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Book part
Publication date: 1 May 2009

Kala Saravanamuthu

Scientists are constructing knowledge about global warming by adapting evidence-based disciplines to reflect the Precautionary Principle. It is equally important to communicate…

Abstract

Scientists are constructing knowledge about global warming by adapting evidence-based disciplines to reflect the Precautionary Principle. It is equally important to communicate the complexities and uncertainties underpinning global warming because inappropriate vehicles for giving accounts could result in defensive decisions that perpetuate the business-as-usual mindset: the method of communication affects how the risk associated with global warming is socialised. Appropriately constructed accounts should facilitate reflective communicative action. Here Beck's theorisation of risk society, Luhmann's sociological theory of risk and Gandhi's vehicle of communicative action (or satyagraha) are used to construct a risk-based accountability mechanism, whilst providing insight into Schumacher's concept of total accountability. These accountability constructs will be illustrated through the lived experiences of South Australian citrus horticulturists in the context of a richly layered narrative of competing discourses about global warming. The reiterative process of theory informing practice is used to construct a couple of dialogical vehicles of accountability.

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Extending Schumacher's Concept of Total Accounting and Accountability into the 21st Century
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-301-9

Book part
Publication date: 26 August 2016

Elena Gutiérrez-García and Mónica Recalde

Dialogue has been an elusive concept for academics when it comes to its definition within organisational contexts. In spite of the vast amount of academic research, it is not easy…

Abstract

Dialogue has been an elusive concept for academics when it comes to its definition within organisational contexts. In spite of the vast amount of academic research, it is not easy to find concrete proposals – both from theoretical and empirical standpoints – that analyse how companies manage dialogue processes with their stakeholders. The aim of this chapter is to fill this gap by highlighting the role of dialogue in strategic decision-making processes. In order to achieve this purpose, this work is structured into two parts. Firstly, multidisciplinary literature regarding how Public Relations and Management studies research on dialogue is reviewed. Secondly, the chapter presents a managerial proposal of dialogue for decision-making processes called the IDEA model. This chapter aims to scale back the theoretical fragmentation of the concept of dialogue while looking into its practicality based on an original proposal for scholars and practitioners.

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The Management Game of Communication
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-716-8

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Book part
Publication date: 8 November 2011

Jane Gibbon and Philip Angier

Purpose – The chapter is concerned with the practice of social accounting as enabling understanding and development of accountability relationships within a global values-based…

Abstract

Purpose – The chapter is concerned with the practice of social accounting as enabling understanding and development of accountability relationships within a global values-based organisation operating with those in emerging and less developed countries.

Design/methodology/approach – The research takes a case-based approach to the experience of social accounting and reporting from 2005 to 2009 with Shared Interest Society, an international fair trade finance organisation.

Findings – The findings are better understandings of how accountability relationships within the case organisation are developed over time through social accounts. Shared Interest's social accounts suggest a way to move towards understandings of accountability that acknowledge organisational values and the needs and expectations of different stakeholder groupings.

Research limitations/implications – The research examines a single organisation with a particular focus on their social accounts. Nevertheless, this offers considerable insight into how accountability is developed within a single organisational setting.

Social implications – Through social accounting, awareness of issues concerning fair trade can be raised at an organisational, local and national level. The case organisation is underpinned by the fundamental value of working for the common good to benefit humanity and/or the planet rather than working for individual gain using financial assets held for the benefit of society, in this case through the financing of international fair trade within developing nations where fair trade is seen as part of a solution to bring benefit to the world's poorest people.

Originality/value – The research responds to a lack of empirical studies within social accounting addressing fieldwork exploration in ‘values-based’ organisations and specifically co-operative-based organisations where social accounts are used to communicate with stakeholders, in this case at the level of fair trade producers.

Book part
Publication date: 22 July 2021

Iris Wallenburg, Anne Essén and Roland Bal

Performance metrics have become widely used and much lamented – about tools for measuring healthcare quality. In this paper, the authors reflect on the development and use of…

Abstract

Performance metrics have become widely used and much lamented – about tools for measuring healthcare quality. In this paper, the authors reflect on the development and use of performance metrics in healthcare regulation and clinical practice. Studying multi-actor settings of performance measurement systems in healthcare in Sweden and the Netherlands, the authors show how regulatory agencies (i.e., the inspectorate and national registries), patients, hospitals, and practitioners engage in the constitution of healthcare practices through developing performance indicators that form the input for ranking, ensuing intensive dialogues on what should be measured and accounted for, and to what effects. The authors analyze this process as caring for numbers. The authors discern two practices of caring for numbers: validating and contexting. Validating refers to the practices of making numbers reflect those practices they intend to depict; contexting is about how with the use of numbers specific contexts of healthcare are built. These processes together emphasize the performative character of numbers as well as the reflexive uses of performativity. The paper shows how collaborative and rather pragmatic practices of caring for numbers co-construct specific practices of healthcare. Though this reflexive entanglement of production and use of numbers actors not only constitute specific performance metrics and ranking practices but also perform healthcare.

Book part
Publication date: 28 June 2011

Vicky Duckworth

This case study explores the organisational culture at Edge Hill University (EHU), seeking to identify how practitioners operate to provide equitable opportunities for access and…

Abstract

This case study explores the organisational culture at Edge Hill University (EHU), seeking to identify how practitioners operate to provide equitable opportunities for access and participation in community engagement and higher education.

EHU works within a governance model, where there is shared responsibility for the widening participation (WP) agenda. This is promoted across and within its three faculty structure of Education; Health; and Humanities, Management, Social and Applied Sciences (HMSAS) strengthened by the WP service. Innovative, collaborative and pro-active approaches to WP are encouraged with staff inspired to take ownership of decisions and have autonomy. This allows the freedom to engage in institutional and community projects for example, incorporating pre-entry experiences such as taster sessions, as well as post-arrival teaching, and providing access to guidance and student services.

There is no doubt that educationalists can play an instrumental role in the academic and personal development of students with whom they interact, this interaction is in part governed by the institutional culture. This may be empowering or disempowering both on them and the local and wider communities they serve. Social justice in education requires active work by the whole of the institution allowing ‘communities’ to change both within and out of the university, where environmental circumstances may negatively impact on shaping the learning journey (LJ) of students.

The study presents an argument which drives the WP agenda forward encouraging engagement of educationalists, policy makers, social justice activists and communities to collaborate in pushing forward innovative, flexible and pro-active ways to develop meaningful knowledge.

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Institutional Transformation to Engage a Diverse Student Body
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-904-3

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Book part
Publication date: 6 March 2017

Michael K. Shaub

The purpose of this chapter is to describe an accounting ethics course whose purpose, in part, is to short circuit the process that leads to foolish ethical decisions by…

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to describe an accounting ethics course whose purpose, in part, is to short circuit the process that leads to foolish ethical decisions by professional accountants. In addressing how to make ethical decisions, the course deliberately includes processes intended to develop wisdom and to impede reflexive decisions that reflect the five fallacies of thinking. The approach described represents an active, engaging approach to increasing dialogical and dialectical reasoning in students’ pursuit of wisdom through individual selection of outside reading, engaging speakers, and the use of ethics accountability groups. The course is adaptable to large and small class settings where the professor desires extensive interaction among students, and it creates an environment designed to help students develop self-chosen principles to guide their professional lives. Students take responsibility for developing self-determined principles to guide their professional lives. Clearly identifying these principles provides students a basis for resisting ethical compromises in their careers. The course focuses students on developing wisdom and recognizing the weaknesses in a purely calculation-based moral reasoning.

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Advances in Accounting Education: Teaching and Curriculum Innovations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-180-3

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Book part
Publication date: 17 November 2017

Debra Talbot

The influence of extralocally produced texts, such as professional standards and systems of accreditation, on the ruling relations that govern teachers’ work and their learning…

Abstract

The influence of extralocally produced texts, such as professional standards and systems of accreditation, on the ruling relations that govern teachers’ work and their learning about that work is a matter of concern in Australia, as it is in Canada, UK, and USA. This chapter explains how a dialogic analysis and the construction of individual maps of social relations were employed to reveal the influences that governed teachers’ learning about their work at the frontline. A dialogic analysis of research conversations about learning, based on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, revealed the existence of both centralizing, hegemonic discourses associated with a managerial agenda and contextualized, heterogeneous discourses supportive of transformative learning. It also revealed the uneven influence of extralocally produced governing texts on both the locally produced texts and the “doings” of individuals. The production and use of “individual” maps represents a variation on the way “mapping” has generally been used by institutional ethnographers. From these informant specific maps, we can begin to observe some broad patterns in relation to the coordination of people’s “doings” both within a given context and from one context to another.

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Perspectives on and from Institutional Ethnography
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-653-2

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Book part
Publication date: 13 August 2018

Lorenzo Patelli

Purpose – To show the properties of performance measurement and management systems (PMMS) used dialogically and the association between the dialogic use of PMMS and the

Abstract

Purpose – To show the properties of performance measurement and management systems (PMMS) used dialogically and the association between the dialogic use of PMMS and the characteristics of the organizational relationships between parent companies and foreign subsidiaries.

Design/Methodology/Approach – Data were collected through a questionnaire e-mailed to large foreign subsidiaries of multinational firms operating in various industries. Hypotheses regarding factors associated with the extent to which PMMS are used dialogically between parent companies and foreign subsidiaries were tested based on responses to 136 usable questionnaires (45% response rate).

Findings – PMMS are used more dialogically within relationships between parent companies and subsidiaries characterized by subsidiary strategic role and organizational interdependence. Measurement diversity and perceived comprehensiveness of PMMS are higher if PMMS are used more dialogically. Finally, the dialogic use of PMMS is positively associated with subsidiary size and the emphasis on collaboration in the parent company’s national culture.

Originality/Value – In contrast to prior management accounting research that is focused on the outcomes of different styles of use of PMMS, this study shows organizational characteristics and PMMS properties associated with the dialogic use of PMMS. Moreover, this study advances the traditional view of the international business literature that conceives PMMS as bureaucratic systems employed by parent companies to coercively control foreign subsidiaries.

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Advances in Management Accounting
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-440-4

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Book part
Publication date: 24 June 2017

Luísa Augusto

This chapter aims to understand the communication practices of CSR in technological environments, specifically corporate websites. It is important to know what are the dimensions…

Abstract

This chapter aims to understand the communication practices of CSR in technological environments, specifically corporate websites. It is important to know what are the dimensions of CSR most valued in online communication, what content is more widespread, and if there is dialogic communication between organizations and different stakeholders. It was used a quantitative method of analysis, using the expanded web content analysis. It was based on the study results of the 1,000 largest Portuguese companies published by the Economic Journal in 2014. The chapter includes the analysis of the best companies from 24 sectors of activity of Portugal. Portuguese organizations use their websites to communicate about CSR practices. A large majority of companies dedicate to these subjects a higher number of pages. The findings indicate that the issues disseminated are various, but the predominance content is related to environmental dimension. Results suggest a low level of dialogic dimension adoption. It is proposed a theoretical framework of online communication of CSR that integrates a set of indicators from three interlinked dimensions: the technical dimension, the informational dimension and dialogical dimension, considering the different kind of publics and the different practice areas inherent to CSR. This framework is a contribution to the deepening of knowledge and understanding of online communication of CSR practices, on the perspective of public relations theory. It has practical implications to communication, because it proposes guidelines that should be considered in an effective online communication of CSR in organizations of various sectors of activity in Portugal. It is proposed a theoretical framework of an effective online communication of CSR that integrates a set of indicators from three interlinked dimensions that are part of the dialogical capacity of organizations.

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Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Governance
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-411-8

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Book part
Publication date: 23 March 2017

Barbara de Lima Voss, David Bernard Carter and Bruno Meirelles Salotti

We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in…

Abstract

We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in the construction of hegemonies in SEA research in Brazil. In particular, we examine the role of hegemony in relation to the co-option of SEA literature and sustainability in the Brazilian context by the logic of development for economic growth in emerging economies. The methodological approach adopts a post-structural perspective that reflects Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The study employs a hermeneutical, rhetorical approach to understand and classify 352 Brazilian research articles on SEA. We employ Brown and Fraser’s (2006) categorizations of SEA literature to help in our analysis: the business case, the stakeholder–accountability approach, and the critical case. We argue that the business case is prominent in Brazilian studies. Second-stage analysis suggests that the major themes under discussion include measurement, consulting, and descriptive approach. We argue that these themes illustrate the degree of influence of the hegemonic politics relevant to emerging economics, as these themes predominantly concern economic growth and a capitalist context. This paper discusses trends and practices in the Brazilian literature on SEA and argues that the focus means that SEA avoids critical debates of the role of capitalist logics in an emerging economy concerning sustainability. We urge the Brazilian academy to understand the implications of its reifying agenda and engage, counter-hegemonically, in a social and political agenda beyond the hegemonic support of a particular set of capitalist interests.

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Advances in Environmental Accounting & Management: Social and Environmental Accounting in Brazil
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-376-4

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