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Following recent high-profile audit failures, concern has been expressed that auditors are not demonstrating sufficient skepticism when exercising professional judgment. In particular, client assumptions and estimations relating to hypothetical valuations in financial reporting are not being challenged. This paper seeks to address the issue by advancing a decision-making framework aimed at guiding auditors beyond regulatory reductionist thinking towards an enhanced understanding of the cognitive processes which shape professional judgment in forming a reliable audit opinion.

Drawing on the normative philosophical and theological teachings of Bernard Lonergan, the authors' decision-making framework embodies reflective thinking and the data of consciousness to highlight the central role played by enquiry in the dynamics of understanding, judgment and decision-making. Such enquiry elicits challenge of the management bias inherent in hypothetical valuations.

Auditing through a Lonerganian lens allows auditors to reflect on their approach to objective decision-making by offering a set of cognitive tools to enhance the enquiry essential for nurturing professional skepticism.

This paper contributes to the literature by developing the somewhat neglected discourse on the cognitive processes essential for professional skepticism and audit judgment. The authors demonstrate how Lonerganian self-appropriation intensifies an awareness of the recursive cognitive activities pertinent to objective judgment and decision-making. This awakened consciousness has the potential not only to change how auditors question evidence to make informed judgments and decisions, but also to normalize the practice of challenge.

Why is it that highly trained and seasoned executives fail? On the surface, this doesn’t make sense because they are very successful; yet research in the organization sciences provides no shortage of evidence to prove just that. From the classic Mann Gulch fire disaster of Weick’s famous collapse of sensemaking study, to studies of myopia of learning, escalation of commitment, threat-rigidity, dominant logic, the architecture of simplicity, the Icarus Paradox, to core competencies turning into core rigidities, and navigating new competitive markets using “old” cognitive maps, and many more such examples point to a ubiquitous phenomenon where highly trained and experienced professionals find themselves “stuck” in the heat of battle, unable to move and progress. On the one hand, for some, there is a desperate need for change, but are unable to do so, due to their trained incapacities. On the other hand, some simply cannot see the need for change, and continue with their “business as usual” mentality. For both, their visions of the world shrink, they have a tendency to cling onto their past habitual practices and oversimplify the complexity of the situation. In moments like these: DROP YOUR TOOLS and UNLEARN! This book chapter introduces a framework (grounded in clinical psychology) that has had consistent success in helping seasoned executives and key decision-makers open up the alternatives whenever they find themselves stuck with complexity.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a snapshot of secondary school food policy (SSFP) across the devolved nations (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) to offer insights into a growing area of policy concern. The selected context of research is school food policy (SFP), an area of research which has received little attention in terms of policy approaches. The review is focused on 2010 to 2022.

This work combines interdisciplinary perspectives spanning across food policy, public health, psychology, education and sociology. This combination has merit as it offers different perspectives in terms of understanding SFP. The study was conducted between August 2021 and March 2022, using a desk-based review, analysing policies on food in secondary schools. Data collection was conducted through the Web using key search terms. The READ (Read, Extract, Analyse, Distil) approach was used as a systematic procedure to analyse policy and evaluation documents.

To all levels of government, it is recommended that a coherent policymaking approach be used to tackle SSFP improvements, to progress a whole school approach to food, supported by long-term dedicated resources while engaging children in SSFP development. For education departments, it is recommended that a food curriculum review, connected to school meals alongside a refocus on school food standards monitoring and reporting is crucial in serving the future generations. The current economic crisis has had an impact on public spending. Universal Free School Meals has been said to make an enormous difference to well-being.

The current findings suggest that researching SFP across nations has merit. There is a relative lack of focus on secondary schools, in light of England’s focus on the National Food Strategy (focus on children), post-pandemic, economic crisis – together this makes school food and food policy a topic of real urgency and importance. Lessons can both be learned, particularly in promoting healthier and more educationally inclusive school food practices. Research in this area can inform curriculum design and school food environment and system changes from the perspective of learnings around taking a whole school food approach to education.

Corporate governance has become a core topic in management research and business practice. Recent debates like – environmental responsibility, sustainability, ethics, corporate control, generation, protection and distribution of wealth, the role of the board and senior executives in setting standards for performance management, and stakeholder relationship management – have strong links to organisational trust. However, management literature has been relatively silent on how various corporate governance configurations and perspectives potentially shape trust relations within the organisation, especially in Africa. Thus, this chapter reviews corporate governance through the lens of the institutional logics perspective evident in western capitalism and develops a framework connecting various governance configurations to organisational trust. Doing so provides new directions for those seeking to develop further research in corporate governance, institutional logics and organisational trust.

This paper aims to examine the extent to which performance indicators (PIs) reported by New Zealand (NZ) higher education institutions (HEIs) correspond with accounting standards and guidance and the effects issuance of principles-based authoritative guidance and early adoption of Public Benefit Entity Financial Reporting Standard 48 (PBE FRS 48) have on the PIs disclosed.

Using a content analysis index derived from accounting standards and guidance, we conduct a longitudinal assessment of the 2016 and 2019 statements of service performance published by 22 NZ HEIs.

The PIs reported extend beyond the service performance elements proposed by standard-setters. Despite few indicators on intermediate and broader outcomes, the measures disclosed by HEIs are reflective of their role in the NZ economy and the national Tertiary Education Strategy. The results show that principles-based authoritative guidance and early adoption of PBE FRS 48 influence the focus and type of measures disclosed, while there is no evidence of improvements in the reporting of impacts, outcomes and information useful for performance evaluation.

This paper provides timely insights for standard-setters and regulators on the influence principles-based accounting standards and guidance have on non-financial reporting practices.

This study contributes to the scant literature on HEIs’ service performance reporting. It presents a model for conceptualising HEIs’ PIs that can be used as a basis for future research on non-financial reporting. It also reflects on the tension between accountability and “accountingisation”, suggesting that, although the PIs reported support formal accountability, they do not communicate whether HEIs’ activities and outputs meet their social purpose.

The aim of this chapter is to introduce the aims of the book, how it is structured and introduce the main concepts of positive psychology and positive education. This includes a brief history of positive psychology and how it led to its application in schools as positive education. The chapter introduces positive education, what it is, why wellbeing is important in education and some of the main frameworks for positive education being used in schools. A rationale for why the focus of this book is on positive education and at all levels of those involved in education in the UK is also provided. Namely, to address whether positive education is too positive for the UK (Robson-Kelly, 2018).

This chapter focusses on the research methodology of the completed project, drawing on what Martin (2008) described as ‘Indigenist’ research traditions or practices. The project drew upon tenets of critical race theory which developed over the life of a university teaching and learning project to support the praxis of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, or Indigenous,1 pre-service teachers on their final internships prior to graduating.

The broader project was conceptualised and framed within our prioritisation of Indigenist standpoint and critical race theory. Our project was designed to amplify the perspectives and voices of Indigenous students in situations where White, hegemonic relations appeared to constrain their potential achievement on practicum in socially unjust and often racist ways. Research into the achievement and success of Indigenous education graduates in Australia is dominated by non-Indigenous reporting, framed in deficit language of Indigenous ‘underachievement’, ‘barriers’, ‘lack’, and ‘disengagement’, rather than from their experience of injustice in their professional preparation as teachers.

The research design troubled how researchers like us ‘come to know’ Indigenous achievement in the higher education sector through the pre-service teachers’ words, impelling us to listen to stories of discrimination, rather than to official accounts of how they ‘failed’ to measure up to teacher standards. The attention to detail in the multi-site, micro-level practices in teacher education and the ways these unfold in situ for Indigenous students would not be possible without the Indigenist research methodology developed in partnership with Indigenous research colleagues and student co-researchers.

This chapter then serves to remind educational researchers that research is a practice and has practice architectures with particular hegemonic arrangements which have not transpired to serve the interests of Indigenous peoples. Honouring Indigenist standpoint and employing critical race theory in research design thus means paying particular and careful attention to the work that research practices do, on, to, and with communities, not normative (colonial) crafting of the praxis research problem.

The current study examined several aspects of validity evidence for the Faculty Readiness to Teaching Online (FRTO) scale.

Data were collected from 307 faculty in higher education. Construct validity was evidenced through an exploratory factor analysis and a reliability coefficient. Differential validity was explored using the differential item functioning analysis to explore potential bias in items due to gender and age. In addition, convergent validity was tested by correlating FRTO with years of teaching online, the primary modality of instruction and whether there is required training in online teaching by the institution.

The findings from validation showed that new factors emerged and also demonstrated differences based on instructors gender and age, as well as based on teaching experience and primary modality of teaching.

The findings confirmed the previous study's results (Martin et al., 2019) and provided some modifications to the instrument. The factor structure did not conform to the original four factors proposed in the instrument; instead, the newly loaded factors were course design and facilitation, course technologies, course expectations and resources and time management. The revised instrument can be presented and discussed at online teaching professional development programs to help faculty understand the core competencies they need to better instruct students.