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The paper provides a theoretical framework for interdisciplinary accounting scholars interested in performances of accountability in front of live audiences.

This is a processual case study of “Falkirk in crisis” that covers the period from September 2021 to September 2022. The focus of this paper is two-fan-Q&A sessions held in October 2021 and June 2022. Both are naturally occurring discussions between two groups such as are found in previous research on routine events and accountability. This is a theoretically consequential case study.

A key insight of the paper is to identify the practical and symbolic dimensions of accountability. The paper demonstrates the need to align these two dimensions when responding to questions: a practical question demands a practical answer and a symbolic question requires a symbolic answer. Second, the paper argues that most fields contain conflicting logics and highlights that a complete performance of accountability needs to cover the different conflicting logics within the field. In this case, this means paying full attention to both the communitarian and results logics. A third finding is that a performance of accountability cannot succeed if the audience rejects attempts to impose an unpalatable definition of the situation. If these three conditions are not met, the performance is bound to fail.

An important theoretical coontribution of the study is the application of Jeffery Alexander’s work on political performance to public performances of accountability.

The phenomenon explored in the paper (what the authors term “grassroots accountability”) has broad applicability to any situation in organizational or civic life where the power apex of an organization is required to engage with a group of informed and committed stakeholders – the “community”. For those who find themselves in the position of the fans in this study, the observations set out in the empirical narrative can serve as a useful practical guide. Attempts to answer a practical complaint with a symbolic answer (or vice versa) should be challenged as evasive.

This paper studies an engagement of elite actors with ordinary (or grassroots) actors. The study shows important rules of engagement, including the importance of respecting the power of practical questions and the need to engage with these questions appropriately.

This paper offers a new vista for interdisciplinary accounting by synthesizing the accountability literature with the political performance literature. Specifically, the paper employs Jeffery Alexander’s work on practical and symbolic performance to study the microprocesses underpinning successful and unsuccessful performances of accountability.

The attempt to establish a common European framework for core platforms' duties and responsibilities toward other actors in the digital environment is at the core of the recent scholarly debate surrounding the Digital Markets Act (DMA) proposal. In particular, the everlasting juxtaposition between the “data power” – as emerging from recent cases (Section 2) – that dominant tech companies enjoy and the concept of consumer sovereignty (Section 3) lies at the core of the proposal's attempt to identify digital core platforms as market gatekeepers. Accordingly, this chapter critically investigates the divide between power imbalance and consumer sovereignty in light of the architecture designed by the DMA, with a specific focus on its effectiveness in identifying gatekeepers' power drivers (Section 4). After highlighting the main critical aspects of the pertinent rules, opportunities for fruitful developments are then identified through the reframing of some of the notions considered in the proposal, and namely the role of “lock-in” effects and “data accumulation” (Section 5). Lastly, this chapter suggests that the DMA advancements – while desirable – are bound to be fragmentary in the absence of a wider appraisal of the nature of data power imbalance dynamics in the modern digital markets (Section 6).

The aim of this study is to analyze whether or not the interaction between academicians' cultural and social capitals has effects on their individual work performance.

A structural model was developed in the study to test the correlations between cultural capital, social capital and individual work performance. The data of the study were collected from 2,855 academicians.

The findings of the study indicate that both cultural and social capital has a simultaneous positive effect on individual work performance. It is also found that the cultural and social capital can account for 39% of the individual work performance and that social capital is a dominant driving force.

Although the cultural and social capital has significant effects on the individual work performance, these effects are not of casual nature.

Therefore, it is possible to argue that the cultural and social capital in higher education institutions should be encouraged. Future studies may employ samples of individuals to see whether not these effects have causal characteristics.

The findings of the study contributed to the existing knowledge on the work performance describing the new correlations among the patterns.

Adam Smith sees religion both as having a useful and a dangerous role. People create gods to explain what they do not understand and appease their desire of justice when human justice is perceived to fail. These are socially useful functions of religion. But when religion is used as a political tool and is used for state capture purposes, then it becomes a dangerous and destructive force in society.

This paper proposes a framework for the implementation of sustainability practices by individual companies and corresponding supply chains (SCs), considering the various SC tiers, the three dimensions of sustainability and the following critical areas: Governance, Product and Process, Customers and Suppliers Management, and Stakeholder focus.

Using several case studies of small- and medium-size companies, a qualitative methodology is used to develop the proposed framework.

The analysis of these case studies makes it possible to identify the sustainability practices that are the most important for practitioners, thereby reducing the number of sustainability practices specified in the literature and giving some insights regarding which should be used in addressing critical areas. A set of guidelines and actions is also suggested for managers to continue the path of sustainability.

Further studies in other cultural and national realities and industrial contexts are desirable to assess the proposed framework's suitability and the results obtained.

The results of this study show that the practices implemented are highly dependent on the resources that the company can mobilize and, on the choices, and commitment to sustainability on the part of top management.

The authors propose a framework to help individual companies and corresponding SCs to implement sustainability practices considering the various dimensions of sustainability, critical areas and SC's various partners.