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The fundamental question on the internationalisation of accounting standards is whether a nation should harmonise with international standards or not. This paper addresses this question with particular reference to the special circumstances of Japan. The discussion suggests that Japan's unique features such as stable shareholdings, the ‘Keiretsu’, and the ‘main bank’ form the conclusion that harmonisation might be unwise. However, some recent signs of change in Japan, including the breakdown of cross‐shareholding arrangements and a greater emphasis on corporate profitability, are more in keeping with the conventional business practices of the West and suggests there may be benefits to harmonisation. This paper presents some survey evidence for and against accounting harmonisation and analyses certain management attitudes in Japan and a number of other industrial nations towards adopting the IAS.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the combination of a qualitative shadowing method called “Commentated Walk” and an ethnographic approach, can be used to analyze the spatial dimension of practices, when space is considered as a co-construction and as an active dimension of individual and collective practices.

The approach is ethnographic and the empirical field work concerns the coordination in ephemeral organizations intended to manage emergent phenomena: the social “problems” often named “urban incivilities,” which occur in public and semi-public spaces in some suburban areas in France and are recurrent.

In these organizations, space appears to be part of individual and collective practices, and a key resource for coordination. Shared “spaces of action” between inhabitants and local institutions contribute to coordination. As a method of data collection, Commentated Walks offer relevant insight into how actors “deal with space” in their day-to-day life or their professional practices. Walking with while talking with – the method's principals – make it possible to capture the materiality of problematic spaces as well as the feelings that the space inspires.

The use of this method is still exploratory. In further research, it would be interesting to consider such Commentated Walks in other organizational contexts, in order to explore different ways of “dealing with” space and different types of spatial competencies that people develop in using space as a resource.

This paper proposes an original combination of methodological approaches which allows us to grasp the formation of spatial practices.

The multidivisional form is the favored form of organization for the large firms that dominate the American economy. This study takes up the causes of the dissemination of that form among large firms from 1919 to 1979. Five theories are initially proposed as possible explanations for the changes observed and these theories are operationalized and tested. The model that seems most consistent with the data emphasizes the ability of key actors to alter structure under three circumstances: when the firm has a product-related or -unrelated strategy (which is consistent with Chandler's, 1962 theorizing); when the corporate presidents have a background in sales or finance; and when other firms in the industry alter their structures. The implications of these results for theories of organizational change are discussed with special reference to the importance of conceiving how actors operate with varying rationalities in this process.

Many “Divas” despite possessing destructive character traits ironically become successful entrepreneurs thus illustrating an alternative “storied” social construction of entrepreneurship. This influences how female entrepreneurs are perceived in the popular press and can be manipulated as an alternative entrepreneurial reality. The purpose of this paper is to build upon research into entrepreneurial identity introducing the “Diva” concept.

The qualitative methodological approach involves an analysis of biographies of famous Diva's to identify common themes; and an internet trawl to identify supplementary micro‐biographies and newspaper articles on “Divas”. This tripartite approach allows rich data to be collected permitting a comparative analysis.

This empirical paper presents the socially constructed nature of entrepreneurial narrative and the “Diva storyline” demonstrating the influence of journalistic licence upon how successful women are portrayed. The paper adds incremental credence to power of male‐dominated journalistic practices to vilify enterprising behaviour to sell newspapers.

An obvious limitation to the work is that the sample of articles and biographies selected were chosen via search parameters which mention the word “Diva”. Nevertheless, there is scope for further “more detailed” research into the phenomenon to flesh out the model built in this preliminary paper.

An important implication for scholars and journalists is the need to reconsider how we tell and decode entrepreneur stories. As researchers, we need to recognise that there are other avenues for women to become entrepreneurs than to become businesswomen and that it is alright for women to reject the “entrepreneur” label.

This paper informs our understanding of the socially constructed nature of how we tell, understand and appreciate entrepreneur stories. It thus makes a unique contribution by illustrating that the storylines which constitute the “Diva cycle” are constructed from the same storylines that we associate with entrepreneur stories but narrated in a different order. It provides another heuristic device for understanding the social construction of gendered entrepreneurial identities making it of interest to feminist scholars of entrepreneurship and to social constructionists alike.

Current discussions around the lack of progress towards the Millennium Development Goals tend to emphasize deficiencies in governance as a major contributory factor. While agreeing with this assessment, this paper takes issue with the conventional understanding of what “governance” implies. Using Burma as an illustration, it suggests the current focus on purely administrative and organizational concerns must be broadened to encompass the wider political context in which these Goals are to be pursued. Authoritarian political structures must be confronted and challenged, if these worthy Goals are to have any realistic chance of being attained.

The following list is a first attempt to catalogue and describe systematically the British Museum's extensive holdings of early opera librettos and related plays. The great importance of these unpretentious booklets as supplementary and, more often than not, even primary sources for the history and bibliography of dramatic music, besides or instead of the scores, was already clearly recognized in the eighteenth century by Dr. Burney and other scholars. But it is only since 1914, the year in which O. G. T. Sonneck's Library of Congress Catalogue of opera librettos printed before 1800 appeared, that their documentary value could to any greater extent be put to general use in international musicological research. A similar bibliography of the British Museum librettos, while naturally duplicating many Washington entries, would produce a great number of additional tides, not a few of them otherwise unrecorded; it would provide the musical scholar with the key to a collection unequalled elsewhere in Europe, which owing to the peculiar nature of the material is not easily accessible by means of the General Catalogue.

Social well-being is the perception and feeling of belongingness and integration within the community and the broader society. For self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) who rely on their own personal resources and network, the achievement of high levels of social well-being can be challenging (compared to corporate-initiated expatriates who typically receive pre-departure training and relocation assistance from their employers). Hence, in this study, we examine personal factors and theoretically ground how they can be helpful and influence the achievement of high levels of social well-being among SIEs.

The authors conducted a survey study (n = 215) involving SIEs to determine how specific personal factors influence the achievement of social well-being.

The authors analyzed the data using PROCESS approach and results show that cultural intelligence positively and significantly relates to social well-being. In addition, cross-cultural adjustment is shown to exert an influence as a mediator and further found to be moderated by a personality trait (i.e. emotional stability). Supplementary analyses further show support for the critical role of each of the dimensions of cultural intelligence in the moderated-mediation process.

This study offers novel insights relevant for SIEs who move in to another country and try to socially integrate without any support from employers. The study highlights how personal resources and capabilities could help in the achievement of social well-being. Specifically, the findings suggest the important role of cultural intelligence which needs to be developed prior and after the relocation. Also, the study suggests how a personality trait such as emotional stability can be tapped to increase the likelihood of achieving social well-being among SIEs.

IN order to be able to discriminate with certainty between butter and such margarine as is sold in England, it is necessary to carry out two or three elaborate and delicate chemical processes. But there has always been a craving by the public for some simple method of determining the genuineness of butter by means of which the necessary trouble could be dispensed with. It has been suggested that such easy detection would be possible if all margarine bought and sold in England were to be manufactured with some distinctive colouring added—light‐blue, for instance—or were to contain a small amount of phenolphthalein, so that the addition of a drop of a solution of caustic potash to a suspected sample would cause it to become pink if it were margarine, while nothing would occur if it were genuine butter. These methods, which have been put forward seriously, will be found on consideration to be unnecessary, and, indeed, absurd.

The purpose of this paper is to commemorate Alfred Chandler, a truly outstanding business historian, through the unique lens of his revisionists.

By developing a classifying framework, Chandler's revisionists is analyzed based on the extent to which they critique Chandler's interpretation of the role of managers in large organizations.

The revisionist critiques of Chandler's works is traced and examine how they can contribute to the intent of commemorating Chandler and his works.

The most relevant revisionists of Chandler's works are highlighted in a manner that might be valuable for the understanding of how Chandler's revisionists can be interpreted within both functional and critical paradigms.

The unique contributions of this study is its focus on providing a specific form of commemoration through the lens of Chandler's revisionists and thus putting “Chandler in a larger frame” of management history.