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We study ceremonial adoption of voluntary standards, where participants adopt the standard in principle but do not change their practices. Ceremonial adoption can benefit individual participants, who may be able to reap the benefits of association with the standard at lower cost, but it can be problematic for overall levels of adoption. We conceive of ceremonial adoption as an interaction between strategic incentives of participants and social ties to their audiences, such that not all participants are likely to ceremonially adopt. Our setting is the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for sustainable construction. We study the conditions under which projects register for LEED certification, allowing them to claim affiliation with LEED, but then do not actually finish certification. While our data are correlational in nature, our results suggest that studying the competition for audience members (in our case, occupants) can provide greater understanding of certification behavior as well as overall levels of adoption. Our findings have implications for organizations that design and maintain voluntary standards and for organization theorists who wish to understand field-level change. Thus, we provide more evidence that strategy and organizational theory interact in important and often unexamined ways.

This paper explores the relationship between “stability and change” within with the process of accounting change It focuses on the ceremonial way in which a new system of value‐based management (VBM) was implemented and how the key performance indicators (KPIs) became decoupled from the day‐to‐day activities of the business, thereby creating a level of stability which ultimately contributed to accounting change.

It uses a longitudinal study of a company in which value‐based management was imposed by its parent. It is informed by an institutionalist framework which draws on concepts from both old institutional economics (OIE) and new institutional sociology (NIS).

It shows that stability and change are not necessarily contradictory or opposing forces, but can be intertwined in an evolutionary process of change.

Although there is accounting change within the case study, it is problematic to characterise it as either successful or unsuccessful change – this has important implications for the way in which “success” is defined in studies of accounting change.

It is argued that in contrast to the normal assumption that decoupling is an “organisational” response to external pressures, it is shown how decoupling can occur through the working out of a complex and dynamic process of resistance to accounting change: a process which simultaneously involves both stability and change.

This article explores the influence of duality in institutional logics on internal accounting, with a focus on a Polish public university. More particularly, we answer the research question: how does illegitimacy risk arising from the divergent pressures of the institutional environment impact management accountings in this institution?

This paper seeks to uncover intricacies of notions of internal legitimacy façade, decoupling and counter-coupling in practice. It explores details of organizational responses involving management accounting aimed at reducing illegitimacy risk. Achieving good organizational access, the authors adopt a qualitative case study approach involving contextual appreciation/document analysis/participant observation/discussion with key actors: facilitating building upon theoretical argumentation through finding things out from the field.

The authors uncover and discuss organizational solutions and legitimizing manoeuvres applied, identifying four adaptation tactics in the struggle to support legitimacy that they term ‘ceremonial calculations’, ‘legitimacy labelling’, ‘blackboxing’ and ‘shadow management accounting’. These can be seen in relation to decoupling and counter-coupling. Ceremonial calculations supported the internal façade. Shadow management accounting supported pro-effectiveness. Legitimacy labelling and blackboxing helped bind these two organizational layers, further supporting legitimacy. In interaction the four tactics engendered what can be seen as a ‘counter-coupling’ of management accounting. The authors clarify impacts for management accounting.

The usual limitations of case research apply for generalizability. Theorizing of management accounting in relation to contradictory logics is advanced.

The article illuminates how management accounting can be understood vis-à-vis contradictory logics.

Elaboration of the tactics and their interaction is a theoretical and empirical contribution. Focus on a Polish university constitutes an empirical contribution.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the trend of integrated reporting (IR) practice following the introduction of an “apply or explain” IR requirement in South Africa. In particular, the authors examine whether the IR practice is ceremonial or substantive in the context of a soft regulatory environment.

By way of content analyses, the authors examine the extent and quality of IR practice using an IR checklist developed based on normative understanding of existing IR guidelines. The evidence is drawn from 246 integrated reports of large South African companies over a three-year period (2011-2013), following the introduction of IR requirement in South Africa.

The results show a significant increase in the extent and quality of IR practice. The findings also reveal significant improvements in individual IR categories such as connectivity of information, materiality determination process and reliability and completeness of the integrated reports. However, despite the increasing trend and evidence of both symbolic and substantive IR practice, the authors conclude that the current IR practice is largely ceremonial in nature, produced to acquire organisational legitimacy.

For academics, the authors argue that there is a need to move away from the “what” and “why” aspects of the IR agenda to “how” IR should work inside organisations. In particular, academics should engage with firms through interventionist research to help firms implement integrated thinking and substantive reporting practices. For organisations, the findings draw attention to specific aspects of IR that require improvement. For policymakers, the study provides evidence based on the developmental stage of IR practice and draws attention to certain areas that need clarification. In particular, the International Integrated Reporting Council and Integrated Reporting Committee of South Africa should provide detailed guidelines on connectivity of information, material issues and disclosure of multiple capitals and their trade-offs. Finally, for educators, in line with the ACCA’s embedment of IR in its accounting courses, there is a need to incorporate IR in the curriculum; in particular, the authors argue that the best way to advance IR is in a “ubiquitous” spread in accounting and management courses.

This study provides empirical account of IR practice over time in the context of a regulatory IR environment. The construction of an IR checklist developed based on normative understanding of local and international IR guidelines is another novel approach of this study.

Purpose – The chapter looks at the way a group of Cook Islands women in South Auckland used neoliberal-inspired community funding to fulfil the criteria of the funders as well as their own noncapitalist aims.Methodology/approach – The chapter draws upon a combination of original ethnographic fieldwork and literature pertaining to the production and use of tivaivai in South Auckland and neoliberal policy in New Zealand.Findings – The chapter analyzes the cultural context of value creation that the production and use of tivaivai constitutes for Cook Islanders in South Auckland. The production of tivaivai as a “commercial” derivative of these elite social textiles saw the group of Cook Islands women operating in a “human economy” (Graeber, 2012), despite the neoliberal agenda of the funding.Originality/value – As a group, Cook Islanders are marginalized in New Zealand, but the outcome of this funding in the details of how the women recipients managed the use of the money, and how and what they produced, tells a different story about how Cook Islanders engage with capitalism via the “human economy.” Such an analysis adds considerable complexity to the understandings of the way women make and use tivaivai in New Zealand, as well as the ways Cook Islanders do economics in an expanded notion of economy. This sheds light on the subaltern strategies that Cook Islanders create in response to the opportunities and hegemonic forces that exist in the global capitalist economy, and the way they engage with capitalism in the context of the New Zealand political economy.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between organizational performance and the pattern of strategic decisions formalized in the planning of a Brazilian heavy construction company between 2006 and 2014. In this period, the company experienced a recurrent pattern of maintaining strategic decisions, despite the systematic decrease in performance and investments in the formal strategic planning (SP) and monitoring of results. The research focus is on strategic inertia and the influence of social determinants on the relationship between performance and the strategic actions negotiated in formal planning.

This is a single-case study. The exploratory-descriptive research comprises data collection on performance and strategic decisions from the period between 2006 and 2014. The analysis was guided through documentary material and data collected from 16 interviews conducted with members of the middle to top management concerning performance, goals, and strategic initiatives. The interviewees’ statements were used to apprehend the interpreted dimension of SP expressed in the meanings attributed to this process. The analysis adopts a sociological base, and strategic inertia is the underlying phenomenon that guides this analysis.

The results show the interactive effect caused by political, cognitive, discursive, and ceremonial mechanisms obstruct the company’s strategic decisions. This case study illustrates that the conditions for the phenomenon of path dependence were created, reinforcing the strategic inertia observed in the maintenance of a reproduced pattern of strategic initiatives and goals, even though the performance was recurrently unsatisfactory. In this case, strategic inertia showed a complex relationship between the interpreted performance and strategic actions negotiated in formal planning, conditioned by mechanisms of trajectory reinforcement that interfered with the conditions for strategic change.

Strategic inertia demonstrates a complex relationship between the interpreted performance and strategic actions negotiated in formal planning, conditioned by mechanisms of trajectory reinforcement that interfere with the conditions for strategic change. Future research on social mechanisms from the perspective of strategy-as-practice could be developed to capture the tacit components, language, power games, and other relevant categories in the social interaction of strategy development at the organizational level. In addition, future research could focus on investigating the extent to which path dependence is contingent, assuming that it is a temporary and, therefore, reversible process.

This work contributes to the view of SP from the social perspective and shows that the relationship between performance and strategy has biases that can compromise performance. The work highlights implications for maintaining strategic initiative patterns, which shape a path whose function is less associated with its effects on performance and more associated with the commitment to instrumental results, due to the social nature of organizations.

This work deals with social mechanisms that influence strategic decisions. Since organizational performance depends on strategic decisions, the social nature of strategic inertia has causal implications to economic and social impact of organizations.

This work argues in favor of the influence of self-reinforcing mechanisms of path dependence in the relationship between performance and strategic decisions. The results extended the predominantly structural approach of path dependence by considering interpretive aspects related to the political, discursive, cognitive, and ceremonial dimensions of strategic inertia.

Ayahuasca ceremonies are currently practiced all over the world. This study aims to investigate ayahuasca ceremonies in Colombia (where ayahuasca use is culturally entrenched) and Italy (where ayahuasca use has only recently spread).

In total, 32 Italian (53% males; 47% females) and 28 Colombian (79% males; 21% females) ayahuasca ceremony participants completed an online survey. Ceremonial setting and set (motivations for ayahuasca use, ayahuasca perceived effects and features of participants, i.e. drug use and problematic use, interpersonal dependency, spiritual orientation and quality of life) were investigated. Mann–Whitney U test, Pearson’s χ² test and Fisher’s exact test were used to compare the Italian and Colombian samples.

No differences emerged in the ceremonial setting. Slight differences were observed in motivations for ayahuasca intake and religious beliefs, but not in the preparation for ceremonies, quality of life, interpersonal dependence and spiritual orientation. Italians showed greater use of other psychoactive substances and more drug use problems.

Prevention regarding safer practices of consumption should be promoted to avoid improper uses.

Few studies have explored ayahuasca ceremonies (set and setting characteristics) in countries with different traditions on ayahuasca consumption. The results highlight that the use and experience of ayahuasca can take on different meanings depending on the cultural context.

This paper analyzes the communal fund of a school alumni association in South Korea and attempts to expand the understanding of money's social role in maintaining its network. The analysis concentrates on the account book of the 1974 alumni association of Hani High School in Seoul and follows the expenditure traces of its communal fund since 1987. Over the last 30 years, money for the communal fund has been regularly collected at the alumni reunions and distributed on various ceremonial occasions, such as member weddings and funerals. By defining the alumni association as a type of kye, this study explores the correlation between the communal fund's operation and the members' belongingness in the association. Most of them have actively engaged in operating their communal fund. They have applied flexible management regulations, reflecting members' respective financial conditions and life events. In the distribution of their fund, not only economic principles but also moral and normative standards are manifested. The 1974 alumni association and their communal fund demonstrate the symbolic meaning of money and its active role in a community. It also challenges the widespread belief that money is an alienating object in the market society. Indeed, money has morality and the potential to help maintain social ties in the long run.

This case study was undertaken as a process consultation in a non‐profit Christian church which has experienced a general decline in attendance in addition to a particular problem characterized as a habit of late arrival at the primary Sunday worship service. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This case study was designed as an action research project using appreciative inquiry and institutional theory in the structuralist tradition. This combined methodological approach was effectively used to identify core values and norms inherent in the organization and functioning of the church.

Results confirmed the premise of a habit of late arrival and indicated that there was little focus or support by congregants on the traditions and practices that occur early in the church service. Great value was placed on the overall environment, teaching and messaging that occurred from the sermons which begin approximately 45 minutes after the start of the service. Validation and review of the possibility propositions resulted in a reorganization of the primary Sunday worship service resulting in increased attendance and on time performance.

This case study finds that methods inherent in institutional analysis and appreciative inquiry can be effectively combined to identify gaps in organizational goals and performance which are direct results of encapsulated organizational traditions. It is anticipated that the methodological approach in this study is generally applicable to organizations of various types.