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1 – 10 of 711This paper seeks to pinpoint the importance of critical research that gets to problematise social entrepreneurship's self‐evidences, myths, and political truth‐effects, thus…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to pinpoint the importance of critical research that gets to problematise social entrepreneurship's self‐evidences, myths, and political truth‐effects, thus creating space for novel and more radical enactments.
Design/methodology/approach
A typology mapping four types of critical research gets developed. Each critique's merits and limitations are illustrated through existing research. Also, the contours of a fifth form of critique get delineated which aims at radicalising social entrepreneurship through interventionist research.
Findings
The typology presented entails myth‐busting (problematisation through empirical facts), critique of power‐effects (problematisation through denormalising discourses, ideologies, symbols), normative critique (problematisation through moral reflection), and critique of transgression (problematisation through practitioners' counter‐conducts).
Research limitations/implications
The paper makes it clear that the critique of social entrepreneurship must not be judged according to what it says but to whether it creates the conditions for novel articulations and enactments of social entrepreneurship.
Practical implications
It is argued that practitioners' perspectives and viewpoints are indispensible for challenging and extending scientific doxa. It is further suggested that prospective critical research must render practitioners' perspective an even stronger focus.
Originality/value
The contribution is the first of its kind which maps critical activities in the field of social entrepreneurship, and which indicates how the more radical possibilities of social entrepreneurship can be fostered through interventionist research.
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The purpose of this paper is to provide a reflective discourse about a particular interventionist research project utilising a critical framework.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a reflective discourse about a particular interventionist research project utilising a critical framework.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses Alvesson and Deetz's tasks of critical research to analyse the application of interventionist research methodology and address the issues of access, data collection and ethnographical concerns.
Findings
Access issues are expanded to consider the concerns of the researcher and the researched. Interventionist research needs to develop a methodological approach moving beyond the concept of triangulation and to develop the concept of “catalytical” processes, expanding the emic and etic functions of interventionist research. The paper identifies that skills of the researched and the researcher need to be developed and recognises that the skills required are different to those currently possessed by academic researchers.
Research limitations/implications
The paper examines only a single application of an interventionist research project conducted over a short period of time with a specific outcome in mind.
Practical implications
This paper provides a discussion of a working example of an interventionist research project and highlights to researchers and practitioners some of the advantages and disadvantages of undertaking such an approach to solving organisational problems.
Originality/value
The reflective critical discourse as outlined in this paper contributes to the practice of interventionist research by opening up further the discussion of how it can be implemented in practice and what are some of the considerations from both the perspective of practice and the skills base of the participants.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine the underperformance problem of four UK-based small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from management's and employees' perspectives in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the underperformance problem of four UK-based small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from management's and employees' perspectives in order to advance knowledge on a neglected area in small business and management studies.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on performance management's theoretical frame of managerial/entrepreneurial, market shaping and system-wide resource (re)organisation and the microstories obtained from 85 surveyed employees and managers, the data are analysed using an interpretivist paradigm.
Findings
The key findings of the study highlighted the adoption of tough performance implementation measures by management, the development of learning initiatives, the adaptation of roles, the redefinition of what a performing employee meant and three areas for performance improving in all four SMEs. This study reveals the crucial role of personal, conversational agency and implementation attributes, which are neglected aspects in current performance management in small firms.
Research limitations/implications
The drawbacks of the study centre on the limited nature of the survey sample and the fact that it is solely based within the UK. This suggests that the findings are not to be generalised to other contexts.
Practical implications
The study identifies key employee and management behaviours, attitudes and lived experiences that need to fundamentally change in order to resolve the four SMEs' underperformance. In addition, an innovative environment encouraging inter-departmental agency collaborations and grassroots implementation are needed to effectively and holistically revive the four companies' performance.
Social implications
The study's results highlight the impact of manager/entrepreneur/employee relations on the social aspects that could either facilitate or hamper micro- and macro-level performance. It is therefore critical that owner entrepreneurs are mindful of the impact that their actions/activities and practices could have on the social lives of their employees and partners and on the ultimate bottom line of business success or failure.
Originality/value
Studies focussing on small businesses' underperformance in the UK are a rarity. The paper advances the traditional performance management literature by proposing employee learning and skills' developmental as non-tangible resources to complement managerial attempts. In addition, a “can do” attitude and a more holistic, organisational and individual approach to performance resolution is proposed to fill the performance implementation and theoretical gap faced by academics, employees, managers and owner entrepreneurs.
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The dual purpose of this paper is to locate the contribution of Argyris and Schon to the field of organisational learning, and to discuss aspects of their work which are…
Abstract
The dual purpose of this paper is to locate the contribution of Argyris and Schon to the field of organisational learning, and to discuss aspects of their work which are particularly distinctive or controversial. There are two distinct strands of research on organisational learning. The descriptive strand, with its roots in social and cognitive psychology, seeks to understand the processes by which organisations learn and adapt. The normative strand, which is sometimes referred to as research on the “learning organization”, is concerned more with how organisations can direct their learning in ways that bring them closer to an ideal. While Argyris and Schon, with their emphasis on intervention and improvement, belong to the latter normative strand, they have also contributed greatly to the descriptive strand because their normative theorising is grounded in detailed empirical study of organisational processes. The article contrasts Argyris and Schon’s account of learning as the manipulation of symbolic representations of organisational life, with the non‐symbolic, feedback‐driven account of learning offered by many descriptive researchers. It suggests how these two accounts could be integrated by recognising that differing tasks or problems require different learning processes and different types of expertise. This more differentiated approach casts doubt on the notion of a generically capable “learning organisation”. The paper concludes with a call for more researchers to bridge the divide between the descriptive and normative strands of research on organisational learning.
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Sonja Gallhofer and Jim Haslam
Believes that green accounting should be rendered open and accountable and be properly subject to a democratic process to avoid shrouding it in a mystifying expertise. Offers a…
Abstract
Believes that green accounting should be rendered open and accountable and be properly subject to a democratic process to avoid shrouding it in a mystifying expertise. Offers a timely and substantive contribution to the debate about how green accounting might be regulated. Believes the accounting profession will stop some distance short of recommending a substantive interventionist regulation. Feels that a voluntarist and market‐based stance is likely to be advocated or preferred. Makes out the case for a substantive interventionist form of regulation and points to the need in practice for something better than the status quo. Seeks to justify an interventionist stance in terms consistent with critical theory.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine the approaches to consumer protection in UK financial services before and after the global financial crisis.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the approaches to consumer protection in UK financial services before and after the global financial crisis.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper reviews the literature on behavioural economics and psychology, and uses it as the basis for a critique of the UK's approach to the supervision of financial services firms and the protection of their consumers.
Findings
Non‐interventionist approaches to consumer protection, which are based on the traditional theories of the law and economics movement, have failed. As a result, there is now a shift in thinking towards more interventionist approaches.
Research limitations/implications
By understanding the likely impact of the regulatory reforms the academic research community can assist the regulator to understand the best way to ensure desirable outcomes for users (consumers) of financial services.
Originality/value
The moves to reform UK financial regulation after the crisis have only recently got under way and a lot of the reforms have not been widely debated or written on.
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The term “dynamics of interventionism” refers to a social process, i.e., a sequence of adjustments to change over time, among a great many individuals, who largely share a common…
Abstract
The term “dynamics of interventionism” refers to a social process, i.e., a sequence of adjustments to change over time, among a great many individuals, who largely share a common set of rules of interaction.1 It is constituted by the unintended consequences at the interface between the governmental and market processes, when the scope of government is either expanding or contracting in relation to the market. Interventionism is the doctrine or system based on the limited use of political means (i.e., legitimized violent aggression (Oppenheimer, 1975[1914])) to address problems identified with laissez-faire capitalism. Thus, an intervention refers to the use of, or the threat of using, political means to influence non-violent actions and exchanges. Supporters of interventionism do not completely reject the institutions of capitalism, such as private property and the price system, but do favor using piecemeal interventions that extend beyond so-called minimal-state capitalism2 in order to combat suspected failures or abuses they associate with the unhampered market. Examples of this would include, but are not limited to, market power, externality, asymmetric information, income inequality, racial and sexual discrimination, and the business cycle.
This paper aims to offer an insight into the emergent qualitative methodological profile and its distinctive contribution to accounting and management scholarship, particularly…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to offer an insight into the emergent qualitative methodological profile and its distinctive contribution to accounting and management scholarship, particularly reflecting upon the contribution of Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management (QRAM).
Design/methodology/approach
It examines the range of qualitative methodologies employed in the research published across the ten years of QRAM and analyses the methodological discourse and its contribution to the armoury available to qualitative researchers. In association with these methodological developments, the paper offers a critique of the articulated role of theory in contemporary accounting and management qualitative research.
Findings
A wide range of qualitative methodologies are found to be in evidence, with considerable scope for further adoption and development of some. Methodological exposition papers are found to be a significant contribution in the past decade and include methodological framework building, methodological applications, methodological critiques, and methodological development exemplars. Alongside methodology, the dual role of theory as either informing or reflecting methodology is presented.
Originality/value
The paper provides a critical analysis and consideration of qualitative methodological literature development in the last ten years of accounting and management research literature, particularly reflected in QRAM. It identifies dominant methodologies in use, as well as opportunities for expanding the methodological menu in accounting and management research. Furthermore, it classifies groups of methodological papers and their contributing perspectives, as well as addressing the often-vexed relationship between theory and methodology.
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Giacomo Pigatto, Lino Cinquini, John Dumay and Andrea Tenucci
This study aims to provide a critical assessment of developments in the field of voluntary corporate non-financial and sustainability reporting and disclosure (VRD). The…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to provide a critical assessment of developments in the field of voluntary corporate non-financial and sustainability reporting and disclosure (VRD). The assessment is grounded in the empirical material of a three-year research project on integrated reporting (IR).
Design/methodology/approach
Alvesson and Deetz’s (2021) critical management framework structures the arguments in this paper. By investigating local phenomena and the extant literature, the authors glean insights that they later critique, drawing on the empirical evidence collected during the research project. Transformative redefinitions are then proposed that point to future opportunities for research on voluntary organisational disclosures.
Findings
The authors argue that the mainstream approaches to VRD, namely, incremental information and legitimacy theories, present shortcomings in addressing why and how organisations voluntarily disclose information. First, the authors find that companies adopting the International IR Council’s (IIRC, 2021) IR framework tend to comply with the framework only in an informal, rather than a substantial way. Second, the authors find that, at times, organisations serendipitously chance upon VRD practices such as IR instead of rationally recognising the potential ability of such practices to provide useful information for decision-making by investors. Also, powerful groups in organisations may use VRD practices to establish, maintain or restore power balances in their favour.
Research limitations/implications
The paper’s limitations stem directly from its aim to be a critical reflection. Even when grounded on empirics, a reflection is mainly a subjective effort. Therefore, different researchers could come to different conclusions and offer different lessons from the two case studies.
Practical implications
The different rationales the authors found for VRD should make a case for reporting institutions to tone down any investor-centric rhetoric in favour of more substantial disclosures. The findings imply that reporting organisations should approach the different frameworks with a critical eye and read between the lines of these frameworks to determine whether the purported normative arguments are achievable practice.
Originality/value
The authors reflect on timely and relevant issues linked to recent developments in the VRD landscape. Further, the authors offer possible ways forward for critical research that may rely on different methodological choices, such as interventionist and post-structuralist research.
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