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Three themes dominate Hunting Causes. The first is that cause is a plural concept. The methods and metaphysics of causation, Cartwright believes, are context dependent. Different causal accounts seem to be at odds with one another only because the same word means different things in different contexts. Every formal approach to causality uses a conceptual framework that is “thinner” than causal reality. She lists a bewildering variety of approaches to causation: probabilistic and Bayes-net accounts (of, for example, Patrick Suppes, Clive Granger, Wolfgang Spohn, Judea Pearl, and Clark Glymour), modularity accounts (Pearl, James Woodward, and Stephen LeRoy), invariance accounts (Woodward, David Hendry, and Kevin Hoover), natural experiments (Herbert Simon, James Hamilton, and Cartwright), causal process accounts (Wesley Salmon and Philip Dowe), efficacy accounts (Hoover), counterfactual accounts (David Lewis, Hendry, Paul Holland, and Donald Rubin), manipulationist accounts (Peter Menzies and Huw Price), and others. The lists of advocates of various accounts overlap. Nevertheless, she sometimes treats these accounts as if they were so different that it is not clear why they should be the subject of a single book. And she fails to explain what they have in common. If, as she apparently believes, they do not have a common essence, do they have a Wittgensteinian family resemblance? She fails to explore in any systematic way the complementarities among the different approaches – for example, between invariance accounts, Bayes-nets, and natural experiments – that frequently make their advocates allies rather than opponents.

We propose team-based organizing as an alternative to more traditional forms of hierarchy-based organizing in global firms.

Advancements in the study of global teams, leadership, process, and outcomes were organized into four themes: (1) openness toward linguistic and value diversity as enhancing team creativity and performance, (2) knowledge sharing in team-based organizations, (3) the significance of social capital for global team leader role success, and (4) shared leadership, satisfaction, and performance links in global virtual teams.

We identify questions at three levels for bringing research on team-based organizing in global organizations forward. At the within-team individual level, we discuss the criticality of process and leadership in teams. At the between-teams group level, we draw attention to that global teams also need to focus on relationships and interactions with other teams within the same global firm, for example, when sharing knowledge. With respect to the across-teams organizational level, we highlight how bringing people together in global teams from different organizational units and cultures creates the potential for experiential individual and team-based learning, while making the firm more flexible and adaptable.

The potential of the relatively underexplored idea of global team-based firms as an alternative to hierarchy open up questions for empirical research, and further theorizing about the global firm.

Practitioners can learn about organizational, team, and individual challenges and benefits of global team-based organizing.

A century-old dominant organizational form is challenged when moving away from hierarchy- and hybrid-based forms of organizing toward team-based global organizing of work.

One way of thinking about “theory” in sociology is that theory is the ideas, concepts, and frames, which we get from reading the insights, interpretations, and explanations of other sociologists. Doing theory is about being in a conversation with the discipline. It is in this spirit that I approach talking about theory in the work of my colleague, Peter Hall. This idea of theory as conversation is particularly apt for talking about Peter’s work, about Symbolic Interactionism today, and Peter Hall’s contribution to it.

The purpose of this paper is to utilize the three abstract-concrete levels of ontology of strong structuration theory (strong ST) to examine how, and to what extent, was the development of carbon accounting frameworks at the policy, industry, and organizational levels enabled by external structures as conditions of action, that is, what was the nature of active agency within a field of position-practice relations that led to the development of these frameworks.

A case study was undertaken drawing upon interviews that were undertaken between 2008 and 2011 at the industry and organizational levels as well as documentary evidence relating to carbon accounting policy development at the macro, or policy level.

The parliamentary committee hearings into the development of the carbon price legislation represented fields of position-practice relationships which highlighted the interplay of the internal structures, capabilities and the roles of both power and trust of the agent(s)-in-focus. A meso-level analysis of the Victorian water industry highlighted how it was able to mediate the exercise of power by the macro level through the early adoption of carbon accounting frameworks. At the ontic or micro level of the individual water business, the development of a greenhouse strategy was also the outcome of position-practice relationships which highlighted the interplay of the internal structures and dispositions of the agent(s)-in-focus. The position-practice relationships at both the industry and organizational level were characterized by both soft power and trust.

Future research could investigate how the withdrawal of the carbon pricing mechanism in Australia has affected the development of carbon accounting practices whilst overseas research could examine the extent to which carbon accounting frameworks were the outcome of position-practice relationships.

Given the global significance of carbon accounting, this paper provides an overview as to how the early adoption of voluntary carbon accounting practices resulted in a reduction in carbon emissions within the water industry and therefore limited its liability for the carbon price.

This paper illustrates how the strong ST ontological concept of position-practices can be utilized at the macro, meso, and ontic levels and how these relationships mediated the impact of the carbon price upon both the water industry and the individual water business.

This study investigates the impact of the Paris Agreement (and other factors) on carbon information disclosures to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP).

A sample of South African listed companies was selected and data analysed from 2013 to 2017. A random effect panel data model using SPSS was used to determine whether the Paris Agreement had an effect on carbon information disclosure.

The results indicate that (1) the Paris Agreement, as an example of an intergovernmental coordination initiative, is significant in creating awareness and increasing the carbon disclosures to the CDP. Furthermore, (2) in terms of the other factors examined, providing incentives for managing climate change and assessing climate risks further into the future improves disclosure quality, while no relationship was found between the CDP score and the approval by key management personnel.

This research examines CDP disclosures for an emerging market before and after the signing of the Paris Agreement.

This research shows the importance of supportive government policy. Furthermore, a commitment to climate change disclosure is manageable and achievable and needs to be implemented at the management level.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

The purpose of this paper is to continue discussion of the merits of organizational learning as an emancipatory project, by articulating Peter Senge's concept of “personal mastery” (PM) against the radical subjectivity of Herbert Marcuse.

Conceptual comparison of extant works by both authors.

It is argued in the paper that while Senge and Marcuse share several affinities for the nature of individual, organizational and social transformation, Senge's concept of PM leaves several questions unaddressed, questions which concern the extent to which “the child's mind” may be usefully employed as a metaphor for the recovery of individuality and liberatory work. Marcuse's Marxian appropriation of Freudian psychoanalysis retains the possibility of the creative impulse, and suggests that “play” may enter work relations as the new sensibility for transformed work practices.

The paper puts forward the view that adult play, as the memory of a more unencumbered past, may be the radical subjectivity necessary for PM and individual transformation, and thus for more emancipated workplaces.

A distinction must be drawn between a dismissal on the one hand, and on the other a repudiation of a contract of employment as a result of a breach of a fundamental term of that contract. When such a repudiation has been accepted by the innocent party then a termination of employment takes place. Such termination does not constitute dismissal (see London v. James Laidlaw & Sons Ltd (1974) IRLR 136 and Gannon v. J. C. Firth (1976) IRLR 415 EAT).