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This paper examines the efforts of National Health Service (England) (NHSE) to respond to employee-based racial inequalities via its Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES). The WRES constitutes a hybridised accountability initiative with characteristics of the moral and imposed regimes of accountability.

The study conceptualises the notion of responsive race accountability with recourse to Favotto et al.’s (2022) moral accountability model and critical race theory (CRT), and through it, examines the enactment of WRES at 40 NHSE trusts using qualitative content analysis.

Despite the progressive nature of the WRES that seeks to nurture corrective actions, results suggest that trusts tend to adopt an instrumental approach to the exercise. Whilst there is some evidence of good practice, the instrumental approach prevails across both the metric reporting that trusts engage in to guide their actions, and the planned actions for progress. These planned actions not only often fail to coalesce with the trust-specific data but also include generic NHSE or equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives and mimetic adoptions of best practice guidance that only superficially address racial concerns.

Whilst the WRES is a laudable voluntary achievement, its moral imperative does not appear to have translated into a moral accountability within individual trusts.

Responding to calls for more research at the accounting-race nexus, this study uniquely draws on CRT to conceptualise and examine race accountability.

This paper aims to explores the escapist journey that consumers embark on to reduce self-discrepancy, from the motivation to satisfy personal goals to the fulfilment of these goals. Escapism is a powerful concept for understanding why and how people resolve a perceived self-discrepancy. Previous research has provided rich and diverse insights into the motivations and goals, experience contexts and outcomes that are associated with escapism. However, these notions have been explored in an independent, piecemeal fashion that has hampered the development of cohesive theoretical foundations.

The authors conduct a qualitative study, relying on 33 journeys derived from 20 in-depth interviews, to understand and explain how escapism is initiated, formed and relived.

The findings document the existence of a predominantly utilitarian and a predominantly hedonic model, articulating why and how consumers pursue distinctly different types of escapist journeys. Utilitarian escapism is primarily concerned with the need to avoid negative emotional states, prompting consumers to decide impulsively to engage into routinised experience contexts to find relief. Hedonic escapism is primarily concerned with the desire to achieve positive emotional states. It involves lengthy and thoughtful anticipation, promotes consumers to pursue experiences in out of the ordinary contexts, and is realised when consumers obtain reward.

This study’s contributions present significant opportunities for further knowledge development.

The research findings have substantial practical ramifications for industry.

Understanding people’s needs to avoid the stress of everyday life (i.e. utilitarian escapism) and their desires to seek out excitement and pleasure (i.e. hedonic escapism) has important societal implications.

This research provides a robust theoretical foundation for escapism, one that is applicable across multiple settings. Findings are anchored within existing theory to articulate the notions of utilitarian and hedonic escapism, explaining why and how consumers engage in markedly different escapist journeys.

Disaster risk reduction is of prime importance in informal settlements in the Global South, where several forms of vulnerability coexist. Policy and official programmes, however, rarely respond to the needs and expectations of citizens and local leaders living in these settlements. Even though these agents constantly attempt to reduce risks in their own way, we know very little about their activities, motivations and effective impact on risk reduction. Here we seek to conceptualize bottom-up initiatives to better grasp their origins, limitations and success.

Through a four-year action-research project in Colombia, Cuba and Chile, we theorize about the production of change by local agents. Through detailed case studies we explored the activism of 17 local leaders. Through narrative analysis we studied their motivations and explanations. Finally, by documenting 22 initiatives, we revealed effective changes in space.

In the face of risk and disasters, residents and leaders in informal settings engaged in symbolic, physical and social spaces of interaction. Their actions were guided by trust, emotions, time cycles and activism. Local agency was justified by narratives about risk and climate change that differ from those of authorities and scholars.

There is still limited understanding of bottom-up initiatives in informal settings. It is crucial to conceptualize their origins, limitations and success. The focus on three specific countries necessitates further research for broader applicability and understanding.

A better comprehension of bottom-up actions is crucial for informing policies and programmes aimed at reducing risk in informal settings. Stakeholders must recognize the political, social and cultural roles of these actions for more impactful climate action.

We borrow Simon’s concept of “artefact” to introduce the notion of “Artefacts of Disaster Risk Reduction”, providing insights into the multifaceted nature of bottom-up initiatives. We also emphasize the simultaneous political and phenomenological character of these actions, contributing to a deeper understanding of their origins and impact.

This article aims to explore, characterize and discuss the notion of the National Policy Councils (NPCs) as public organizations for governance in Chilean public management.

A subset of active NPCs of the Chilean public management was identified, characterized and analyzed following previously used schemes.

The results showcase heterogeneity in the design of NPCs, with differences among several key features. Proposed explanations for this heterogeneity are an evolutionary approach and the fuzziness of the concept. These notions are relevant outcomes for the academic discussion and the practical implementation of NPCs.

The novelty of this research is based on assessing NPCs of different policy domains in an intra-country analysis by comparing their main features and configuration to determine if NPCs could be understood and treated as a unique type of public organization.

Este artículo tiene como objetivo explorar, caracterizar y discutir la noción de los Consejos Nacionales de Política (CNPs) como organizaciones públicas para la gobernanza en la gestión pública chilena.

Se identificó un subconjunto de CNP activos de la gestión pública chilena, que fueron caracterizados y analizados siguiendo esquemas utilizados previamente.

Los resultados muestran heterogeneidad en el diseño de los CNP con diferencias entre varias características clave. Se proponen explicaciones para esta heterogeneidad basadas en un enfoque evolutivo y la vaguedad del concepto. Estas nociones son resultados relevantes para la discusión académica y la implementación práctica de los CNP.

La novedad de esta investigación se basa en evaluar los CNP de diferentes dominios de política en un análisis intra-país, comparando sus características principales y configuración para determinar si los CNP podrían ser comprendidos y tratados como un tipo único de organización pública.

The purpose of this study is to explore how the South African government has used accounting technologies to manage the pervasive issue of racial inequality.

Premised on Foucault’s notion of governmentality, we conducted a qualitative case study. Publicly available archival data are used to determine the extent to which accounting techniques have helped to shape policy responses to racial inequality.

We show that accounting techniques and calculations give visibility to the problems of government and help design a programme to solve racial inequality. The lived experiences and impacts of racism in the workplace have been problematised, turned into statistics, and used to rationalise the need for ongoing government intervention in solving the problem. These processes underpin the development of the scorecard system, which measures the contributions firms have made towards minimising racial inequalities.

This study augments the existing body of Foucauldian literature by illustrating how power dynamics can be counteracted. We show that in governmental processes, accounting can exhibit a dual role, and these roles are not always subordinate to the analysis of political realities. The case of B-BBEE reveals the unintended consequences of utilising accounting to control the conduct of individuals or groups.

This article problematizes the concept of freedom rooted in liberalism, examining the detention of historian Ilan Pappe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at Detroit Airport in the United States as an emblematic case study.

The research adopts a methodological triangulation approach, based on an analysis that combines data about the event and theories about the concept of freedom, problematizing authors who focused on the relationship between the individual and society in a liberal context, where individualism serves as the basis for specific conceptions of social relations.

Through the use of authors such as John Stuart Mill and John Locke, as well as the contributions of authors like Norbert Elias, it is argued that true freedom is relational, rooted in social interdependencies and the social construction of an individuality that is not individualistic but intrinsically linked to collective aspects.

Pappe’s case illustrates the tensions between individual freedom and collective interests, highlighting the need to reassess freedom of expression in complex political and social contexts.

This article proposes a more inclusive and interconnected view of human freedom, where individual and collective interests are negotiated within a dynamic web of social relations.

The goal of this article is to introduce the notion of a grey relation between grey sets using grey numbers.

This study uses the grey number to create novel ideas of grey sets. We suggest several operations that can be performed on it, including the union, intersection, join, merge, and composition of grey relations. In addition, we present the definitions of reflexive, symmetric, and transitive grey relations and analyze certain characteristics associated with them. Furthermore, we formulate the concept of the grey equivalence relation, apply it to the study of the grey equivalence class over the grey relation, and go over some of its features.

We present new algebraic aspects of grey system theory by defining grey relations and then analyzing their characteristic features.

This paper proposes a new theoretical direction for grey sets according to grey numbers, namely, grey relations. This paper proposes a new theoretical direction for grey sets according to grey numbers, namely, grey relations. As such, it can be applied to create rough approximations as well as congruences in algebras, topologies, and semigroups.

The presented notions are regarded as new algebraic approaches in grey system theory for the first time. Additionally, some fundamental operations on grey relations are also investigated. Consequently, different types of grey relations, such as reflexive, symmetric, and transitive relations, are discussed. Then, the grey equivalence class derived from the grey equivalence relation is demonstrated, and its properties are examined.

Scholars have underscored the importance of organizational authenticity, but it is unclear how it influences the links among market strategy, and nonmarket strategy (NMS) and firm performance. This study addresses this gap in the literature.

A survey of 294 managers in firms based in the United States investigates configurations among competitive strategy (e.g. cost leadership or differentiation), political and social nonmarket strategy (NMS), authenticity, and firm performance.

Cost leaders tend to engage in political nonmarket strategy (PNMS), but the interaction does not necessarily improve firm performance. Differentiators are more likely to pursue social nonmarket strategy (SNMS) and perform better, but neither market-nonmarket strategy configuration is inherently optimal.

The results support market-nonmarket strategy configurations but do not prescribe optimal combinations. However, the sample is cross-sector and employs self-reports for firm performance.

Political and social authenticity can enhance firm performance, but nonmarket activity can compromise a firm’s ability to be politically and socially authentic. Authenticity can drive performance, but a firm’s nonmarket activity can compromise its ability to be politically and socially authentic. Firms should view a prospective loss in authenticity as a potential cost of nonmarket activity.

This paper investigates how a firm’s emphasis on market (competitive) strategies, political and social nonmarket strategies, and political and social authenticity impact financial and non-financial performance. It also tests the veracity of two market-nonmarket configurations, cost leadership with political NMS and differentiation with social NMS.

This paper aims to conceptually unite an ontology of cybernetics, bridging living and technical systems, to facilitate future epistemological and theoretical advancements applicable to highly technical societies by crafting a set of definitions that elucidate the nature of the world in which these systems operate.

The research uses a thematic synthesis of two systems/cybernetic traditions: complex adaptive systems and mechanology. The primary sources for this research were the main theses and correlated papers published in the Simondon case for mechanology, and the seminal literature preselected by the Santa Fe Institute for complex adaptive systems.

The study proposes the following concepts: Individuation: the emergence of new properties in an individual composed of synergistically related parts; Technical evolution: the notion that technical objects evolve into living beings; circular causality: the notion that feedback and feedforward processes shape the organisation and structure of systems and their relationship with the environment; The milieu refers to the part of the environment that has a relationship of co-production, co-dependency, and co-evolution with systems. Metastability is a state that transcends stability and instability and motivates changes in the system. Transduction is the cumulative process of individuation in which systems change structure and organization to maintain operational coherence with their surroundings.

The concepts the paper identifies can serve as a starting point for an extended study on the ontology of cybernetics or as the basis for an evolutionary epistemology both in humans and machines.

This paper aims to point to the shift in the temporal orientation, going from reporting on the past to creating insights about the future, which might be suggestive of perennial managerial attempts to push the boundaries of bounded rationality.

In this essay, the authors want to critically engage with the concept of “data-driven management” in the context of digitalization. To do so, they sketch the edges of current discourses around the emerging idea of data-driven management and its relationship with the inner workings of organizations from an accounting perspective. They question the often-times supposed objectivity and increased rationality of the concept and instead introduce the idea of becoming “data-curious” (before being data-driven).

The authors observe that this push also seems to be accompanied by trends of individualized decision-making and prevailing hopes of technology to solve organizational problems. They therefore suggest that it is valuable for current debates to take a moment to give attention, in practice and in research, to the role of temporality, benefits of collective decision-making and changes in professions (of accountants).

The aim of this paper is to spark curiosity and engagement with the phenomenon of data-driven management by outlining a novel set of potential future pathways of research and point towards methods that might help studying the questions arising for a data-curious approach.