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1 – 10 of over 1000
Article
Publication date: 19 July 2021

Gareth Evans, Joanne Lusher and Stephen Day

The qualitative characteristics of decision-useful financial information (as set out in the revised March 2018 Conceptual Framework for financial reporting of the International…

Abstract

Purpose

The qualitative characteristics of decision-useful financial information (as set out in the revised March 2018 Conceptual Framework for financial reporting of the International Accounting Standards Board [IASB]) are fundamental for standard setting relied on by companies when making accounting policy changes and choices. However, there has not been an overarching universally agreed conceptual context of the qualitative characteristics. This paper aims to study the completeness of the qualitative characteristics towards suggesting a revision of the Conceptual Framework.

Design/methodology/approach

The present study evaluated the completeness of these qualitative characteristics using Foucauldian critical discourse analysis and content analysis paradigms to elucidate the inclusion conundrum. Foucauldian analysis allowed focus on power relationships, governmentality and subjectification in accounting society, as expressed through language and practices of the IASB who ultimately decide on the qualitative characteristics. Content analysis was used to analyse data collected via interviews with preparers and users of banks’ accounts, changes in banks’ accounting policies after the conceptual framework was published and comment letters from banks who wrote to the IASB.

Findings

Novel findings from this study revealed the potential significant omissions of the constraints of “materiality”, “transparency” and “regulatory/supervisory framework”. Also, surrounding the qualitative characteristics having been shown to be valid and includable, the adjective “decision-useful” reinstated in the chapter title and the IASB project team technical writers needing to show completeness of attention to all comments.

Originality/value

From these findings, a freshly formulated chapter in the conceptual framework on the qualitative characteristics can now be submitted for consideration by the IASB, with potential for international post-implementation review.

Details

Journal of Financial Reporting and Accounting, vol. 20 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1985-2517

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 March 2022

Molefeng Isaac Riba and Ian Peter Saunderson

The purpose of this paper is to discuss stigma and insensitive communication surrounding mental illness discourse amongst adolescents in the Polokwane Local Municipality against…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss stigma and insensitive communication surrounding mental illness discourse amongst adolescents in the Polokwane Local Municipality against the background of a Foucauldian lens.

Design/methodology/approach

The literature reviewed included a discussion of perspectives on stigma and insensitive communication, contextualisation of the dual health–belief system in South Africa and the Foucauldian governmentality theoretical perspective. The methodology was based on a Foucauldian orientation and Geertz’ interpretivism. The methods followed to analyse the discourse were Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA), coupled with Geertz' “thick description.” The data were collected from six focus group discussions, which consisted of a total of 36 informants.

Findings

The findings indicated the dominance of the biomedicine discourse, neoliberal rationalisations for self-care and the policy of deinstitutionalisation.

Practical implications

The implications for practice using an FDA approach combined with an interpretivist stance exposes the actions, institutions, possibilities for action whilst understanding core beliefs in a complex dual health and religious belief setting. The addition of Geertz’s interpretivism adds a cultural flare and insight, which adds to the depth of the analysis.

Originality/value

The complexity of beliefs, experiences and health choices calls for culturally sensitive discourse about mental illness and also highlights how discourse about individual conduct and self-care is embedded in the discourse used by adolescents.

Details

The Journal of Mental Health Training, Education and Practice, vol. 17 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-6228

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 2005

Tony Tinker

The purpose of this paper is to explore the core meaning of critical research.

3622

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the core meaning of critical research.

Design/methodology/approach

It begins by noting the frequent divergence between “Real” history (which always marches to its own beat) and academic reflection that often fails to follow the beat of a progressive drum. Indeed, rather than facilitating a productive historical movement, scholarship may, at times, window‐dress brutality. These questions are examined by drawing on pertinent literature in social theory and cultural analysis. This work cautions that only continuous, unconditional, self‐reflective criticism provides a navigational path between barbarism and enlightenment. It proposes harnessing our full repository of critical scholarship to renew ever‐relevant forms of praxis (This is not the same notion of “practical” that involves berating workers in suits and white shirts.)

Findings

Unfortunately, an examination of contemporary progressive accounting literature exposes fundamental departures from these standards for criticism; that many fields have lapsed into a form relativism, enabling highly conservative political agendas. This degeneration is instigated at the outset of research, through an inappropriate choice of initial object for analysis (or “root metaphor”).

Research implications

To address the predicament, this paper proposes a greater self‐awareness in framing the initial starting point, using a procedure drawn from Hegel and Marx's dialectics. To “test’ this methodology, the paper examines four streams of progressive accounting research: professional (e.g. Brilovian) analysis, Foucauldian (culturalist) studies, ethnographic studies, and epistemic contributions.

Originality/value

Each review offers suggestions for a dialectical reconstruction of the original, including a revised initial starting point (object) for the analysis.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 18 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 May 2016

Scott Hamilton Dewey

The purpose of this paper is to provide a close, detailed analysis of the frequency, nature, and depth of visible use of two of Foucault’s classic early works, The Archaeology of

1700

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide a close, detailed analysis of the frequency, nature, and depth of visible use of two of Foucault’s classic early works, The Archaeology of Knowledge and The Order of Things, by library, and information science/studies (LIS) scholars.

Design/methodology/approach

The study involved conducting extensive full-text searches in a large number of electronically available LIS journal databases to find citations of Foucault’s works, then examining each citing article and each individual citation to evaluate the nature and depth of each use.

Findings

Contrary to initial expectations, the works in question are relatively little used by LIS scholars in journal articles, and where they are used, such use is often only vague, brief, or in passing. In short, works traditionally seen as central and foundational to discourse analysis appear relatively little in discussions of discourse.

Research limitations/implications

The study was limited to a certain batch of LIS journal articles that are electronically available in full text at UCLA, where the study was conducted. The results potentially could change by focussing on a fuller or different collection of journals or on non-journal literature. More sophisticated bibliometric techniques could reveal different relative performance among journals. Other research approaches, such as discourse analysis, social network analysis, or scholar interviews, might reveal patterns of use and influence that are not visible in the journal literature.

Originality/value

This study’s intensive, in-depth study of quality as well as quantity of citations challenges some existing assumptions regarding citation analysis and the sociology of citation practices, plus illuminating Foucault scholarship.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 72 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 23 May 2022

Daigy Varghese and Shubha Ranganathan

The purpose of this paper is to foreground the importance of context in discourse analysis by drawing on a study of online gender talk on Facebook in India.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to foreground the importance of context in discourse analysis by drawing on a study of online gender talk on Facebook in India.

Design/methodology/approach

Using Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA), this study explored participants’ use of language to construct and perform various identities in online gender talk. This study discusses the methods used and challenges in analyzing digital spaces through FDA, focusing specifically on the importance of an ethnographic perspective to contextualize online talk.

Findings

Engagement with the larger socio-cultural context of the subject of study through various data collection methods enhanced our understanding of the contexts behind text. It helped the authors to explore the data from multiple directions from a Foucauldian framework. This study found that people constructed a “progressive” identity when talking about gender on Facebook.

Originality/value

There are very few studies combining discourse analysis and digital ethnography and this paper seeks to do that. Digital ethnography helps to look beyond the text and locate text in the larger socio-cultural context. To emphasize the importance of context in discourse analysis, this study engages with both online and offline data as online talk is connected with offline contexts in many significant ways. In this paper, the authors provide a description on various methodological steps used to collect and analyze online data using FDA.

Details

Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, vol. 20 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-996X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 June 2015

Netta Iivari, Marianne Kinnula and Leena Kuure

Children have been recognized as an important user group for information and communication technology (ICT) and methods for involving them in ICT design have already been devised…

Abstract

Purpose

Children have been recognized as an important user group for information and communication technology (ICT) and methods for involving them in ICT design have already been devised. However, there is a lack of research on children’s genuine or authentic participation in ICT design as well as a lack of critical research scrutinizing how “children” and “their participation” actually end up constructed in ICT design. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

An intervention involving children in ICT design following the research strategy of nexus analysis was implemented. A qualitative data archive of this intervention is examined through a Foucauldian lens.

Findings

The study reveals that numerous discourses were relied on when talking about “children” and “their participation” in the case project: the discourses of participation, equality, domination, segregation, rebellion, and patronization were identified. Moreover, “children” were constructed as equal partners and influential, but also as ignorant, ignored, silent, and silencing each other. Some of the findings are in line with the existing ICT literature on the matter, others even with the literature on genuine participation of children. However, children and their participation were also constructed as “problematic” in many senses.

Research limitations/implications

The study contributes to and opens up avenues for critical research on genuine participation of users, especially children.

Practical implications

Practical suggestions for researchers interested in participation of children in ICT design are provided.

Originality/value

While research literature offers an abundance of best practices and an idealized view on children and their participation, this study shows the multitude of challenges involved and discourses circulating around.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 28 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 September 2017

Azrini Wahidin and Jason Powell

The purpose of this paper is to critically explore the importance of the experiences of female former combatants during the Irish Conflict, colloquially known as “The Troubles”…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to critically explore the importance of the experiences of female former combatants during the Irish Conflict, colloquially known as “The Troubles” and outline key moments of resistance for female political prisoners during their time at Armagh jail. The paper will situate the analysis within a Foucauldian framework drawing on theoretical tools for understanding power, resistance and subjectivity to contextualise and capture rich narratives and experiences. What makes a Foucauldian analysis of former female combatants of the Conflict so inspiring is how the animation and location of problems of knowledge as “pieces” of the larger contest between The State, institutions of power and its penal subjects (ex-female combatants as prisoners). The paper has demonstrated that the body exists through and in culture, the product of signs and meanings, of discourse and practices.

Design/methodology/approach

This is primarily qualitative methodology underpinned by Foucauldian theory. There were 28 women and 20 men interviewed in the course of this research came from across Ireland, some came from cities and others came from rural areas. Some had spent time in prisons in the UK and others served time in the Republic of Ireland or in the North of Ireland. Many prisoners experienced being on the run and all experienced levels of brutality at the hands of the State. Ethical approval was granted from the Queens University Research Committee.

Findings

This paper only examines the experiences of female ex-combatants and their narratives of imprisonment. What this paper clearly shows through the narratives of the women is the gendered nature of imprisonment and the role of power, resilience and resistance whilst in prison in Northern Ireland. The voices in this paper disturb and interrupt the silence surrounding the experiences of women political prisoners, who are a hidden population, whilst in prison.

Research limitations/implications

In terms of research impact, this qualitative research is on the first of its kind to explore both the experiential and discursive narratives of female ex-combatants of the Irish Conflict. The impact and reach of the research illustrates how confinement revealed rich theoretical insights, drawing from Foucauldian theory, to examine the dialectical interplay between power and the subjective mobilisation of resistance practices of ex-combatants in prison in Northern Ireland. The wider point of prison policy and practice not meeting basic human rights or enhancing the quality of life of such prisoners reveals some of the dystopian features of current prison policy and lack of gender sensitivity to female combatants.

Practical implications

It is by prioritising the voices of the women combatants in this paper that it not only enables their re-positioning at the centre of the struggle, but also moves away methodologically from the more typical sole emphasis on structural conditions and political processes. Instead, prioritising the voices of the women combatants places the production of subjectivities and agencies at the centre, and explores their dialectical relationship to objective conditions and practical constraints.

Social implications

It is clear from the voices of the female combatants and in their social engagement in the research that the prison experience was marked specifically by assaults on their femininity, to which they were the more vulnerable due to the emphasis on sexual modesty within their socialisation and within the ethno-nationalist iconography of femininity. The aggression directed against them seems, in part, to have been a form of gender-based sexual violence in direct retaliation for the threat posed to gender norms by their assumption of the (ostensibly more powerful) role as combatants. They countered this by methods which foregrounded their collective identity as soldiers and their identification with their male comrades in “the same struggle”.

Originality/value

This paper is one of the first to explore the importance of the experiences of female former combatants during the Northern Irish Conflict with specific reference to their experience of imprisonment. The aim of this significant paper is to situate the critical analysis grounded in Foucauldian theory drawing on theoretical tools of power, resistance and subjectivity in order to make sense of women’s experiences of conflict and imprisonment in Ireland. It is suggested that power and resistance need to be re-appropriated in order to examine such unique gendered experiences that have been hidden in mainstream criminological accounts of the Irish Conflict.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 37 no. 9/10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 9 March 2023

Luke Jones, Zoe Avner, Joseph Mills and Simone Magill

Association Football (football) is currently recognised as the world's most popular women's sport (Andersson & Barker-Ruchti, 2019; Dunn & Welford, 2017). In this chapter, we…

Abstract

Association Football (football) is currently recognised as the world's most popular women's sport (Andersson & Barker-Ruchti, 2019; Dunn & Welford, 2017). In this chapter, we build upon a Foucauldian-informed feminist body of work (e.g. Barker-Ruchti & Tinning, 2010; Liao & Markula, 2009; Markula, 2003) to analyse the impact of the ‘shift in approach and purpose’ in the women's game (Rosso, 2010). And, in doing so, seek to explore how the relations of power operating in the context of women's elite and professional football have changed over the last 20 years. Moreover, we consider the implications of these changes for both elite female players and those responsible for their development and welfare. To achieve our aim, we compare the experiences of two players (Christine and Maria, pseudonyms) from opposite ends of the last 20 years, all the while recognising that the partial and situated insights we provide in relation to these shifts are inevitably tied to the intersections of marginalised (female) and privileged (white, able-bodied, heterosexual, middle-class) subject positions.

Details

Women’s Football in a Global, Professional Era
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80071-053-5

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 17 July 2014

Miriam Galipeau and Audrey R. Giles

In this chapter we examine cross-cultural mentorship within Alberta’s Future Leaders (AFL) program, an initiative in which mainly non-Aboriginal youth workers and arts mentors…

Abstract

Purpose

In this chapter we examine cross-cultural mentorship within Alberta’s Future Leaders (AFL) program, an initiative in which mainly non-Aboriginal youth workers and arts mentors mentor Aboriginal youth in Aboriginal communities in Alberta through the use of sport, recreation, and arts for development.

Design/methodology/approach

We use an exploratory case study methodology in concert with semi-structured interviews, focus groups, participant observation, and archival research. We use Foucauldian discourse analysis to analyze our results.

Findings

We identified two dominant discourses that shape AFL: first, mentorship can help Aboriginal youth to avoid negative life trajectories and, second, youth leadership development is universal. We argue that sport, recreation, and arts for youth development that does not prioritize cultural relevancy and does not attend to issues pertaining to colonialism’s legacy risks, in a Foucauldian sense, disciplining Aboriginal youths in ways that reaffirm colonial relations of power between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.

Originality/value

This chapter focuses on sport, recreation, and arts for youth development within a marginalized segment of the Canadian population: Aboriginal youth.

Details

Sport, Social Development and Peace
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78350-885-3

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 March 2018

Bruno De Oliveira

How can people with lived experience of homelessness actively participate in contesting their marginalisation? The purpose of this paper is to suggest that involving people who…

Abstract

Purpose

How can people with lived experience of homelessness actively participate in contesting their marginalisation? The purpose of this paper is to suggest that involving people who are homeless in participatory action research (PAR) is one such strategy. This paper shows that such an approach can have a significant impact on empowering people with direct of experience of homelessness to challenge prevailing social discourses, particularly in terms of the way in which the local media presents homelessness as a social issue.

Design/methodology/approach

A PAR approach informed the design, development and dissemination of the study on which this paper is based. Analytically, it is underpinned by Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA). FDA, with its focus on power relations in society, is noted to be particularly useful for analysing local media representations of homeless people.

Findings

The research reported here found that academic practitioners and homeless people can work together to challenge media discourses, which serve to marginalise people affected by homelessness.

Research limitations/implications

The research reported here served to challenge some of the ways in homeless people are victimized and stigmatized.

Practical implications

The research reported here has the potential to inform future research concerned with understanding media presentations of homeless people. It can be seen as a model for how people affected by a particularly pernicious social issue can contribute to research in ways that go beyond researching for the sake of research.

Originality/value

The research reported here provides evidence of the emancipatory value of research that seeks to bring academic practitioners and homeless people together in a partnership to challenge vital social issues such as the power of the local media to frame understandings of homelessness.

Details

Housing, Care and Support, vol. 21 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1460-8790

Keywords

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