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The purpose of this paper is to show the importance of theoretical‐genetic reflection in expansive learning and the transformation of an activity.

Cultural‐historical activity theory is used to explicate forms of work‐related reflection, and an intervention method based on activity theory, the change laboratory, is presented.

Different levels of reflection and the intellectual tools needed for them are identified.

The empirical support presented for the theoretical ideas in the article is based on an exemplary case. This intervention method makes it possible to analyze reflection as a tool‐mediated collaborative activity.

The change laboratory method can be used to support expansive learning and learning to learn in work communities.

The paper introduces a less well‐known original intervention methodology to the audience of the JOCM and demonstrates how it connects some current lines of thought in change management.

This article proposes a new way of conceptualizing workplace learning as distributed systems of appropriation, development and the use of practice‐relevant generalizations fixed within mediational artifacts. This article maintains that these systems change historically as technology and increasingly sophisticated forms of production develop. Within these parameters, Taylorism is analyzed as the principal form of the learning systems of mass production, and the total quality management as the learning system of flexible manufacturing, or continuous improvement of processes, as it is also called. The article also maintains that the current IC technology‐based transformation of businesses increasingly calls for meta‐level learning, which makes it possible for the stakeholders within a given system of production to flexibly transform their system of producing generalizations, as the business concept's life cycle proceeds from one phase to another.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue, positioning the articles in relation to the current “turn to practice” within organisation and management studies.

The paper introduces a schematic classification of ways of putting practice at the centre of the concern of social scientists depending on the interest of the researcher and his/her position with regard to the object of the research.

The paper finds that turning to practice does not necessarily, or simply, equate with becoming more engaged, or with making social science relevant, or with moving social science closer to the practical concerns of separate practitioners. It is argued that the effort should be concentrated on developing a type of theory that helps practitioners articulate what they already do, and therefore somehow know. The model for this way of theorising would therefore be not physics or astronomy but rather grammar – a discipline that although just as old, has been based traditionally on a very different relationship between knower and known.

The paper argues that when conceived after a grammatical model, “theory” may become a resource to be used in action and for action to produce emancipatory awareness and trigger change through critical reflection.

The papers in this special issue constitute an initial contribution in this direction as they indicate different ways in which theory, when developed “with” and “amid” and not “for” or even “about” practitioners, may become a powerful trigger of change and transformation.

Effective collaboration between mental health services (MHS) and criminal justice services (CJS) impacts on mental illness and reduces reoffending rates. This paper proposes the change laboratory model (CLM) of workplace transformation as a potential tool to support interagency collaborative practice that has potential to complement current integration tools used in this context. The purpose of this paper is to focus specifically on the theoretical dimension of the model: the cultural historical activity systems theory (CHAT) as a theoretical perspective that offers a framework with which interactions between the MHS and CJS can be better understood.

The structure and rationale behind future piloting of the change laboratory in this context is made. Then CHAT theory is briefly introduced and then its utility illustrated in the presentation of the findings of a qualitative study of leaders from MHS and CJS that explored their perspectives of the characteristics of collaborative working between MHS and prison/probation services in a Norwegian context and using CHAT as an analytical framework.

Leaders suggested that interactions between the two services, within the Norwegian system at least, are most salient when professionals engage in the reintegration and rehabilitation of the offender. Achieving effective communication within the boundary space between the two systems is a focus for professionals engaging in interagency working and this is mediated by a range of integration tools such as coordination plans and interagency meetings. Formalised interagency agreements and informal, unspoken norms of interaction governed this activity. Key challenges limiting the collaboration between the two systems included resource limitations, logistical issues and differences in professional judgments on referral and confidentiality.

Current tools with which MHS/CJS interactions are understood and managed, fail to make explicit the dimensions and nature of these complex interactions. The CLM, and CHAT as its theoretical underpinning, has been highly successful internationally and in other clinical contexts, as a means of exploring and developing interagency working. It is a new idea in prison development, none as yet being applied to the challenges facing the MHS and CJS. This paper addresses this by illustrating the use of CHAT as an analytical framework with which to articulate MHS/CJS collaborations and the potential of the CLM more widely to address current challenges in a context specific, bottom-up and fluid approach to interagency working in this environment.

Several scholars have recently highlighted the narrowness of accounting research regarding it as a threat to scholarly developments in the field. The aim of this study was to chart progress in management accounting research using a sample of doctoral dissertations published in Finland. In particular, the study examines the range and diversity of research strategic choices in Finnish dissertations over time, including the topics and methodological and theoretical approaches chosen. The authors also briefly compare findings over time and with other progress studies.

A longitudinal historical investigation was selected. All of the 80 management accounting doctoral dissertations published in Finnish business schools and departments during 1945-2015 were analysed.

The findings reveal that an expansion of doctoral education has led to an increasing diversity of research strategic choices in Finland. Different issues have been of interest at different times; so, it has been possible to cover a wide range of cost, management accounting and other topics and to use different methodological and theoretical approaches over time. Consequently, management accounting has become a rich and multifaceted field of scientific research.

While this analysis is limited to doctoral research in Finland, the results should be relevant in advancing the understanding of the development of management accounting research.

Overall, the findings support the view that there have been, and continue to be, many ways to conduct innovative research in the field of management accounting.

Dissertation research in this field has been extensive and vital enough to educate new generations of academics, guarantee continuity of the subject as an academic discipline and make management accounting a significant academic field of research.

The paper contributes to current research on management accounting change by an analysis of a sample of doctoral dissertations.