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This chapter addresses current trends regarding how the meta-theory of critical realism (CR) frames comparative and international education research and practice. It introduces the key tenets of CR and explores how these ideas have been and can be applied in educational research. It demonstrates how CR provides a valuable alternative to the positivist, interpretivist and constructivist paradigms, and leverages elements of all three to provide new approaches to develop knowledge that is free from the dualisms embedded in their ontological assumptions. I argue that by offering a dialectical understanding of structure and agency, as well as the material and ideational dimension of social reality, CR provides an ontological framework that does not do conceptual violence to the reality we seek to research. This ontological basis is particularly valuable to the social justice agenda of educational research in general because it allows researchers to work beneath the surface of empirical research to disclose the field of possibilities for social action.

Researcher Highlight: Dr. Carter G. Woodson (1875–1950)

Many psychological, cultural, and social barriers exist that impact Black male participation in the workforce. In this chapter, authors discuss the impact that mentorship, racism, society, culture, economics, and other pertinent factors have on the career development of Black men. This chapter examines programs and strategies that effectively address the career development needs of Black men. A review of counseling interventions and their applicability to career counseling with Black men are presented. Emerging trends in career development for Black men are also discussed. In addition, provided in this chapter are personal narratives given by the authors who contextualize their career development experiences through culturally-specific career development theoretical frameworks. Lastly, implications for research, counseling, counselor education, and policy, as well as recommendations for professional development are offered.

In March 2014, the minister responsible for public housing in the state of New South Wales in Australia announced that all 600 public housing tenants living in the historic heritage-listed adjacent inner-city neighbourhoods of Millers Point and The Rocks in Sydney were to be moved and the homes sold to the highest bidder on the open market. There were to be no exceptions, and the last public housing resident was moved from the area in July 2018. A common view is that public housing areas in countries with a residualised welfare system are characterised by attenuated social ties, anomie and bleakness. This chapter examines neighbouring, social ties, mutual assistance and sense of community among public housing tenants in Millers Point and demonstrates that this is not always the case. Drawing on 48 in-depth interviews with residents, plus observation, I show that the social connections among public housing tenants in the area were unusually strong and enduring. I argue that in order to understand why this was so, we need to look at the physical and social features of the area. Following on from the seminal work of Jane Jacobs, the New Urbanism movement argues that compactness, mixed land use and walkability are crucial enablers of social interaction and neighbourliness. These physical features were present in Millers Point. There is now a recognition by New Urbanism scholars that physical elements in themselves rarely create community and that the social features of neighbourhoods also have to be taken into account. In the case of the public housing tenants in inner Sydney, the key social features were longevity of residence and homogeneity. Another crucial aspect was a strong sense of social obligation. This was partially due to the presence of strong trade unionism in the area historically and the intermittent nature of employment at certain periods, which ensured neighbours rallied round to help those who were less fortunate.

Materiality is a critical and challenging auditing concept. To help auditors improve their materiality judgments, the authors provide examples from Judaism, primarily due to its longevity and the richness and variety of its stories. The authors show how Judaism interprets and applies materiality in many contexts. For each, the authors provide guidance on how auditors might apply these lessons to improve their materiality judgments. The authors examine five areas where Judaic examples can inform modern auditing including: (1) considering both quantitative and qualitative measures; (2) recognizing that small quantitative changes can lead to material qualitative effects; (3) understanding that ignoring small issues can become a slippery slope; (4) considering the importance of financial statement users’ needs in developing materiality criteria; and (5) prioritizing substance over form. In all examples, context is a critical factor to consider when applying materiality. These results should be of interest to auditors, financial statement users and others.

We develop a concept of the global factory, first introduced by Buckley and colleagues (2004, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014), as a stand-alone construct associated with significant predictive capacity, discuss dynamics of success of the global factory, and identify and analyze social mechanisms deployed by the lead firm head office.

We conceptualize the global factory as a form of a flagship network and augment internalization theory with insights from interorganizational networks research to explore the dynamics of the global factory’s origination and functioning.

We clarify under what conditions a global factory-type network is more likely to emerge and describe social mechanisms generated by the lead firm head office to help the global factory sustain itself and thrive. We argue that in order to benefit from potential efficiencies of the global factory, the lead firm head office must deploy combinations of social mechanisms. We further argue that the role of the lead firm head office is that of a joint value orchestrator and a social broker, in addition to the controlling intelligence function.

Future work on the global factory should include further conceptualization of social mechanisms deployed by the lead firm, exploration of operating mode heterogeneity within the global factory, and large-scale empirical research.

Lead firm managers should embrace the role of the joint value orchestrators and implement social mechanisms described in this chapter to facilitate smooth operation of the global factory.

Global factory governance further increases multinationals’ geographic reach and market power; yet, it is not a universal recipe for market success, and therefore global factories’ power to shape the global economy should not be overestimated.

By linking the global factory to networks literature, we have suggested a novel way to view the concept and articulated more fully its underlying assumptions. Further research on the global factory will help advance our understanding of the dynamics of the global economy and the role of multinationals, their head offices, and their managers in shaping the economy.