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The purpose of this paper is to identify key challenges, opportunities, strengths and weaknesses experienced by the integrated reporting (IR) idea since the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC)’s Discussion Paper was published in late 2011. It provides insights into the phases of the IR journey as investigated by accounting researchers, identifies important gaps in the literature and sketches an agenda for future research.

The paper develops a theoretically informed analysis of published IR research articles using the idea journey theoretical framework. The paper draws upon academic analysis and insights published in 65 IR-related articles across 83 accounting journals listed in the Scopus database.

A key insight of the paper is that the academic literature has not yet covered all stages of the IR idea journey. The highest proportion of articles provide insights in the generation and production phases of this journey, while there is relatively little research into the impact phase of the IR idea. Furthermore, the locus of research covered by the current IR literature is situated at macro- and meso-levels. This reveals opportunities for future research to explore, at a more detailed level, interactions between single individuals or small groups in implementing or understanding the IR idea.

This paper focuses on the idea journey of the IIRC’s version of IR. It identifies gaps regarding the stages of the IR idea journey that have not been covered by the extant academic literature and suggests some research areas that need to be addressed to help inform improvements in policy and practice. A key limitation is that it draws on a single communication channel, namely, academic articles published in accounting journals, but it provides opportunities for considerable further developments.

The paper extends IR research by reconciling insights from an understandably fragmented emerging literature. It provides a multi-dimensional perspective on IR, highlighting the dynamics and interrelationships in the literature. It also helps inform improvements in research, policy and practice by identifying gaps regarding the stages of the IR idea journey that have not been covered by the extant academic literature. Lastly, the paper builds on the work of innovation and creativity scholars showing how the idea journey framework can be used to shape and add coherence to accounting research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore when, why and to what extent firms should intervene in firm-hosted idea-generation communities, and to develop a framework for firm-intervention.

A single case-study is conducted in a highly successful firm-hosted idea-generation community called Dell IdeaStorm, whereby the netnographic approach is applied.

The findings indicate that, overall, firm-participation is minimal and passive, and varies according to the three stages of the idea lifecycle in the community, such as ideation stage – here firm-participation is limited to acknowledgement of new ideas, checking for redundancy, managing search tool and profanity filtering; discussion and development stage – here firm-participation is more active by providing feedback and clarification when needed, troubleshooting, asking for additional input on an idea, etc.; and completion stage – here a firm intervenes to screen and select the most promising ideas for implementation and also provides status updates on ideas.

This study contributes by developing a new framework for firm-participation, which is useful for the early diagnosis of community issues in idea generation. The framework is also a tactical tool which can be used to guide community managers in selecting the correct moderation approach, depending on the specific stage in the idea lifecycle.

Ideas contribute to the achievement of high performance, excellence, and competitive advantage in management and organisation. To intervene to facilitate these favourable outcomes, managers need to be aware of how ideas are affected by mindsets they use and what is actually happening to ideas in their workplaces. This paper reports on a pilot survey among managers from diverse organisations. Respondents provide their views about what happens to ideas in their organisations, with comments about the responsiveness of colleagues. It is presumed that how managers engage with ideas in the workplace will reflect the mindsets that they bring from the theory and practice of management. These mindsets are discussed. The study suggests that these mainstream management approaches as applied in our enterprises might not be adequate, and foreshadows the need for their improvement.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it traces the development of social and environmental disclosure (SED) by identifying and reporting what national and international guidelines aligned to the voluntary disclosures of a major Italian case study organisation, a Bank. It will address the gap in relation to empirical SED studies in banking industries by reviewing in detail the case study Bank’s social report, for the period 2007 to 2012, thus giving insights into the phases of the SED journey. Second, the paper assesses how the social reports have changed over time and identifies the reasons for the change in form and content of disclosure over the period. As a rapidly developing accounting regulatory arena, studies of SED have the potential to examine many aspects of the development of accounting regulation.

The paper develops a theoretically informed analysis to track the history of social reports using the Idea Journey framework. The paper undertakes a content analysis of the Bank’s social reports to gain an understanding how and why the changes in social reports occurred during the period. Data sources for the study included historical data from academic literature, policy documents alongside the 2006 version of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the 2008 GRI Financial Services Sector Supplements.

The findings reveal that the Bank’s social report was aligned to a variety of national and international institution’s directives and guidelines. It identifies the various elements that were at play in the preparation of the social report. The paper provides useful insights for academics, regulators and reporting organisations and highlights the need for a better understanding of social reporting practices, an antecedent to integrated reporting and the European directive and now regulation for non-financial information.

This study provides a foundation for future research into the practices of Italian companies who produce integrated report and social and environmental reporting generally in light of the introduction of legislation mandating non-financial reporting.

The paper helps inform improvements in research, policy and practice by providing rich information in the stages in the development of social report, which has received limited attention in the extant literature. It also builds on innovation literature showing how the idea journey framework can be used to shape accounting research.

The purpose of this article is to illustrate and address idea gaps to bring improvement and add value to organizations.

A framework for ideas is developed to enhance and extend conventional management theory and practice.

It recognises the essential interaction and progression of ideas so that managers can more comprehensively encourage, promote, integrate, and advance ideas in their organisations.

A breakthrough passage is suggested and constructed.

This paper seeks to describe and analyse an approach to course design as part of a strategic, technology‐inspired, cross‐university intervention to widen participation. A curriculum framework was developed for students who wished to make their work the focus of their study and could not readily access current university provision. A deliberate assumption was made that this would require a technologically inspired response to teaching, learning and assessment.

The approach taken was one of action research, by planning the curriculum framework, validating a course, delivery and review through interviews. Cybernetics was applied post‐hoc to analyse the data generated.

Staff found the framework a useful source of inspiration and critique for current practices, although established practice and preconceptions could render the framework meaningless. The ideas in the framework are not enough to change the institution – authoritative sanction may be needed. The cybernetic concepts of variety and its absorption proved useful in analysing the framework, and highlighted weaknesses in the design of the framework regarding the organisation of teaching.

Clarity about strategic purpose when making a change intervention is vital – in this instance raising the level of critical debate was more successful than recruitment. The establishment of an independent unit may be a more successful strategy than embedding university‐wide. Further work is required to understand how to market novel approaches. The action research shows that the university has the capability to develop curriculum designs that offer new groups of students access to higher education while improving their work practice.

The findings from interview confirm the value that peers attach to this development. Although the pedagogical design in this action research is based on previous work, the cybernetic analysis and conclusions are new.

This paper aims to unpack the sets of policy ideas underpinning the use of social innovation, thus permeating the allegedly politically neutral language of the concept.

Drawing on Daigneualt (2014), this paper adapts a four-dimensional approach to investigate the sets of ideas underpinning different conceptualisations of social innovation, particularly in relation to who the actors driving social change are, the nature of the problems addressed, the objectives pursued and the means used to achieve these objectives.

Applying the four-dimensional approach to a corpus of literature, this paper found evidence of two different perspectives along each dimension, namely, a radical empowerment approach and an incremental market-oriented one.

A limitation of the study is the focus on academic literature, whereas a broader focus on policy discourse may give further insights. However, this paper argues that this study can be the ground for future research to investigate whether and how the two approaches identified have been adopted in different institutional and policy contexts.

The paper contributes to the development of social innovation research by boosting and encouraging further investigation on how different sets of ideas underpin social innovation discourse and its use as a policy concept.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate blockchain’s enabling role for sustainability reporting. This study extends the scientific knowledge about the impacts related to the notarisation of mandatory sustainability reports through a publicly available blockchain.

Building on the idea journey framework, this paper presents the case study of Banca Mediolanum in Italy, a first-mover who notarised its non-financial declaration on a public blockchain to mitigate the information asymmetries that negatively impact stakeholder engagement.

The analysis reveals that the notarisation of the non-financial reports through a publicly available blockchain can represent a tool useful to mitigate the asymmetric information between organisations and stakeholders.

Although academics and practitioners have observed the benefits of its implementation, only a few companies have adopted blockchain systems to ensure their information’s reliability. The findings underline the opportunity for socially responsible organisations to signal their orientation towards sustainable development through the adoption of an innovative tool.

The proliferation of non-financial reports prepared on mandatory basis mitigated the signalling effects related to the disclosure of non-financial information. The case study underlines the opportunity for socially responsible organisations to overcoming this criticism through notarisation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study about sustainability reporting practices and blockchain. This research contributes to the currently scarce discussion about the role of blockchain in non-financial reporting. In addition, the authors contribute to the scientific conversation about the need to rethink assurance in non-financial reporting practices.

This chapter reflectively explores the idea of doing art-based research (ABR) through poetic methods for studying the experience of learning in higher education. Taking some literature on faculty development to exemplify different ways of experiencing learning, this chapter serves as a counterpoint to researching experiences of learning from a phenomenological approach. The fundamental reasoning for this is that the basic epistemological assumptions in phenomenology would limit our understanding of experiences of learning and thus, other methodological options would be worth exploring. To that end, this chapter elaborates on the relationship between knowledge production, speech and experience, all circling around the notions of research method and construction. Here, the aim is to reflect upon an understanding of research that is aligned with a dialogical and relational conceptualization of the experience of learning. Finally, an argument will be outlined that suggests conducting research as an experience. Taking from Dewey, Kvale, Law, Scheurich, Talmy and others, this exploration will present the idea of studying the experiences of learning by way of producing/devising experiences through arts. With the notion of art as experience from Dewey, the argument goes to ABR in a general sense, and poetry in particular, as a sound and coherent alternative way of researching learning as an experience. Thus, this chapter explores the possible theoretical-methodological contributions of thinking about and doing research understood as an experience through art.