Purpose This paper aims to explore problems facing the recruitment of accounting and finance staff in research-led universities. “University accounting and finance (A&F) departments are experiencing difficulty in attracting and retaining suitably qualified staff” (Duff and Monk, 2006, p. 194). The literature identifies a number of reasons for the shortage of A&F phenomenon (Duff and Monk, 2006; Smith and Urquhart, 2018), including, the wide salary gap between academe and industry profession, difficulty in achieving publications in highly rated journal, high workload in teaching and marking due the limited number of A&F staff. Design/methodology/approach The paper provides new insights for the use of the grounded theory and how the theory has been generated from the semi-structured interviews. Findings This study has resulted in eight main challenges emerged, and a final theory has been generated. Implications of this research on business schools are valuable in research-led universities, the A&F staff recruitment strategies and the A&F research strategies in research-led universities. Originality/value The novelty of this research is based on the induction of the challenges that a business school faces, as a case study for a research-intensive teaching-led UK university, in recruiting new A and F appointees and retaining existing members of staff.

Purpose This paper aims to present a comprehensive view of the assets recognition criteria by providing a coherent set of pre-measurement themes that should be taken into consideration to be a candidate asset. Design/methodology/approach This paper is a conceptual review paper. Findings This synthesis review results in seven themes; the social constructionist nature of the conceptual framework (CF), the nature of assets, the changing nature of asset recognition, asset measurement bases, entity-specific vs market-specific recognition, the economic resource comprising "rights", and finally, the role of "separability" in asset recognition. Originality/value With the increasing importance of internally created assets and their implications on the financial position of the business entity, and with coinciding of revisiting the CF for financial reporting (at the time of writing this paper), this paper shows a synthesis and comprehensive themes of asset-based recognition criteria for tangible and intangibles assets.

The paper presents interview based research directed towards a four part proposition (in bold type), namely, that the accounting recognition of an asset is rights-based, … separable in nature and capable of being measured financially. When combined together the recorded financial picture is one that only purports to represent economic reality. The distinguishing feature from that which is contained in many conceptual frameworks is the centrality of a ‘right to transfer’ an asset in the asset recognition process.

Attempts to recognize ‘information’ as an asset have led to an increased awareness of why and how this invisible valuable resource does not appear in the financial statements. This paper aims to develop a model based on three-circled sets of criteria for the pre-measurement phase of an asset recognition process. This model should be applicable to all types of assets, but we mainly focus on information as an intangible-based asset. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews and a questionnaire survey were used to provide triangulating perspectives to follow the grounded theory approach and generate artefact-based asset recognition criteria. The generated theory is applied to information as a candidate asset to explain how this invisible resource can be recognized in financial statements.

This paper reviews the literature for the intellectual capital. This paper reviews all the articles published in the Journal of Intellectual Capital from year 2000 (year of inception of the journal) to year 2006. The researchers observe the following: there is no universal definition for intellectual capital (IC) the cause and effect relationship between IC and value creation is, at best, indirect the methods of measuring IC are increasing in number but there is no universally accepted measure the components of intellectual capital are not well organized in an accepted structured.

PurposeThis paper seeks is to enhance our understanding of intangible recognition by embracing an artefact‐based approach.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents an artefact‐based approach to intangible asset recognition, an artefact being a physical and visual representation (typically, documentary) of expended human intellectual and physical creativity. This output orientation (what people create: artefact‐based outputs) is compared to an input orientation (the investment inputs in human “assets”) using artefact‐based asset recognition criteria that have already received some exposure in the marketing literature in respect of brands.FindingsEmphasis is placed on outputs, i.e. what people create, rather than on the more familiar input orientation, which focuses on investments in human assets. When compared to an output orientation, the more familiar input orientation is an unsatisfactory basis on which to recognise human assets.Practical implicationsThe asset recognition criteria provide a useful checklist by which to delineate an intangible asset from an expense.Originality/valueThe criteria have already been applied to brand assets in the marketing domain. It is now being applied for the first time to human assets.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present asset recognition criteria based on the idea that an asset should be functional, separable and measurable and that financial recognition should be triggered by the recognition of an artefact.Design/methodology/approachCriteria is applied to four organisational assets, that is, those intangible assets that are unlikely to be reported in the accounting domain.FindingsThe criteria is applied in order to show how one may expand the basis on which assets can be reported financially to elements of intellectual capital as well as financial capital.Originality/valueArtefact‐based asset recognition criteria could be a conduit through which intellectual capital could enter the accounting domain, a domain dominated by the maintenance of financial capital, not intellectual capital.

The paper presents asset recognition criteria based on the idea that an asset should be functional, separable and measurable and that financial recognition should be triggered by the recognition of an artefact. We apply these criteria to four organisational assets, that is, those intangible assets that are unlikely to be reported in the accounting domain. We do so in order to show how one may expand the basis on which assets can be reported financially to elements of intellectual capital as well as financial capital.

The asset recognition criteria presented in this paper break free from the narrow definitional and rule based perspective of accounting epistemology to offer an alternative view based on the recognition of artefacts and the related notion of separability. The purpose is to explore the nature of a trademarked brand "asset" currently excluded from disclosure in the accounting domain but included in the marketing domain usually as a constituent part of brand equity. That exclusion is based on the 'uniqueness' of a brand and an inability to separate brand assets from the other assets of a business. However, we show that it is actually 'additivity', or the lack thereof, which is the principle reason for the exclusion of brand assets from financial statements. Whilst the paper is inevitably accounting biased, the subject matter is nevertheless of interest to those marketers who view brands as assets.

The International Accounting Standards Board is currently reviewing its conceptual framework and, as regards assets, the epistemological focus is upon revisions to the definition of an asset. The criteria presented in this paper break free from this narrow definitional perspective to offer an alternative view based on the recognition of artefacts and the related notion of separability. The transactions-based initial asset recognition trigger is inappropriate for the recognition of non-transactions-based intangible assets, which we instead address here through the medium of artefact-based asset recognition criteria. As primacy now appears to be given to balance sheet values and to the notion of recording comprehensive income, it may now be time to consider a broader artefact basis for the accounting recognition of assets.