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Data science promises new opportunities for organizational decision-making. Data scientists arguably play an important role in this regard and one can even observe a certain “buzz” around this nascent occupation. This paper enquires into how data scientists construct their occupational identity and the challenges they experience when enacting it.

Based on semi-structured interviews with data scientists working in different industries, the authors explore how these actors draw on their educational background, work experiences and perception of the contemporary digitalization discourse to craft their occupational identities.

The authors identify three main components of data scientists’ occupational identity: a scientific mindset, an interest in sophisticated forms of data work and a problem-solving attitude. The authors demonstrate how enacting this identity is sometimes challenged through what data scientists perceive as either too low or too high expectations that managers form towards them. To address those expectations, they engage in outward-facing identity work by carrying out educational work within the organization and (paradoxically) stressing both prestigious and non-prestigious parts of their work to “tame” the ambiguity and hype they perceive in managers’ expectations. In addition, they act upon themselves to better appreciate managers’ perspectives and expectations.

This study contributes to research on data scientists as well as the accounting literature that often refers to data scientists as new competitors for accountants. It cautions scholars and practitioners alike to be careful when discussing the possibilities and limitations of data science concerning advancements in accounting and control.

This paper examines the governance function that incubators perform for entrepreneurial firms. The authors demonstrate that this governance function has both a consultative and a control dimension and illustrate how these are enacted in the interactions between incubators and entrepreneurs. The authors also show how these interactions come into being and how entrepreneurs assess the value of the governance role played by incubators.

The paper is based on a cross-sectional interview study with entrepreneurs of 21 start-ups that were hosted by three different incubators. The start-ups are all early-stage technology firms. The analysis in the paper follows an inductive approach.

The authors find that the governance role of incubators is about both consultation and control. Consultative forms of governance include providing input and advice as well as questioning ideas and assumptions. Controlling forms of governance comprise setting targets and tracking progress as well as enforcing structures and documentation. The authors furthermore show that governance episodes are triggered either by the entrepreneurs themselves or by the incubator. In the former case, such episodes are mainly about consultation, while in the latter one, they often have a pronounced control element, which materializes particularly through regularly enforced meetings. Most entrepreneurs seem to appreciate this control element, acknowledging that, in its absence, they would lack the self-discipline of doing some things that need to be done.

This study’s findings extend prior research on inter-organizational relationships and the types of governance mechanisms observed therein. The authors show that a strict separation between actors who offer consultation and those who exercise control is too simplistic. Incubators influence entrepreneurial firms both through consultative and controlling forms of governance. In terms of limitations, this study’s analysis focuses on the perspectives of entrepreneurs, and the authors did not include the perspectives of incubators nor did the authors directly observe meetings between these two parties.

This paper provides examples for how entrepreneurial firms can benefit from being part of an incubator.

This study contributes to the discussion of the governance of inter-organizational relationships by focusing on incubators. In so doing, the authors also complement extant literature on management control in entrepreneurial settings by showing how the incubator fulfills a control function for entrepreneurs before these implement control mechanisms themselves.

This paper aims to examine how managers use planning meetings to coordinate their actions in light of an uncertain future. Existing literature suggests that coordination under uncertainty requires a “dynamic” approach to planning, which is often realized in the form of rolling forecasts and frequent cross-functional exchange. Not so much is known, however, about the micro-level process through which coordination is achieved. This paper suggests that a sensemaking perspective and a focus on “planning talk” are particularly helpful to understand how actors come to a shared understanding of an uncertain future, based upon which they can coordinate their actions.

This paper builds upon a qualitative case study in the Austrian production site of an international manufacturing company. Drawing on a sensemaking perspective, the paper analyses monthly held “planning meetings” in which sales and production managers discuss sales forecasts for the coming months and talk about how to align demand and supply.

The authors show how collective sensemaking unfolds in planning meetings and highlight the role that “plausibilization” of expectations, “calculative reasoning” and “filtering” of information play in this process. This case analysis also sheds light on the challenges that such a sensemaking process may be subject to. In particular, this paper finds that competing hierarchical accountabilities may influence the collective sensemaking process and render coordination more challenging.

The paper contributes to the hitherto limited management accounting and control literature on operational planning, especially its coordination function. It also extends the management accounting and control literature that draws on the concept of sensemaking. The study shows how actors involved in planning meetings create a common understanding of the current and future situation and what sensemaking mechanisms facilitate this process. In this respect, this paper is particularly interested in the role that accounting and other types of numbers can play in this context. Furthermore, it theorizes on the conditions that allow managers to overcome concerns with hierarchical accountabilities and enact socializing forms of accountability, which is often necessary to come to agreements on actions to be taken.

Purpose – The overall purpose of this chapter is to discuss what is known about serious forms of bias violence, obstacles to studying bias violence, and how alternative theoretical and methodological approaches can advance our understanding of bias violence in the twenty-first century.

Design/methodology/approach – Following a review of the literature, the applicability of identity fusion theory for explaining bias violence is considered and applied to the anti-racial mass shooting at an historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina. Data come from an innovative open-source project known as the United States Extremist Crime Database.

Findings – Drawing from identity fusion theory, information from open-source data on the Charleston church shooting suggests that the perpetrator was a highly fused individual who perceived African Americans as a threat toward his social identity group and committed an act of extreme behavior (i.e., bias homicide) as a means for stabilizing his self-views.

Originality/value – This chapter builds upon prior studies of bias violence by demonstrating how (1) publicly available open sources (e.g., court documents and media reports) may be systematically compiled and used as reliable data for studying serious forms of bias violence, and (2) the use of social psychological theories, specifically identity fusion theory, can help to explain the role of personal and group identities in discriminatory violence.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate masculinity in Chinese social media marketing for global luxury fashion brands through two studies.

Study 1 compares physical characteristics of males in visually oriented US (Instagram) and Chinese (Weibo) social media posts promoting global luxury fashion magazine brands (e.g. Vogue, Cosmopolitan, GQ and Esquire). Study 2 examines the prevalence of and Chinese consumers’ responses (reposts, comments and likes) to different masculinities depicted in luxury fashion brand-sponsored Weibo posts.

Male portrayals for Chinese audiences feature more characteristics associated with emerging East Asian hybrid masculinities – “Little Fresh Meat” (LFM) and “Old Grilled Meat” (OGM) – than associated with global or regional hegemonic masculinity (i.e. the scholarly Wén and action-oriented Wu). Wén remains common in social media posts for luxury fashion goods, but LFM and OGM engender more consumer responses.

Chinese luxury fashion marketing depicts masculinity more similarly to other East Asian marketing than to Western marketing. Some luxury fashion brands are struggling for acceptance among Chinese youth. Luxury fashion marketers should incorporate hybrid rather than hegemonic masculinities to prompt more favorable responses among Chinese consumers, especially younger female target markets.

Growing female occupational and consumer power and shifting male employment from blue-collar to white-collar jobs have influenced media portrayals of masculinity. Social media marketing for luxury fashion brands demonstrates the prevalence and appeal of hybrid masculinities in China.

This paper empirically demonstrates the major organizational events of a rolling forecasting process and the roles of controllers therein. In particular, this study aims to investigate how the understanding of a “realistic forecast” is translated and questioned by various mediators in the rolling forecasting process and how it affects the quality of planning as the ultimate accuracy of forecasts is seen as important.

This study follows an actor-network theory (ANT) approach and maps the key points of translation in the rolling forecasting process by inspecting the roles of mediators. This qualitative case study is based on interviews with controllers and managers involved in the forecasting process in a single manufacturing company.

The paper identified two episodes of translation in the forecasting process, in which the forecast partially stabilized to create room for managerial discussion and debate. The abilities of controllers to infiltrate various functional groups and calculative practices appeared to be one way to control the accuracy of forecasting, although this was built on a façade of neutrality.

Prior literature identifies the aims of interactive planning processes as being to improve the quality of planning. The authors apply ANT to better understand the nature of mediators in constructing an entity called a “realistic rolling forecast”.

The purpose of this paper is to examine formal participation in the early phase of the International Integrated Reporting Council’s (IIRC’s) standard-setting. The objective of the paper is to shed light on the characteristics of lobbying parties and the determinants of their lobbying behavior toward the IIRC. Additionally, the most important points of contestation regarding the IIRC’s initial proposal for integrated reporting are identified and discussed.

The authors analyze comment letters issued toward the IIRC’s 2011 discussion paper on the basis of a content analysis. The analysis is guided mainly by Sutton’s (1984) rational-choice model of lobbying and by findings from extant financial accounting lobbying research. The analysis of the data is both quantitative and qualitative.

The paper improves the understanding of the political nature of standard-setting in the context of integrated reporting. Among other things, the authors find that comment letters toward the IIRC’s discussion paper are mainly written by large multinational firms (as opposed to small- and medium-sized ones) and by preparers (as opposed to users). The authors also observe active lobbying by sustainability service firms and professional bodies which tend to take a critical position vis-à-vis the discussion paper’s emphasis on investor needs and shareholder value creation. Moreover, the qualitative analysis reveals that respondents voice different concerns regarding, for instance, the scope of audience of integrated reporting, issues of materiality and the relationship between integrated reporting and other existing reporting frameworks.

The analysis is limited to a consideration of the 2011 discussion paper of the IIRC. The IIRC’s more recent and forthcoming proposals will likely provide a basis to extend the paper’s findings and allow investigation of the role of lobbying for the further development of the framework.

The paper is, to the best of the knowledge, the first one to explore lobbying behavior by means of comment letters in the context of integrated reporting.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the link between service specialization and operational performance in hospitals. Existing literature has mostly been concerned with the performance effects of operational focus, which can be seen as an extreme form of specialization. It is not clear, however, whether an effect similar to the focus effect can be observed also in cases where specialization takes on less extreme forms. The authors analyze this effect up to and above the effects of volume, learning and patient selection.

Ordinary least squares (OLS) and two‐stage regression models were used to analyze patient data from 142 Austrian hospitals over the 2002‐2006 period. The sample contains 322,193 patient groups (841,687 patient group‐year observations).

The authors find that increased specialization in a service leads to a more efficient provision of this service in terms of shorter length of stay. The analysis shows that this effect holds even after controlling for volume, learning, and patient selection effects. The authors suggest that the pure specialization effect is due to the increased administrative and medical attention that is given to a service when the relative importance of that service increases.

The paper's results indicate hospital managers should pay attention to the impact of specialization when making service‐mix decisions. If two services have the same or a similar level of operational performance, then this does not mean that hospital managers should be indifferent as to the relative volume of these services.

The paper provides additional insights into the impact of service‐level specialization not examined in prior literature.

This study aims to answer the research question of how a calculative regime for public universities is implemented, how and under which conditions its symbolic use emerges and what kind of unintended consequences occur over time.

The empirical material presented in the paper derives methodically from a longitudinal qualitative research approach analyzing higher education systems (HES)-reforms in Austria. To better understand the consequences of the organizational changes in line with the new legal framework, 2 series of qualitative interviews in 2011/2012 and 2016/2017 on the field level and the organizational level were conducted.

Identifying two enabling consequences from the tactical behaviors of resistance and symbolic use, i.e. new processes of communication and horizontal network building, allows for theory-building with a focus on the dynamics how accounting begins, then next becomes an established infrastructure, is then destabilized and re-elaborated before it becomes, again, an infrastructure which is different from before.

Although the findings are based on a national empirical context, they are linked to the international discourse on HES in transition and the role of calculative regimes including performance measurement and management attitudes and instruments. They are relevant for an international research community open-minded toward differentiated case studies in a longitudinal perspective on HES-reforms.

When reflecting on their own specific settings governing bodies and practitioners managing the transition of HES may find insights from longitudinal case studies inspiring. The dynamics initiated by new calculative regimes installed need a sensitive framework to handle dissent, resistance, tactical behaviors and changes in power relations between the field level and the organizational level.

This is a unique longitudinal case study of the Austrian HES and its public universities in transition.

As patron-driven acquisition (PDA) becomes increasingly popular we must consider its impact on academic libraries and their communities of researchers. Of particular interest is how successfully e-book PDA programs serve humanities scholars, as traditional representations of their information-seeking behaviours suggest that e-books are largely unsuitable for their needs. More recent investigations into the research practices of humanists suggest that this perception is not completely accurate, making it important to assess the potential fit between PDA and the humanities based on available information. This paper seeks to address these issues.

Based on published investigations into the information-seeking behaviours of humanities scholars, e-books in libraries, and e-book PDA programs the author determined ways in which e-book PDA programs intersect with the needs and practices of humanists, as well as the points of disconnect between them.

Humanities scholars demonstrate many information-seeking behaviours that suggest they can be well-served by e-book PDA programs. Their growing acceptance of electronic resources, significant reliance on the monographic form, heavy use of library catalogues, and the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of their work mean that e-books and PDA programs can be viewed as compatible with their needs even though print remains their preferred format.

While some note the number and monetary value of humanities titles purchased through PDA, no authors have assessed the nature of PDA programs in relation to the information-seeking behaviours of humanities scholars. Such analysis is necessary to get an accurate picture of how well the humanities will be served by PDA.