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Article
Publication date: 13 September 2024

Jonathan Tweedie and Matteo Ronzani

To advance understanding of transparency by problematising the motivations and strategies of a so far underexplored group: its users.

Abstract

Purpose

To advance understanding of transparency by problematising the motivations and strategies of a so far underexplored group: its users.

Design/methodology/approach

We explore the relationship between blindness, visibility, and transparency by drawing on our analysis of Max Frisch’s experimental novel Gantenbein (1964), in which the protagonist lives a life of feigned blindness.

Findings

The accounting scholarly debate on transparency has neglected the users of transparency. We address this through a novel theorisation of transparency as a game, highlighting some of its distinctive features and paradoxes.

Originality/value

By theorising the transparency game we move beyond concerns with what transparency reveals or conceals and conceptualise the motivations and strategies of the players engaged in this game. We show how different players have something to gain from the transparency game and warn of its emancipatory limits.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 29 March 2022

Marian Konstantin Gatzweiler, Corinna Frey-Heger and Matteo Ronzani

In this article, we explore some of the barriers that prevent learning about grand challenges. By grand challenges, we refer to transformational social and environmental issues

Abstract

In this article, we explore some of the barriers that prevent learning about grand challenges. By grand challenges, we refer to transformational social and environmental issues and the critical barriers toward addressing them. Despite recent research contributions, initiatives, and calls for action to focus on such concerns, relatively little is known about the different barriers that hinder learning about grand challenges. To explore these issues, we draw from Rayner’s (2012) concept of uncomfortable knowledge, defined as knowledge that is disagreeable to organizations because it may challenge their value base, self-perception, organizing principles, or sources of legitimacy. Focusing on the example of recent programmatic attempts to advance “responsible education” in business schools, we identify three barriers to learning about grand challenges: Cognitive overload, emotional detachment, and organizational obliviousness. We conclude by outlining several implications on how to overcome these barriers, adding to recent academic and policy debates on how to make business school education more attuned to the transformational and social challenges of our time.

Details

Organizing for Societal Grand Challenges
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-829-1

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 22 July 2021

Justyna Bandola-Gill, Sotiria Grek and Matteo Ronzani

The visualization of ranking information in global public policy is moving away from traditional “league table” formats and toward dashboards and interactive data displays. This…

Abstract

The visualization of ranking information in global public policy is moving away from traditional “league table” formats and toward dashboards and interactive data displays. This paper explores the rhetoric underpinning the visualization of ranking information in such interactive formats, the purpose of which is to encourage country participation in reporting on the Sustainable Development Goals. The paper unpacks the strategies that the visualization experts adopt in the measurement of global poverty and wellbeing, focusing on a variety of interactive ranking visualizations produced by the OECD, the World Bank, the Gates Foundation and the ‘Our World in Data’ group at the University of Oxford. Building on visual and discourse analysis, the study details how the politically and ethically sensitive nature of global public policy, coupled with the pressures for “decolonizing” development, influence how rankings are visualized. The study makes two contributions to the literature on rankings. First, it details the move away from league table formats toward multivocal interactive layouts that seek to mitigate the competitive and potentially dysfunctional pressures of the display of “winners and losers.” Second, it theorizes ranking visualizations in global public policy as “alignment devices” that entice country buy-in and seek to align actors around common global agendas.

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 22 July 2021

Abstract

Details

Worlds of Rankings
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-106-9

Book part
Publication date: 7 August 2019

Marian Konstantin Gatzweiler and Matteo Ronzani

This study explores how thinking infrastructures can orchestrate collective sensemaking in unstable and socially contested environments, such as large-scale humanitarian crises…

Abstract

This study explores how thinking infrastructures can orchestrate collective sensemaking in unstable and socially contested environments, such as large-scale humanitarian crises. In particular, drawing from recent interest in the role of artifacts and infrastructures in sensemaking processes, the study examines the evaluative underpinnings of prospective sensemaking as groups attempt to develop novel understandings about a desired but ambiguous set of future conditions. To explore these theoretical concerns, a detailed case study of the unfolding challenges of managing a large-scale humanitarian crisis response was conducted. This study offers two contributions. Firstly, it develops a theorization of the process through which performance evaluation systems can serve as thinking infrastructures in the collaborative development of new understandings in unstable environments. Secondly, this study sheds light on the practices that support prospective sensemaking through specific features of thinking infrastructures, and unpacks how prospective and retrospective forms of sensemaking may interact in such processes.

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 29 March 2022

Abstract

Details

Organizing for Societal Grand Challenges
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-829-1

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 7 August 2019

Abstract

Details

Thinking Infrastructures
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-558-0

Book part
Publication date: 22 July 2021

Leopold Ringel, Wendy Espeland, Michael Sauder and Tobias Werron

Rankings have become a popular topic in the social sciences over the past two decades. Adding to these debates, the present volume assembles studies that explore a variety of…

Abstract

Rankings have become a popular topic in the social sciences over the past two decades. Adding to these debates, the present volume assembles studies that explore a variety of empirical settings, emphasizing the importance of acknowledging that there are multiple “Worlds of Rankings.” To this end, the first part of the chapter addresses the implications of two modes of criticism that characterize much of the scholarly work on rankings and summarizes extant conceptual debates. Taking stock of what we know, the second part distinguishes three areas of empirical research. The first area concerns the activities of those who produce rankings, such as the collection of data or different business strategies. Studies in the second area focus on inter-organizational, field-level, or discursive phenomena, particularly how rankings are received, interpreted, and institutionalized. The third area covers the manifold effects that research has unveiled, ranging from the diffusion of practices and changes in organizational identities to emotional distress. Taken together, the contributions to this volume expand our knowledge in all three areas, inviting new debates and suggesting pathways forward.

Details

Worlds of Rankings
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-106-9

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 1 July 2024

Diane-Laure Arjaliès and Samuel Compain-Eglin

This paper is an encounter between an artist creating characters for video games and an academic studying how people and things are being financialized. Exchanging about the…

Abstract

This paper is an encounter between an artist creating characters for video games and an academic studying how people and things are being financialized. Exchanging about the appearance of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and cryptocurrencies – technologies associated with Web3 in the video game industry, the academic, and the artist reflect on the place of playfulness, creation, and finance in our society. They observe that most North American and European players resisted NFTs and cryptocurrencies, while more Asian-Pacific ones embraced the latter. They conclude that those reactions were explained by the fact that gamers perceived cryptocurrencies and NFTs as institutional objects associated with a financial logic, whose presence threatened the gaming logic. As pragmatic friends, they nevertheless issued an NFT with this paper, a “Crow Queen.” Time will tell if the Web3 society will praise this new form of digital joint academic/art production.

Details

Defining Web3: A Guide to the New Cultural Economy
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83549-600-8

Keywords

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