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The purpose of this paper is to highlight the ontological implications of combining network and system ontology to conceptualize industrial networks as the empirical manifestations of complex adaptive economic systems.

This paper contributes with a systematic discussion on how network and system ontology can be combined to produce better understandings of business networks. It also provides a review of the state-of-the art research literature on the topic as a starting point for the discussion.

Findings indicate that networks may be enclosed in each other constituting sub- and supra-networks comprising increasing complexity. In these cases, sub-networks that are black-boxed can be seen as entities in themselves producing inputs and outputs to the supra-network. Networks, once they become black-boxed, can assume the functions of generative mechanisms within a wider supra-network.

This research is conceptual in nature and needs to be complemented with empirical research. In addition, the literature review used one database complemented with papers from the IMP journal. A wider search could reveal additional research that can be of relevance for the development of the field.

This paper addresses the ontological and methodological issues arising from a mixed system and network ontology. These issues are commonly ignored or dealt with indirectly in extant literature. For any accumulation of knowledge in the field to be possible, the explication of a mixed ontology is important as it have conceptual and methodological consequences. Adopting such a mixed ontological position provides an ontology in line with empirical research of business practice.

Managing the green (environmentally sustainable) supply chain is an important issue for industry. This paper aims to provide a framework to understand and appreciate the relationships of various research streams and topics in this field. Utilizing this framework, emergent research directions to advance the field are also presented.

Published research in peer‐reviewed journals is evaluated using a new framework of nine non‐exclusive, interrelated boundaries and five flows of resources related to green supply chains and supply chain management.

The research literature can be integrated into these comprehensive multidimensional frameworks, which also provide opportunities as vehicles for future research. Research directions are described utilizing the framework presented in this paper.

This work presents one potential set of frameworks. Insights relating to other potential frameworks are additional areas of investigation and not presented in this study. The literature reviewed in this paper focuses almost exclusively on peer reviewed journals. Emergent research in this area may also appear in books and conference papers. The frameworks provide guidance for various research streams.

The frameworks and review also provide opportunity for managers and organizations to more comprehensively understand issues underlying green supply chain management.

Greening supply chains has become a necessity as environmental concerns have remained at the forefront of the debate of global and local social interests.

The comprehensive boundaries and flows framework can be valuable for identifying barriers to study and implementation of the interdisciplinary green supply chain management topic based on recent published literature. They also provide insights into research streams and practice. The research questions provide some further direction for those wishing to investigate this field.

Effective use of data across public health organisations (PHOs) is essential for the provision of health services. While health technology and data use in clinical practice have been investigated, interactions with data in non-clinical practice have been largely neglected. The purpose of this paper is to consider what constitutes data, and how people in non-clinical roles in a PHO interact with data in their practice.

This mixed methods study involved a qualitative exploration of how employees of a large PHO interact with data in their non-clinical work roles. A quantitative survey was administered to complement insights gained through qualitative investigation.

Organisational boundaries emerged as a defining issue in interactions with data. The results explain how data work happens through observing, spanning and shifting of boundaries. The paper identifies five key issues that shape data work in relation to boundaries. Boundary objects and processes are considered, as well as the roles of boundary spanners and shifters.

The study was conducted in a large Australian PHO, which is not completely representative of the unique contexts of similar organisations. The study has implications for research in information and organisational studies, opening fields of inquiry for further investigation.

Effective systems-wide data use can improve health service efficiencies and outcomes. There are also implications for the provision of services by other health and public sectors.

The study contributes to closing a significant research gap in understanding interactions with data in the workplace, particularly in non-clinical roles in health. Research analysis connects concepts of knowledge boundaries, boundary spanning and boundary objects with insights into information behaviours in the health workplace. Boundary processes emerge as an important concept to understand interactions with data. The result is a novel typology of interactions with data in relation to organisational boundaries.

This paper aims to outline the motivation for this Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal (AAAJ) Special Issue, providing an overview of the six selected papers. This study seeks to inspire further ethnographic research on accountability.

The authors reflect on why ethnographic investigation is essential to accountability research and the boundaries that constrained and enabled both this Special Issue and which occur in ethnographic research.

The contents of this issue do not merely describe or analyse one or more “accounts”, but also consider how the accounted for reflects its surroundings and its role in the social world. The authors argue that such research should progress from ethnographic descriptive data to infer meaningful conclusions and move from the everyday natural settings of behaviour to examine inter-relatedness. This requires the researcher to maintain their intra-relatedness. These boundaries, inherent to human existence, are actively created and operate at different aggregation levels to include and exclude.

In this introduction and the papers selected for this AAAJ special issue, with few exceptions, accountability shifts from the researched to the researcher as research accounts are produced. Yet, ethnographies of accountability are epistemologically and ontologically weighted towards accepting the possibility of shared social meaning requiring researchers to manage the interactions, relationalities and presuppositions between these places. The authors urge future researchers to experiment more explicitly than has often been the case with published accounts of these demands.

This AAAJ Special Issue provides a set of original empirical and theoretical contributions to support and advance further ethnographic research into accountability which acknowledges the boundaries that may include and exclude.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the approach taken by the General Social Care Council to developing professional boundaries guidance for social workers.

Areas of tension or difficulty encountered in developing the guidance are highlighted and the reasons for the decisions taken in developing the guidance are discussed.

The process of developing the guidance served to highlight a number of areas of disagreement regarding how the General Social Care Council should act to address the issue of professional boundaries violations amongst social workers. These areas of disagreement, and how they were resolved within the scope of the guidance, are analysed.

The paper provides an insight into the types of issues that a regulator confronts when acting to address behaviour amongst its registrants. The approach the General Social Care Council took to professional boundaries issues amongst social workers – producing an aid to reflection rather than a list of “dos” and “don'ts” – and the process of developing the guidance will provide a useful reference point for other organisations confronting similar issues.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of boundary-spanning organisations as intermediary institutions potentially able to close the gap between applied research and practice in sustainability accounting.

A review of the literature reveals that boundary organisation theory provides a potential way of understanding the role of boundary-spanning organisations in the context of the research–practice gap. The theory is applied in the context of three cases of potential boundary-spanning organisations involved with sustainability accounting – Chartered Accountants in Australia and New Zealand, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the International Federation of Accountants.

Findings from the three cases, which consider the application of boundary organisation theory, indicate the potential for professional accounting associations to act as sustainability accounting boundary-spanning organisations has not been realized for four main reasons. These relate to the need for finer granularity in relation to boundary objects and problem-solving; uncertainty about the range of parties to be involved as boundary-spanning organisations; the importance of reconciling views about different incentives for academics and practitioners in the sustainability accounting space; and the necessity for collaboration with other boundary-spanning organisations to address the transdisciplinary nature of sustainability accounting.

Development of a way of seeing the relationships between academics and practitioners in the context of sustainability accounting has two messages for practice and practitioners. First, with such complex and uncertain issues as sustainability accounting, a transdisciplinary approach to resolving problems is needed, one which involves practitioners as integral and equal members of research teams. The process should help bring applied academic and practitioner interests closer together. Second, it has to be recognised that academics conducting basic research do not seek to engage with practitioners, and for this group, the academic–practitioner gap will remain.

Two main social implications emerge from the application of boundary organisation theory to analyse the academic–practitioner gap in the context of sustainability accounting. First, development of boundary organisations is important, as they can play a crucial role in bringing parties with an interest in sustainability accounting together in transdisciplinary teams to help solve sustainability problems. Second, collaboration is a foundation for success in the process of integrating applied researchers and practitioners, different disciplines which are relevant to solving sustainability problems and collaboration between different boundary spanning organisations with their own specialised foci.

This paper considers boundary organisation theory and the role of boundary-spanning organisations in the context of the complex transdisciplinary problems of sustainability accounting.

Several lessons learnt from a Bayesian analysis of basic macroeconomic time-series models are presented for the situation where some model parameters have substantial posterior probability near the boundary of the parameter region. This feature refers to near-instability within dynamic models, to forecasting with near-random walk models and to clustering of several economic series in a small number of groups within a data panel. Two canonical models are used: a linear regression model with autocorrelation and a simple variance components model. Several well-known time-series models like unit root and error correction models and further state space and panel data models are shown to be simple generalizations of these two canonical models for the purpose of posterior inference. A Bayesian model averaging procedure is presented in order to deal with models with substantial probability both near and at the boundary of the parameter region. Analytical, graphical, and empirical results using U.S. macroeconomic data, in particular on GDP growth, are presented.

The purpose of this paper is to examine innovative practices and emphasize the mechanism of knowledge transfer across knowledge boundaries. By comparing and discussing the emerging boundary issues in knowledge transfer among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) registered in the incubation centers in China, this paper identified the main knowledge transfer approach and several contextual and organizational factors impacting knowledge transfer.

The authors conduct 39 semi-structured in-depth interviews with employees working within business incubation centers in China. The study uses thematic analysis for data analysis.

Our results contribute to the literature of knowledge transfer and in particular to our understanding of boundary conditions and knowledge transfer approaches in emerging economies. The results also highlight several contextual and organizational factors which impact knowledge transformation across the pragmatic boundary in the context of China.

First, organizations need to establish an effective process with tools to accommodate novelty; second, organizations should be aware of the impact of entrepreneurial orientation on innovative performance; and third, it will help organizations if they adopt and integrate information-rich media in managing innovative practices.

This research highlights the impact of contextual and organizational factors of SMEs on knowledge transfer in emerging markets and chooses incubation centers as study subjects, which is an organizational context that has not been thoroughly studied due to its unique nature and emerging complexity.

Boundary setting is identified as an important and highly useful factor, both in management practice and in dealing with phenomena in management research. It has significant implications for how circumstances and phenomena will be analysed and interpreted. Change – moving or change in nature – is a key factor in all attempts to strategise and economise. The authors argue that boundary setting is critical in analysing and interpreting business problems, both in the practice of management and in business research. The nature and function of boundaries vary. It can be exemplified with two archetypes of organisation – the integrated hierarchy and the connected company. In the first, the basic principle for boundary setting is buffering to protect the company from external variations. In the second type, it is bridging – connecting the company with specific changing factors. One important consequence is that when analysing and handling boundaries, both location and permeability become the central aspects to consider.

The purpose of this paper is to use a multi-disciplinary theoretical understanding of boundary setting to develop a quadripartite model in which sustainability reporting boundaries are classified as “Reputation Management”, “Ownership and Control”, “Accountability”; and, “Stakeholder Engagement”. Content analysis is then used to empirically test the model.

Using impression management theory, rationalism, systems and contingency theory, and network theory, a model is created which classifies sustainability reporting boundaries. Content analysis is used to empirically test boundaries across the disclosure of 49 GRI topics by the FTSE100.

Sustainability reporting fails to discharge accountability due to adoption of narrow “Reputation Management” boundaries. Boundaries are significantly (p<0.0001) narrower than previous research suggests. Findings support impression management theory as the strongest theory to predict reporting content. An ownership and control boundary, although widely criticized, represents the boundary of progressive reporters, lending marginal support for economic theories. Accountability boundaries are scarce. No evidence was found for stakeholder engagement boundaries.

The determination of boundary is critical to the discharge of accountability. A critical consideration of boundary setting is required, including authentic stakeholder engagement in determining boundaries and transparency of boundary adopted. The results are ranked to enable benchmarking of the FTSE100. Boundaries can be widened through regulation or “name and shame campaigns”.

This paper provides a theory-informed advancement in thinking on sustainability reporting boundary setting and the importance of this for advancing sustainability reporting quality.