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This paper aims to advance the case for accounting scholars possessing substantial professional accounting expertise to use judgement drawing on that expertise (target-disciplinary judgement) as a major component of their research methodology.

The paper addresses methodological issues drawing on the criteriological debate within the methodological literature, a review of the ironies of contemporary narrative accounting research, including professional firm research, and an analysis of epistemological congruence seeking analogous cases in mainstream social scientific research.

The paper shows that, within a vocationally related subject like accounting, appropriately trained and qualified scholarly researchers have the opportunity to deploy their professional expertise to make expansive target-disciplinary judgements in ways that satisfy accepted social scientific methodological criteria and offer epistemological convergence comparable to that of mainstream approaches like insider anthropology and autoethnography.

Using target-disciplinary expertise to make expansive judgements provides scholars with a way of expanding the range of research questions they address, including resuming evaluative-descriptive surveys that can, among other things, examine the quality of disclosures holistically rather than in the highly atomistic way often adopted by academics at the moment.

The approach defended in this paper offers accounting scholars the opportunity to apply their particular skills to investigate questions likely to be of interest to preparers and users of financial statements, to explore issues of wider interest, such as the adequacy of environmental or social responsibility disclosures, and to test and augment professional firm findings. In so doing, scholars can go some way to remedying the gap between academic research and practice.

Little attention has been given to the use of expansive, expert target-disciplinary judgement in the methodological literature.

The purpose of this paper is to outline certain currents in the assessment of qualitative research management and organizational research and briefly position this journal in relation to these developments.

The argument draws upon contemporary debates about criteriology and its relation to underlying knowledge-constituting philosophical commitments that may be sometimes unnoticed.

The need for a more permissive, pluralistic and reflexive approach to research evaluation that accepts difference and heterogeneity in qualitative research.

The need for greater reflexivity on the part of research anyone evaluating research.

The paper is of value to those who are engaged in various aspects of qualitative research evaluation either in terms of being evaluated or in terms of undertaking the evaluations.

In this chapter, we introduce the history of critical thinking briefly, starting from Socrates to contemporary contributions. Based on this history, we derive several modules for training in critical thinking via practical exercises in critical thinking. Three classic critical thinking models are introduced: Socratic questioning method, Cartesian doubting method, and Baconian empirical method. We discuss their potential for critical thinking as foundational methods. The material in this chapter is distributed in three parts. In Part I, we provide a brief history of critical thinking. In Part II, we design models of critical thinking based on its classic history. In Part III, we list some models of critical thinking based on its history, from the Renaissance period to the current times. In the last section, we also discuss critical thinking in the context of business ethics, by delineating its normative domain, assessing its characteristics, and reviewing its processes.

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of research which explores how the concept qualitative management research is variably constructed and defined by those who have a direct interest in, and influence upon, important aspects of qualitative management research.

Information was gathered through the use of semi‐structured interviews conducted with 44 individuals who were drawn from four observer‐identified types of “expert” informant who were taken to generally represent key groups of stakeholders in the conduct, evaluation and dissemination of qualitative management research. Interview data from these individuals were analysed though an iterative process using the NVivo software package to inductively generate definitional categories and explore aspects of their interrelationships.

From data analysis it was apparent that there are eight different, but often interrelated, ways in which interviewees define qualitative management research. The philosophical dimensions of each of these variable definitions are outlined and their relationships to the methodological literature are explored. The variety identified amongst informants, indicates how there is a potential dissensus possible regarding what qualitative management research might entail, as well as regarding its provenance and its academic status. This dissensus potentially can create problems with regard to its evaluation.

So whist there is little evidence to suggest any systematic relationship between the variable institutional backgrounds of informants and how they variably define and perceive qualitative management research, philosophical influences upon this contested terrain are explored and the implications of the identified dissensus for how qualitative management research is perceived and evaluated is discussed. The implications of this evidently contested terrain are discussed with particular reference to the future constitution of qualitative management research and its evaluation.

A group of faculty at Penn State's Department of Landscape Architecture observed that the traditional master/apprentice model of studio instruction fosters greater student dependence on faculty for decision-making guidance than the faculty considers desirable. They contend that this traditional model promotes a studio dynamic that encourages students to look to the professor for design ideas and wait for faculty approval before making design decisions. The faculty considered this decision-making dependency to be in conflict with the need for students to develop the critical-thinking skills required to address the complex and ill-structured problems that are common in architecture and landscape architecture. In response to their concern this faculty team developed a studio teaching method they termed “independent design decision-making.” They speculated that by transferring the responsibility for design decisions from professor to the student, students could improve their critical thinking and gain confidence in design decision-making. The faculty conceived a set of strategies to implement in a 3rd year team-taught site planning and design studio that presents a range of complex design issues and scales. In collaboration with Penn State's Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence, the faculty researchers developed a 2-year comparative study to test this new teaching method in the same design studio with two consecutive student groups-evaluating the strategies implemented in the first year, refining methods, then applying and re-evaluating the results in the next year's class. These new strategies included ways students receive information to inspire their designs (“input strategies”) and ways to receive critique on their design ideas (“feedback strategies”). Two evaluation instruments were chosen to assess this method of studio teaching: 1) the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT), and 2) Student Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG). This paper presents this teaching/learning method and reports on the results of the comparative study.

The purpose of this paper is to use autoethnography to explore notions of self-identity formation and projection. The author uses the stages of grief as an analytical tool to explain athletic identity formation and personal effects when an injury removed that part of her self.

The paper uses autoethnography, a self-reflective, qualitative methodology meant to engage the researcher's personal experience, which then is potentially adapted and understood by others in similar situations. Autoethnography might pair personal research with existing analytical frameworks and theories, as this story does.

–The author realized that losing, even temporarily, self-identifying characteristics (here, athletic identity) affects self-esteem, social interactions, and future motion-based endeavors, for fear of starting the cycle of grief again.

The paper is valuable, as many people are “weekend warrior” athletes that identity as a runner, cyclist, triathlete, weight lifter, or general gymgoer. Someone might sustain an injury that leaves him or her feeling similar to the author – and can help them understand the importance of athletic identity. The paper also shows how a well-known framework, stages of grief, can be used not solely as an explanatory tool but an analytical one as well.

To better understand how corporate communicators and human resources professionals can champion volunteer activities and youth engagement as evidence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability commitment, this chapter explores representations of urban youth conservation–environmental empowerment through a textual analysis of three organizations’ websites: Clearwater, the Philadelphia Zoo, and The Nature Conservancy. In addition to identifying common themes across the websites, I compared each program to the Critical Social Theory of Youth Empowerment (CSTYE) framework consisting of six dimensions for maximum success in empowering youth stakeholders (Jennings, Parra-Medina, Hilfinger-Messias, & McLoughlin, 2006). Recommendations are provided for organizations using environmental–conservation programs targeting young people – and other researchers of this phenomenon.

As the leadership classroom is becoming more diverse in the student demographic make-up it is important to establish what the impacts of those differences are on learning leadership. In this paper the essential element of leadership analyzed was critical thinking disposition. Participants were analyzed for differences in critical thinking disposition by the selected demographics of age, gender, GPA, honors enrollment, and major college classification. Using the EMI, it was found that there were no statistical differences in the total disposition constructs of innovativeness, cognitive maturity, or engagement. There were, however, differences in individual statements and mean scores. Considering the classroom landscape, an educator must often move beyond statistical significance to identify means which meet student needs. In essence, some of the most subtle differences in students create the biggest challenges. Research findings are used to make recommendations for increasing student capacity for critical thinking in the collegiate leadership classroom.