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While digital labour platforms are being increasingly studied across the Global South, the existing literature does not conceptualise the theoretical link between such platforms and socio-economic development. This paper theorises such a link drawing on the notion of institutional voids defined, as in Khanna and Palepu (2010), as “the absence of intermediaries to efficiently connect buyers and sellers” in an economy. We frame digital labour platforms as means to fill institutional voids, seeking to create “development” in the form of earning opportunities in contexts of deprivation.

We draw on an interpretive case study of an online work training project in a deprived region of Pakistan, where members of marginalised communities were trained to become freelancers for global digital labour platforms. We use the notion of market-enabling institutions aimed at filling institutional voids as a lens to study the project's declared goals, examining the extent to which these were met in practice for the workers who participated in the training.

Our analysis reveals three types of market-enabling institutions–credibility enhancers, aggregators and distributors, and transaction facilitators–through which digital labour platforms seek to fill institutional voids. However, workers' narratives reveal that institutional voids are only partially filled by these platforms, and their perpetuation results in diverse forms of power asymmetries leveraged by clients and owners of the platforms. We also observe the formation of solidarity networks among workers, networks that are intra-familial and societal rather than characterised by formal unionisation.

The paper offers a novel perspective to theorise the link between digital labour and socio-economic development. Applying such a perspective in a Global South context, it also finds the limits of the digital platforms' institutional void-filling potential, highlighting the emergence of power asymmetries and the emerging formation of worker solidarity networks.

Brian Nicholson, a leading union spokesman for some 20,000 dockers, comments on some of the “misrepresentations” which surround the controversial new laws governing dock labour. Report by Del Coomber.

Loopholes in the Equal Pay Act are being used by employers in industrial tribunal hearings — and tacitly accepted by tribunal members who lack experience of industrial pay negotiation, claim critics of the legislation. Del Coomber looks at the effects of the Act and one strike which it has provoked.

This paper aims to improve understanding of how management control systems (MCS) are influenced by local contexts in outsourcing relationships, drawing on a multi‐layer analysis of embeddedness.

Data were gathered through a field study of 15 Egyptian firms that outsourced various forms of accounting services to third party suppliers.

The findings indicate that managers make their control choices based on the nature of their “embedded relationships” with suppliers. The embeddedness analysis demonstrates the influence of context on MCS implementation.

There is a paucity of studies focussing on how context affects control in outsourcing relationships. The paper provides a detailed framework and a rich empirically‐based explanation of the findings.

The findings have implications for the practice of accounting outsourcing and provide a conceptual framework of relevance to management practice.

A conceptual framework for understanding embeddedness is presented, which is illustrated with empirical evidence from multiple case analyses to illustrate how the implementation of MCS is influenced by context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the intersection of sustainability and global IT outsourcing (GITO). GITO is well established as a business practice towards reducing costs and improving performance. Sustainability issues related to carbon footprint and greenhouse gases are increasingly important for all organizations. Responsible and economic energy management is a critical business capability and environmental responsibility in global outsourcing.

Drawing on empirical work undertaken in the UK and North America together with content analysis of public data from leading GITO providers, this paper presents a model for measuring sustainability in outsourcing.

The research findings demonstrate a growing environmental maturity in GITO firms, as measured against external recognized standards such as the Global Reporting Initiative, the Carbon Disclosure Project, the UN Global Compact and the ISO environmental and social responsibility standards.

In the context of social, economic and political discussions regarding sustainability, this paper contributes to our practical and theoretical understanding of GITO providers and the impact of environmental issues in outsourcing.

Consumers, governments and society at large demonstrate increasing expectations for sustainability from all organizations. Outsourcers can provide improved sustainability capability to their buyers in this important area.

Environmental and social responsibility in global outsourcing has received little attention in academic research. This paper provides a starting point for further investigation of the role of sustainability in outsourcing.

Managing attrition is a major challenge for outsourcing vendors. Literature on management control in offshore outsourcing is dominated by the formal approaches to control design, which do not adequately consider the influence of contextual factors. This article aims to adopt the lens of institutional theory, and use empirical data gathered from case studies in both the UK and India to improve the understanding of the institutional logics that shape the control of attrition.

This article draws on in‐depth qualitative research undertaken with directors and senior managers in client and vendor firms engaged in outsourcing relationships that span both corporate and national boundaries. Drawing on empirical data from the UK and India, the interplay between the management control of attrition and contextual factors is analysed, and the practices adopted to manage these contextual factors are also identified and discussed.

The analysis presents relevant aspects of the regulative, normative and cognitive institutions inhabited by vendor firms and the challenges such aspects present for managing attrition. The dynamics of institutions and control are discussed in the area of attrition, and the interplay between institutions and control is outlined. The regulative, normative and cognitive institutions inhabited by vendor firms contrast markedly to that of the client in relation to social and legal rules, norms and practices.

The paper develops a theoretical basis for linking control and context in offshore outsourcing, drawing on the work of Scott in institutional theory, and Friedland and Alford, in institutional logics. This paper offers an alternative conceptualisation of control in attrition based upon rationalistic modelling through institutional logics.

This paper offers key implications for research, in improving the understanding of contextual factors and management control in global outsourcing relationships. Both clients and vendors in offshore outsourcing need to be aware of the influence of contextual factors when managing attrition.

The interplay of institutional logics and implications on the control of attrition provides an interesting approach to understanding how firms manage attrition in offshore outsourcing.

The aim of this paper is to assess and explain the role of grounded theory (GT) in interpretive management accounting research (IMAR) and seeks to answer the question: can interpretive researchers use GT? And if so, how?

This is a theoretical paper that attempts to investigate how researchers can use GT in relation to their ontological stance, methodological position and research methods.

The paper suggests that GT offers a balance between the expediency of the research findings, thereby allowing researchers freedom to interpret management accounting practices, and the development of rigorous theory from IMAR.

The paper provides an analysis of GT from an interpretive perspective and, clearly, there are other research perspectives which could have been discussed.

GT can be a powerful tool that researchers could use to collect and analyse empirical data. However, researchers need to align GT with the broader paradigm they adopt when researching social phenomena. The paper provides some general guidelines for IMARs who want to use GT in their research.

This paper shows that GT can offer interpretive researchers a way of balancing the need to develop theory, which is grounded in everyday practices, and the recognition that the research process is inherently subjective. However, it is argued that in interpretive research GT cannot provide a simple “recipe book” which, if followed rigorously, will result in a high‐quality research (i.e. valid, reliable and unbiased). Nevertheless, the guidelines provide a way for IMARs, who use GT to improve the quality of their research findings.

Amphenol's Military and Aerospace Division at Whitstable, announce the appointment of Tony Bright as sales manager, military and aerospace products.

Britain's exports are threatened by another London dock strike. Dockers who last stopped work in April are angered by what they regard as further delay in legislative plans to give them the right to pack and unpack containers, and their former leader, Jack Dash, steps out of retirement to deliver the warning: “This time, the issue will be settled once and for all.” In this background account of the dispute, Derek Coomber — Editor of Freighting World — tells of labour‐management intransigence and Government inertia.