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There is no exaggeration in the claim that abstract-deductive political economy in pre-Tractarian Oxford was driven by Richard Whately and hence centred at Oriel College. At this time Oriel was defined by a group of intellectuals now commonly referred to as the Oriel Noetics, of whom Whately was one, and the nature of Oxford political economy in the opening decades of the nineteenth century (including William F. Lloyd's contribution to it) cannot be understood outside the context of the intellectual tradition established by the Oriel Noetics. The Noetics were unconventional reformist clerics (one could not use the slippery mid-Victorian word ‘liberal’, as they were predominantly conservative Whigs or reform-minded Tories of the Pitt mould, in which order and tradition were maintained through moderate, but not radical, change); admired rational thought and absent-mindedly tested social conventions with their speech; were unafraid to question religious shibboleths if they deemed them bereft of scriptural foundation (such as Sabbatarianism); deployed logical processes to bolster their religious beliefs, which they held in an unsentimental fashion, and thereby to some extent practised that most contradictory of creeds, a logical faith; and, most importantly for this chapter, constructed a Christian Political Economy by dichotomising knowledge into a theological domain, in which they inferred from scriptural evidence that individuals should pursue the ends of attaining specific virtues (not utility!), and a scientific domain, in which they deduced scientific laws that would enable individuals to achieve the ends of attaining these virtues. They looked upon the rising Romantic Movement in general and the spiritualist yearnings of the Oxford Tractarians in particular with simple incomprehension, if not disgust. They deplored with equal measure the Evangelicals' enthusiasms, willing incogitency and lack of institutional anchor, yet sought to establish a broader national church that included dissenters (but not Catholics). They were most prominent in the 1810s and 1820s before colliding violently in the 1830s with, and being sidelined by, the Tractarians, many of whom they had, ironically enough, mentored and promoted.²

On many occasions, organizational science research has been referred to as fragmented and disjointed, resulting in a literature that is, in the opinion of many, difficult to navigate and comprehend. One potential explanation is that scholars have failed to comprehend that organizations are complex and intricate systems. In order to move us past this morass, we recommend that researchers extend beyond traditional rational, mechanistic, and variable-centered approaches to research and integrate a more advantageous pattern-oriented approach within their research program. Pattern-oriented methods approximate real-life phenomena by adopting a holistic, integrative approach to research wherein individual- and organizational-systems are viewed as non-decomposable organized wholes. We argue that the pattern-oriented approach has the potential to overcome a number of breakdowns faced by alternate approaches, while offering a novel and more representative lens from which to view organizational- and HRM-related issues. The proposed incorporation of the pattern-oriented approach is framed within a review and evaluation of current approaches to organizational research and is supplemented with a discussion of methodological and theoretical implications as well as potential applications of the pattern-oriented approach.

Diagrams are ubiquitous in economics and are uncontestably among the most used, if not the most important workhorses of economists, though they come in many forms. This essay examines the different uses of graphs and diagrams in the pioneering work of two Victorian economists, Stanley Jevons and Alfred Marshall. We stress the difference between their use as representations and as visual reasoning tools, a difference that became obscured in the twentieth century with the rise of econometrics.

In this study, we use the well-researched and validated Big Five model of personality traits to examine accounting students’ career interests in auditing. Using the person-job fit literature as a springboard for our study, we investigate the influence of accounting students’ personality traits on their career interests in auditing using a research survey. We uncover a general “trait gap” (i.e., lack of fit) between accounting students’ own personality traits and their perceptions of the ideal auditor, which presents implications for workplace readiness. Additionally, analysis focusing on students who particularly want to work in auditing indicates that those with more auditing work experience are more likely to identify auditing as their preferred job. Furthermore, results indicate that accounting students higher on openness to experience tend to view auditing jobs as more desirable. Finally, accounting students who prefer the auditing career path perceive the ideal auditor as extroverted, agreeable, and open to experience. We extend prior findings in the accounting education literature surrounding personality traits and their impact on student career choices. Because advising students for a career path suiting their traits and talents is important for each student and the accounting profession, our study’s insights into the “matching process” add value to career advising.