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Although the case for case studies is now well established in accounting and management research, the exact nature of their contribution is still under discussion. This paper aims to add to this debate on contribution by arguing that case studies explore not one reality but several.

This is a theoretical paper that discusses ontology using a deductive approach.

The paper argues that reality is differentiated into physical, structural, agential, cultural and mental realms.

The paper begins to draw out some of the implications of “differentiated realities” for case studies, but there is much more that could be said.

Because case studies encompass differentiated realities, the paper discusses how expectations about the contribution of case studies should be intimately linked to the nature of the differentiated realities being researched.

“Differentiated realities” provides a fresh look status of case study findings and challenges the idea of a single social reality – as portrayed by both social positivism and social constructivism.

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate a political economy of corporate governance (CG) change and stability in family business groups (BGs) and assist in explaining why certain CG reforms fail in one context but work in others.

Three BGs in Bangladesh are studied. A mixture of data sources is used, namely interviews, observations of practices, historical documentation, company reports and research papers and theses. The results are analysed by applying Archer’s morphogenetic approach, focussing on both macro- and micro-processes of change.

A newly-adopted CG framework, which created incentives and pressures for family directors to act in the best interests of general shareholders, did not seem to alter apparently simple but complex internal structural set-ups. Thus, regulatory efforts to empower general shareholders did not produce the expected results. Following Archer’s morphogenetic approach, the authors identify key structural conditioning or emergent properties and agential strategies to explain why and how BGs opted for symbolic compliance and achieved lax regulation and enforcement.

The paper opens up a new methodological and theoretical space for future CG research, especially by applying a meta-theoretical guideline such as the morphogenetic approach, for nuanced explanation and a more inclusive understanding of CG practices, reform and change in different organisational and institutional settings.

The morphogenetic approach aids in developing a political economy of CG change and stability and provides a nuanced explanation of CG practices. This is illustrated through an exploration of CG change initiatives in Bangladeshi BGs.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel conception of embodied entrepreneurial identity. Prior studies conceptualise identity primarily in terms of narrative or discourse. Critiquing the limited focus on linguistic practices, the authors build on the literature by highlighting the role of the non-linguistic. The implications for researching one particular group – entrepreneurs with impairments – are considered.

Entrepreneurial identity is conceptualised as a unique constellation of concerns emergent from the embodied practices of agents committed to new venture creation and management. This new conception draws principally on the embodiment literature, Archer's identity framework and Goffman's ideas on the presentation of self, impression management and stigma.

The entrepreneurial identity literature is underpinned by a number of problematic assumptions that limit understanding of the meaning, formation and influence of identity on action. The body is often an absent presence; it is presupposed, implicit or under-theorised as an influence on identity, producing a disembodied notion of the entrepreneur. Consequently, entrepreneurs are treated as an homogeneous group in terms of the embodied properties and powers, rather than as uniquely embodied individuals. Studies typically assume an able-bodied, as opposed to a differently abled, agent. Entrepreneurs with impairments are largely invisible in the literature as a result.

The approach highlights the role of the body and embodied non-linguistic practices, such as movement, posture, gestures and facial expressions in the formation of identity. Recognising entrepreneurs as differently abled agents, possessing particular embodied properties and powers, is crucial for understanding identity and action.

The purpose of this paper is to review extant accounting research combining institutional and critical theories to examine whether the paradigmatic tensions associated with such research can be alleviated whilst engendering politically engaged scholarship aimed at facilitating processes of emancipation in organisational fields.

The paper provides a review of relevant accounting research and offers recommendations for how to combine institutional and critical research approaches in a paradigmatically consistent way.

Extant accounting research combining institutional and critical theories has not dealt effectively with the partly inter-related problems of ontological drift (i.e. misalignment of ontological assumptions and epistemological commitments) and the conflation of notions of agency and structure. If such problems remain unaddressed institutional research aimed at generating politically engaged scholarship and human emancipation is unlikely to progress in a paradigmatically consistent direction. Recommendations for how to address these issues, grounded in recent advances in critical realism, are elaborated upon. This results in a contingent view of the ontological possibilities of emancipation in organisational fields as well as the epistemological premises that need to be filled to engender processes of emancipation.

The paper reviews an emerging body of research seeking to radicalise institutional accounting research and enhance its contributions to democratic debate in organisations and society. It also outlines how some pertinent paradigmatic tensions associated with such research may be addressed.

This paper aims to use Stones’ strong structuration theory (SST) that combines Giddens’ duality and Archer’s analytical dualism to deal with the paradox of embedded agency, focussing on resistance, in the budgeting literature. It also applies this framework to an illustrative case study that examines a failed attempt to implement performance-based budgeting (PBB) in the Egyptian Sales Tax Department (ESTD).

The authors have used SST as an analytical framework. Longitudinal case study data were collected from interviews, observations, discussions and documentary analysis and from publicly available reports and other media issued by the World Bank.

The SST framework identifies the circumstances in which middle managers as embedded agency have limited possibilities to change their dispositions to act and identify opportunities for emancipation in the wider social context in which they are embedded. The official explanation for the failure to implement PBB in Egypt was obstruction by middle managers. The findings of this study provide an alternative explanation to that published by the World Bank for the failure to institutionalise PBB in Egypt. It was found that the middle managers were the real supporters of PBB. Other parties and existing laws and regulations contributed to the failure of PBB.

As a practical implication of the study, the analysis presented here offers an alternative interpretation of the failure of the Egyptian project for monitoring and evaluation to that published by the World Bank. This case and similar cases may enhance the understanding of how and when monitoring and evaluation technologies should be introduced at the global level to manage conflicts of interest between agencies and beneficiaries.

This paper contributes to the extant management accounting literature on the use of ST in addressing the paradox of embedded agency in making or resisting structural change. It uses SST to integrate Giddens’ ST with critical realist theory, incorporating duality and dualism in a stronger model of structuration. The SST framework offers a means of analysing case studies that result from interactions and conjunctures between different groups of actors at different ontological levels. The paper also examines the issue of embedded agency in budgeting research using an illustrative case study from a developing country, Egypt.

If I were a wealthy man there are two things I would do : in the first place, I would found a Chair at one of our more progressive medical schools and instal in it a man whose duty it would be to give as part of the clinical training of every student a course of lectures in the prevention of disease by good food. Something must be done to dispel from the medical man's mind the idea that vitamins are a kind of medicine to be prescribed for certain disorders, much as you give quinine to counter malaria. It has been said with much wisdom that it is better to build a fence at the top of the cliff than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom—incidentally, it is also cheaper. We do need to make it more clearly understood that, apart from all humanitarian considerations, the proper feeding of the people is a question of national insurance. This aspect of the future of nutrition has always seemed to me so obvious that it has surprised me that those whose job it is to understand the basic principles of insurance have not appreciated years ago its potential value to them. When I was in Canada recently I found, however, that they had got hold of the idea. One of the largest insurance companies in the Dominion is contributing $500,000 towards the cost of the national nutrition propaganda campaign because they are convinced that it is the most promising project for improving health and increasing expectation of life. The second benefaction I would make would be to finance the sending to each of about half a dozen countries of a small, well qualified and equipped team of young medical men and nutrition experts, trained to correlate on the spot information about diet and the incidence of disease. I would send one team to the heavy meat‐eating areas of the South American plains. They would solve in a year or two the long disputed question whether very high protein intakes are harmful to health and liable to produce certain disorders. I would send another team to South‐Eastern Europe to one of the areas where the peasants live almost entirely on vegetables, coarse bread and goats' milk. Is it true that these people have a very low incidence of digestive disorders and hardly ever suffer from cancer of the digestive tract? We do not know, but a team using standardised methods of examination and survey would not be long in finding the truth. Dr. Sinclair and his Oxford Nutrition Survey team has prepared the model of what is required. Such teams will, I believe, be widely used in the post‐war years. They may actually be required even earlier. They would be invaluable if they could be rushed into territories as soon as they are liberated from the enemy, where their task would be to survey and advise on the nutritional conditions of the liberated people—which in many cases, we fear, are likely to be grievous. War has few virtues. One undoubtedly is that activity in many fields of enterprise is enormously stimulated. Another is that problems can often be lifted clear of the arena of political dispute. This war of liberation will offer some compensation for the devastation and waste of human effort if it brings nearer by years the day when every man, woman and child can be assured that they will never know the want of the foods on which their health depends. Not until that day dawns can the Atlantic Charter, calling for freedom from fear, freedom from want, become reality.

This paper aims to draw links between the circularity of second‐order cybernetics, and constructive, reflective conversations with oneself in design practice. The paper argues that a structured use of internal conversational dialogues with oneself can assist the design process, enhancing creativity and transformative approaches to design projects.

Theories about the emergence of new knowledge, and the causal nature of internal conversations, are used to present a case for the value of a structured self‐reflective conversational process in designing. Emergent knowledge is described in terms of flows across domains of public and personal knowledge, through dynamic processes of semantic absorption, codification and diffusion. The structure and agency of the internal conversation are discussed as a practical way to interpret and locate the emergence of project directions, as a kind of meta‐language for design production. This is demonstrated through an action research case study, where an internal dialogue about teaching visual communication design is described.

On the basis of the action research described, the use of a structured internal dialogue can be of benefit to designing, as it provides a mechanism for locating and mapping the flows and developments of emergent semantic concepts and design project directions.

The model for internal conversations is a way for designers to acknowledge their dual role as both participant (“subject” self) and observer (“object” self). The paper argues that this can help in locating oneself within a design process.

This paper contributes to the debate about knowledge of design and for design. A constructive conversational model is presented, which acknowledges the significant role of experiential, cultural and semantic contexts in framing emerging knowledge for designing.

Recent research places an increased emphasis on the inclusion of the customer in value creation, learning and innovation processes; yet, there remains a gap in the understanding of just how such customer involvement may work. This paper aims to address this gap by examining two aspects of customer involvement – their knowledgeability and their agency. In addition, three boundaries (semantic, syntactic and pragmatic) across which relationship development occurs and which may facilitate and/or inhibit value co-creation, collaborative learning and innovation processes have been explored.

Three case studies have been used. Two were large-scale construction projects in the UK, and one was a global professional accounting firm in the USA.

Customers may become frustrated if not allowed to exercise their agency. However, their involvement can create tensions for suppliers who may have to become more tolerant of divergent goals. In respect of knowledgeability, it was found that constraint satisfaction is important in allowing customers to reconcile their personal knowledge schema with the collective schema. However, it was also noted that customer knowledgeability brings with it challenges for suppliers, who must find ways to add value for such customers.

A number of further questions relating to the agency and knowledgeability of customers and their inclusion in value co-creation, collaborative learning and innovation processes have been posed. The need for guidance in identifying and minimising the barriers to crossing semantic, syntactic and pragmatic boundaries between customers and suppliers has also been highlighted.

This study makes an important contribution to research in the field, in that how the inclusion of the customer in business networks alters current assumptions and practices is investigated.

This paper aims to contribute by placing the missing “learner agent” within the entire process of learning. To understand under what social conditions, it is possible to develop autonomous learners who are conscious of self, able to reflect on their identities, roles and responsibilities, to learn and develop professionally, in alignment with the organizational goals and objectives.

The paper uses empirical data from a higher educational institution to provide insights on how it might be possible to intervene to incorporate workspaces which allow learner agent reflection resulting in individual and organizational learning processes, devoid of power exercises and manipulation strategies.

The empirical findings reveal the crucial role of learner agents, and positive outcomes associated with learning that happens be an autonomous choice and process, with minimal structural influence. The relevance of reflection, personal identity, social conditions, dialogic third spaces and transformation opportunity structures in developing lifelong learners, learning societies and democratic learning organizations is emphasized.

This study suggests plausible directions in which the model of learning organizations can move forward, in the form of designing transformation structures or workspaces where learner agents have the opportunity to reflect on their tacit knowledge, job responsibilities and functions in an autonomous manner to generate learning, which is democratic and un-contested in nature.

The significance of learner agent in the entire learning process is demonstrated, to place forward a learner-centric model of learning organization where structure and agency harmoniously merge to form one common ground, where individual learning becomes organizational learning with no hidden power dynamics. Empirical evidence is provided to demonstrate how learning can be a win–win situation for all organizational groups.

The purpose of this paper is to synthesize a body of research addressing changes in academic identity brought on by neo-liberal university management while proposing a new interpretation based on the institutional work theory and a relational approach to agency.

The authors analyzed 19 qualitative empirical studies regarding the impact of new public management policies on academic identity within universities from different countries to support a qualitative meta-synthesis.

The meta-synthesis established a classification of work identity and self-identity that reflects variable but globally difficult experiences with the universities’ neo-liberal management. The results also indicate that, paradoxically, academics contribute to the perpetuation of managerialism through protection strategies and institutional maintenance work while acknowledging their painful effects on their identity. Despite the control and monitoring measures put in place by university administrations, academics have assumed a pragmatic approach to identity by using the prevailing spaces of autonomy and engaging in constant self-questioning. Those involved could make better use of these free spaces by adopting projective agency, that is by expanding the areas of support, collaboration and creativity that, by their own admission, make up the academic profession.

This meta-synthesis sheds light on the limits of current academic identity research while advancing studies conducted on institutional work, primarily by highlighting the type of agency used by actors during institutional change; at a practical level, this research promotes discussion on the manner in which academics could use their agency and reflexive skills by pushing their institutional work surrounding identity recreation further.