Search results

This paper aims to explore how accountants manage the processes of identity (re)construction after identity crisis, resulting from increasing pressures and regulatory requirements, considering both introspective and the extrospective issues.

The study drew on an integrated framework drawing on Luigi Pirandello’s views about identity crises and the search for individual coherence and possible representation strategies. It used an ethnographic approach based on photo-elicitation, conversations and documentary sources to explore the identity reconstruction processes of Italian Commercialisti.

Several conditions caused an identity crisis among Commercialisti, including regulatory requirements, public administration demands and increasing power of IT providers. Commercialisti reacted to these circumstances by re-constructing their image through strategies designed to impress both themselves and others.

The paper has implications for the accounting profession in general and in Italy, suggesting that further pressure may result in rapid change efforts among accountants. It provides a broader and more systematic understanding of the threats to the role of accountants and suggests how they can manage complexity to create new opportunities. It also encourages accountants to focus on alternative roles as a possible new strategy that few have tried.

The paper provides a novel contribution to the understanding of identity crisis issues and related representation strategies in the accounting profession. Unlike past contributions, it made a full assessment of both the dynamics of an identity crisis and the micro-level responses to it, in a new, non-Anglo-Saxon context.

PEOPLE are always asking me to tell them something of the tendencies of the modern theatre: as if it were possible for anyone to account for the countless manifestations of a form of expression that is anything but scientific! To ask such a question is to show a lamentable ignorance of art, for never has it been possible to indicate the tendencies and evolution of any form of art that was in any way worthy of the name. I do not say that the theatre, as understood in some countries to‐day, does not reveal certain marked tendencies, but I am certain that any theatre that deliberately sets out with any given tendency is doomed to failure. I am a sworn enemy of tendencies or schools of thought. Artistic creation must be born spontaneously. It must spring unconsciously from the mind and the creative artist must never know what he is striving after. Art is a work of fantasy. It is elfin and wayward. It follows no masters and has no axe to grind. If the dramatist ever attempts to utilise the stage as a pulpit he is doomed to failure, for art always exacts a heavy toll from any man who thus prostitutes it.

Despite still having many supporters and much use outside higher education, total quality management (TQM) has had a remarkably small impact on colleges and universities. While numerous institutions of higher education have sponsored “quality” initiatives, nearly all of these have focused on non‐academic activities. Thus, higher education TQM has concentrated on processes such as registration, physical plant, bill paying, and purchasing. It has ignored the most critical questions facing the academy such as faculty tenure, curriculum, tuition and fee levels vis‐à‐vis scholarship assistance. TQM has had virtually nothing to say about these matters. Two‐thirds of institutions that began TQM projects in the 1990s abandoned them because the vast majority have been failures. Why? Because TQM has failed to address the most important issues. Nor, because of the nature of academic culture and the difficulty of defining the precise nature of higher education, is it ever likely to do so. TQM’s time has come and passed in higher education.

Firm identities are central and enduring aspects of organizations. However, when firms develop unique identities, they also face an obvious paradox: strategic decisions that are inconsistent with those identities are likely to generate internal and external resistance. Indeed, decisions that entail identity-violating changes may have destabilizing consequences. Furthermore, firms typically face the demand of multiple audiences (or stakeholders) and, therefore, must conform to them in order to be seen as legitimate and have access to symbolic and material resources. Recognizing the influence of multiple audiences in identity construction opens the door to another paradox: what expectations should a firm heed while making those binding commitments that ultimately define its “identity”? These two paradoxes are at the heart of extant research on organizational identity, and addressing them requires a genuine engagement in conversations between disciplines, particularly among scholars working at the intersection between organization theory and strategy.

In recent years, the number of journals focusing on a single literary figure has increased substantially. No longer are only a few select authors the sole focus of a journal or newsletter. With the proliferation of single‐author periodicals, implications for their use in locating literary criticism increases the importance of identifying such publications and recommending them to users. The importance of the effective use of journals devoted to a single author is highlighted by the fact that many such titles are not indexed in MLA International Bibliography, long deemed the most complete of the traditional sources for locating literary criticism. Perhaps the greatest strength of the relatively recent American Humanities Index lies is its coverage of single‐author titles. Humanities Index and Abstracts for English Studies also provide access to such journals. Arts and Humanities Citation Index does include a number of the titles too, but it is relatively difficult to use because of its subject approach.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE is notoriously afflicted by a high infant mortality rate. Literary magazines in particular seem to exhibit all the survival instincts of a claustrophobic lemming. It is therefore a special pleasure to see an avowedly ‘bookish’ magazine—and a Scottish one at that—celebrate its fiftieth birthday. Fifty years of a Scottish literary periodical! It is rather like running up a cricket score at football. Even more extraordinary is the fact that these fifty years have been achieved under only two editors. R. D. Macleod, the founding editor, ran the magazine for 37 years, while his successor, W. R. Aitken, has been in charge for, as he puts it, ‘a mere 13’.

The essay studies the introduction and use of audio-visual media in contemporary Swedish courtroom praxis and how this affects social interaction and the constitution of judicial space. The background to the study is the increasing use of video technology in law courts during the last decennium, and in particular the reformed trial code regulating court proceedings introduced in Sweden in 2008. The reform is called A Modern Trial (En modernare rättegång, Proposition 2004/05:131). An important innovation is that testimonies in lower level court proceedings now are video recorded and, in case of an appeal trial, then are screened in the appellate court. The study of social interaction and the constitution of judicial space in the essay is based in part on an ethnographic study of the Stockholm appellate court (Svea hovrätt) conducted in the fall 2010; in part on a study of the preparatory works to the legal reform; and in part on research on how media technology affects social interaction and the constitution of space and place.

The author is revisiting the body of his papers on Herman Melville's Moby Dick, which he began writing some 15 years ago. Though these writings have remained an “unwritten book”, Melville's works had a lasting impact on his thinking and writing up to the present. The purpose of this paper is to reveal some of the experiences and emotions concomitant with academic writing that remain more often than not hidden from the reader.

This paper is a personal reminiscence on the experience of academic writing for about four decades. It is a story of how an academic becomes acquainted with and then influenced/inspired by a piece of literature and discovers how many organisational topics may be illuminated by works of literature.

Even an unwritten book does not necessarily lead to completely neglecting what had been written. This may be a relief and an encouragement to others, who realize they are not alone in this respect.

The paper adds some further insight into the not‐so‐obvious and broadly hidden experience of the “production process” of academic writing and illustrates the relevance and importance of literature for further thinking on such topics as management and organization.