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Article
Publication date: 9 June 2023

Colin Paton and David McMenemy

This research investigates the presence of communitarian philosophy within contemporary Scottish public library strategy, exploring links between philosophy, politics and practice.

Abstract

Purpose

This research investigates the presence of communitarian philosophy within contemporary Scottish public library strategy, exploring links between philosophy, politics and practice.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper follows a qualitative research approach, combining content analysis and discourse analysis methodologies for the analysis of a corpus of Scottish public library trust documentation according to a thematic framework of communitarian values.

Findings

The analysis revealed strong links between trust strategy and communitarian values but also highlighted contradictions within this form of communitarianism which belied a deeper neoliberal philosophical foundation. The research therefore identified a communitarian strategic service shift which introduced benefits of social inclusion, community autonomy and common good but also brought concerns of an inherently weakened communal foundation and the survival of a neoliberal status quo.

Research limitations/implications

The analysis is focused on strategy in Scotland only and thus can only claim to be representative of that country. However, the growth in communitarian strategies in the public sector is informed from the analysis undertaken.

Practical implications

The paper provides a novel analysis of public library strategy and thus contributes to the understanding of public library practice in the modern era.

Social implications

The impacts of communitarian philosophy in the public sphere are under-researched and how these changes impact the mission of libraries needs to be better understood.

Originality/value

This is the first analysis to consider public library strategy from a communitarian point of view. As such, it provides novel insights into a growing area of public service development.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 80 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 26 March 2024

Mona Harb, Sophie Bloemeke, Sami Atallah and Sami Zoughaib

Using critical disaster studies and state theory, we assess the disaster aid platform named Lebanon Reconstruction, Reform and Recovery Framework (3RF) that was put in place by…

Abstract

Purpose

Using critical disaster studies and state theory, we assess the disaster aid platform named Lebanon Reconstruction, Reform and Recovery Framework (3RF) that was put in place by international donors in the aftermath of the Beirut Port Blast in August 2020, in order to examine the effectiveness of its inclusive decision-making architecture, as well as its institutional building and legislative reform efforts.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses the case study approaach and relies on two original data sets compiled by authors, using desk reviews of academic literature and secondary data, in addition to 24 semi-structured expert interviews and participant observation for two years.

Findings

The aid platform appears innovative, participatory and effectively functioning toward recovery and reform. However, in practice, the government dismisses CSOs, undermines reforms and dodges state building, whereas the 3RF is structured in incoherent ways and operates according to conflicting logics, generating inertia and pitfalls that hinder effective participatory governance, prevent institutional building, and delay the making of projects.

Research limitations/implications

The research contributes to critical scholarship as it addresses an important research gap concerning disaster aid platforms’ institutional design and governance that are under-studied in critical disaster studies and political studies. It also highlights the need for critical disaster studies to engage with state theory and vice-versa.

Practical implications

The research contributes to evaluations of disaster recovery processes and outcomes. It highlights the limits of disaster aid platforms’ claims for participatory decision-making, institutional-building and reforms.

Originality/value

The paper amplifies critical disaster studies, through the reflexive analysis of a case-study of an aid platform.

Details

Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0965-3562

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 March 2024

Radiah Othman and Rashid Ameer

This paper aims to seek accounting graduates' perspectives on the demand for accounting in their workplaces, on the gaps in accounting education (AE), and on the future of the…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to seek accounting graduates' perspectives on the demand for accounting in their workplaces, on the gaps in accounting education (AE), and on the future of the accounting profession, inspired by the new definition of accounting proposed by Carnegie et al. (2021, 2022, 2023a), to adopt a strong focus on sustainable development goals (SDGs) in AE to inculcate tertiary students with the skills that lead them to approach and apply accounting as a multidimensional technical, social and moral (TSM) practice.

Design/methodology/approach

The online qualitative survey was distributed to 100 randomly selected New Zealand accounting graduates in order to gather insights from their workplaces. All responses from the 30 graduates who completed the questionnaire underwent qualitative analysis using Leximancer software, which automatically identifies high-level concepts and insights and offers interactive visualizations without bias.

Findings

The graduates’ experiences underscore the ongoing significance of technical skills in the New Zealand workplace. They emphasized the lack of non-technical skills training, stressed the necessity of diverse business knowledge and highlighted the importance of automation and digital skills.

Practical implications

The implications for transforming AE involve adopting an activist approach to integrate a TSM perspective into teaching and learning and being open to an interdisciplinary approach to expose tertiary students to the impact of accounting on sustainable development, including collaboration with professional bodies for real-world experiences.

Originality/value

The importance of engaging with SDG-related narratives is stressed to stimulate further discussion, debate and research aimed at identifying practical solutions for AE as a facilitator for SDGs in realizing accounting as a TSM practice.

Details

Meditari Accountancy Research, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2049-372X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 26 March 2024

Tracey Ollis, Ursula Harrison and Cheryl Ryan

We argue this method of inquiry better represents the participants' learning, lives and experiences in the formal neoliberal education system prioritising performativity…

Abstract

Purpose

We argue this method of inquiry better represents the participants' learning, lives and experiences in the formal neoliberal education system prioritising performativity, categorising and ranking students.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper explores using poetry as a research method to reveal the learning experiences of adult learners, who have often had disruptive experiences of the formal schooling system and return to study in community-based education spaces. Inspired by Laurel Richardson’s transgressive technique of presenting sociological data through poetry as method, we use poetic representations of these learners' lives alongside case study research methodology. The research was conducted in conjunction with Neighbourhood Houses in Victoria, Australia. Qualitative data were generated through conducting multiple case studies of learners across various adult community education (ACE) sites. In this research, some case studies were presented in the traditional method of writing biography, others were written in the form of found poetry, which we refer to as data as poetry and text. The paper uses found poetry through participant-voiced poems written from interview transcripts. We argue this method of inquiry better represents the participants' learning, lives and experiences in the formal neoliberal education system prioritising performativity, categorising and ranking students. Our findings highlight the benefits of using poetry to communicate data in case study research as it effectively represents the experiences of adult learners' lives in a creative and concise form, transgressing normative practices of writing education research. These poetic representations of data reveal learner experiences in an embodied and agentic way while providing readers with a deep and rich understanding of these crucial adult learning spaces.

Findings

Our findings highlight the benefits of using poetry to communicate data in case study research as it effectively represents the experiences of adult learners' lives in a creative and concise form, transgressing normative practices of writing education research.

Originality/value

This research paper is empirical research and has not been submitted elsewhere for publication.

Details

Qualitative Research Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1443-9883

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 31 August 2023

Lan Anh Nguyen

Although student evaluation of teaching (SET) is widely used, there has been a significant disparity between its potential benefits with the actual impact on improving educational…

Abstract

Purpose

Although student evaluation of teaching (SET) is widely used, there has been a significant disparity between its potential benefits with the actual impact on improving educational quality. This study aims to inquire into the factors contributing to this discrepancy and the underlying mechanisms hindering the effective utilisation of SET.

Design/methodology/approach

This qualitative case study used problem-based methodology to investigate the theories of action of administrators involved in SET. The study uses SET documents and individual interviews with 18 administrators from six Vietnamese higher education institutions.

Findings

While the administrators monitored SET data and addressed SET problems, few used it for quality improvement. The participants’ SET approaches were influenced by various constraints, especially the intricate interaction between neoliberal agendas with professional and cultural values.

Research limitations/implications

Despite a lack of statistical generalisability, this study contributes to analytical generalisation by vividly portraying the complexity of the SET practice in a higher education context.

Practical implications

This study suggests a more inclusive approach to quality improvement that prioritises multi-stakeholder engagement.

Social implications

The constraint analysis offers invaluable insights into the challenges and dynamics of SET practice, which can be used to enhance SET effectiveness and overall educational quality.

Originality/value

This paper addresses the need to examine the theories of action of administrators involved in SET, emphasising the significance of a comprehensive understanding of the stakeholders’ underlying reasoning process for successful evaluation implementation.

Details

Quality Assurance in Education, vol. 32 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0968-4883

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 February 2024

Casper Hendrik Claassen, Eric Bidet, Junki Kim and Yeanhee Choi

This study aims to assess the alignment of South Korea’s government-certified social enterprises (GCSEs) with prevailing social enterprise (SE) models, notably the entrepreneurial…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to assess the alignment of South Korea’s government-certified social enterprises (GCSEs) with prevailing social enterprise (SE) models, notably the entrepreneurial nonprofit, social cooperative and social business models delineated in the “Emergence of Social Enterprises in Europe” (Defourny and Nyssens, 2012, 2017a, 2017b) and the “principle of interest” frameworks (Defourny et al., 2021). Thereby, it seeks to situate these enterprises within recognized frameworks and elucidate their hybrid identities.

Design/methodology/approach

Analyzing panel data from 2016 to 2020 for 259 GCSEs, this study uses tslearn for k-means clustering with dynamic time warping to assess their developmental trajectories and alignment with established SE models, which echoes the approach of Defourny et al. (2021). We probe the “fluid” identities of semi-public sector SEs, integrating Gordon’s (2013) notion that they tend to blend various SE traditions as opposed to existing in isolation.

Findings

Results indicate that GCSEs do align with prevalent SE frameworks. Furthermore, they represent a spectrum of SE models, suggesting the versatility of the public sector in fostering diverse types of SEs.

Originality/value

The concept of a semi-public sector SE model has been relatively uncharted, even though it holds significance for research on SE typologies and public sector entrepreneurship literature. This study bridges this gap by presenting empirical evidence of semi-public SEs and delineating the potential paths these enterprises might take as they amalgamate various SE traditions.

Details

Social Enterprise Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-8614

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 March 2024

Signe Skov and Søren Smedegaard Bengtsen

In Denmark, there has been, over decades, an intensified political focus on how humanities research and doctoral education contribute to society. In this vein, the notion of…

Abstract

Purpose

In Denmark, there has been, over decades, an intensified political focus on how humanities research and doctoral education contribute to society. In this vein, the notion of impact has become a central part of the academic language, often associated with terms like use, effects and outputs, stemming from neoliberal ideologies. The purpose of this paper is to explore how humanities academics are living with the impact agenda, as both experienced researchers and as doctoral supervisors educating the next generation of researchers in this post-pandemic era. Specifically, the authors are interested in the supervisor-researcher relationship, that is, the relationship between how the supervisors navigate the impact agenda as researchers and then the way they tell their doctoral students to do likewise.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors have studied how the impact agenda is accommodated by humanities academics through a series of qualitative interviews with humanities researchers and humanities PhD supervisors, encompassing questions of how they are living with the expectation of impact and how it is embedded in their university and departmental context.

Findings

The study shows that there is no link between how the supervisors navigate the impact agenda in relation to their own research work and then the way they tell their doctoral students to approach it. Within the space of their own research, the supervisors engage in resistance practices towards the impact agenda in terms of minimal compliance, rejection or resignation, whereas in the space of supervision, the impact agenda is re-inscribed to embody other understandings. The supervisors want to protect their students from this agenda, especially in the knowledge that many of them are not going to stay in academia due to limited researcher career possibilities. Furthermore, the paper reveals a new understanding of the impact agenda as having a relational quality, and in two ways. One is through a positional struggle, the reshaping of power relations, between universities (or academics) and society (or the state and the market); the other is as a phenomenon very much lived among academics themselves, including between supervisors and their doctoral students within the institutional context.

Originality/value

This study opens up the impact agenda, showing what it means to be a humanities academic living with the effects of the impact agenda and trying to navigate this. The study is mapping and tracking out the many different meanings and variations of impact in all its volatility for academics concerned about it. In current, post-pandemic times, when manifold expectations are directed towards research and doctoral education, it is important to know more about how these expectations affect and are dealt with by those who are expected to commit to them.

Details

Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2398-4686

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 February 2024

Christina Donovan and Hannes Hautz

This paper seeks to illustrate how interventionist education reforms shape dis/trust-building processes and their impact on teacher professionalism in vocational education and…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper seeks to illustrate how interventionist education reforms shape dis/trust-building processes and their impact on teacher professionalism in vocational education and training (VET) across national contexts. Using trust as the object of analysis, we discuss the affective mechanisms of becoming a professional in a standards-based neoliberal environment.

Design/methodology/approach

Through an analysis of VET teacher narratives in England and Austria, the paper draws attention to the ways in which policy instrumentalism has created a culture of distrust in VET. Drawing upon foundational work on system trust developed by Niklas Luhmann, we illustrate how conditions for trust sit at symbolic thresholds, which set the conditions for professional recognition within VET.

Findings

Our analysis revealed that attempts to standardise VET strategy are fuelled by the need for existential security and predictability, leading to tensions in the cultivation of system trust. Conditions for professional recognition across both contexts were based on practices of documentation and subordination, narrowly defining modes of legitimate self-expression in organisations. This constitutes a crisis of trust in VET teacher professionalism, which undermines pedagogical autonomy and integrity.

Practical implications

We seek to highlight the impact that reduced trust in the governance of VET can have on issues associated with teacher motivation, well-being and retention. The consideration of trust is therefore essential both for policy design and implementation in VET organisations.

Originality/value

The application of trust theory offers a distinctive lens through which to understand the impact of accountability, performativity and governance processes upon teacher subjectivity within VET across national contexts.

Details

Education + Training, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0040-0912

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 22 March 2024

Yasmine Chahed, Robert Charnock, Sabina Du Rietz Dahlström, Niels Joseph Lennon, Tommaso Palermo, Cristiana Parisi, Dane Pflueger, Andreas Sundström, Dorothy Toh and Lichen Yu

The purpose of this essay is to explore the opportunities and challenges that early-career researchers (ECRs) face when they seek to contribute to academic knowledge production…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this essay is to explore the opportunities and challenges that early-career researchers (ECRs) face when they seek to contribute to academic knowledge production through research activities “other than” those directly focused on making progress with their own, to-be-published, research papers in a context associated with the “publish or perish” (PoP) mentality.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing broadly on the notion of technologies of humility (Jasanoff, 2003), this reflective essay develops upon the experiences of the authors in organizing and participating in a series of nine workshops undertaken between June 2013 and April 2021, as well as the arduous process of writing this paper itself. Retrospective accounts, workshop materials, email exchanges and surveys of workshop participants provide the key data sources for the analysis presented in the paper.

Findings

The paper shows how the organization of the workshops is intertwined with the building of a small community of ECRs and exploration of how to address the perceived limitations of a “gap-spotting” approach to developing research ideas and questions. The analysis foregrounds how the workshops provide a seemingly valuable research experience that is not without contradictions. Workshop participation reveals tensions between engagement in activities “other than” working on papers for publication and institutionalized pressures to produce publication outputs, between the (weak) perceived status of ECRs in the field and the aspiration to make a scholarly contribution, and between the desire to develop a personally satisfying intellectual journey and the pressure to respond to requirements that allow access to a wider community of scholars.

Originality/value

Our analysis contributes to debates about the ways in which seemingly valuable outputs are produced in academia despite a pervasive “publish or perish” mentality. The analysis also shows how reflexive writing can help to better understand the opportunities and challenges of pursuing activities that might be considered “unproductive” because they are not directly related to to-be-published papers.

Details

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

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 2 January 2024

Lotta-Maria Sinervo, Luca Bartocci, Pauliina Lehtonen and Carol Ebdon

Sustainability is a pressing challenge of governance and public financial management. One key element of sustainable governance is the role of citizens. Participatory budgeting…

Abstract

Purpose

Sustainability is a pressing challenge of governance and public financial management. One key element of sustainable governance is the role of citizens. Participatory budgeting (PB) is a participatory tool with which citizens can influence public administration. PB is a democratic process that grants people real power over real money and it has spread around the world. This special issue explores the role of PB in the context of sustainable governance. In this editorial, the authors aim to approach PB as a form of sustainable governance.

Design/methodology/approach

In this editorial, the authors collaborate in the analysis of how PB is implicated in the public management of complex social, economic and ecological issues. The authors identify key dimensions of internal and external sustainability based on prior research. The authors approach these dimensions as an internal–external nexus of sustainable governance in which organizational and financial sustainability are the internal dimensions and socio-political and environmental sustainability are the external dimensions.

Findings

Even though PB can be seen as one tool for citizen participation, it has the potential to foster sustainability in multiple ways. PB, as a form of sustainable governance, requires a financially and administratively sustainable organizational process that results in the institutionalization of PB. It also includes thorough consideration of socio-political and environmental sustainability impacts of PB.

Originality/value

Academics are actively studying PB from various perspectives. However, most of this work has approached PB from the viewpoints of design and results of PB, and less is known about its institutional settings. PB has not yet been adequately studied in the context of sustainability, and there is a need to scrutinize PB as a form of sustainable governance.

Details

Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, vol. 36 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1096-3367

Keywords

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