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The relationship between ontology, realism, and normativity is complex and contentious. While naturalist and realist stances have tended to ground questions of normativity in ontology and accounts of human nature, critical theories have been critical of the relationship between ontological and normative projects. Queer theory in particular has been critical of ontological endeavors. Exploring the problem of normativity and ontology, this paper will make the case that the critical realist ontology of open systems and complex, contingent, conjunctural causation deeply resonates with queer theory, generating a queer ontology that both allows for and undermines ontological and normative projects.

Japan applies a quasi-mandatory approach to corporate environmental reporting by defining the desired norm through formal law and guidelines and pushing large companies to be role models regardless of their sensitivity to environmental impacts. This study aims to analyze the change in Japanese companies reporting quality to justify this approach’s capability to produce normativity of environmental reporting.

This study examines the change in corporate environmental reporting quality and the effect of company characteristics on it. The analysis focuses on 88 companies for 2008, 2013 and 2018, resulting in 264 company-year observations.

The result shows a continuous upward trend, although it is unsatisfactory regarding the comparability and free from error characteristics. Then, company size positively affects the quality, and sensitivity to environmental impacts does not. Overall, the findings indicate that Japan is moving toward normativity through the quasi-mandatory approach and the norm entrepreneurship of its large companies, regardless of their sensitivity to environmental impacts.

This study could relieve the belief that it is necessary to apply a mandatory approach to improve reporting quality and enrich views on the effect of company characteristics which mainly used only the legitimacy perspective.

This study proposes a more comprehensive measure of environmental reporting quality. The measure is based on the qualitative characteristics of useful information from the most influential accounting standard-setting bodies. In addition, the effect of company characteristics on the quality is explained based on the norm entrepreneurship view instead of the legitimacy perspective.

Seeing inclusive education as a process of removing barriers and dis-abilities and to foster participation and learning for all students in educational organizations (Ainscow & Sandill, 2010; Florian & Beaton, 2018), research approaches and perspectives are valuable for sustaining a theoretically, analytically and methodologically consistent perspective on social order and structural barriers as well as on their transformation. This analytical research perspective challenges researchers to reflect on the positionality and normativity of their research as well as the problem of reification of deficit-oriented categories in educational research (Messiou, 2017). The chapter analyses how the problem of normativity and reification is addressed in the practice of international qualitative research and publishing, in regard to inclusive education. It endeavours to provoke critical thinking about how inclusive education research can target these challenges by discussing interpretative and reconstructive research approaches. Hence, the paper explores how to develop ways of analysing processes and practices regarding inclusion and exclusion.

Purpose – This contribution draws on the processually proceeding historico-genetic theory developed by Günter Dux, in order to reconstruct the emergence of normativity as a central mode of human social organization from nonnormatively ordered prehuman societies.

Design/methodology/approach – In the first step, some of the most important premises and core arguments of historico-genetic theory are being explicated, as well as its conception of society. These are then illustrated with reference to the socio-genesis of normativity and of morality as a special kind of normativity. The chapter concludes with an attempt to evaluate the productiveness of historico-genetically oriented explanations.

Findings – According to sociological accounts, only human beings are able to develop mentally construed sociocultural forms and worlds, which are mediated through thought and language, and stabilized and secured by means of normativity. For the modern, natural scientifically shaped antimetaphysical understanding of the world, however, the normative constitution of human social forms of cultural organization as a distinguishing mark of the conditio humana can only be understood as a successor organization to a natural-historical precursor.

Originality/value – This chapter introduces the theoretical perspective of contemporary German social theorist Günter Dux to English-speaking readers, and provides a critical assessment of his work.

The purpose of this paper is to explore an alternative strategy to decrease disadvantaging gender binarism and cis-normativity in an organisational context by including trans* and gender diverse (TGD) employee voices through the development of a safe and brave space (S&BS).

This conceptual paper discusses the potential construction of S&BS and the possible integration as well as requirements of it into an organisational environment. The elaborated theoretical underpinning of a queering approach is used to build the foundation and the design of a potential successful implementation.

Current diversity management strategies are repeatedly reported as inadequate to tackle the issue of gender binarism and cis-normativity or even to reinforce them via various strategies. The integration of S&BS could offer cis as well as TGD people an opportunity to participate in the development of organisational structures and managerial decision-making within a democratic and empowering environment. Managing gender with the support of TGD employees may increase inclusion, equity and diversity of gender in management and organisation.

Although much of the management and organisational literature accepts the concept of gender binarism and cis-normativity, the integration of TGD employee voices through the adaptation of S&BS from an educational context into organisational management has not been explored.

This paper aims to consider the potential implications of the layering of regulation in relation to hydraulic fracturing (fracking) at the borders between the nations of the UK.

This paper uses a qualitative research method grounded in particular in legal geography to examine the existing approaches to regulating hydraulic fracturing and identify the places and their features that are constructed as a result of their intersection at the borders of the nations comprising the UK.

The current regulatory framework concerning hydraulic fracturing risks restricts the places in which the practice can occur in such a manner as to potentially cause greater environmental harm should the process be used. The regulations governing the process are not aligned in relation to the surface and subsurface aspects of the process to enable their management, once operational, as a singularly constructed place of extraction. Strong regulation at the surface can have the effect of influencing placement of the site only in relation to the place at which the resource sought reaches the surface, whilst having little to no impact on the environmental harms, which will result at the subsurface or relative to other potential surface site positions, and potentially even increasing them.

This paper is limited by uncertainty as to the future use of hydraulic fracturing to extract oil and gas within the UK. The issues raised within it would also be applicable to other extractive industries where a surface site might be placed within a radius of the subsurface point of extraction, rather than having to be located at a fixed point relative to that in the subsurface. This paper therefore raises concerns that might be explored more generally in relation to the regulation of the place of resource extraction, particularly at legal borders between jurisdictions, and the impact of regulation, which does not account for the misalignment of regulation of spaces above and below the surface that form a single place at which extraction occurs.

This paper considers the potential impacts of misaligned positions held by nations in the UK in relation to environmentally harmful practices undertaken by extractive industries, which are highlighted by an analysis of the extant regulatory framework for hydraulic fracturing.

Whilst the potential for cross internal border extraction of gas within the UK via hydraulic fracturing and the regulatory consequences of this has been highlighted in academic literature, this paper examines the implications of regulation for the least environmentally harmful placement of the process.

The social licence literature contains two quite different accounts of the concept. Sometimes social licence is presented as an essentially empirical matter; sometimes it is portrayed as having normative significance. Both advocates and critics assume that the normative version is easy to generate from the empirical version but the author argues that it is difficult to account for the normativity of social licence. It is commonly claimed that social licence is a ‘metaphor’ or ‘analogy’ drawing on familiar understandings of institutional licences, and standard accounts purport to ‘build in’ normativity. Neither strategy establishes the normativity of social licence. If that is correct, we have reason to be sceptical about the normative significant of claims about the possession of empirical social licence. The approval or acceptance by affected communities may be one factor to be taken into account in such analysis, but it will not itself settle whether a practice ought to be approved or accepted or licenced.

Allen’s critique of current Frankfurt School theory presents the joint methods of “problematizing genealogy” and “metanormative contextualism” as alternative for the normative grounding of critical theory. Through a close reading of Allen’s critique, I investigate whether Allen’s identification of philosophy of history is an accurate diagnosis of the problems of the normative grounding of current Frankfurt School theory, whether Allen’s distinction between metanormative and normative levels is tenable for critical theory, and whether Allen’s methodology constitutes a viable alternative for the normative grounding of critical theory. As an alternative, I suggest scrutinizing the grounding strategies of current Frankfurt School theory to expand beyond their genealogy in Enlightenment thought, and address the question of what made the affirmative form of thought underlying current Frankfurt School theory a historical possibility. Expanding on Allen’s reiteration of the mediated nature of categories, I suggest that the stark contrast between forms of thought underlying first- and second-generation Frankfurt School critical theory needs to be understood not in relation to philosophy of history but against the backdrop of the specific context of the European historical present that informs its normative universe.

My response to the thoughtful and insightful critical discussions of my book, The End of Progress, offered by Reha Kadakal, George Steinmetz, Karen Ng, and Kevin Olson, restates its motivation and rationale to defend my interpretive claims regarding Adorno, Foucault, Habermas, Honneth, and Forst by applying standards drawn from the first two theorists that are consonant with postcolonial critical theory to the perspectives, claims, and theoretical contributions of the latter three theorists. Habermas, Honneth, and Forst presume a historical present that has shaped the second, third, and fourth generations of the Frankfurt School they represent – a present that appears to be characterized by relative social and political stability – a stability that only applies in the context of Europe and the United States. Elsewhere, anti-colonial struggles, proxy wars, and even genocides were related to the persistent legacies of European colonialism and consequences of American imperialism. Yet, critical theory must expand its angle of vision and acknowledge how its own critical perspective is situated within the postcolonial present. The essays of Kadakal and Ng express concerns about my metanormative contextualism and the question of whether Adorno’s work can be deployed to support it. Steinmetz challenges my “process of elimination” argument for metanormative contextualism and asks why I assume that constructivism, reconstructivism, and problematizing genealogy exhaust the available options for grounding normativity. Olson calls for a methodological decolonization to complement the epistemic decolonization I recommend. Critical theory should produce critical theories of actually existing societies, rather than being preoccupied with meta-theory or disputes over clashing paradigms.

The objective of this chapter is to analyse the impact of France’s ‘Grenelle 2’ law of 2010, which applies to environmental accounting disclosures (EADs). More specifically, it seeks to observe whether the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ ‘comply or explain’ model, transposed into the French regulatory framework, influences the disclosure strategies of firms that are listed on a regulated market.

Drawing on the theoretical framework of legitimacy and the concept of normativity, an empirical study is conducted on a sample of 96 French firms listed on the SBF index between 2009 and 2014. The effect of regulation is assessed by a content analysis of EAD in annual reports, examining changes in disclosure practices and the contents of disclosures.

The main results show that explanations for the absence of EAD showed a significant increase after the introduction of the law. We also observe that the new rules had no effect on the number of firms making EADs, although the quality of the disclosures declined. Finally, the results also concern practices of non-disclosure without any accompanying explanation.

The limitations of this study relate to the choices underlying the classifications and observations made during the content analysis.

This study has social relevance in that it supplies information for assessing the transposition of European directives into French law.

This study extends research concerning environmental disclosures by examining a recent accounting object. It also continues the debate on normativity, with its analysis of disclosures subject to a changing regulatory framework.