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1 – 10 of 295The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the development of understanding of the social processes involved in business engagement and understanding of the role of knowledge…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the development of understanding of the social processes involved in business engagement and understanding of the role of knowledge transfer practitioners. It is also to provide the first outlines of a theoretical framework of business engagement between higher education institutions and business, through the lens of complexity theory.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on research that explored the actions of a group of actors within a university Business School as they attempted to develop a range of business engagement activities. The data were analysed using a narrative event sequence methodology designed to deal systematically with the relationship between events occurring over time. The events were linked into a progression to create temporal maps which provided the basis for data collection and conceptual analysis.
Findings
A space of possibilities was created by participants in the faculty to engage with industry that was adjacent to the teaching and learning space. The adjacent space set out to provide the business development team different expectations they could exploit to generate new interactions beyond the boundaries of the teaching and learning space. It was for the business development team to exploit the generative potential of the adjacent space by creating emergent events which developed halting as a non‐linear progression that juxtaposed extinction and emergent events. In their interactions the business development managers had continually to reconcile the tension between compliance and generative potential through use of individual judgement.
Practical implications
In developing business engagement activity consideration should be given to the contradictory world the business development managers act within and the constraints they experience. Through the examination of the events, lessons can be learned that enhance the generative potential of the business development manager.
Originality/value
The theoretical outline of this paper provides an initial framework within which to examine the role of the business development manager.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore the state of extinction accounting, and the motivations for its use in the UK public sector. Prior studies are mostly concerned with…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the state of extinction accounting, and the motivations for its use in the UK public sector. Prior studies are mostly concerned with corporate attempts to account for species, despite studies in related areas calling for examinations of the public sector context.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper analyses the use of extinction accounting in three separate case organisations, conducting a total of 21 interviews across the three cases. Interviews were conducted with a range of organisational participants each having experience with extinction accounting.
Findings
Interviews reveal a number of common uses and applications of extinction accounting across the three councils. Practices are used to generate reports on species loss and recovery within each region, and to facilitate planning for species protection and recovery. However, in attempting to use this information, key trade-offs emerge between satisfying economic and ecological criteria, and even trade-offs are created regarding development of protection schemes. This leads to a subversion of extinction accounting.
Research limitations/implications
Commensurate with prior studies in the corporate context, the study finds the presence of an economic logic impinging upon ecological decision making, suggesting that practices of extinction accounting may be affected by the same acknowledged economic motivations that reside in corporate attempts to account for nature.
Originality/value
The paper makes an important contribution by evaluating the public sector context of extinction accounting, which is lacking in existing research. The findings relating to the public sector use of species and extinction information also provide a useful context to understand how relatively new social and environmental accounting practices are deployed in organisations, as well as some indication of their effectiveness and limitations.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species in achieving biodiversity…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species in achieving biodiversity conservation and preventing the extinction of species. The Red List is a calculative device that classifies species in terms of their exposure to the risk of extinction.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on theorising in the Social Studies of Finance literature to analyse the Red List in terms of how it frames a space of calculability for species extinction. The analysis then traces the ways that this framing has overflowed, creating conditions for calculative innovations, such that assemblages of humans and calculative devices (i.e. agencements) are constructed with collective capabilities to act to conserve biodiversity and prevent species extinctions.
Findings
This paper has traced three ways that the Red List frame has overflowed, leading to calculative innovations and the construction of new agencements. The overflow of relations between the quality of “extinction risk”, produced by the Red List, and other qualities, such as location, has created opportunities for conservationists to develop agencements capable of formulating conservation strategies. The overflow of relations between the identity of the “threatened species”, produced by the Red List, and other features of evaluated species, has created opportunities for conservationists to develop agencements capable of impelling participation in conservation efforts. The overflow of ecological relations between species, discarded by the Red List’s hierarchical metrology of extinction risk classifications, has created opportunities for conservationists to develop agencements capable of confronting society with the reality of an extinction crisis.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the accounting for biodiversity literature by addressing its fundamental challenge: explaining how accounting can create conditions within society in which biodiversity conservation is made possible.
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We are currently experiencing what is often called the sixth period of mass extinction on planet Earth, caused undoubtedly by the impact of human activities and businesses on…
Abstract
Purpose
We are currently experiencing what is often called the sixth period of mass extinction on planet Earth, caused undoubtedly by the impact of human activities and businesses on nature. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential for accounting and corporate accountability to contribute to extinction prevention. The paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach, weaving scientific evidence and theory into organisational disclosure and reporting in order to demonstrate linkages between extinction, business behaviour, accounting and accountability as well as to provide a basis for developing a framework for narrative disclosure on extinction prevention.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is theoretical and interdisciplinary in approach, seeking to bring together scientific theories of extinction with a need for corporate and organisational accountability whilst recognising philosophical concerns in the extant environmental accounting literature about accepting any business role and capitalist mechanisms in ecological matters. The overarching framework derives from the concept of emancipatory accounting.
Findings
The outcome of the writing is to: present an emancipatory “extinction accounting” framework which can be embedded within integrated reports, and a diagrammatic representation, in the form of an “ark”, of accounting and accountability mechanisms which, combined, can assist, the authors argue, in preventing extinction. The authors suggest that the emancipatory framework may also be applied to engagement meetings between the responsible investor community (and non-governmental organisations (NGOs)) and organisations on biodiversity and species protection.
Research limitations/implications
The exploratory extinction accounting and accountability frameworks within this paper should provide a basis for further research into the emancipatory potential for organisational disclosures and mechanisms of governance and accountability to prevent species extinction.
Practical implications
The next steps for researchers and practitioners involve development and implementation of the extinction accounting and engagement frameworks presented in this paper within integrated reporting and responsible investor practice.
Social implications
As outlined in this paper, extinction of any species of flora and fauna can affect significantly the functioning of local and global ecosystems, the destruction of which can have, and is having, severe and dangerous consequences for human life. Extinction prevention is critically important to the survival of the human race.
Originality/value
This paper represents a comprehensive attempt to explore the emancipatory role of accounting in extinction prevention and to bring together the linkages in accounting and accountability mechanisms which, working together, can prevent species extinction.
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Anja Danner-Schröder and Gordon Müller-Seitz
Tensions arising from temporary versus permanent forms of organising are a managerially relevant and commonplace phenomenon. How ensuing tensions unfold and what implications this…
Abstract
Tensions arising from temporary versus permanent forms of organising are a managerially relevant and commonplace phenomenon. How ensuing tensions unfold and what implications this has for organising responses across different levels of organising is the key concern of our inquiry. The authors draw upon a case study of what has been dubbed the German refugee crisis to make three contributions to the literature on managing temporary organisational phenomena: First, the authors offer a temporal continuum along which one can distinguish between comparatively fast responses of emergent temporary organisations on the micro-level and relatively slow responses by macro-level institutions that are predominantly engaged in permanent organising. The authors built upon this continuum to highlight the role of temporal lags, which arise from the different reaction times of micro- and macro-level organisations and which is filled by the respective other organisational form, a phenomenon the authors label temporal co-dependence. Second, the authors offer a distinction between deliberate and emergent forms of temporal organising. Third, the authors unearth boundary conditions that make the likelihood of this interplay between different levels possible.
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Jill Atkins, Warren Maroun, Barry Colin Atkins and Elisabetta Barone
The purpose of this paper is to explore a possible framework for extinction accounting which builds on but also extends significantly the existing GRI guidelines relating to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore a possible framework for extinction accounting which builds on but also extends significantly the existing GRI guidelines relating to species identified by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List as under threat of extinction.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper analyses disclosures relating to rhinoceros conservation and protection produced by top South African-listed companies in order to assess the current state of “extinction accounting”. Following this analysis, the authors explore and discuss a potential framework for extinction accounting which may be used by companies to demonstrate their accountability for species and disclose the ways in which they are working alone, and in partnerships, to prevent species extinction.
Findings
Corporate disclosures relating to rhinoceros may be interpreted as emancipatory. The authors identify several disclosure themes dealing with rhinoceros in integrated and sustainability reports of large South African companies and on their websites. Contrary to initial expectations, there is evidence to suggest corporate awareness of the importance of addressing the risk of this species becoming extinct.
Research limitations/implications
The authors have relied on public corporate disclosures and would like to extend the work further to include interview data for a further paper.
Practical implications
An extinction accounting framework may be applied to corporate accounting and accountability for any species under threat of extinction. The framework may also be considered for use as a tool for institutional investors as well as NGO engagement and dialogue with stakeholder companies.
Social implications
The rhinoceros has, from the analysis, significant cultural, heritage, eco-tourism and intrinsic value. Developing and implementing an emancipatory extinction accounting framework to prevent extinction will have a substantial social and environmental impact.
Originality/value
This is the first attempt to the knowledge to explore accounting for extinction and a possible extinction accounting framework. It is also the first attempt to investigate accounting and accountability for the rhinoceros.
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This paper provides a detailed survey of the greatest dangers facing humanity this century. It argues that there are three broad classes of risks – the “Great Challenges” – that…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper provides a detailed survey of the greatest dangers facing humanity this century. It argues that there are three broad classes of risks – the “Great Challenges” – that deserve our immediate attention, namely, environmental degradation, which includes climate change and global biodiversity loss; the distribution of unprecedented destructive capabilities across society by dual-use emerging technologies; and value-misaligned algorithms that exceed human-level intelligence in every cognitive domain. After examining each of these challenges, the paper then outlines a handful of additional issues that are relevant to understanding our existential predicament and could complicate attempts to overcome the Great Challenges. The central aim of this paper is to constitute an authoritative resource, insofar as this is possible in a scholarly journal, for scholars who are working on or interested in existential risks. In the author’s view, this is precisely the sort of big-picture analysis that humanity needs more of, if we wish to navigate the obstacle course of existential dangers before us.
Design/methodology/approach
Comprehensive literature survey that culminates in a novel theoretical framework for thinking about global-scale risks.
Findings
If humanity wishes to survive and prosper in the coming centuries, then we must overcome three Great Challenges, each of which is sufficient to cause a significant loss of expected value in the future.
Originality/value
The Great Challenges framework offers a novel scheme that highlights the most pressing global-scale risks to human survival and prosperity. The author argues that the “big-picture” approach of this paper exemplifies the sort of scholarship that humanity needs more of to properly understand the various existential hazards that are unique to the twenty-first century.
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Organizational researchers live in two worlds. The first demands and rewards speculations about how to improve performance. The second demands and rewards adherence to rigorous…
Abstract
Organizational researchers live in two worlds. The first demands and rewards speculations about how to improve performance. The second demands and rewards adherence to rigorous standards of scholarship (March & Sutton, 1997, p. 698).Those of us who study organizations and are professors of management work on the front lines, so to speak, where the beliefs we have about how to improve managerial performance get passed directly on to practitioners. The question is, What right do we have to put our beliefs in a privileged position? Beliefs, by definition, are supposed to be true. According to Webster’s (1996) a belief is a conviction about the truth of some statement and/or reality of some phenomenon, especially when based on examination of evidence. Are all of our lectures based on consensually agreed upon evidentiary standards? What are these standards and who should maintain them?
Jill Frances Atkins, Federica Doni, Karen McBride and Christopher Napier
This paper seeks to broaden the agenda for environmental and ecological accounting research across several dimensions, extending the form of accounting in this field by…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to broaden the agenda for environmental and ecological accounting research across several dimensions, extending the form of accounting in this field by encouraging research into its historical roots and developing a definition of accounting that can address the severe environmental and ecological challenges of the 21st century.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors explored environmental and ecological accounts from the dawn of human consciousness across a wide variety of media and in a broad range of forms. This theoretical approach reacts to the cold capitalist commodification of nature inherent in much environmental accounting practice, which documents, values and records usage of natural capital with little attempt to address depletion and loss.
Findings
By analysing the earliest ecological and environmental “accounts” recorded by humans at the dawn of human consciousness, and considering a wide array of subsequent accounts, the authors demonstrate that rather than being a secondary, relatively recent development emerging from financial accounting and reporting, environmental and ecological accounting predated financial accounting by tens of thousands of years. This research also provides a wealth of perspectives on diversity, not only in forms of account but also in the diversity of accountants, as well as the broadness of the stakeholders to whom and to which the accounts are rendered.
Research limitations/implications
The paper can be placed at the intersection of accounting history, the alternative, interdisciplinary and critical accounts literature, and environmental and ecological accounting research.
Practical implications
Practically, the authors can draw ideas and inspiration from the historical forms and content of ecological and environmental account that can inform new forms of and approaches to accounting.
Social implications
There are social implications including the diversity of accounts and accountants derived from studying historical ecological and environmental accounts from the dawn of human consciousness especially in the broadening out of the authors' understanding of the origins and cultural roots of accounting.
Originality/value
This study concludes with a new definition of accounting, fit for purpose in the 21st century, that integrates ecological, environmental concerns and is emancipatory, aiming to restore nature, revive biodiversity, conserve species and enhance ecosystems.
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