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This paper aims to report on a project undertaken in order to identify, develop and reflect on the leadership and managerial skills of clinicians. The main aim of the project was to design, plan, organise and deliver a learning session for Foundation Year 2 Doctors within the premises of one of the largest NHS Foundation Trusts in the UK. The key theme of the learning session was the introduction of the notion of competent medical leadership in the NHS. A leadership role has been traditionally seen as the task of managers and as such clinicians have seemed reluctant to engage.

A two hour workshop was designed and delivered with the use of Open Space Technology. Foundation Year 2 doctors were invited to consider the importance of leadership in their everyday roles. An awareness of the Medical Leadership Competency Framework had been a key aspect of the learning session.

The project's outcome can be identified as being the encouragement of Foundation Year 2 doctors in considering their roles as leaders in their everyday tasks.

Design, planning, organisation and delivery of a two hour Open Space learning session with the Foundation Year 2 doctors portrays the session's learning potentials and the potential for such sessions to provide a platform for difficult discussions in the NHS. This is particularly beneficial where a cultural shift is needed in order to see a way forward, notably when facing significant change.

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the immediate and practical value of a new way of thinking about organizations – not as machines, but as living things. The article contrasts an old view of organizations as machines with a new view of them as living things. It suggests that an “emergent” approach to setting strategy is one consequence of the new view. It then explores the power of fostering “emergent strategy” in two real‐life cases, one each from the corporate and community sectors. Finally, it details process steps and results. The author shows how two organizational development processes foster “emergent strategy:” “Open space technology” and “Grounded visioning”. “Open space technology” helps develop breakthrough strategies in business challenges that are complex, urgent, require diverse thinking, and spark conflict. “Grounded visioning” helps create a shared vision among large, diverse, and conflicted sets of stakeholders in record time. Senior leaders now have tools for finding strategic direction with large, diverse groups in complex, fluid, and conflicted situations. This article demonstrates the value of “emergent strategy” as an alternative to traditional, directive strategy setting processes used by senior leaders. It presents real‐life case examples from the corporate and community sectors in which this idea is put to use with spectacular results. It introduces senior leaders to two innovative organizational development processes – “Open space technology” and “Grounded visioning” – which they can use in their organizations to tap the natural intelligence of their people.

Explores the writer’s learning about open space technology ‐ from a first experience of it ‐ and also shares some of the content and conclusions of a session offered during an open space event. Describes the session entitled: “Is current management development appropriate for future roles in organizations?” Explains that one of the key observations was: “What has to be managed is changing”, which provides an exciting or daunting prospect depending on your perspective as a management developer. Outlines other conclusions from the session which focused on the future emphasis and direction of management development and the implications for the role of developers. These were reached through discussions on some of the trends in society, and through the sharing of knowledge and experiences within the group in an open space way. Concludes that the discussions were exciting and stimulating, and the conclusions offered provide a starting point for further exploration of the topic of management development, and for endorsement of the principles of open space as an energizing force to begin the journey.

The purpose of this paper is to critically assess integrated reporting so as to “broaden out” and “open up” dialogue and debate about how accounting and reporting standards might assist or obstruct efforts to foster sustainable business practices.

The authors link current debates about integrated reporting to prior research on the contested politics of social and environmental reporting, and critiques of the dominance of business case framings. The authors introduce research from science and technology studies that seeks to broaden out and open up appraisal methods and engagement processes in ways that highlight divergent framings and politically contentious issues, in an effort to develop empowering designs for sustainability. The authors demonstrate the strong resonance between this work and calls for the development of dialogic/polylogic accountings that take pluralism seriously by addressing constituencies and perspectives currently marginalized in mainstream accounting. The authors draw and build on both literatures to critically reflect on the International Integrated Reporting Council's (IIRC, 2011, 2012a, b, 2013a, b) advocacy of a business case approach to integrated reporting as an innovation that can contribute to sustainability transitions.

The authors argue that integrated reporting, as conceived by the IIRC, provides a very limited and one-sided approach to assessing and reporting on sustainability issues. While the business case framing on which it rests might assist in extending the range of phenomena accounted for in organizational reports, it remains an ideologically closed approach that is more likely to reinforce rather than encourage critical reflection on “business as usual” practices. Recognizing that the meaning and design of integrated reporting are still far from stabilized, the authors also illustrate more enabling possibilities aimed at identifying and engaging diverse socio-political perspectives.

Science and technology studies research on the need to broaden out and open up appraisal methods, together with proposals for dialogic/polylogic accountings, facilitates a critical, nuanced discussion of the value of integrated reporting as a change initiative that might foster transitions to more sustainable business practices.

The authors link ideas and findings from science and technology studies with literature on dialogic/polylogic accountings to engage current debates around the merits of integrated reporting as a change initiative that can contribute to sustainability. This paper advances understanding of the role of accounting in sustainability transitions in three main ways: first, it takes discussion of accounting change beyond the organizational level, where much professional and academic literature is currently focussed, and extends existing critiques of business case approaches to social and environmental reporting; second, it emphasizes the political and power-laden nature of appraisal processes, dimensions that are under-scrutinized in existing accounting literature; and third, it introduces a novel framework that enables evaluation of individual disclosure initiatives such as integrated reporting without losing sight of the big picture of sustainability challenges.

Despite decades of social science research into disasters, practice in the field continues to be informed largely from a technical perspective. The outcome is often a perpetuation of vulnerability, as narrowly defined technical interventions fail to address or recognize the ethical, historical, political and structural complexities of real-world community vulnerability and its causes. The authors propose that addressing this does not require a rejection of technical practice, but its evolution into a critical technical practice – one which foregrounds interdisciplinarity, inclusion, creativity and reflexivity, as means to question the assumptions, ideologies and delimited solutions built into the technical tools for understanding risks.

The authors present findings from three events they designed and facilitated, aimed at rethinking the engineering pedagogy and technical practice of disaster risk management. The first was a 2-day “artathon” that brought together engineers, artists and scientists to collaborate on new works of art based on disaster and climate data. The second was the Understanding Risk Field Lab, a 1-month long arts and technology un-conference exploring critical design practices, collaborative technology production, hacking and art to address complex issues of urban flooding. The third was a 4-month long virtual workshop on responsible engineering, science and technology for disaster risk management.

Each of these events uncovered and highlighted the benefits of interdisciplinary collaboration and reflexivity in disaster risk modeling, communication and management. The authors conclude with a discussion of the key design elements that help promote the principles of a critical technical practice.

The authors propose “critical technical practice” which foregrounds principles of interdisciplinarity, inclusion, creativity and reflexivity, as a means to question the assumptions, ideologies and delimited solutions built into the technical tools for understanding climate and disaster risk.

For our organisations to flourish, they need to engage the intelligence, creativity and energy of the whole workforce and involve all stakeholders. One way of doing this is to use whole system approaches to planning and implementing change and what have come to be known as large‐group methods. This article, the first of two parts, makes a case for these approaches and describes the major benefits, outlines their history and describes two well‐tried methods: future search and open space technology.

With most people living in ‘archipelagoes of peripheries’ in a late capitalist global regime, on an earth struggling with environmental crises, the mission of learning environments is to provide the pod for growth, whether for kindergarten children, teenagers or adults in lifelong learning. The pod is both a protective and an enabling surrounding, and itself a living part of a greater organism. The paper proposes an approach to creation of learning environments through the intertwining of topographies - the owned and continual space of everyday life and dwelling; shrines - the spaces for the new, the exalted, the non habitual; and making by the community - the continual collaboration of the community, teachers and pupils in the design and re-design of the learning environments. All three counterparts are profoundly context related, soundly local and of uttermost significance to identity, belonging and hence wellbeing. The paper unfolds knowledge from diverse sources, ranging from scientific to phenomenological research, from non-conventional community-specific learning environments to historical precedents, and from architectural theory to practical-professional experience of the author. The resulting approach, summarized in a metaphorical nutshell as Topographies and Shrines aims at a pod-environment of learning: responsive, inclusive, and supportive.

Universities are investing billions of dollars in building infrastructure, with the design of learning spaces driven by technological developments and long-standing changes in pedagogical theory and practice. The aim of the study is to investigate the alignment between pedagogy and space by responding to a single research question: What is the relationship between the purpose, process, place and product of student learning in higher education?

Drawing on Beckers et al.’s (2015) purpose–process–place framework, the study uses an online survey and photo elicitation method to gather perspectives from educators and students in one Australian university about their learning spaces. A hybrid approach consisting of inductive and deductive coding to thematic analysis was used to find repeated patterns of meaning.

A total of 24 images of learning spaces were received from 8 educators and 16 students. Thematic analysis of the images and responses by participants highlights the importance of the pedagogical affordances of the learning environment and the product of learning, which are aligned to the purpose–process–place of learning.

This study provided a robust approach grounded in data to understand the alignment between space and pedagogy. Articulating students learning as an output of the alignment between space and pedagogy has important implications for the design of learning spaces and pedagogical practices in higher education. One limitation to the study, however, is noteworthy. The surveys had limited responses. Whilst the small response rates may not necessarily lead to biased results, it is acknowledged that a larger sample is likely to give more reliable results to enable the theory to be generalised.

The study’s findings extend the purpose–process–place framework to include pedagogical affordances and the product of learning. The purpose, process, place, pedagogical affordance and product framework posits that pedagogical affordances within a place must be deployed in such a way so that teaching and learning processes can contribute to enhancing educational goals or purpose to improve student learning outcomes, i.e. product. This framework provides a context for understanding the relationships between pedagogy and space in higher education.

This paper aims to explore whether and how contemporary rankings reflect the dialogic development of smart cities.

This paper is based on the synthesis of smart city (SC), rankings and dialogic accounting literature. It first analyses ranking documents and related methodologies and measures and then reflects on four SC rankings, taking a critical stand on whether they provide space for the polyphonic development of smart cities.

This study argues that rankings do not include divergent perspectives and visions of smart cities, trapping cities in a mirage of multiple voices and bringing about a lack of urban stakeholder engagement. In other words, there is a gap between the democratic demands on smart cities and what rankings provide to governments when it comes to dialogue. As such, rankings in their existing traditional and technocratic form do not serve the dynamic and complex nature of the SC agenda. This, in turn, raises the threat that rankings create a particular notion of smartness across urban development with no possibility of questioning it.

The paper responds to recent calls to critically examine the concept of the SC and the role that accounting has played in its development. This study brings new insights regarding the value of dialogic accounting in shaping a contemporary understanding of rankings and their criticalities in the SC agenda.

This paper discusses the conceptual and theoretical foundation upon which whole systems change interventions are based The paper first describes six methods of intervention that are currently being utilized to change whole systems: (1) future search, (2) search conferences/ participative design, (3) open space, (4) large scale interactive process methodology, (5) simu‐real, and (6) fast cycle full participation and the conference model. Next, six common values and assumptions underlying these large scale change interventions are identified: (1) organizations are seen as “whole systems,” (2) viewing organizations as whole systems requires the creation of dialogue among all organizational stakeholders, (3) organizations do not exist, but organizing processes and procedures do, (4) what we perceive as our collective organizational reality becomes the organization that is created, (5) individuals within organizations have the capacity to self‐organize and redefine their reality, and (6) humanity shares a set of universal values that are inherently “good” and these values will ultimately influence voluntary collective action. The paper concludes with an appeal for interventionists and users of large group techniques to be cognizant of the assumptions that drive their choice of intervention.