in sustainability reporting using an information entropy-based approach. Through text-mining methods and expert validation, the study built a sustainability dictionary corpus and then applied the corpus for objectively assessing the relative entropy between the probability distributions of words in the sustainability dictionary and those in corporate reports. To demonstrate its effectiveness, the mechanism was empirically applied to compare sustainability reporting of organizations in the energy sector. Here, the research effectively compared cartels with non-cartels by assessing the sustainability reports of major OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) and non-OPEC producers spanning a three-year period and found consistent differences in transparency between the two groups. The findings demonstrate likely normative transparency pressures on disaffiliated producers for which cartels may be immune. The automated mechanism holds important theoretical and practical contributions to the field of sustainability as it provides a rapid and objective means for textual analysis of sustainability information, thus promoting transparency in sustainability reporting in the rapidly evolving digital economy.