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To report on initial work carried out on a Metadata Options Appraisal undertaken for the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park in the context of plans to create and manage complex digital objects called Interpretive Journeys, PDA‐based multimedia guides to Park tours. Design/methodology/approach – After some initial work, a phased approach was adopted. In Phase I (reported here), metadata schema for managing structurally complex digital objects were researched to provide a range of appropriate options. Their characteristics were then matched against the Park's general requirements as determined through discussions with staff and an examination of relevant documentation. Findings – It was determined that the METS metadata schema met Park requirements for managing Interpretive Journeys at a general level and could be used both, to inform the development of the planned Digital Asset Management System (an early priority), and to act as the main basis of a framework for determining a detailed metadata solution for the Park. Research limitations/implications – Further work is required in Phase II to determine the detailed metadata requirement for the Park. Practical implications – A useful guide to dealing with a range of management and metadata issues associated with managing complex digital objects, and to managing projects where guidance on metadata requirements is needed before the objects to be described are available. Originality/value – This paper offers an introduction to the management and metadata issues raised by Interpretive Journeys and digital composites of similar complexity, and an indication of how METS addresses these at a general level.

The purpose of this paper is to document the opportunities and challenges of a practitioner researcher in accessing interpretive case participants in the public healthcare sector in Ireland.

The paper documents the research design and implementation phases of a longitudinal interpretive research project with specific focus on, research ethics, preparing for data collection, identifying and recruiting the research participants and analysis of the findings based on the specific nuances of the public health context and design considerations. Considerations as an insider researcher in a large public organisation are also presented.

Conducting interpretive research in a healthcare setting presents both opportunities and some challenges; key amongst these is agreed access to research participants. In addition, with research taking place in a healthcare environment, the potential for disclosure of information regarding something harmful to patients or of a criminal nature exists. This risk can be addressed through the ethical approval process documented in this paper. Insider researcher considerations are also explored focussing on the specific nuances affiliate to carrying out a longitudinal interpretive study in a public healthcare setting.

Insights for those wishing to conduct longitudinal interpretive case research in the public healthcare setting are included. The implications for enhanced engagement with interpretive research in this context are addressed.

Through documenting the opportunities and challenges of a practitioner researcher in accessing research participants in the public healthcare sector, this paper discusses insider researcher considerations and seeks to address concerns in the literature regarding insufficient detail relating to interpretive research design and implementation in healthcare contexts.

Considers the history and current position of interpretive consumer research within the marketing paradigm. It focuses on the conflict that has developed between the positivist tradition and the relatively new interpretive approach. In doing so it considers the merits of interpretive research in consumer behaviour and criticisms made against it. Methodological issues centring on the trustworthiness of this type of research are explored, as well as the friction that traditionally has existed between art and science. An argument is made for an inclusive rather than exclusive approach, allowing the existence of differing approaches and assuming each has a contribution to make to the furtherance of consumer behaviour research.

The author argues that the familiar distinction between interpretive and non-interpretive theories of constitutional interpretation obscures another important distinction: that between hermeneutically open and hermeneutically closed theories. Closed theories seek resolution to constitutional conflict by employing methods of interpretation that are intuitively persuasive. Open theories deny that such methods are always available, and seek resolution of conflict through a combination of legal, political, and social means. The author argues that closed theories have failed to live up to their implicit promise of self-justification, and examines the practice of constitutional interpretation in Canada and Australia to support this view.

The paper reviews some basic themes in postmodernism and argues for a moderate incorporation of these themes in organization studies and methodology. This approach, named interpretive unpacking, takes issues of multiple and fluid meanings, ambiguities and fragmentation seriously without the a priori privileging of these qualities over assumptions of stable meanings and coherence in social phenomena. The suggested position is illustrated in the fields of identity and image in organization studies through a critical reading of a key text. Assumptions around identities, identification, beliefs, perceptions and images are here problematized and seen as themes for critical exploration and careful interpretive inquiry rather than as robust starting points for the formulation of hypothesis for testing.

S.I. Hayakawa said, “The map is not the territory.” Taking this as my theme, I explore the idea of economics as a cultural-interpretive map that can be usefully employed to navigate the legal landscape. As a map, economics facilitates our understanding of law in a market context. At the same time, the map is not the metaphorical territory that it represents, just as economics is not the market exchange process to which it refers. Therefore, we must be careful not to conflate our conception of the economic map with our understanding of the legal territory.

This chapter examines organisational change processes that occur when accountability demands from powerful external stakeholders change. It investigates, firstly, whether these external accountability demands impact on the performance management systems of two different types of organisations. Secondly, it considers whether the goals for improved performance contained within the external accountability demands are realised. The chapter derives its primary insights from analysing in-depth interviews with managers working in a private sector company and in public sector organisations. The analyses reveal complex organisational responses. In the public sector case study, the organisations tended to reorient their performance management systems towards the external accountability demands; whilst in the private sector organisation, pressures from falling share prices forced managers to focus their decision making on the preferred performance measures contained in shareholders’ accountability demands. However, whilst there is some evidence of performance management system changes, the desires for improved performance subsumed by the external accountability demands are not necessarily realised through the performance management system changes.

This study aims to explore the implications of a recent case in spring 2022 where the novel Dracula went “viral” as tens of thousands of Tumblr users participated in a serialized re-reading and discussion of the text through the hashtags #dracula and #dracula daily.

The authors use a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design approach (quant: topic modeling; qual: multimodal content analysis) to examine how users describe their own practices as well as top posts (more than 25,000 likes, comments and reblogs) in the first month of the collective reading of the novel.

The authors found that the serialization of Dracula made space for “wandering reading practices” (Chavez, 2010) relevant to this interpretive community on Tumblr. The quantitative methods determined specific affective, intertextual and serialized aspects of textual play that were salient to readers. In top posts themselves, the authors saw readers creating metaleptic content imagining characters like the protagonist Jonathan in other novels or contexts, as well as processing and playing with their collective emotional responses toward characters. Additionally, readers used irony or satire through multimodal compositions to create literary arguments.

Playfully analyzing literature together through intertextual connections and multimodal memes has the potential to be both emotionally resonant, culturally relevant and supportive of literary interpretive practices. Based on these findings, the authors provide suggestions for teachers working to embrace interpretive play in formal learning spaces.

The purpose of this paper is to create an automatic interpretation of the results of the method of multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) for categorical variables, so that the nonexpert user can immediately and safely interpret the results, which concern, as the authors know, the categories of variables that strongly interact and determine the trends of the subject under investigation.

This study is a novel theoretical approach to interpreting the results of the MCA method. The classical interpretation of MCA results is based on three indicators: the projection (F) of the category points of the variables in factorial axes, the point contribution to axis creation (CTR) and the correlation (COR) of a point with an axis. The synthetic use of the aforementioned indicators is arduous, particularly for nonexpert users, and frequently results in misinterpretations. The current study has achieved a synthesis of the aforementioned indicators, so that the interpretation of the results is based on a new indicator, as correspondingly on an index, the well-known method principal component analysis (PCA) for continuous variables is based.

Two (2) concepts were proposed in the new theoretical approach. The interpretative axis corresponding to the classical factorial axis and the interpretative plane corresponding to the factorial plane that as it will be seen offer clear and safe interpretative results in MCA.

It is obvious that in the development of the proposed automatic interpretation of the MCA results, the authors do not have in the interpretative axes the actual projections of the points as is the case in the original factorial axes, but this is not of interest to the simple user who is only interested in being able to distinguish the categories of variables that determine the interpretation of the most pronounced trends of the phenomenon being examined.

The results of this research can have positive implications for the dissemination of MCA as a method and its use as an integrated exploratory data analysis approach.

Interpreting the MCA results presents difficulties for the nonexpert user and sometimes lead to misinterpretations. The interpretative difficulty persists in the MCA's other interpretative proposals. The proposed method of interpreting the MCA results clearly and accurately allows for the interpretation of its results and thus contributes to the dissemination of the MCA as an integrated method of categorical data analysis and exploration.

Significant advances have been made in using applied methodological approaches. These approaches facilitate critical and creative ways to generate new knowledge, encouraging researchers to explore novel research questions which could not be sufficiently addressed using traditional “branded” methodologies. It is important that, in addition to design, researchers consider the most appropriate methods to collect data. The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of the draw and tell method in the context of an interpretive descriptive study.

Given the challenges associated with eliciting responses from adolescent populations, in addition to the use of a semi-structured interview guide, the authors encouraged adolescent participants to produce drawings as part of an interpretive descriptive study.

Despite the fact that drawings are seldom used with adolescents during research interviews, the authors found this method promoted conversation and facilitated deep exploration into adolescents' perspectives.

The authors argue that this creative approach to data collection should be embraced by researchers engaging in applied methodological research, particularly with participants who may be challenging to engage. Drawings, although seldom used with adolescent research participants, can stimulate engagement and facilitate conversations.