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This paper aims to investigate the combined effect of two interventions, perspective taking and incentives, on auditors’ professional skepticism (hereafter skepticism) when auditing complex estimates. Specifically, this paper examines the different ways that perspective taking (management versus inspector) and incentives (absent versus reward versus penalty) combine to impact skepticism.

This paper uses an experiment with 177 experienced Big 4 auditors. The experiment used a 2 (management vs inspector perspective) × 3 (absent vs reward vs penalty incentives) between-subjects design.

In the absence of incentives, adopting a management perspective raises situational skepticism when measuring skepticism as appropriateness of management’s fair value estimate while adopting an inspector perspective raises situational skepticism when measuring skepticism as need for more evidence. The authors find some evidence that incentives complement perspective-taking by enhancing those aspects of skepticism for which perspective-taking performs poorly. When assessing management assumptions, auditors adopting an inspector perspective enhance their skepticism more substantially than those adopting a management perspective, and this enhancement is greater with rewards than with penalties. However, this study does not detect an interaction between incentive type and perspective-taking on auditor skepticism in relation to gathering additional evidence.

This paper extends the literature by shifting the focus from a single perspective to a comparison of two perspective-taking approaches and discusses how each of these approaches enhances different aspects of skepticism. This paper also illustrates the importance of the interplay between perspective-taking and incentives in enhancing auditor skepticism.

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on how perspectives and assumptions embedded in the complexity paradigm contribute to make logistics management research better aligned with real-life logistics. This is necessary, due to increasing supply chain complexity caused by an increasing request for sustainable development (SD).

The research is exploratory and based on a narrative literature review of logistics and supply chain management (SCM) from a complexity science perspective. Qualitative research interviews have been conducted with 12 logistics and supply chain managers in international companies and have focussed on their daily experiences and the underlying assumptions related to their actual work.

Logistics and SCM research is embedded in the functionalistic paradigm with reductionistic assumptions as the dominant logic. These do not sufficiently align with the complexity related, for example, to the daily work of SD in logistics management practice.

It is proposed that the inclusion of complexity-based assumptions in logistics management research can increase realism in the advancement of the discipline. A key result is that the recognition of logistics as complex means inclusion of human and social aspects – which is apparent in any logistics process or phenomenon – in logistics knowledge creation processes.

Increased realism in logistics management research by addressing complexity, instead of merely reducing it, will provide logistics and supply chain managers with increased understanding and appropriate knowledge when they deal with emerging challenges such as SD.

Based on Boulding’s levels of complexity, this paper challenges the underlying assumptions of logistics management in research and practice, and provides reflective frameworks for advancing the discipline and aligning it to the complexity of contemporary challenges in logistics management.

This paper considers Drucker's “theory of the business” as a management concept applicable to the challenging of firm performance. The paper seeks to do this by using the theoretical framework developed by Drucker as a tool to apply to organisation planning. In addition the paper aims to demonstrate the often “silent” but influential role assumptions have on organisations. Thus, the paper seeks to invite a reassessment of the role assumptions play in organisations and to present a new and topical perspective on Drucker's original “theory of the business” argument.

A close review of Drucker's “theory of the business” article is outlined and a range of recently published (1994‐2008) works on related subject matter is reviewed. It is argued that the “assumptive design framework” at the heart of the theory of the business has potential to act as a powerful planning and strategy tool for enterprises. In addition the review demonstrates the “silent” positive and negative influences business assumptions have on organisation and management practice.

As a general review the paper provides new knowledge about the practical potential of one of Peter Drucker's seminal published articles in an area largely untouched by business or management research. It illustrates how research employing Drucker's “theory of the business” concept in the context of assumptions in business can have major benefit for organisations, especially growth‐oriented businesses.

This is the first paper to address the empirical potential of Drucker's conceptualisation of the “theory of the business” and exposes a unique Drucker‐inspired business and planning proposition that has significant potential for business management, especially in turbulent times

Unlike the effect of management styles on employee attitudes, little is known about the effect of managerial assumptions on workers within the gig economy. The purpose of this paper is to utilize McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y as a framework to discuss two gig economy platforms and how their differing management assumptions affect worker perceptions of themselves as entrepreneurs.

The author utilized qualitative interviews and demographic surveys with 41 contract workers from TaskRabbit, a personal assistant platform, and Kitchensurfing, a “rent-a-chef” service, to examine the impact of differing management assumptions on independent contractor perceptions of themselves as entrepreneurs.

The Theory X management assumptions and correlated behaviors directly contradict the entrepreneurial ethos marketed by the platforms, resulting in a psychological contract violation for workers and negative responses to the platform. In comparison, Theory Y managerial assumptions and correlated behaviors can be utilized to encourage worker innovation, creativity and sense of self as an entrepreneur.

As the gig economy continues to grow, algorithms are likely to take on increased importance as a management tool. Although some have suggested that such algorithms may reduce the impact of a capricious manager, the fact remains that algorithms are created by management. If the gig economy intends to encourage entrepreneurship, additional attention must be paid to how differing management assumptions, and their resulting behaviors and algorithms, affect worker attitudes and experience.

This study represents one of the initial academic investigations into how the Theory X and Theory Y management assumptions and correlated perspectives may be applied to independent contractors within the gig economy. Additionally, this study is among the first to examine how gig worker attitudes toward platform firms, and views of themselves as entrepreneurs, are affected by algorithm-implemented management policies.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of inventory management articles published in major logistics outlets, identify themes from the literature and provide future direction for inventory management research to be published in logistics journals.

Articles published in major logistics articles, beginning in 1976, which contribute to the inventory management literature are reviewed and cataloged. The articles are segmented based on major themes extracted from the literature as well as key assumptions made by the particular inventory management model.

Two major themes are found to emerge from logistics research focused on inventory management. First, logistics researchers have focused considerable attention on integrating traditional logistics decisions, such as transportation and warehousing, with inventory management decisions, using traditional inventory control models. Second, logistics researchers have more recently focused on examining inventory management through collaborative models.

This paper catalogs the inventory management articles published in the major logistics journals, facilitates the awareness and appreciation of such work, and stands to guide future inventory management research by highlighting gaps and unexplored topics in the extant literature.

This paper endeavors to critically examine the trade‐offs among project objectives and their underlying assumptions.

Effect‐cause‐effect (ECE) methodology of theory of constraints (TOC) has been applied to examine the assumptions behind successfully managing business projects.

The essence of discussion in this paper leads towards the realization that a possibility exists for time, cost and quality objectives to be pursued collectively in a project management environment.

This paper evaluates to what extent trade‐offs among project objectives actually exist and explores the possibility of their co‐existence in a project management environment. This realization can significantly impact the project trade‐off models in existing literature.

Time, cost and quality have been recognized to be important objectives to successfully complete a project and several studies have acknowledged the necessity to address their trade‐offs. However, most of these studies have taken the trade‐offs for granted without critically examining the assumptions behind such trade‐offs. The present paper fills that gap by applying ECE approach of TOC to examine project management trade‐off assumptions. There‐in lies the value of the current paper.

The purpose of this paper is to review and critique three conventional assumptions about leadership and put forward an alternative framing, with leadership presented as a distinct form of intervention in particular moments to management. The paper also presents a structure for supporting leadership action by individuals and groups as an alternate to management action, which is seen as the dominant form.

Reflects an elaboration and distillation of concepts developed by the author since an earlier paper on essentially the same topic, drawing on his 20-plus years’ experience as a leadership developer.

Although not an empirical account, the paper seeks to demonstrate how, when conventional but infrequently challenged assumptions about leadership are “peeled back”, a new way of understanding leadership, especially in connection with management, is revealed.

Suggestions are offered as to how the concepts and tools presented here could be evaluated, including in comparison with established leadership frameworks.

Outlines three practices for supporting leadership action in public sector organisations. These practices are working from observation, attributing reasonableness (allowing that others are reasonable) and speaking with authenticity. Collectively, these are known as the OBREAU Tripod (with “OBREAU” comprised of the first two letters in each of the pivotal words, observation, reasonableness and authenticity).

Conceiving of leadership as a different form of in-the-moment action to management in a public sector context is a distinctive contribution to the literature.

Looks at the concept of organizational culture according to Schein, where the system of basic assumptions is developed by the organization during its history. These assumptions are bound to influence the management’s choice of TQM approaches and quality training methods. First, presents a model of different kinds of assumptions about the nature of the human being, about the concept of quality, and about the nature of learning, held by the management. Suggests how they should be considered in choosing the total quality approaches for optimal results. Second, tests the model and gives an illustration of each of the three types of basic assumptions by giving outlines of selected case studies. The cases featured seem to support the opin‐ion that choosing the “match” approach, where the assumptions included are similar to those that constitute the historic base of the culture of the organization, leads to good results with less resource utilization. Again, cultural mismatch seems to be one of the reasons for friction or direct failures in implementing a TQM approach.

Current mainstream management theory is based on incomplete assumptions regarding the nature of human beings and human action, leading to damaging practical results. This paper aims to draw on personalism for the formulation of better assumptions for theory.

The main problems in current assumptions are analysed. A combination of the exclusion of human intentionality with a view of human beings as self‐interest maximisers who betray relationships if it is in their interest so to do, leads to practical proposals for management that distort human behaviour and tend to make people less trustworthy. Nevertheless, such assumptions are not entirely wrong; it is their incompleteness that is problematic. They need to be able to include the intrinsically relational aspect of the human being. In personalism, the human being is seen as a duality, individual‐person, which can provide a way of conceiving both the self‐interested and self‐giving aspects of human action in an integrated way.

Three brief examples of how these expanded assumptions can give us better guidance in management situations indicate the further potential of this line of research. Personalism grounds human dignity in the idea of the person as the imago dei, a Christian idea. The paper discusses the relevance of this idea for management today.

The value of the paper is that it builds a bridge between current management problems and a well‐developed philosophy, allowing the resources of this tradition of thought to be accessed towards the end of creating better management theory and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to construct the structure of Chinese enterprise managers' human‐nature view with Chinese characteristics, and also to make comparison analysis on human‐nature views of managers from different types of enterprises, and between managers and ordinary employees. Finally, this paper proposes some human resource management (HRM) suggestions for enterprises in China.

This paper constructs Chinese enterprise managers' humanity view model with Chinese characteristics. First, relevant studies about humanity assumptions from both China and the West are reviewed, followed by the hypotheses of this study. Then, the study adopts the self‐compiled enterprise managers' humanity view questionnaire (EMHVQ), together with interviews, to study managers' views on humanity in Chinese background.

The humanity view of Chinese enterprise managers has its uniqueness. Its structure is first level with two factors and second level with ten factors, an organic unity of “human complexity” and “human interests”. The two factors of the first level are “human complexity” and “human interests”. The dimension “human complexity” includes seven factors: complexity of human needs, validity of reward and punishment, work competency, groupism of behaviors, positivity of attitudes, contingency of management and influence of interpersonal relations; the dimension “human interests” includes three factors: driving function of profits, evasion of responsibility and dependency of incentives. Remarkable differences exist in humanity views among managers from different types of enterprises and between managers and ordinary employees, which will exert great influence on the management style of enterprises in China.

Both in China and the West, few scholars or experts adopt empirical research to construct the structure of managers' humanity‐view model specifically based on China's cultural background. This paper not only contributes to the further development of this field, but also provides valuable suggestions for HRM, both for China and the rest of the world.