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1 – 10 of over 4000Farzana Aman Tanima, Judy Brown and Trevor Hopper
To present an analytical framework for conducting critical dialogic accounting and accountability-based participatory action research to further democratisation, social change and…
Abstract
Purpose
To present an analytical framework for conducting critical dialogic accounting and accountability-based participatory action research to further democratisation, social change and empowering marginalised groups, and to reflect on its application in a Bangladeshi nongovernmental organisation's microfinance program.
Design/methodology/approach
The framework, synthesising prior CDAA theorising and agonistic-inspired action research, is described, followed by a discussion of the methodological challenges when applying this during a ten-year, ongoing intervention seeking greater voice for poor, female borrowers.
Findings
Six methodological issues emerged: investigating contested issues rather than organisation-centric research; identifying and engaging divergent discourses; engaging marginalised groups, activists and/or dominant powerholders; addressing power and power relations; building alliances for change; and evaluating and disseminating results. The authors discuss these issues and how the participatory action research methods and analytical tools used evolved in response to emergent challenges, and key lessons learned in a study of microfinance and women's empowerment.
Originality/value
The paper addresses calls within and beyond accounting to develop critical, engaged and change-oriented scholarship adopting an agonistic research methodology. It uses a novel critical dialogic accounting and accountability-based participatory action research approach. The reflexive examination of its application engaging NGOs, social activists, and poor women to challenge dominant discourses and practices, and build alliances for change, explores issues encountered. The paper concludes with reflective questions to aid researchers interested in undertaking similar studies in other contentious, power-laden areas concerning marginalised groups.
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This paper aims to discuss the ways to strengthen the contribution of scholarship to gender equity in practice for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. Research that spotlights…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to discuss the ways to strengthen the contribution of scholarship to gender equity in practice for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. Research that spotlights gender construction and enactment, including its origins and its discriminatory effects on people, is inherently social action to the degree that it motivates institutional change. For this 10th year recognition of the founding of the International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, the four waves of feminism framework is used to consider our conceptual domain and select practitioners in the gender × entrepreneurship field are interviewed for input on-field needs. Findings are that academics can boost equity in practice by doing original research and promoting research that is more representative, sharing specialized scholarship skills in activist arenas, making the results of academic research available to practitioners and policymakers, and reviewing and validating (or discrediting) information circulating in public spheres.
Design/methodology/approach
This reflective essay is designed to consider the relevance of scholarship in gender and entrepreneurship to practitioners who participate in the entrepreneurship ecosystem. The concept of the temporal waves of feminism, plus interviews with international practitioners, are used to inform the issues.
Findings
Findings are that academics can boost equity in practice by doing original research and promoting research that is more representative, sharing specialized scholarship skills in activist arenas, making the results of academic research available to practitioners and policymakers, and reviewing and validating (or discrediting) information circulating in public spheres.
Originality/value
Scholars of gender and entrepreneurship can look for and create access and meaning for their work with and for practitioners. Bridges to scholarship on gender (e.g. in psychology, anthropology, gender studies, social psychology) can be built to stay current and effective.
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Orestis Varkarolis and Daniel King
What it is like to experience being the subject of the research process when you are an actor within a new social movement organization? And what lessons can be learned for…
Abstract
Purpose
What it is like to experience being the subject of the research process when you are an actor within a new social movement organization? And what lessons can be learned for researchers engaging with members of New Social Movements? Debates on engagement and the relationship between the researcher and the researched so far have taken the perspective solely of the researcher. Based on insights gained by full participation in a horizontal worker cooperative, the purpose of this paper is to contribute to the facilitation of more fruitful, mutually engaging research relations between organizational theory scholars and members of New Social Movement organizations by voicing the researched in this debate.
Design/methodology/approach
After providing some accounts from the researched point of view, the paper focuses on crafting an appropriate research process based on participatory action research (PAR) ethos and experience.
Findings
Since the research findings suggest that PAR combines elements that both trouble and inspire research participants, namely, workload/availability and relevancy/contribution in practice, the authors introduce and provide a case study of responsive action research that emphasizes adaptation and responsiveness in the research process instead of shared governance.
Originality/value
The originality of this paper lies in voicing the research participants with the aim to aid both scholars and social movements adopt appropriate research designs for the mutual benefit of both theory/action and researchers/researched (even when researchers are already active in the field).
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Yannick Nehemiah Antonio Harrison and Bjarke Skærlund Risager
On 18 March 2015, the transnational anti-austerity Blockupy coalition protested the inauguration of the new European Central Bank premises in Frankfurt. The purpose of this paper…
Abstract
Purpose
On 18 March 2015, the transnational anti-austerity Blockupy coalition protested the inauguration of the new European Central Bank premises in Frankfurt. The purpose of this paper is to analyse this mass protest event by highlighting the organizational differences, possibilities, and conflicts that was involved.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on participant observation of the Blockupy event and interviews with a group of Danish activists who also participated.
Findings
The paper constructs sociospatial narrative that unfolds through three different scales of organization: the Blockupy coalition, the participating formal and informal organizations, and the activist subject. This narrative explicates the mode of organization as a “convergence space” (cf. Routledge, 2003), with different “roots” and “routes” of organization (cf. Davies, 2012).
Originality/value
Thus, through an analysis of the modes of organization constituting this mass protest event, this paper restates the relevance of the concept of organization, which have recently been ignored or understated in favour of master-narratives of networks or the dichotomy of horizontalism and verticality. It concludes by posing a set of questions for further discussion among both activists and sociologists.
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Hugues Seraphin, James Kennell, Simon Smith, Ante Mandić and Metin Kozak
This study aims to examine the influence of neoliberalism and managerialism on the recruitment of tourism academics in the UK. The study analyses how sustainable the recruitment…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the influence of neoliberalism and managerialism on the recruitment of tourism academics in the UK. The study analyses how sustainable the recruitment and retention of talents are in the tourism industry. Importantly, this study provides particular focus on sustainable tourism roles, as well as the impacts of COVID-19.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative content analysis focuses on academic jobs in tourism advertised on Jobs.ac.uk between June 2020 and July 2021.
Findings
Study findings reveal how, in the case of the UK, current educational ideologies, including neoliberalism and managerialism, significantly influence curriculum and recruitment. Such an approach facilitates the hidden curriculum of undisciplined tourism programmes and significantly constrains the prominence of sustainability principles. The development of curriculum, student life course and recruitment of academics are influenced by several variables (personal, environmental, behavioural), which must be identified to enable decision-makers to engage in efficient planning.
Originality/value
This study provides a unique focus on the recruitment of tourism academics encompassing crucial factors like sustainable tourism and COVID-19. The proposed framework creates the foundation for the investigation and discussion of academics’ recruitment in different contexts. This study also offers several new avenues for future research.
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Ibán Díaz-Parra and Beltran Roca
Over the last four years in Spain, a strong autonomist movement (15M), based on radical democracy and mistrust of any kind of instituted politics, seems to be turning toward…
Abstract
Purpose
Over the last four years in Spain, a strong autonomist movement (15M), based on radical democracy and mistrust of any kind of instituted politics, seems to be turning toward statist and institutionalized politics. The purpose of this paper is to answer the following questions: Can we speak of a community fetishism, as opposed to State fetishism? Do autonomist social movements have a spatial project as opposed to a State spatial project? Why do horizontal and self-management-oriented social movements turn to the conquest of the State in the current framework?
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical evidence for this study stems from a qualitative methodological approach. The authors used two different types of sources. First, direct observations from the authors’ own engagement in social movements in Spain from 2011 to the present are used. Second, this work is part of a systematic research on spatial dynamics and the evolution of collective action in Spain. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with activists involved in social movements from 2012 to 2015, in which time informal interviews were conducted, and documents and observational notes were also collected.
Findings
Social movements have tended to develop alternatives to state spatial projects, partially as a result of an institutional setting that has been progressively closed to political alternatives to the neoliberal state. This last point leads to the posing of politics as completely independent of the political arena of the State (community fetish). From the first square occupations to the subsequent organization in local meetings, the 15M movement was the last expression of this tendency in Spain, while the turn on State political institutions responds to the obvious limitations of community fetishism in the context of the social and political tensions of the Spanish crisis.
Originality/value
This analysis contributes to the current debates on social movements in two ways. First, the authors investigate a usually neglected agent in the production of spatial political projects and strategies such as social movements. Second, the specific case of the 15M movement in Spain strongly shows the contradictions and limitations of the movements, which supposedly do not aspire to replace the State’s sovereign power through the idea of community fetishism.
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Throughout its history feminism has produced “grey” literature. This material has played an important part in communicating women’s knowledge(s) and instigating activism. This…
Abstract
Throughout its history feminism has produced “grey” literature. This material has played an important part in communicating women’s knowledge(s) and instigating activism. This paper considers the development of grey literature within feminism and its value to feminism, in brief. The key focus of the paper is in the potentials of the Internet as a communication mechanism and for feminist grey literature. Consideration is given to rapidly expanding forms of feminist grey literature on the Internet, and the potentials and concerns raised by this grey medium are discussed. Despite fears raised by some writers about the dangers and difficulties of cyberspace for women, overall this paper is optimistic about the potentials for feminist grey literature. Hence, it is suggested that grey literature on the Net offers global feminist sustenance; potential empowerment; and a means to challenge social inequalities.
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Joanne Roberts and Christoph Dörrenbächer
This article reflects on the development and impact of critical perspectives on international business (CPoIB) during its first decade of existence. The influence that the journal…
Abstract
Purpose
This article reflects on the development and impact of critical perspectives on international business (CPoIB) during its first decade of existence. The influence that the journal has had through its efforts to challenge orthodox understandings of international business (IB) is considered. The evolution of CPoIB is set against the changing global environment. The contributions to this 10th anniversary issue are outlined.
Design/methodology/approach
The journal's contents are reviewed and their impact assessed through an analysis of download and citation data. The position of the journal in various journal quality rankings is also examined. The contents of mainstream IB journals are compared to those of CPoIB.
Findings
During its short life, CPoIB has had an important impact on the field of IB both directly through the consideration of issues from a critical perspective in the pages of the journal and through its influence on the field of IB and critical management studies.
Research limitations/implications
The conclusions of the research are based on nine years of citation and download data as well as journal quality lists.
Practical implications
The findings of this paper provide valuable information for authors seeking a quality and impactful outlet for their research in the field of critical perspectives on IB and related disciplines. Academic and political activists in the field of IB will find theoretical backgrounds supporting their political campaigns.
Originality/value
This is the only paper to undertake an assessment of the first decade of CPoIB's development, content, and impact.
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Steffen Böhm and George Cairns
Aims to discuss the relationship between the recent G8 summit of 2005, held at Gleneagles, Scotland, and events occurring around the same time in the world of academe and in the…
Abstract
Purpose
Aims to discuss the relationship between the recent G8 summit of 2005, held at Gleneagles, Scotland, and events occurring around the same time in the world of academe and in the global media.
Design/methodology/approach
Draws upon personal experience and interpretation in order to raise issues for critical discussion and reflection, in relation to the impact and effectiveness of resistance movements within academe, activist counter‐movements, and in society at large.
Findings
It is argued that high‐profile media presentations of “big wins” and of major change to “first world” policy in relation to “third world” poverty and development mask a situation of no real change to structural factors of global economics and political power, and that this is an area which should be addressed by the academic community.
Originality/value
Discusses issues of contemporary relevance, and seeks to stimulate further debate and discourse in the academic arena.
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To explore the experience of a key member of the UK equalities policy‐making elite, interrogating her shift from activist to top‐ranking equalities professional. To focus…
Abstract
Purpose
To explore the experience of a key member of the UK equalities policy‐making elite, interrogating her shift from activist to top‐ranking equalities professional. To focus attention on the under‐explored area of lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender equalities work.
Design/methodology/approach
The interview is prefaced with a critical commentary on current UK equalities policy, contextualising the interview discussion, which links personal and collective histories and provides a comparison of equalities work over time.
Findings
Angela Mason, while top‐ranking civil servant, continues to claim the label activist. Like a variety of other equalities workers she uses multiple tactics to appeal to different constituents at different times and in different contexts.
Originality/value
This is an interview with one of the key protagonists in the development of UK equalities policies over the last 30 years. It is unique in its focus on the current overhaul of UK equalities policy from an “insider” and in its timing at the interim point of this reorganisation (October 2006).
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