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To the extent that management accounting is based on neo‐classical economics, all decision‐making is assumed to be rational, aimed at utility or profit maximisation and all circumstances influencing decisions are accepted as stationary. The approach excludes all social, cultural or historical considerations and is based on perfect information that is freely available. Neo‐classical economics further assumes that minimum government intervention, which is regulated by competition, will result in maximum benefit for society as a whole. This paper aims to determine the extent to which management accounting theory has been based on these limiting assumptions and finds that emerging management accounting theory is increasingly based on alternative, more liberating foundations. This situation is in contrast to management accounting education in South Africa, which remains almost entirely based on neo‐classical economics.

The purpose of this paper is to look at how results from a large-scale study can be understood in the context of contemporary gender and entrepreneurship research.

This study is inspired by a mixed methods methodology. To gain a qualitative understanding of the general patterns in a large-scale study, research results in articles from the International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship (IJGE) were used. To make such a heterogeneous research field as appears in IJGE comparable, a model was created that helped us to focus our attention when reading the articles. The core of each article was identified.

The categorisation of the articles in IJGE resulted in three perspectives: liberal, functional and structural. The liberal and functional perspectives improved our understanding only partially because these perspectives usually focused on a certain aspect in the society. The structural perspective more readily lent itself for interpretation of our large-scale results.

The dissonance between our perspective and the perspective of others has been a challenge; it has been a delicate task.

This could be a way to improve communication of research not only within a perspective, but also between perspectives. It is important that scholarly journals provide the possibility to express different perspectives on, as in this example, gender and entrepreneurship.

Outlines 15 explanations for the fog which has enveloped the nascent domains of corporate identity and corporate marketing. However, the fog surrounding the area has a silver lining. This is because the fog has, unwittingly, led to the emergence of rich disciplinary, philosophical as well as “national”, schools of thought. In their composite, these approaches have the potential to form the foundations of a new approach to management which might be termed “corporate marketing”. In addition to articulating the author’s understanding of the attributes regarding a business identity (the umbrella label used to cover corporate identity, organisational identification and visual identity) the author outlines the characteristics of corporate marketing and introduces a new corporate marketing mix based on the mnemonic “HEADS”[2]. This relates to what an organisation has, expresses, the affinities of its employees, as well as what the organisation does and how it is seen by stakeholder groups and networks. In addition, the author describes the relationship between the corporate identity and corporate brand and notes the differences between product brands and corporate brands. Finally, the author argues that scholars need to be sensitive to the factors that are contributing to the fog surrounding corporate identity. Only then will business identity/corporate marketing studies grow in maturity.

The purpose of this paper is to question why current thinking towards project complexity ignores the role of objects in achieving social order and transformation. An alternative, but complementary, approach to address project complexities, drawing upon actor‐network theory (ANT), is offered to redress this concern.

Current thinking towards project complexity is briefly reviewed in the first section to illustrate the reasons why nonhumans are downplayed. An historical case study, the Skye road bridge project, is mobilized to explain, and develop, an ANT perspective on project complexities, and responses to such complexities.

ANT develops accounts of project complexity by highlighting the role of nonhumans in influencing how practitioners register, respond and stabilize project complexities. Front‐end planning and stakeholder analysis is shown to be only one narrow element of four moments through which actors apprehend and stabilize project complexities.

The empirical case study is developed to suggest some significant ways in which ANT could contribute, and complement, extant theories of project complexity. Alternative approaches to socio‐materiality are noted and may yield other important insights.

The paper positions ANT to offer a novel theory of project complexity. It is intended to be primarily of use to project management researchers, and theoretically informed practitioners, who are interested in developing fresh insights into notions of project complexities (unintended consequences, emergence and unpredictability).

The purpose of this paper is to highlight how systems thinking contributes to decision making in uncertain contexts that are characteristic of service systems. Based on the assumption that service systems face complex conditions, the paper posits that systems thinking may support the understanding of key issues in service management.

This paper proposes an interpretation of complexity in the context of service systems, which highlights the perspective change that occurs when a systems approach is adopted. The offered conceptual perspective is then brought to an operational level, in spite of the complexity of the decisions driving a viable system, by modelling a service system as a network of agents, resources, processes and decisions through the use of fuzzy logic. The paper reviews service management research streams, and takes a deeper look at the concepts of service systems and complex service systems. The paper then proceeds to discuss how systems thinking contributes to service management by proposing a systems interpretation of complexity.

Service management theories and models may be enhanced by integrating prevailing approaches, based on a quantitative and mechanistic view of service systems dynamics, with systems thinking‐based meta‐models that can be used in better understanding service exchanges. The findings of the paper also show how the integration of an engineering approach can be insightful to the understanding of service systems; adopting a Viable Systems Approach (VSA) as a meta‐model can be useful in fully comprehending market behaviour in uncertain conditions.

The originality of this paper lies in exploring the contribution of systems thinking, in particular of the Viable Systems Approach (VSA), to service management and decision making.

Higher education is positively imbued with social meaning. Every academic ritual, scientific routine or scholarly practice carries meanings that go far beyond the situational motives of the actors themselves. Social science hermeneutics, one of the best-known institutionalised paradigms in German-speaking qualitative research, offers a sound methodological basis and various methodical variants in order to approach such latent meaning levels. With its focus on reconstructing the underlying logics, values and norm systems of interaction processes and social structures, social science hermeneutics tackles questions that are highly relevant for understanding contemporary developments in higher education strategy and policy. This chapter introduces readers to key concepts in social science hermeneutics and their potential for higher education research. Based on an overview of the main methodological characteristics, the authors then give an in-depth example of an interpretative process by providing a step-by-step reconstruction of different levels of meaning.

The purpose of this paper is to build theory concerning the role of discourse in strategic renewal and green knowledge management.

The approach entails an application of discourse theory to the strategy process literature, a review of the knowledge management (KM) literature and examination of examples in the context of organizations' sustainability initiatives.

A discourse-based model of green knowledge management, with associated research propositions that address each element of strategy renewal, is developed.

The model and propositions in this paper may help to spur future management research that draws on a variety of discourse analytic tools, and advances our understanding of KM focused on environmental sustainability.

A discursive perspective on green knowledge management allows for a broader and more dynamic view of strategy process. This paper foregrounds the dynamic nature of strategy process in exploring the nature of discourse, and suggests that green knowledge management addresses a key megatrend that may form a foundation for strategic renewal.

This paper aims to investigate the role of Smart Technologies and Big Data as relevant dimensions in affecting the emerging social and economic dynamics of society with the aim to trace possible guidelines and pathways for decision makers and researchers interested in the governance of the Smart City’s ecosystem. The increasing attention to the domain of technologies and the amazing scenario that is emerging as a consequence of the influence of Smart Technology and Big Data in everyday life require reflection upon the ways in which the world is changing.

The paper adopts the interpretative lens provided by the systems thinking to investigate the challenging domain of the Smart City. A qualitative and interpretative approach is adopted to reflect upon the role of technologies in everyday life.

The Smart City ecosystem is defined as a multilevel construct useful for understanding how technical and technological dimensions of the Smart City can be managed not only as supportive instruments but also as key pillars to support, facilitate and ensure an effective cognitive alignment among all the involved actors.

This paper provides a tangible evidence of the systems thinking contribution in analysing, understanding and managing dimensions and paths of social dynamics. A contribution to previous studies is provided with reference to systems thinking, Big Data and Smart City.

This chapter analyzes the intersectionality of inequalities based on class, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity within the Indignados (indignant or outraged people) movement of Spain. By analyzing the interpretative frames and organizational practices of the movement, we looked for influencing factors and the degree to which the movement has incorporated an intersectional perspective into its interpretative frames. Some of the frames did attend to the various inter-related forms of inequality. The factors influencing an intersectional perspective included: the presence of coexisting or inclusive forms of expressing the collective identity of the movement, mechanisms implemented to balance asymmetries among actors, and the confluence of three of the four dominant frames within the movement.

This paper aims to critically examine the quality of professional doctorates (PDs) from the perspective of programme supervisors in terms of how quality assurance provisions have to meet their expectations.

The study employed an interpretative approach, using semi-structured interviews and online semi-structured questionnaire to generate data from 25 programme supervisors across universities in the UK. Data analysis and interpretation were carried out using the interactive data analysis approach (Miles and Huberman, 1994), the “bottom–up” approach to data analysis (Creswell, 2012) and the interpretative strategy recommended by Mason (2002). Four themes emerged from the data that encapsulated programme advisors’ perspectives: characteristics of supervisors; opportunities in institutional quality assurance provision; challenges in quality assurance process for PDs; and supervisors’ views on how quality assurance in PD can be enhanced.

Quality assurance provisions have not adequately provided for the unique characteristics of PDs owing to a number of issues including lack of clarity on the philosophy and focus of PDs and conflicting perspectives among PD supervisors relating to what should ideally constitute a quality assurance process for PDs. This paper argues that to develop a relevant and robust quality assurance provision for PDs, it would be essential to ensure that the PD fundamental philosophy and focus are coherently explained. In addition, it is crucial to ensure that quality assurance provisions cover not only the academic rigor of higher level learning but also the value and potential impact of outcomes on practice and the professions. The paper also highlights a list of useful suggestions from supervisors on how to enhance quality assurance.

The research identifies a number of issues confronting quality assurance in PDs and the need for academics and policymakers to work together to deal with these to achieve the full value in PDs. As the research was based on a sample of 25 supervisors in a conference, it would be difficult and unsustainable to generalise. Hence, further research using large sample sizes of supervisors and other stakeholders based on whole programmes would be useful to achieve a sustained understanding of how quality assurance provisions of PDs have to meet expectations of the professions and professional contexts.

To get the practical value and benefits of PDs, all stakeholders (academics, policymakers and professionals) would need to work together to ensure that appropriate quality assurance processes are developed to reflect the unique nature of the programmes.

The paper provides a critical perspective to the current debate on quality assuring PDs from the perspective of PD supervisors who have generally been left out. It highlights issues related to quality assuring PDs, the misalignment between quality assurance provisions and the philosophy and expectations of PDs, and suggests ways through which these can be appropriately addressed to enhance quality assurance in PDs. The main contribution from this research is that it brings to the fore what supervisors, who are a part of the major players in the PD process, think about the current state of quality assurance and what can be done to make it more effective.