Search results
1 – 10 of over 2000This viewpoint adds context and variety to the “decolonizing international business” debate by engaging in a discussion of the decolonial thinking approach and proposing a broader…
Abstract
Purpose
This viewpoint adds context and variety to the “decolonizing international business” debate by engaging in a discussion of the decolonial thinking approach and proposing a broader framework for analysing the link between international business (IB) activities on the one hand and colonisation and decolonisation on the other. The purpose of this paper is to inspire a more intensive engagement of IB scholarship with issues related to colonisation and decolonisation.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper involves taking a reflexive review on recent calls to decolonise IB, contextualising and extending the decolonisation debate in the academic field of IB.
Findings
This paper argues that the current discussion of decolonisation should be extended beyond the decolonial thinking approach and its focus on knowledge and the cultural dimension towards a broader framework that covers both colonisation and decolonisation as well as the respective economic, political, social and cultural dimensions. It introduces the varieties of colonisation and decolonisation approach, which considers the complexities of the phenomenon and covers the economic, social, political and cultural dimensions.
Research limitations/implications
Through its focus on foreign market expansion, international trade, global value chains and formal and informal institutions in the business environment, the academic field of IB provides several starting points for research on the link between IB activities and colonisation and decolonisation. The decolonisation debate can be used to inspire future research in IB, for example, with respect to the role of multinational corporations in colonisation and neo-colonisation processes and the implications of the emerging multipolar world order for IB.
Practical implications
IB scholars will be better informed when engaging in discussions on decolonisation and the decolonise IB project. This paper suggests considering both colonisation and decolonisation processes as well as the respective economic, political, social and cultural dimensions in research and teaching. The varieties of colonisation and decolonisation approach provides a comprehensive and flexible alternative framework to analyse issues related to colonisation and decolonisation.
Social implications
A balanced view of the implications of colonisation and decolonisation with respect to economic, political, social and cultural dimensions may suitably be incorporated in the field of IB and contribute to tackling grand societal challenges. This applies likewise to past, current and future processes of colonisation and decolonisation.
Originality/value
This paper contextualises and adds a new perspective and variety to the current debate on decolonising IB. This is valuable for engaging in discussions on decolonisation and future conceptual and empirical research on the topic.
Details
Keywords
Stuart Green and Laurence Ferry
This paper considers the nature and effect of accounting disturbances on organizational micro-practices in three secondary schools in England. A close application of a developed…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper considers the nature and effect of accounting disturbances on organizational micro-practices in three secondary schools in England. A close application of a developed model of Habermasian colonization provides a framing for both the ways in which accounting is implicated in organizational change and the effect of accounting disturbances on organizational micro-practices.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative field studies at three secondary schools were used to gather empirical detail in the form of interview data and documentary evidence. A total of 24 semi-structured interviews were conducted with teachers and bursars.
Findings
Accounting disturbances that were constitutive-transactional in nature had the greatest influence on organizational micro-practices. Behavioural responses to accounting disturbances can be organizationally ambiguous, subtle and subject to change over time.
Research limitations/implications
More field studies are needed, and there is scope to develop a longitudinal perspective to better understand the impact of accounting disturbances over time.
Originality/value
By framing the processes of accounting change using a developed model of Habermasian colonization, contributions are provided by illuminating aspects of both the processes of accounting colonization and the impact of accounting on organizational micro-practices. The findings also add to prior appreciations of reciprocal colonization, creative transformation of accounting disturbances and how accounting can be enabling.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this study is to bring attention to the topics of colonization and decolonization in libraries by helping librarians to see how many library practices and policies…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to bring attention to the topics of colonization and decolonization in libraries by helping librarians to see how many library practices and policies are embedded in and arise from the dominant culture and can unwittingly function to subjugate the culture, language and worldview of indigenous peoples.
Design/methodology/approach
This column defines colonization and decolonization, demonstrates how and why libraries are agents of colonization and examines examples of practices and policies in need of decolonization.
Findings
While it may be challenging for librarians to detect colonizing elements in libraries because most of them are embedded in the dominant culture, it is possible to learn how to find them by listening to indigenous communities and gaining a better understanding of their worldview. Even so, decolonization is not an easy task because so much is already invested in the status quo and libraries often function with minimal or diminishing resources.
Originality/value
While there have been studies writing about specific aspects of bias and colonization in libraries, there is not much attention paid to the bigger picture of this topic. For example, the idea that the book-based culture of libraries conflicts with some facets of indigenous oral cultures is not widely discussed elsewhere, but it is addressed in this column.
Details
Keywords
This paper illuminates the mechanisms through which marketing practice and institutions produced, normalized and institutionalized systemic racism in support of imperialism…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper illuminates the mechanisms through which marketing practice and institutions produced, normalized and institutionalized systemic racism in support of imperialism, colonization and slavery to provide impetus for transformational change. Critical race research is drawn on to propose paths toward decolonial and anti-racist research agenda and practice.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper integrates multidisciplinary literature on race, racism, imperialism, colonialism and slavery, connecting these broad themes to the roles marketing practices and institutions played in creating and sustaining racism. Critical race theory, afro pessimism, postcolonial theories, anti-racism and decoloniality provide conceptual foundations for a proposed transformative research agenda.
Findings
Marketing practices and institutions played active and leading roles in producing, mass mobilizing and honing racist ideology and the imagery to support imperialism, colonial expansion and slavery. Racist inequalities in market systems were produced globally through active collusion by marketing actors and institutions in these historical forces creating White advantage and Black dispossession that persist; indicating an urgent need for transformative anti-racists and decolonial research agendas.
Research limitations/implications
Covering these significant historical forces inevitably leaves much room for further inquiry. The paper by necessity “Mango picked” the most relevant research, but a full coverage of these topics was beyond the scope of this paper.
Practical implications
Marketing practitioners found themselves at the epicenter of a crisis during the Black Lives Matter protests. This paper aims to foster anti-racist ad decolonial research to guide practice.
Social implications
This paper addresses systemic and institutional racism, and marketplace inequalities – urgent societal challenges.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the paper is the first in marketing to integrate multidisciplinary literature on historical forces of imperialism, colonization and slavery to illuminate marketing’s influential role in producing marketplace racism while advancing an anti-racist and de-colonial research agenda.
Details
Keywords
This paper aims to offer an example of a comprehensive mid-nineteenth century branding strategy in practice.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to offer an example of a comprehensive mid-nineteenth century branding strategy in practice.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper follows a historical research methodology using archival resources and secondary sources within a conceptual framework of present-day branding theory (Bastos and Levy) and communication theory (Perloff). It interrogates visual and material data to construct a production-led examination of the development of a company brand.
Findings
The examination of the material suggests, first, that the company developed a sophisticated, multi-dimensional, multi-functional and materially coherent branding system. Second, it demonstrates that such a system represents an early example of a strategic practice that many scholars have considered to have arisen only in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries. Third, it provides evidence that the origin, if not always the implementation, of the strategy lay with one man, Edward Gibbon Wakefield.
Originality/value
This paper is novel in its use of visual and material culture artifacts to demonstrate the intentions of those who produced them. It also offers an example of practice in an area that is often only explored in theory. It will be of interest to cultural, marketing, visual and material culture historians.
Details
Keywords
Drawing on the functional structural systems theory of Niklas Luhmann and the theory of colonisation of the social lifeworld advanced by Jurgen Habermas, it is argued that the Big…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on the functional structural systems theory of Niklas Luhmann and the theory of colonisation of the social lifeworld advanced by Jurgen Habermas, it is argued that the Big Society project in the UK is about the creation of an alternative non-state welfare infrastructure by the linking of wealthy donors with opportunities to engage in venture philanthropy in the third sector. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper outlines key features of Luhmann's theory relating to autopoiesis and structural coupling to illustrate its conceptual strength in making the colonisation process visible.
Findings
The paper illustrates the ways in which system imperatives underpinning the colonisation process absorb and subordinate public activism to narrow market principles forcing the third sector to communicate in the language of the market rather than caritas.
Social implications
The real implication of these developments for the character of the voluntary sector requires further critical examination not only because the state's enduring commitment to welfare may be in question but also for the growing significance of entrepreneurial philanthropy in shaping the character of volunteering and charitable activities and welfare relationships.
Originality/value
The paper applies Luhmann's theory relating to autopoiesis and structural coupling to make key features of government colonisation of the third sector visible.
Details
Keywords
Sara Moggi, Glen Lehman and Alessandra Pagani
This paper aims to critically analyse the transposition implications of Union Directive 2014/95. This Directive identified the need to raise the transparency of the social and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to critically analyse the transposition implications of Union Directive 2014/95. This Directive identified the need to raise the transparency of the social and environmental information provided by the undertakings to a similarly high level across all Member States.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper considers how the European Member States of the European Union (EU) have transposed Directive 2014/95 into their regulations. The focus is on the juridification of social accounting in the pursuit of creating an overlapping consensus through Habermas’s concept of internal colonisation. The paper uses qualitative content analysis to scrutinise the national laws that transpose Directive 2014/95, discussing both what has been accomplished and what can be achieved by the release of future legislative provisions.
Findings
Despite the aim of Directive 2014/95 to create a common language for disclosing non-financial information, this study shows an implementation gap among and between Member States and an inconsistent picture of the employment of this Directive. Its implementation in the 28 European countries was considered a process of colonisation in implementing Union directives among European undertakings. However, the implementation process, which exemplifies Habermas’s juridification, has failed due to the lack of balance between moral discourse and actions.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the ongoing debates concerning the implementation of mandatory disclosure of environmental and social information in the EU Member States, promoting new directions for the EU’s democratic laws on social accounting. In addition, it offers an example of how internal colonisation only catalyses effects when moral laws are legitimised through the provision of procedures.
Details
Keywords
Wesley L. Harris and Jarunee Wonglimpiyarat
This paper aims to discuss the complexities and foresight of Mars colonization. There are many pioneers competing in a space race to Mars, for example, Elon Musk – SpaceX, Jeff…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to discuss the complexities and foresight of Mars colonization. There are many pioneers competing in a space race to Mars, for example, Elon Musk – SpaceX, Jeff Bezos – Blue Origin and Richard Branson – Virgin Orbit. The analyses are focused on the aerospace industry – the process of space adventures to Mars.
Design/methodology/approach
This study offers new methodological approaches – the development of a complexity metric and system innovation mode – to analyze how the complexities relate to the systemic nature of innovation. The complexity metric and system innovation model can be applied in various industries. These analysis tools can help gain insights into the strategies for achieving the diffusion of commercial space.
Findings
The analyses of findings have shown that, despite various attempts among the pioneers in a space race to colonize Mars (Elon Musk – SpaceX, Jeff Bezos – Blue Origin and Richard Branson – Virgin Orbit, among others), the aerospace industry has not yet reached a stage of commercialization. The commercial space to Mars is of low systemic nature at present. Many companies compete in a space race to develop technologies on a proprietary basis. However, the highest complexity level suggests a multinational and intergovernmental collaboration to achieve economies of scale and economies of scope as well as accelerate the process of technology diffusion – successful commercial space for the interplanetary settlement.
Originality/value
The main contribution that shows originality and value of this paper is the development of a complexity metric and system innovation model which can be used to explore how the complexities relate to the systemic nature of innovation and how they relate to the strategies in managing technological innovations. The new methodological approaches can be used and applied to various industries.
Details
Keywords
Pran Krishansing Boolaky, Nitri Mirosea and Kishore Singh
The purpose of this paper is to inquire into the history of government accounting, using a well-grounded periodisation, in order to provide a chronology of government accounting…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to inquire into the history of government accounting, using a well-grounded periodisation, in order to provide a chronology of government accounting development (GAD) in Indonesia from 1845 to 2015 focusing on development on accounting regulations and systems and practices in local government in Indonesia.
Design/methodology/approach
It collects archival data and then uses a descriptive tradition of research to capture mainly regulatory changes affecting GAD from colonial to post-colonial period.
Findings
The paper reports major regulatory changes, evolution in local government accounting practice, development of government accounting standards (GASt) and converging GASs with international standards.
Research limitations/implications
This study is important to accounting historians and other academics because it provides a detailed chronicle of accounting regulatory changes in Indonesia which can be used for future research. The limitation(s) of this study is that is data collection which was not easily accessible and as results have to rely on various sources.
Practical implications
The study has an important practical implication. It has produced a time series register of regulatory changes affecting GAD in Indonesia. It can be used as a reference document in the National Library of Indonesia and also by academics for future research.
Originality/value
A times series register, for the first time, is produced which provides a comprehensive chronology of accounting development in Indonesia.
Details
Keywords
Carlos Larrinaga‐González, Francisco Carrasco‐Fenech, Francisco Javier Caro‐González, Carmen Correa‐Ruíz and José María Páez‐Sandubete
Critique originated by earlier theorization of environmental accounting, as a way of building environmentalist visibility of business, led Gray et al., to study environmental…
Abstract
Critique originated by earlier theorization of environmental accounting, as a way of building environmentalist visibility of business, led Gray et al., to study environmental accounting in the dynamics of organizational change. They concluded that environmental accounting is being used to “negotiate the conception of the environment” by companies that have not significantly changed. In order to investigate whether Gray et al.’s model and conclusions apply to a different cultural context, we have conducted nine case studies in Spain. We found that Spanish organizations are not truly changing their conventional perception of the environment, even in those cases where generalized structural and organizational changes are taking place. Moreover, the use of environmental accounting is coupled with an attempt to negotiate and control the environmental agenda.
Details