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The purpose is to understand how farmers in rural American communities perceive crime, safety and policing.

An online survey, adapted from a version used in Victoria, Australia (Harkness, 2017), was modified and administered through social media and farming organizations throughout three US states. The survey covers topics relating to crime and victimization, feelings of safety or fear in rural areas, policing practices and trust in police in their areas and any crime prevention practices that respondents use.

With nearly 1,200 respondents and four scales investigated, results indicate that those respondents with more favorable views of law enforcement and the criminal justice system had the highest fear of crime, those who had been prior victims of crime had a higher fear of crime than those who did not, those with higher community involvement had higher fear of crime, and those from Nebraska compared to Colorado had higher fear of crime.

A better understanding of the agricultural community’s perceptions of crime, safety and policing will aid law enforcement in community policing efforts and in farm crime investigation and prevention. Limitations of the study, including the distribution method will be discussed.

Farm- and agriculture-related crimes have serious financial and emotional consequences for producers and local economies. Stereotypes about rural areas being “safe with no crime” are still prevalent. Rural American farmers’ perceptions of crime, safety and police are largely absent from the literature and are important for improving farm crime prevention.

This paper has the aim of understanding how the reasons behind the adoption of the balanced scorecard (BSC) and the approaches undertaken during the entire change process influence the outcome, both in terms of BSC structure and use.

The research studies the BSC change process and its use, adopting a multiple case study methodology which has been conducted in seven medium‐to‐large Italian non‐financial companies. The results have been analysed from an institutional perspective, considering the management accounting change process and its outcome not only as a technical problem, but also as a broader organizational issue.

The results show the interdependence between the change process, which is influenced by organizational forces, and its outcome. Different reasons for the adoption and different approaches in the design and implementation give rise to different BSC structures and styles of use.

The case study methodology that has been adopted does not allow the results to be generalized. Further research is needed to examine the BSC change process in order to support the findings.

The findings could help managers decide when to introduce the BSC. Depending on how they use the device, they could become aware of the most suitable approach to adopt during the change process, a key feature in translating techniques into practice.

The paper explains the reasons behind the high fluidity of practice, considering the approach adopted during the management accounting change process.