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Pragmatism is very relevant to workplace management and performance measurement, yet in the accounting literature, it is a term used loosely and in a colloquial manner. By drawing on a framework based on classical pragmatism, this study aims to examine how a pragmatic perspective is discernible in the form and use of management control (MC) practices.

This study collects data using a case study of a firm in the green energy construction sector.

Building on the analytical framework, this study provides evidence that a pragmatic perspective is discernible in both form and use of MC practices, through a clear focus on targets rather than variance analysis, the presence of mutable local MC practices characterised by interaction and problem-solving and the absence of other common MC practices with no clear links to ends-in-view. This study also provides evidence of the potential limitations of a pragmatic perspective including myopia and an exacerbation of the inherent bias in organisations towards exploitation.

This research brings analytical clarity to the study of pragmatism in the accounting literature and insights into how a pragmatic perspective is discernible in the form and use of MC practices. Further, the study shows the potential limitations of a pragmatic perspective for management.

The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

Taking the dialogic organizational development perspective, this study aims to investigate the framing processes when engaging in dialogue for strategy implementation and how these enable the evolution of implementation opportunities.

Through a qualitative exploratory study conducted in a large multinational, the authors analyse the dialogue and interactions among 25 dyads when identifying opportunities to contribute to strategy implementation. The data analysis relies on a process-coding approach and linkography, a valuable protocol analysis for identifying recursive interaction schemas in conversations.

The authors identify four main framing processes – shaping, unveiling, scattering and shifting – and provide a framework of how these processes affect individuals’ mental models through increasing the tangibility of opportunities or elevating them to new value hierarchies.

From a theoretical perspective, this study contributes to the strategy implementation and organizational development literature, providing a micro-perspective of how dialogue allows early knowledge structures to emerge and shape the development of opportunities for strategy implementation.

From a managerial perspective, the authors offer insights to trigger action and change in individuals to contribute to strategy when moving from formulation to implementation.

Rather than focusing on the structural control view of strategy implementation and the role of the top management team, this study considers strategy implementation as a practice and what it takes for organizational actors who do not take part in strategy formulation to enact and shape opportunities for strategy implementation through constructive dialogue.

The management of employee happiness and well-being has been gaining interest in academic research in recent years; however, few studies have focussed on the entrepreneur's perspective. The aim of this paper is to analyse the state of research on women-led businesses, well-being and happiness management.

A bibliometric study has been carried out since 1996, the first year in which publications in this field were detected. In total, 128 papers are identified in the most reliable database, Web of Science Core Collection. A network mapping of authorship, citation and co-occurrence of keywords in scientific publications is shown.

The results of this study confirm that societal changes resulting from crises increase research interest in improving organisational environments and happiness. After the economic crises of 2013, there was a boost, and after the pandemic, there is again a boost in research. More than half of the publications and citations on female entrepreneurship and happiness management are post-pandemic. The study offers some research directions and emphasises the role of gender.

This article brings a new approach to the study of well-being in organisations, highlighting the relevance of the role female leadership plays in promoting happiness at work.

This study aims to advance the understanding on individual variations in PhD candidates’ personal interest in their doctorate and supervisory and research community support, and several individual and structural attributes potentially having an impact on the profiles.

The authors explored the interrelationship between personal interest – social support profiles, and nationality, gender, research group and study status and the risk of dropping out. A total of 768 PhD candidates from a research-intensive university in Finland responded to a modified version of the cross-cultural doctoral experience survey. Latent profile analysis was used to explore the individual variations in PhD candidates’ interest and support from the supervisor and research community.

Three distinctive PhD interest-social support profiles were detected; the high interest–high support profile (74.4%, n = 570), the high interest–moderate support profile (18.2%, n = 140) and the moderate interest–moderate support profile (7.4%, n = 56). The profiles exhibited high to moderate levels of research, development and instrumental interest. Individuals in the high interest–moderate support and in the moderate interest–moderate support profiles were more prone to consider dropping out from their PhD than in the high interest–high support profile.

The results indicate that by cultivating PhD candidates’ interest and providing sufficient supervisory and the research community offers a means for preventing candidates from discontinuing their doctorate. Hence, building a supportive learning environment that cultivates a PhD candidate’s personal interest is likely to reduce high dropout rates among the candidates.

The purpose of this paper is as follows: First, understanding the nature of the relationship between corporate adoption of the concept of societal responsibility [availability of environmental awareness, clear vision of the impact of societal responsibility on financial performance, managers informing employees of the latest developments in societal responsibility programs, managers' response to their corporate social responsibility (CSR) proposals] in the form of an annual report that supports the success of the company's objectives, the company's management encourages employees to participate collectively in societal responsibility programs and to protect the environment from pollution in the petrochemical industry. Second, understand the nature of the relationship between the dimensions of corporate social responsibility concept (cultural, social, economic, ethical and legal) and protect the environment from pollution in the petrochemical industry. Third, the research also seeks to show the role of societal responsibility and its application in the petrochemical companies to protect the environment from pollution in The Governorate of Alexandria – Egypt, and come out with results and recommendations that could help protect the environment from the forms of environmental pollution resulting from the production processes of this industry.

The researcher has relied on each of the following approaches: Case study methodology is a research strategy aimed at solving a problem or facing a particular situation. It is based on preliminary hypotheses through full analysis of all data collected and recorded. Which depends on the study of a limited number of cases or vocabulary in-depth comprehensive study through the study of all or a large number of variables overlapping and interrelated and influential on the problem under consideration. Thus, it provides a deep and rich understanding of what is going on around the research and the processes that are related to it, and not only the external or apparent description of the situation or phenomenon; it cares about the total description and looks at the particles, in relation to the whole. Quantitative approach: by giving a numerical description indicating the size or size of the phenomenon or the degree of association with the phenomenon. Other phenomena. Accordingly, the role of the petrochemical companies in Alexandria Governorate, and the social responsibility programs carried out within the governorate in terms of importance, growth and requirements, and the most important characteristics and constraints and components and methods of work and developments have been described. Thus, the researcher can analyze the relationship between CSR and environmental protection from pollution in Alexandria Governorate.

There is paucity in the studies that dealt with the relationship between CSR and environmental protection against pollution in public organizations. There is agreement among the sample on the importance and feasibility of adopting the concept of social responsibility and placing it at the top of the top management concerns, especially in the field of petrochemical companies. With the need to take concrete implementation measures to support social responsibility programs aimed at serving the community among all stakeholders. The effective implementation of the mechanisms for the implementation of meaningful social responsibility programs requires fundamental changes in management practices, existing organizational structures and the quality of personnel working in the relevant departments, in general, and the social responsibility group, in particular, which may be difficult for political and economic reasons.

Time: The study period was set from 2015 to 2017. Place: The study focuses on the petrochemical companies operating in Alexandria. Humanity: The study focuses on the employees of the petrochemical companies operating in Alexandria Governorate.

The adoption of social responsibility positively affects the protection of the environment from pollution, and this effect shows that the adoption of the concept of corporate social responsibility is influenced by the following factors: increasing the participation of workers with healthy environmental contributions to the productive process; increasing the companies' economic and social activities toward protecting the environment from pollution; increasing the capacity of companies to pay greater costs to preserve the environment; increasing the awareness of green consumers with the products it offers Companies; development of continuous internal work environment companies; and clearly defined strategy followed in social responsibility programs.

The social responsibility of the public organizations derives their strength through, first, the keenness of these organizations to analyze the variables of the ethical dimension of social responsibility and their availability, which will lead the organizations to provide their services with the highest quality and sincerity. That this analysis (ethics of individuals) as training members of the social responsibility team to solve problems using brainstorming and provide employees with official data related to improving work (ethics of leadership), such as the identification of business objectives through the participation of managers with subordinates, and the punishment of workers who exhibit immoral behaviors (ethics of productive processes) as a decision-making process to ethical standards regardless of the costs involved. When there is an immoral behavior and managers are responsible for implementing the changes needed to reach the targeted outcomes), second, promote partnerships with other relevant sectors for community service.

According to the results of the previous studies and the applied study results, the researcher would like to submit a mechanism to the directors and heads of the boards of directors of the Egyptian petrochemical companies under study.

This study explores how auditors' emotions, specifically negative moods triggered by flight delays, impact auditing quality.

Utilizing flight delays during audit assignments as a mood indicator, weather conditions at departure airports serve as an instrumental variable to provide a robustness check between flight delays and audit outcomes, employing a two-stage least squares model.

The findings suggest that such negative moods improve auditing effort and quality, as evidenced by reduced future accounting restatements and increased audit fees. The positive effect of flight delays on auditing quality is consistent across different tests and measures.

This study highlights the significance of auditors' emotional states on their professional performance, indicating a unique angle on auditing quality research by focusing on the emotional well-being of auditors as influenced by external factors such as flight delays.

We propose a risk factor for idiosyncratic entropy and explore the relationship between this factor and expected stock returns.

We estimate a cross-sectional model of expected entropy that uses several common risk factors to predict idiosyncratic entropy.

We find a negative relationship between expected idiosyncratic entropy and returns. Specifically, the Carhart alpha of a low expected entropy portfolio exceeds the alpha of a high expected entropy portfolio by −2.37% per month. We also find a negative and significant price of expected idiosyncratic entropy risk using the Fama-MacBeth cross-sectional regressions. Interestingly, expected entropy helps us explain the idiosyncratic volatility puzzle that stocks with high idiosyncratic volatility earn low expected returns.

We propose a risk factor of idiosyncratic entropy and explore the relationship between this factor and expected stock returns. Interestingly, expected entropy helps us explain the idiosyncratic volatility puzzle that stocks with high idiosyncratic volatility earn low expected returns.

Green consumption is fundamental to sustainable development, as it involves adopting practices and technologies that reduce the environmental impact of human activities. This study aims to analyze the influence of consumers’ green orientation on their environmental concerns and green purchase decisions. Furthermore, the study investigates the mediating role of consumers’ environmental concerns in the relationship between pro-sustainable orientation and green purchase decisions.

This study uses a quantitative methodology, applying the partial least squares method to a sample of 927 Portuguese consumers of green products. The sample was collected through an online survey.

Perceived benefits and perceived quality of products play a positive and significant role in influencing green behavior, especially when consumers are endowed with greater environmental concerns. In addition, consumers’ awareness of the prices of green products and their expectations regarding the future benefits of sustainable consumption positively impact green consumption behavior, further intensifying their environmental concerns.

According to the present findings, companies should adopt a holistic and integrated approach to promote green consumption. This means creating premium eco-friendly products, communicating their benefits, addressing the cost factor, emphasizing the future impact of eco-friendly options and raising consumers’ environmental awareness.

It is critical that environmental education is a priority in schools and that there are political incentives for green behaviors. In addition, media campaigns can be an important tool to raise awareness in society.

The results of this study provide important insights for companies on consumer engagement in the circular economy. Deepening knowledge of the antecedents of consumers’ environmental concerns contributes to a deeper understanding of green purchasing decision behavior, allowing companies to support new business strategies.