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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the intricate ways in which accounting is implicated in the unfolding of strategizing in a pluralistic setting. The authors treat strategizing as a practical coping mechanism which begins in response to a problem and unfolds over time into an episode. This approach enables the authors to explore strategizing pathways and the ways they can mobilise accounting to advance from practical coping to explicit strategic intent.

The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with Clinical Directors, Business Managers and Finance personnel at three NHS hospitals. Documents were also collected, such as business cases and financial reports. The authors employed theories on strategizing agency, episodes and practical coping to select examples of strategizing and indicate how strategizing is constructed and performed. The authors present the results of this qualitative analysis in three strategizing narratives.

The analysis highlights how Clinical Directors’ strategizing with accounting, in response to their financial problems, can take on contesting, conforming and circumventing modes. As the strategizing pathway unfolds, accounting acts as an obligatory passage point through which Clinical Directors pursue their strategic intent. Along each pathway the authors identify, first, where practical coping takes on a clear strategic intent and, second, whether this emergent strategy proves efficacious.

The authors contribute to the nascent body of accounting and strategizing studies through seeing strategizing with accounting, not as the formulation of explicit organisational strategy as “done” in board rooms and strategy meetings, but as an impromptu response to a critical financial problem within a localised organisational setting. In response to a problem, actors may realise their immanent strategizing through their engagement with accounting practices.

Explores the influence of Japan’s culture on its innovative strengths and weaknesses. Indicates that Japan is good at evolutionary and process innovation but not so hot on inventing. Links this to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, comparing Japanese with US results. Attempts to link Japanese cultural attributes to rice and its consequent agricultural system and associated human relations. Devotes a section each to Japanese collectivism, power, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity/femininity, and Confucianism. Finds that Japanese culture does not promote individuality or risk‐taking (unlike the US), but does excel at process technology.

This paper investigates the influence of ethnologically based cultural factors on the motives and occasions for wine consumption both in Australia and overseas. As the international market for wine expands, global marketers have begun searching for new ways to define trans‐national segments. In particular, the success of Australian wines in the UK has provided a strong base for expansion into the competitive European market One key decision must involve what degree of differentiation the marketing program for each country will contain. Because many marketing theorists see ethnic or cultural background as one of the major underlying determinants of consumer behaviour this decision becomes quite critical. Others argue that consumption of wine is not culturally dependent but based on either a common set of motivations or is determined solely by the occasion in which wine will be consumed. To study this hypothesis a questionnaire was administered to approximately 500 respondents from a variety of Australian and European backgrounds. A single cross‐sectional design was employed. Respondents were primarily selected using a random sampling procedure with quotas boosted for some cultural groups by a convenience sampling process. The four chosen for analysis were Italian, Greek, German and Australian. It was found using an occasion‐based segmentation approach that there were significant differences between wine consumers of different cultural backgrounds. It is concluded that cultural factors do impact on the consumption process of wine and should be considered in any proposals for trans‐national segmentation strategies. However it is also shown that there are some motivational factors that are not culturally dependent. These factors are prime reasons for general wine consumption behaviour and could be used if an undifferentiated global! approach to wine segmentation is the most efficient for the marketer.

The purpose of this paper is to answer the question of how continuity and change coexist in the work of institutional actors who can combine maintenance, disruption and/or creation. Past studies mention this coexistence without an explanation.

The paper develops a perspective through literature review.

Institutional actors are both socialized into the norm-oriented space of continuity and maintenance through their reciprocal relations and associated social knowledge and roles and disciplined into the goal-oriented space of change and disruption/creation through their power relations and associated expert discourse and subject positions. Their institutional existence indicates a particular combination of reciprocity and power and thus their work includes changing degrees of maintenance, disruption and creation, depending on the nature of this combination.

The paper points out research directions on the relational conditions of the actors, which facilitate or constrain their work toward institutional continuity or change.

Organizations whose concern is to continue the existing practices in a stable environment should emphasize reciprocal relations whereas organizations whose concern is to change those practices for more effectiveness in a dynamic environment should emphasize power relations. Also, too much emphasis on either relations leads to inflexibility or instability.

The paper provides an explanation on the sources of coexistence of continuity and change in institutional work. It also contributes to the discussions on contingency of institutions, resistance productive of institutional change, reflexivity of institutional actors and intersubjective construction of institutional work.

This paper explores the links between economic and social structures and ethical norms for economic life. As such, the essay is a contribution to the more general philosophical discussions on the relation between fact and value in the social sciences. I begin with a brief discussion of ethics which highlights the social character of ethical “value” and draws upon the work of the Canadian philosopher, Bernard Lonergan, to introduce a novel way of understanding social structures. The analyses show how economic structures can be understood as cooperative meaning schemes, how such schemes are embedded within a wider ecology of social meaning schemes, and how the dynimic relations among such schemes reveal ethical goals and make ethical demands upon participants who depend upon them for their living. I illustrate these linkages in a discussion of three examples drawn from economic life: a consumer purchase transaction, an ancient trade scheme drawn from the work of Karl Polanyi, and a rather novel approach to economic development proposed by Jane Jacobs.

Despite the burgeoning literature dealing with the democratic peace theory, there seems to be surprisingly little research done in actually analyzing how and why democracies cause peace. There is even less research done in empirically analyzing the “how” part of the normative aspects of the democratic peace theory. The purpose of this paper is to explain the theoretical assumptions and how interpersonal trust is linked to a country's preferences to go to war. In addition, a direct comparison is made between democratic and non‐democratic states to ascertain more clearly the effect of trust on decisions to go to war.

This study quantitatively examines the period from 1980 to 2001 and considers 62 democratic countries and 30 non‐democratic countries in their choices to engage in conflict.

The research project finds that interpersonal trust is strongly correlated with states' decisions to go to war.

This is the first time that a study has examined the role of interpersonal trust on a state's decision to go to war, as no scholarly work has been done in applying the study of interpersonal trust to studying the theory of democratic peace.

The essays by Sauer and Cassidy have argued that significant questions can be raised philosophically and historically about the guiding assumptions of economic behaviour. One can also argue that these assumptions offer a partial view of human being with an accompanying loss of the sense of the whole person. Economics tends to reduce the multiform and rich notion of person to simply a datum of economic activity. In this essay, I will argue that there is a need to re‐examine basic assumptions about what it means to be fully human. I will do this from the perspective of developmental psychology, because developmental psychology has empirically based theories that produce expectations about humanity and the future that are very different from those ascribed by economics. This essay will examine developmental theory, particularly that of Robert Kegan, to show its relevance to providing a direction for economics.

The purpose of this paper is to explore two hospital departments, one of which is laterally dependent on the other to function, but which are subject to distinct vertical managerial controls. This complexity in vertical–lateral relations generates tension amongst the hospital’s senior managers and a perception of coordination difficulties. However, this paper shows how the interplay between managerial and non-managerial controls, plus important employee “work”, moderates tension and facilitates day-to-day lateral coordination at the patient-facing level.

This is a case-study, relying mostly on the findings of semi-structured interviews. Theoretically, the paper draws from previous insights on inter-organisational relations (but informing the focus on intra-organisational coordination) and an “institutional work” perspective.

Consistent with much extant literature, this paper reveals how non-managerial controls help to moderate tensions that could emerge from the coercive use of managerial controls. However, the authors also show a maintained influence and flexibility in the managerial controls at patient-facing levels, as new circumstances unfold.

The findings of this paper could generalise neither all laterally dependent spaces in hospitals nor patterns across different hospitals. The authors recommend future research into the dynamics and interaction of managerial and non-managerial controls in other complex settings, plus focus on the purposeful work of influential agents.

The paper has two primary contributions: extending our knowledge of the interplay between managerial and non-managerial controls inside complex organisations, where non-managerial controls reinforce rather than displace managerial controls, and highlighting that it is seldom just controls per se which “matter”, but also agents’ purposeful actions that facilitate coordination in complex organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an introduction and overview of the various papers in this special issue.

This takes the form of a discussion paper that explores a number of issues relating to accounting in the media.

The paper describes a variety of theoretical, methodological and empirical approaches used in the papers for this special issue. In addition, the paper suggests that although the media have provided a rich source of data that has informed accounting research, the use of media and media texts will remain a fertile area of research.

The portrayal of accounting in the media is of interest to accounting researchers, practitioners, trainees and auditors.

This special issue provides a range of examples of accounting in the media and sets an agenda for future research.

How do social factors motivate and influence scholars when they theorize? By exploring the life of George Homans, this paper aims to illustrate that theories are the products of the theorist, and as such are influenced by individual life experiences.

Drawing on a plethora of archival sources including many personal and autobiographical accounts, this manuscript synthesizes these sources thus providing clear insight into how personal factors and experiences impacted Homans's social exchange theory.

This research concludes that Homans's journey into theorizing was an act of providence; that his early career, personal background, and social capital interacted with several factors beyond his control thus leading to his interest in social exchange processes.

This is the first research endeavor exploring the context, sentiments and motivations of George Homans as he began to lay out social exchange theory.