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Peter Christian (Chris) Murphy had worked his way up the “food chain” at AT&T for 19 years, culminating in his position as Sales Center Vice President for South Florida. When he and a coworker realized there was an opportunity in the marketplace for a small, nimble company to take advantage of emerging communications technology that a stodgy, lumbering corporation would have trouble integrating into its service package, Chris decided to jump into an entrepreneurial opportunity.

Big Data introduces high amounts and new forms of structured, unstructured and semi-structured data into the field of accounting and this requires alternative data management and reporting methods. Generating insights from these new data sources highlight the need for different and interactive forms of visualization in the field of visual analytics. Nonetheless, a considerable gap between the recommendations in research and the current usage in practice is evident. In order to understand and overcome this gap, a detailed analysis of the status quo as well as the identification of potential barriers for adoption is vital. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

A survey with 145 business accountants from Austrian companies from a wide array of business sectors and all hierarchy levels has been conducted. The survey is targeted toward the purpose of this study: identifying barriers, clustered as human-related and technological-related, as well as investigating current practice with respect to interactive visualization use for Big Data.

The lack of knowledge and experience regarding new visualization types and interaction techniques and the sole focus on Microsoft Excel as a visualization tool can be identified as the main barriers, while the use of multiple data sources and the gradual implementation of further software tools determine the first drivers of adoption.

Due to the data collection with a standardized survey, there was no possibility of dealing with participants individually, which could lead to a misinterpretation of the given answers. Further, the sample population is Austrian, which might cause issues in terms of generalizing results to other geographical or cultural heritages.

The study shows that those knowledgeable and familiar with interactive Big Data visualizations indicate high perceived ease of use. It is, therefore, necessary to offer sufficient training as well as user-centered visualizations and technological support to further increase usage within the accounting profession.

A lot of research has been dedicated to the introduction of novel forms of interactive visualizations. However, little focus has been laid on the impact of these new tools for Big Data from a practitioner’s perspective and their needs.

First, this paper aims to identify and discuss the paradoxical relationship between theology and technology. Second, it also demonstrates the urgency of the digitalization of the Church ministry. Third, this paper offers an understanding of technology and theology through the missional perspective of the Church. Fourth, this paper asks the following questions: (1) Can the Church innovate ways of using technology while maintaining the social aspect of the organism? (2) Can organizations migrate to digital technology with adequate technology/human interface to engage innovations? (3) How can organizations renew their products via technological platforms? (4) From a socio-technical perspective on the digital era, can the Church keep abreast of its workforce in a way that provides adequate participative opportunities? and finally, this paper further interacts with views on the paradigm shift of practical theology and techno-theological practice and possible inclusion in the theology vocabularies of the Church.

A thorough search on the subject of techno-theology (TTheo) reveals that there are no scholarly works that offer a conceptual understanding of TTheo. However, TTheo derives an interdisciplinary definition from innovative leadership, socio-religious transformation, transformational leadership, anthropological studies, strategic leadership (and authentic leader AL), scenario thinking/planning, technological disruptions, digital transformation and Church sustainability. There are multiple inferences in the literature on the advantages and disadvantages of technology in human relations (Banks et al., 2016; Dyer, 2011).

Innovation is open-ended. It can take place anywhere and anytime. All it requires are human entities who are creative enough to respond appropriately. The author agrees with Goldsmith that innovation is not limited to a single aspect of any system (Goldsmith et al., 2010, p. xxiv). Innovation can occur anywhere, and there is no limit to it. The only hindrance to innovation is the lack of creative leaders, creative agents of change and an enabling environment to foster change (Teece, 2018, 2010; Bounfour, 2016; Hanna, 2016). While technological innovation is a good development, other factors drive innovation. Technological innovation is not an end by itself. It is a means to an end. And it cannot stand in isolation from other factors that support it. It competes with some external factors which can sustain it or obstruct it.

This paper used the traditional (or narrative), meta-analysis and meta-synthesis methods of literature reviews to study scenario thinking, system thinking, planning and TTheo principles to find a suitable space to redefine and reconstruct the Church’s ministry engagement in a technologically avowed age. This paper is not a technology text, nor does it pose to answer technology questions. Instead, it focuses on the role of technology in Christian ministry.

This paper recommended that the Church redefines its digital transformation perspective by adopting a TTheo that embraces digital materials and hybrid technology in its ministry engagement across the board. This paper further interacts with views on the paradigm shift of practical theology and techno-theological practice and possible inclusion in the theology vocabularies of the Church.

Technology shapes human interactions in a sociopolitical, socioreligious and sociocultural environment (Dyer, 2011; Postman, 2021; McLauhan, 1994, p. 7). As a community of faith, the Church is a segment of the broader cultural environment with a cross-section of people from various works of life and opinions. Language, customs and practice differ significantly from others in every environment. Hence, each setting is unique in multiple ways (Teece, 2018, 2010). The world continues to experience developments in many areas. Due to the symbiotic nature of humans and the environment, cross-breeding and cross-fertilization of ideas are inevitable. As one organization reacts to its unique existence, it indirectly or directly affects another. Hence, while growth may be relative, its impacts are overtly universal.

The term “Techno-theology” is a newcomer in the theological circle. Hence, there are practically little or minimal literature on this subject area. In this paper, the author has written the original concept of the subject matter (TTheo). This paper is part of the ground-breaking research the author is conducting on “Techno-theology.” The author’s PhD research proposal was approved in December 2022. The author’s research focuses on the subject matter of this paper (TTheo). The author also looks forward to leading a deeper conversation among scholars.

This study operationalizes risks in stakeholder dialog (SD). It conceptualizes SD as co-produced organizational discourse and examines the capacities of organizers' and stakeholders' practices to create a shared understanding of an organization’s risks to their mutual benefit. The meetings and online forum of a German public service media (PSM) organization were used as a case study.

The authors applied corpus-driven linguistic discourse analysis (topic modeling) to analyze citizens' (n = 2,452) forum posts (n = 14,744). Conversation analysis was used to examine video-recorded online meetings.

Organizers suspended actors' reciprocity in meetings. In the forums, topics emerged autonomously. Citizens' articulation of their identities was more diverse than the categories the organizer provided, and organizers did not respond to the autonomous emergence of contextualizations of citizens' perceptions of PSM performance in relation to their identities. The results suggest that risks arise from interactionally achieved occasions that prevent reasoned agreement and from actors' practices, which constituted autonomous discursive formations of topics and identities in the forums.

This study disentangles actors' practices, mutuality orientation and risk enactment during SD. It advances the methodological knowledge of strategic communication research on SD, utilizing social constructivist research methods to examine the contingencies of organization-stakeholder interaction in SD.