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1 – 10 of 239The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it seeks to articulate a framework for different conceptions of accounting’s performativity. Second, it aims to advance a Baradian…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it seeks to articulate a framework for different conceptions of accounting’s performativity. Second, it aims to advance a Baradian posthumanist understanding of accounting’s performativity.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper traces different foundational conceptions of performativity and then articulates and substantiates different conceptions of accounting’s performativity. It advances one of these conceptions by producing a Baradian posthumanist understanding of accounting’s performativity.
Findings
Seven conceptions of performative accountings are articulated: accounting as a (counter)performative illocution; accounting as a performative perlocution; accounting as a self-fulfilling prophecy; accounting as an overflowing frame; accounting as a controlled relational agency; accounting as a mediator; and accounting as an exclusionary practice. It is argued how a posthumanist understanding of accounting as an exclusionary practice turns accounting from a world-knowing practice into a world-making practice. As such, it should be called to account.
Research limitations/implications
Posthumanist qualitative accounting research that conceives of accounting as an exclusionary practice focuses on how accounting is a material-discursive practice that intra-acts with other practices, and on how there is a power-performativity in the intra-actions that locally and temporarily (re)produces meaningful positions for subjects and objects and the boundaries between them.
Practical implications
A posthumanist understanding teaches practitioners to be attentive to and accountable for the exclusions that come with accounting or, more generally, with measurement. Accounting raises ethical concerns.
Originality/value
This paper articulates different conceptions of accounting’s performativity and makes the case for empirical non-anthropocentric examinations of accounting as an exclusionary practice.
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Elin K. Funck, Kirsi-Mari Kallio and Tomi J. Kallio
This paper aims to investigate the process by which performative technologies (PTs), in this case accreditation work in a business school, take form and how humans engage in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the process by which performative technologies (PTs), in this case accreditation work in a business school, take form and how humans engage in making up such practices. It studies how academics come to accept and even identify with the quantitative representations of themselves in a translation process.
Design/methodology/approach
The research involved a longitudinal, self-ethnographic case study that followed the accreditation process of one Nordic business school from 2015 to 2021.
Findings
The findings show how the PT pushed for different engagements in various phases of the translation process. Early in the translation process, the PT promoted engagement because of self-realization and the ability for academics to proactively influence the prospective competitive milieu. However, as academic qualities became fabricated into numbers, the PT was able to request compliance, but also to induce self-reflection and self-discipline by forcing academics to compare themselves to set qualities and measures.
Originality/value
The paper advances the field by linking five phases of the translation process, problematization, fabrication, materialization, commensuration and stabilization, to a discussion of why academics come to accept and identify with the quantitative representations of themselves. The results highlight that the materialization phase appears to be the critical point at which calculative practices become persuasive and start influencing academics’ thoughts and actions.
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Ville Jylhä, Noora Hirvonen and Jutta Haider
This study addresses how algorithmic recommendations and their affordances shape everyday information practices among young people.
Abstract
Purpose
This study addresses how algorithmic recommendations and their affordances shape everyday information practices among young people.
Design/methodology/approach
Thematic interviews were conducted with 20 Finnish young people aged 15–16 years. The material was analysed using qualitative content analysis, with a focus on everyday information practices involving online platforms.
Findings
The key finding of the study is that the current affordances of algorithmic recommendations enable users to engage in more passive practices instead of active search and evaluation practices. Two major themes emerged from the analysis: enabling not searching, inviting high trust, which highlights the how the affordances of algorithmic recommendations enable the delegation of search to a recommender system and, at the same time, invite trust in the system, and constraining finding, discouraging diversity, which focuses on the constraining degree of affordances and breakdowns associated with algorithmic recommendations.
Originality/value
This study contributes new knowledge regarding the ways in which algorithmic recommendations shape the information practices in young people's everyday lives specifically addressing the constraining nature of affordances.
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Scalar terms, such as “local” and “global,” “big” and “small” are fundamental in how academics and practitioners make sense of and respond to grand challenges. Yet, scale is so…
Abstract
Scalar terms, such as “local” and “global,” “big” and “small” are fundamental in how academics and practitioners make sense of and respond to grand challenges. Yet, scale is so taken-for-granted that we rarely question or critically reflect on the concept and how it is used. The aim of this paper is to identify scale as an important concept in research on grand challenges and to point out why taking scale for granted can be problematic. In particular, I suggest that to date most research on grand challenges sees scale as a fundamental ontological feature of the world. Yet, scalar categories and hierarchies are not as self-evident and given as they may seem. Moreover, taking scale as an ontological fixed category limits our ability to make sense of, theorize and respond to grand challenges. As an alternative, I suggest seeing scale as an epistemological frame that participants employ in their everyday practices to make sense of, navigate and develop solutions to grand challenges. The chapter concludes with a research agenda for studying scale as socially constructed in practice.
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Juliana Elisa Raffaghelli and Stefania Manca
Although current research has investigated how open research data (ORD) are published, researchers' behaviour of ORD sharing on academic social networks (ASNs) remains…
Abstract
Purpose
Although current research has investigated how open research data (ORD) are published, researchers' behaviour of ORD sharing on academic social networks (ASNs) remains insufficiently explored. The purpose of this study is to investigate the connections between ORDs publication and social activity to uncover data literacy gaps.
Design/methodology/approach
This work investigates whether the ORDs publication leads to social activity around the ORDs and their linked published articles to uncover data literacy needs. The social activity was characterised as reads and citations, over the basis of a non-invasive approach supporting this preliminary study. The eventual associations between the social activity and the researchers' profile (scientific domain, gender, region, professional position, reputation) and the quality of the ORD published were investigated to complete this picture. A random sample of ORD items extracted from ResearchGate (752 ORDs) was analysed using quantitative techniques, including descriptive statistics, logistic regression and K-means cluster analysis.
Findings
The results highlight three main phenomena: (1) Globally, there is still an underdeveloped social activity around self-archived ORDs in ResearchGate, in terms of reads and citations, regardless of the published ORDs quality; (2) disentangling the moderating effects over social activity around ORD spots traditional dynamics within the “innovative” practice of engaging with data practices; (3) a somewhat similar situation of ResearchGate as ASN to other data platforms and repositories, in terms of social activity around ORD, was detected.
Research limitations/implications
Although the data were collected within a narrow period, the random data collection ensures a representative picture of researchers' practices.
Practical implications
As per the implications, the study sheds light on data literacy requirements to promote social activity around ORD in the context of open science as a desirable frontier of practice.
Originality/value
Researchers data literacy across digital systems is still little understood. Although there are many policies and technological infrastructure providing support, the researchers do not make an in-depth use of them.
Peer review
The peer-review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-05-2021-0255.
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Line Mathisen, Siri Ulfsdatter Søreng and Trine Lyrek
The study aims to investigate how tourism actors' methodologies fuel the development of regenerative activities anchored in the reciprocity of nature and humans directed at…
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to investigate how tourism actors' methodologies fuel the development of regenerative activities anchored in the reciprocity of nature and humans directed at bringing well-being for all living beings.
Design/methodology/approach
To shed light on micro-scale regenerative creation processes in tourism, the authors engage in co-creative case study research with the owners of a small value-driven tourism firm in Arctic Norway in their creation of activities that strengthen the human–nature relation.
Findings
The authors found that the values of the tourism firm's owners constitute the soul creating regenerative activities based on the reciprocity of soil and society. Thus, the authors posit that soil, soul and society are at the core of developing regenerative tourism activities. A key finding identified is that it is challenging for small eco-centric driven firms to co-create regenerative tourism activities within a capitalocentric system. For regenerative activities to become regenerative tourism practices, multiple actors across levels of operations must act as responsible gardeners.
Originality/value
The study extends current literature on regenerative tourism by providing in-depth insights into the methodology, illustrated through soil, soul and society, guiding one small tourism firm's development of regenerative tourism activities and what drives these processes. The study also contributes knowledge that broadens the use of well-being in tourism to better address current capitalocentric challenges limiting the development of regenerative practices.
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This article investigates whether accounting, a tool that affects the actions of both organisations and society, can contribute to further developing the concept of…
Abstract
Purpose
This article investigates whether accounting, a tool that affects the actions of both organisations and society, can contribute to further developing the concept of sustainability. Exploiting real-time accounts of management speeches, termed “managerial talk” in the context of this paper, the study is among the first to include technology within a sustainability framework.
Design/methodology/approach
A data structure with first-order and second-order categories was created using a methodology elaborated by Van Maanen (1979) and Gioia et al. (2012). The empirical data was collected during 20 presentations delivered by senior managers from companies, the financial industry, the Swedish government and non-profit organisations to the Swedish Society of Financial Analysts between November 2016 and February 2020.
Findings
The study develops an inductive model that emerges as a result of the data analysis process. It emphasises that technology can be both an enabler for, and an interference with, sustainability according to the application of steering mechanisms. The latter include governance and regulations, analysis and evaluation tools, and disclosure practice.
Research limitations/implications
Acknowledging the role of technology in sustainable development can potentially assist in the implementation of sustainability and, arguably, in fostering an alignment between the three pillars of sustainability.
Originality/value
Interrelationships between sustainability, technology and accounting comprise a relatively unexplored research setting that has seldom been at the centre of academic studies.
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Mattias Jacobsson and Beata Jałocha
The aim of this article is to give an overview of the development and current state of projectification research. The inquiry was driven by a threefold research question: How has…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this article is to give an overview of the development and current state of projectification research. The inquiry was driven by a threefold research question: How has projectification been understood and defined over time, what has the trajectory of the development been and what are the main trends and emerging ideas?
Design/methodology/approach
The article is an integrative literature review of research done on the notion of projectification to date. An interdisciplinary, integrative literature review was conducted using Scopus and Web of Science as primary sources of data collection. The full data set consists of 123 journal articles, books, book chapters and conference contributions. With the data set complete, a thematic analysis was conducted.
Findings
Among other things, the review outlines the development and scope of projectification research from 1995 until 2021 and discusses four emerging images of projectification: projectification as a managerial approach, projectification as a societal trend, projectification as a human state and projectification as a philosophical issue. These characteristics emphasize some common features of each of the images but also imply that the way projectification is understood changes depending on the paradigmatic perspective taken by the researcher, the time and place in which the observation was made and the level of observation.
Originality/value
The authors have outlined and discussed four images of projectification – projectification as a managerial approach, projectification as a societal trend, projectification as a human state and projectification as a philosophical issue – where each image represents a special take on projectification with some prevalent characteristics. By doing this, the authors provide a systematic categorization of research to date and thus a basis upon which other researchers can build when furthering the understanding of projectification at large.
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Hanna Toiviainen, Sahara Sadik, Helen Bound, Pier Paolo Pasqualoni and Padma Ramsamy-Prat
Technological innovation and the flexibilisation of labour markets have expanded the pool of workers engaged in globally distributed work. This paper aims to propose an analytical…
Abstract
Purpose
Technological innovation and the flexibilisation of labour markets have expanded the pool of workers engaged in globally distributed work. This paper aims to propose an analytical framework to understand and support the productive professional learning of those engaged in global work. Drawing on the theory of expansive learning in the cultural-historical activity theory tradition the study aims to stimulate and enrich the conceptual notion of work as a learning space in the discussion of workplace learning particularly in global work.
Design/methodology/approach
Iteration between theory and data is applied to identify the dimensions of expansion for the configuration of learning spaces in global work. Data are drawn from the experiences of 10 professionals selected by purposive sampling in Austria, Italy, the Netherlands and Singapore.
Findings
Six dimensions of expansion are identified as challenging and potentially empowering for professionals’ configuration of learning spaces in global work: social-spatial, material-instrumental, moral-ethical, political-economic, personal-professional and temporal-developmental.
Originality/value
The conceptual framework for the dimensions of expansion of learning spaces provides the broad strokes for reflexive curricula that democratise the learning and development of professionals in global work, who are currently underserved given the national orientation of vocational education and training and professional development ecosystems.
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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.
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