Search results

The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between sexual dissidence, gender transgression and commercial hospitality. The paper aims to argue that this can be used to examine how ideological assumptions about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) consumers are mobilised in the production and consumption of hospitality spaces.

The paper synthesises three theoretical strands: first, Turner's concepts of the liminoid and communitas; second, anthropological and socio‐political conceptions of myth and myth‐making and third, Lefebvre's spatial dialectic in the production of material, abstract and symbolic space. It is argued that, when considered together, these theoretical approaches help to understand the consumer experience, the ideological assumptions that underpin the experience, and the processes through which the experience is constructed.

The holistic nature of the approach helps to analyse the relationship between consumption and community ideologies at the micro level of personal interaction, the meso level of group and organisational norms and the macro level of societal structures and agencies.

The application of this framework in empirical research can enhance our understanding of the role of commercial hospitality spaces in reproducing and challenging particular ideological assumptions about LGBT consumers. It can inform the operational strategies of commercial organisations. Furthermore, it can underpin a critical perspective on management, which encourages practitioners to develop a sense of social responsibility towards the communities of consumers they target.

Applying this framework to empirical research will also help one to understand the nature of consumption and production within commercial hospitality.

This paper examines customers' participation in the production of commercial hospitality. Drawing on a study of queer consumers (i.e. lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals), the paper considers the ways in which frequently circulated understandings, or myths, shaped consumers' actions. The case study is used to highlight previously under examined dimensions of participation.

The paper draws on an ethnographic study of bar culture. The principal method of data collection was participant observation, which involved working at one venue for 27 months, as well as social visits throughout a five‐year period. Participant observation was complemented by semi‐structured interviews with 26 informants, 19 of whom were interviewed repeatedly during the research.

The paper suggests that three myths were evident in consumers' behavior: commonality, mutual safety, and the opportunities for liberated, playful consumption. Focusing on two particular aspects of participation: performative display and frontline labor, the paper discusses the ways in which these myths influenced patrons' actions.

The study suggests that an examination of the cultural dimensions of patronage provides crucial insights into consumer participation. The results will be relevant to social scientists and management academics seeking to understand the relationship between shared interest and identity, consumption, and the production of hospitable spaces.

This study provides a new understanding of both the nature of and motivations for consumer participation. This challenges existing approaches, which have tended to focus narrowly on the managerial aspects of participation in the service sector.

This paper investigates the process of translating a costing tool into operational use in the context of a transitional (post-communist) economy, where local institutions challenge the rationality of western methods.

By mobilizing Actor–Network Theory, in particular Callon's four moments of translation, and by drawing data from an interventionist research, the paper focuses on the process of change instilled by the implementation of a costing tool in 20 Romanian construction companies.

The costing system is initially problematized as a tool for rational decision making. However, the visibility over the accounting figures generated by the costing tool instilled new roles for the cost system to manage internal and external interdependencies. First, two costing datasets were created, one for decision making and one for tax purposes, to manage the relationship with the state taxation authorities. Second, since the costing tool generated visibility over the field practices as well, engineers convinced management to drop the decision-making set of costs. The costing tool ultimately only became used for tax optimization, an originally unintended use, reflecting its translation process.

By taking an interventionist approach, the paper contributes to theorizing accounting in transitional economies by bringing their economic idiosyncrasies into the analysis.

The results inform managers about the intended and unintended consequences of management accounting tools and about actors' role in shaping their use.

Our research responds to recent calls to study how organizations configure their control systems in a rapidly changing environment and what is the role of management accounting in these arrangements.

The purpose of this paper is to theorize the heightened exposure to information via the internet can lead citizens to be more critical about political conditions in their countries because using social media increases the likelihood of being exposed to dissident information. Further, the authors argue that the degree to which information is restricted, or internet access is limited, across countries can decrease this effect simply because the likelihood of exposure to a dissident flow is diminished.

The authors used survey data from the 2010 Latino Barometer to estimate a series of multilevel models to test whether citizens’ attitudes about the political conditions and about democracy in their respective countries worsen, and whether this effect is stronger in countries with higher internet freedom.

The results confirm that social media use has a negative influence on citizens’ attitudes about their national political conditions. In addition, respondents from those countries with more internet freedom tended to have more positive attitudes about their democracy and political conditions, generally. However, as a result of more internet freedom, the negative effects of internet and social media use on these attitudes was more pronounced in countries with more internet freedom.

These results suggest that the flow of information via the internet has substantial effect on how people feel about their government. This could be consequential for political stability, particularly in countries the conditions are not favorable. That said, these results also suggest that governments can actively decrease the odds of this dissidence building by controlling the flow of information.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight how the variety of the actors involved in a performance measurement system (PMS) innovation are spread out in time and space. Healthcare contests are examined, where such an innovation is influenced by present and past systems and practices (spread out in time), and by managerial and health-professional actors (spread out in space).

Drawing on Callon’s actor network theory, the authors describe PMS innovations as processes of translation, and distinguish between incremental and radical innovations. The theoretical arguments are used to explain the evidence drawn from a longitudinal case study carried out in an Italian public teaching hospital, referring to the period from 1998 up to 2003.

The conceptual framework shows how the translation moments lead to a recognition of the different actants involved in a PMS innovation, how their interests are interrelated and mobilized. Moreover, it shows how the interaction among the actants involved in the process is related to the type of PMS innovation, i.e. radical vs incremental. The case evidence offers detailed insights into the phenomenon, testing the explanatory power of the framework, and highlights how the failure of one of the translation moments can compromise the success of a PMS innovation.

This study differs from the extant accounting literature on PMS innovations as it highlights how the introduction of a new PMS can be affected by some elements of the previous systems “package,” which are relevant for the mobilization of the actants through the new project.

As the rate of growth in trade of developing and developed economies converges, international business is increasingly taking place in a growing assortment of political and ideological contexts with variable levels of tolerance for plural dissidence. This can create substantial challenges and risks for crosscultural adjustment and increases the potential for assignment failure. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of an authoritarian regime on the process of adjustment amongst expatriate sojourners and draw out lessons for future research and policies for relocation in similar authoritarian contexts.

This was a qualitative research study over three years making use of participant observation methods as a result of researcher immersion in the local context.

This study finds that “culture” is an insufficient category for explaining difficulties in cross-cultural adjustment and demonstrates that adjustment difficulties under authoritarianism are heightened in the proximate sociocultural context, with geo-political and ideological dynamics creating more challenging conditions of life. Increased levels of social control act to heighten psychological vulnerability amongst sojourners, resulting in coping behaviours that seek a greater degree of psychological alleviation and companionship through more resource-intensive supportive networks and a tendency toward enclavism, thus inhibiting sociocultural adjustment to the host society.

Research needs to recognise more fully the diverse nature of contexts in cross-cultural adjustment. Future research should explore different types of contexts and assess what sort of challenges may arise in relation to the process of psychological and sociocultural adjustment and the adjustive resources required to overcome them.

The paper contributes to the understanding of the psychological and sociocultural challenges of international relocation in an authoritarian context and serves as valuable insight for relocation planning in similar conditions, which are an ever-increasing feature of international business.

This paper gives a unique insight into international relocation in Cuba and draws out the areas of concern for cross-cultural adjustment under authoritarian conditions, an ever-increasing feature of international business. It serves as an example of how context-based research can inform cross-cultural theory and practice within an evolving landscape of doing business globally.

This paper aims to use the cultural agency theory (CAT) formulated to represent a personality in which multiple identities reside. Dynamic identity theory is used to explain the relationship between the multiple identities, which impact on personality creating imperatives for behaviour. The mindset agency theory (MAT), a development of CAT, is used to evaluate the personal and public identities of Theresa May, the UK Prime Minister in 2017, to determine whether there is a psychological reason for the political inconsistency she demonstrated prior to and during the UK general election campaign.

CAT connects identity and personality theories and is elaborated on conceptually to include the dynamic identity theory, which explains how identities develop. Developing identities result in personality adjustments through trait movements. The theory is applied to Theresa May, the UK Prime Minister in 2017. A selection of her election narratives is taken, and summative content analysis is applied. Her public and personal identities are examined in this way. Data results are tested for reliability, and her public and personal identities are compared using MAT.

Theresa May’s personal and public identities, while related, have some differences, suggesting a clinical explanation for her political inconsistencies.

There is no other current theory that explains the relationship between personality and identity and can evaluate personality using a qualitative–quantitative approach, undertaking a comparative evaluation of multiple identities to explain clinical psychological conditions.

This paper presents an in‐depth study of the processes of constructing a new strategy in a large Danish government‐owned ferry company undergoing privatisation. To explain the emerging characteristics of accounting, the sociology of translation is used. The paper provides a story of a translation of strategy and related management initiatives using Callon's four moments of translation. The story illustrates how, during the translation process, accounting changed its characteristics and uses from principles of control to principles of financialisation. Such emergent forms of accounting also reflect the political manoeuvring in the organisation as the result of network relationships. However, networks are open to erosion and undermining by active agents, changing the purposes of accounting. Whereas other authors within accounting, applying the sociology of translation, usually conceptualise accounting as inscriptions, this study explicates accounting as an interessement device. Finally, the study suggests that the sociology of translation may be a promising explication of accounting change.