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This study aims to examine the impact of stakeholder engagement on accountability, within nonprofit organizations (NPOs). Given the pivotal role NPOs play in disaster management and community welfare, it is crucial to gain an understanding of the obligations of NPOs, in terms of their disaster responses and accountability.

Using a case-study approach, the investigation features a content analysis of social media comments regarding the Australian Red Cross’ (ARC) funds’ allocation during the 2019/2020 bushfires, followed by a similar analysis of ARC's reports. Inspired by Carnegie et al.'s (2021) definition of accounting as a social science, this study uses dialogic theory and a transformative participatory framework, to evaluate how interactive stakeholder engagement influenced accountability strategies used by the NPO, to ensure its sustainable development.

The findings reveal that there was a significant increase in stakeholder engagement on social media, following negative media coverage, with participants voicing concerns over ARC’s method of funds’ allocation, delays in funds distribution and seemingly excessive administrative costs. ARC addressed these concerns by issuing Bushfire Reports, and conducting online Q&A sessions, in a bid to establish transparency. This study emphasizes how dialogic accounting can challenge accounting's limited scope – one that often overlooks ecological concerns and social justice.

This study uses the perspective of dialogic accounting theory to explore the relationship between stakeholder engagement on social media, and NPO accountability. It demonstrates how robust stakeholder engagement can challenge NPOs to establish accountability, thereby bridging the information gap between themselves and the public. The use of dialogic accounting theory allows the study to shift from the traditional focus of accounting research, which is the financial objectives of powerful entities, to the voices of the marginalized, the stakeholders, who are impacted by NPO decisions, and, in doing so, it highlights the potential for NPOs to foster accountability, and so advance sustainable development initiatives.

This article is based on an interview conducted with Jane Taylor and Debbie Brenner, former joint chief executives of Owl (now Dimensions (Owl)), a provider of support services to people with learning disabilities.

This paper offers a reflection of a research process aimed at listening to young children's voices in their everyday school life through a play-based context in a Scottish school. Throughout the research process, the complexity of conducting this research was kept in mind as listening to children's voices presents methodological and conceptual difficulties and tensions. Reflecting on the research process after the data was collected, the process was critiqued using Deleuze-Guattarian ideas. The critique aims at opening and challenging each researcher, allowing them to think-again about the next research project aimed at listening to children's voices.

The research involved an observation study that took place over one week in a primary school in Central Scotland. As part of the educators' approach to play-based pedagogy, children had the opportunity to engage in free play throughout the day. Observations were chosen as the main approach to “capture” children's voices in their natural settings.

The empirical research brought forth two main ideas, that of children as agents, and how children amplify their voices through play. The reflective part offers the possibility of understanding the intensities and forces when conducting such research and the possibilities of engaging with these.

This paper offers a critique of research aimed at listening to children's voices. The aim is not to limit engagement in researching children's voices but to open, or make complex, such processes.

We recall Sidney Greenstreet's profile of Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon: ‘Upon my soul sir, you are a character, you really are.’ The same might be said of Gorby, the leader of the second most powerful country in the world, whose stated philosophy over seventy years has been: profit is a moral evil.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the experiences of conducting focus groups amongst acquaintances in naturally occurring settings, where participants were known to each other and participation was less about being recruited, and more about being there when the focus group took place.

This was a qualitative study of multi-generational experiences of teenage parenting, and used interviews and focus groups. The study took an ethnographic approach, using case studies with a small number (4) of families, plus supplementary interviews, and focus groups with teenage parents and parents-to-be.

Using focus groups in naturally occurring settings alongside other qualitative data collection affords insights into the research topic that would not otherwise be available.

The paper discusses the challenges and benefits of using naturally occurring groups, and reflects on the way the findings from these groups illuminated aspects of the study concerning relationships. It argues that naturally occurring groups have advantages over conventionally organised focus groups that contribute to a deeper understanding of relationships between members.

Purpose – This chapter examines medical consumerism and the changing relations between patients as consumers and the medical system across two women's health contexts, breast cancer and infertility.

Methodology/approach – The analysis draws on two qualitative studies: The first explores the experiences of 60 breast cancer survivors through in-depth interviews and participant observation (Sulik, 2005), and the second uses in-depth interviews to analyze 18 women's experiences with infertility (Eich-Krohm, 2000).

Findings – The medical consumer is an individualized role that shifts attention away from the quality problem in health care and toward the quality of the person as a medical consumer who is characterized to be optimistic, proactive, rational, responsible, and informed.

Research limitations/implications – As medicine has become a form of mass consumption, the category of medical consumer has elevated the individual in medical decision-making. The shift from patient to medical consumer is an ongoing process that is grounded in a tension between medical control and individual agency, and is exacerbated by the intensity and incomprehensibility of modern medicine.

Practical implications – The proliferation of medical information and personal illness narratives through the Internet, advice books, and self-help groups have advanced lay knowledge about preventive medicine and medical treatment while simultaneously introducing new fears and anxiety about the multitude of options and outcomes.

Originality/value of chapter – This study contributes to our knowledge on medical consumerism and its impact on illness experience and the synthesis of lay and professional knowledge.

The aim of this study is to investigate factors considered to impact on the research productivity of accounting academics, and identify how the factors were related. The study aims to set itself within an international context of increased workloads, and revenue‐driven research and teaching.

A meta‐analysis was conducted of international studies from accounting and related business fields, published between 1988 and 2008, that examined factors influencing the research productivity of academics. A data‐driven approach to thematic analysis was used to synthesise the results, which were categorised into two time periods.

Three clusters of factors that accounted for researcher productivity were found to have had most focus in related studies over the period. These were “Institutional characteristics”, “Intrinsic motivation” and “Knowledge, skills and other individual characteristics”. Hierarchical clusters of factors operating at government, institution and individual levels appeared to influence the research output of accounting academics.

Increased understanding of the factors that affect the research productivity of accounting academics, and how they are related, has potential to benefit individual researchers and their institutions.

Models identified in previous studies have not considered the impact of the relatively recent global market pressures on accounting academics. As the proposed model was developed from a meta‐analysis of many international studies it is likely to accommodate current global pressures better than previous models.

This paper presents a summary of international research in the field of family reading, a subject which refers both to the development of the literacy skills of family members, and to their shared process of reading.

It begins by defining the key terms in family reading, then introduces the research methods employed in research in this area.

Research specifically focusing on parents is presented, with particular reference to young parents and fathers in prison. The issue of intergenerational reading is also introduced, whereby (in this instance) the young and the elderly share experiences via reading. The final theme of the paper is that of families sharing reading for pleasure, and public reading events for families are described. The paper concludes with a series of barriers to family reading, and a suggested model of effective family reading, for families and communities in any country.

In a paper of this scale and length, it is impossible to give more than a limited perspective of international research on family reading, yet the author believes that sufficient examples are given – and the research methods sufficiently globally applicable – for the paper to be of theoretical and practical value to public and school librarians, and academics.

The paper collates and reflects on examples of international research and practice, whilst providing a solid framework of research methods in the area of family reading.