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This study aims to investigate the dynamic interplay between the management control system (MCS) and organizational identity (OI) in the Deepwater Horizon incident involving British Petroleum (BP). It examines how the MCS manages challenges, particularly those addressing the embarrassment stemming from identity disparities between external portrayal (frontstage) and internal operations (backstage), with a focus on the often-underestimated influence of the media.

This study builds upon the frameworks developed by Ravasi and Schultz (2006) and Malmi and Brown (2008) to construct a theoretical framework that profoundly investigates the relationship between MCS and OI. The framework developed guided the research design and incorporated a qualitative approach complemented by an illustrative case study. The research data was rigorously gathered from diverse sources, including official BP documents and influential media outlets, with a particular focus on well-established American and British newspapers.

BP’s MCS plays a dual role: it exposes discrepancies in safety, leadership and values, causing embarrassment and identity damage, yet catalyses a sense-making process leading to organizational transformation and shifts in the OI. This transformation influences sense-giving and prompts changes in MCS. The study reveals an intricate interplay in identity management between frontstage audiences (e.g. influential media) and backstage actors (e.g. BP’s senior management). It highlights interdependencies both within and between MCS and OI, emphasizing their roles in interacting within identity management. The longitudinal recovery is intricately tied to mutual political interests between BP and the USA, which are significantly facilitated by the media’s role.

This study acknowledges limitations that point future research opportunities. Interviews could provide a more dynamic understanding of MCS changes and organizational transformations. Investigating the role of leadership, particularly the new chief executive office, and the influence of political versus organizational factors in shaping identity claims is essential. Additionally, the effectiveness and historical context of interdependencies should be quantitatively assessed. Theoretical limitations in the OI and MCS frameworks suggest the need for context-specific categorisations. This research serves as a foundation for further exploration of the intricate dynamics between MCS, OI and organizational responses to crises.

This study offers valuable insights with practical implications for organizations facing identity challenges in the wake of significant incidents. Organizations can better navigate crises by recognizing the multifaceted role of MCS in identity damage and restoration. It underscores the importance of addressing both frontstage and backstage aspects of OI while managing identity discrepancies, thereby enhancing transparency and credibility. Additionally, understanding the intricate interdependencies within OI and MCS can guide organizations in implementing more effective identity restoration strategies. Furthermore, the study highlights the significance of media influence and the need to engage with it strategically during crisis management.

This study’s findings have significant social implications for organizations and the broader public. By recognizing the multifaceted role of MCS in shaping identity, organizations can enhance transparency and credibility, rebuilding trust with the public. Additionally, the study highlights the critical role of media in influencing perceptions and decision-making during crises, emphasizing the importance of responsible and ethical reporting. Understanding the intricate interplay between MCS and OI can inform better crisis management strategies and improve how organizations respond to and recover from incidents, ultimately benefiting society by promoting more accountable and responsible corporate behaviour.

This study’s distinctness lies in its innovative exploration of MCS, which transcends traditional methodologies that focus narrowly on front or backstage aspects of OI and often adhere to predetermined MCS practices. It underscores the importance of concurrently addressing both the front- and backstage audiences in managing the embarrassment caused by identity discrepancies and restoration. The research uncovers multifaceted interdependencies within MCS and OI, and these extend beyond simplistic relationships and emphasize the complex nature of identity restoration management.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze the interdependence of project complexity factors (PCFs) in metro rail projects using the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL). The study provides qualitative and quantitative analysis of project complexities factors and their relationships. The results of the study facilitate effective project planning, proactive risk management and informed decision-making by stakeholders.

This study employs a case-based method for identifying PCFs and a DEMATEL method for analyzing the interdependence of complexity factors in metro rail projects. Initially, PCFs were identified through an extensive literature review. To validate and refine these factors, semi-structured interviews were conducted with thirty experienced professionals, each having 5–20 years of experience in roles such as project management, engineering, and planning. Further, elevated and underground metro rail projects were purposefully selected as cases, for identifying the similarities and differences in PCFs. A questionnaire survey was conducted with various technical experts in metro rail projects. These experts rated the impact of PCFs on a five-point Likert scale, for the evaluation of the interdependence of PCFs. The DEMATEL technique was used to analyze the interdependencies of the PCFs.

Metro rail projects are influenced by project complexity, which significantly impacts their performance. The analysis reveals that “design problems with existing structures,” “change in design or construction” and “land acquisition” are the key factors contributing to project complexity.

The study of project complexity in metro rail projects is limited because most of the studies have studies on examining complexity in mega projects. The existing literature lacks adequate attention in identifying project complexity and its effects on metro rail project performance. This research aims to bridge this gap by examining project complexity and interdependencies in metro rail projects.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of political relations on trade in strategic emerging industries (SEIs) in the Belt and Road initiative (BRI) associated countries. This investigation encompasses not only from the perspective of bilateral political relations but also the political intervention of third parties.

The study employs the temporal exponential random graphmodel to analyze the dynamic structure and influencing factor of SEIs trade network among 150 BRI-associated countries from 2015 to 2020.

The results indicate that the trade of SEIs in the BRI-associated countries exhibits a pattern of concentrated exporters and decentralized importers. Amicable bilateral political relations foster trade cooperations in SEIs, while political pressure from the United States has the opposite effect. Furthermore, compared with the influence of third parties, the BRI has created a more robust trade environment characterized by political mutual trust.

BRI-associated countries should strengthen their political communication, and endeavor to transform political consensus and shared vision into concrete collaborative projects, while mitigating geopolitical uncertainties through a sound risk evaluation system. Moreover, they should establish a more transparent and consistent consultation mechanism and leverage the BRI trade network to foster balanced and mutually beneficial partnerships that minimize rivalry and dependence on a single market.

This study goes beyond observed trade cost and incorporates the political factor into the determinants of the BRI trade, thereby expanding the theoretical boundaries of existing BRI research. Also, this study employs bilateral trade data to construct SEIs trade networks (SEITNs) along the BRI route. It provides a comprehensive understanding of the dynamic determinates of the SEITNs will provide valuable practical guidance for enhancing and expanding trade and cooperation among BRI-associated countries.

This study explores a hegemonic alliance and the role of relational forms of accounting and accountablity in the making of contemporary capitalism.

We use the WikiLeaks “Cablegate” documents to provide an account of the detailed machinations between interest groups (corporations and the state) that are constitutive of hegemonic activity.

Our analysis of the “Cablegate” documents shows that the US and Chevron were crafting a central role for Turkmenistan and its president on the global political stage as early as 2007, despite offical reporting beginning only in 2009. The documents exemplify how “accountability gaps” occlude the understanding of interdependence between capital and the state.

The study contributes to a growing idea that official accounts offer a fictionalized narrative of corporations as existing independently, and thus expands the boundaries associated with studying multinational corporate activities to include their interdependencies with the modern state.

The study traces how global capitalism extends into new territories through diplomatic channels, as a strategic initiative between powerful state and capital interests, arguing that the outcome is the empowerment of authoritarian states at the cost of democracy.

The study argues that previous accounting and accountability research has overlooked the larger picture of how capital and the state work together to secure a mutual hegemonic interest. We advocate for a more complete account of these activities that circumvents official, often restricted, views of global capitalism.

Based on the density dependence theory, this paper attempts to explore how two types of interdependence among firms located in the same national high-tech zones (NHTZs) – mutualism and competition – affect entrepreneurship in the NHTZs. The authors suggest that increasing firm density can help enhance legitimacy and form mutual networks. However, as the competition becomes fierce, the above positive relationship will weaken when the firm density exceeds a certain level. In addition, the authors are interested in whether the age of NHTZs would affect their sensitivity to legitimacy and competition and whether firm density affects entrepreneurship.

This article formulates two hypotheses from the theoretical deduction. The hypotheses are examined using the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression with a unique, unbalanced panel dataset of Chinese NHTZs spanning from 2014 to 2021. Considering potential endogeneity risk among the variables, the authors attempt to lag variables and ultimately find the results are still robust.

Drawing upon the density dependence theory, the empirical results show firm density is conducive to promoting entrepreneurship, while the positive relationship between community density and NHTZs' entrepreneurship gradually weakens as the firm density surpasses a certain level. The dynamics between mutualism and competition have different impacts on NHTZs' entrepreneurship. In addition, the results demonstrate that the linkage between firm interdependence and entrepreneurship is stronger for younger NHTZs. Firm density has an impact on entrepreneurship through legitimacy and excessive competition effects.

On the one hand, the research period of this paper is 2014–2021, as the China Torch Statistical Yearbook only started to publish operating revenues in 2014, so the data period of this paper is relatively short. More research can be done in the future when more data is disclosed. On the other hand, the qualitative analysis cannot be conducted because of the limited data and materials. In future research, the qualitative analysis of entrepreneurial activities in NHTZs, such as questionnaires or case studies, needs to be supplemented, which will be an interesting direction.

Most existing research has not distinguished the differences between NHTZs (Wang et al., 2019), especially the differences in legitimacy and access to resources caused by the age of NHTZs. This article considers the heterogeneity between NHTZs, which helps to provide theoretical and practical evidence for a transition economy like China to make trade-off decisions on balancing absorbing new entrants with promoting the efficient allocation of resources based on the density and age of NHTZs.

Drawing upon density dependency theory, this paper enriches the literature on agglomeration and entrepreneurship with a new perspective and extends the study to NHTZs.

First, this paper provides new evidence on how agglomeration affects entrepreneurship from an ecological perspective with the help of mutualism and competition interdependence. Most studies have explored the role of agglomeration in entrepreneurship, focussing on social networks, knowledge spillovers or resource endowments (Acs et al., 2013; Capozza et al., 2018; Yu, 2020). Drawing upon density dependency theory, this paper enriches the literature on agglomeration and entrepreneurship with a new perspective and extends the study to NHTZs. Second, the emphasis of science parks has been primarily on qualitative or case studies (Salvador et al., 2013; Guo and Verdini, 2015; Xie et al., 2018). We have diversified the quantitative research between agglomeration and entrepreneurship by using panel data from Chinese NHTZs from 2014 to 2021. Third, most existing research has not distinguished the differences between NHTZs (Wang et al., 2019), especially the differences in legitimacy and access to resources caused by the age of NHTZs. This article considers the heterogeneity between NHTZs, which helps to provide theoretical and practical evidence for a transition economy like China to make trade-off decisions on balancing absorbing new entrants with promoting the efficient allocation of resources based on the density and age of NHTZs. Finally, this paper meticulously investigates the profound influence and underlying mechanisms of firm density within NHTZs on entrepreneurship. It discerns two distinct mechanisms at play: the legitimacy effect and the impact of excessive competition resulting from firm density. This comprehensive analysis significantly contributes to our comprehension of the intricate interplay between firm density and entrepreneurship, shedding light on the dynamics of competition and mutual benefits.

The US Federal Government awards contracts worth hundreds of billions of dollars each year. Many firms that rely on these contracts have appointed former government officials to their corporate boards in the hopes of securing government contracts. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between these government experienced directors (GEDs) on boards and firms being awarded government contracts.

The paper compiles a panel data set from 2017 to 2020 for S&P 500 firms. This includes hand-collected data for government-experienced directors on boards. This is tested using both regression and analysis of variance methodologies.

Results find that former government officials on corporate boards increase the amount of government contracts secured by the firm, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of firms’ revenue. There are significant industry level effects for the health care and financials sectors. Government-experienced directors on boards are also positively related to firms receiving COVID contracts. Lobbying was not found to be related to the securing of regular government contracts but was positively related to firms obtaining COVID contracts.

This paper contributes to the literature by using panel data, an expanded definition of GEDs and data on COVID contracts. The “revolving door” between government and firms is paying off for companies.

This conceptual paper focusses on climate change as a social issue and therefore as a social scientific problem. According to young climate activists, Greta Thunberg being the most widely known, climate change is specifically a problem of generations. Typically, the discourse on responsibility focusses on the technical and philosophical questions posed by the study into “intra-” and “inter-generational justice”. It is the purpose of this paper to present sociological conceptual tools with which to both analyze and propose solutions to specific social problems caused by current generations that will affect future generations.

Figurational process sociology develops and tests models of long-term, unplanned developments, which produce the conditions in which short-term practices of informing and planning social interventions are bound up.

The paper reveals the significance of sociological models that can describe and explain social processes and long-term developments in human habitus that have important explanatory value for understanding contemporary social problems such as human-caused climate change.

The concepts and analytical frames of reference provided by figurational process sociology provide crucial insights into the problem of generations and can help reveal how this social dynamic contributes to challenges facing young climate activists calling for rapid “ecologization” processes and increased human restraint with regard to the natural environment.

To estimate the volatility of exchange and stock markets and examine its spillover within and across the member countries of BRICS during COVID-19 and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

The study utilizes the “dynamic conditional correlation-generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (DCC-GARCH)” approach of Gabauer (2020). The volatility of the markets is calculated following the approach of Parkinson (1980). The sample dataset comprises the daily volatility of the stock and exchange markets for 35 months, from November 2019 to September 2022.

The study confirms the existence of contagion effects among member countries. Volatility spillover between exchange and stock markets is low within the country but substantial across borders. Russian contribution increased significantly during the conflict with Ukraine, and other countries also witnessed a surge in the spillover index during the pandemic and war.

It adds to the body of literature by emphasizing the necessity of comprehending the economies' behavior and interdependence. Offers insightful information to decision-makers who must be more watchful regarding the financial crisis and its regional spillover.

The study is the first to explore the contagion of volatility among the BRICS countries during the two biggest crisis periods of the decade.

As social media has become an ingrained aspect of our lives—including our political relationships with other citizens and the state—various governments have warned public servants that being politically active online might threaten the reputed impartiality of themselves and the public service. This study examines whether public servants are less likely to be politically active on social media than other citizens, and seeks to understand public servants’ varying disposition to be politically active online by investigating the role of employees’ underlying Big 5 personality traits.

Multivariate regression, along with marginal effects and predicted probabilities, are used to investigate public servants’ online political activity with survey data from Canada, a country where impartiality is a core public service value, and where governments, public service commissions and even public sector unions have voiced cautious messages about the threat online political activity presents to the reputed impartiality of public servants, and the public service at large.

Analysis of the direct effects of being a public servant and each Big 5 personality trait finds that being a public servant significantly, and substantively, reduces the probability of engaging in online political activity, meanwhile, Extraversion and Conscientiousness have consistent, significant and substantive relationships with being politically active online. Subsequent analysis investigating the dynamic between the Big 5 and being a public servant, uncovers a more complex story. Among public servants, Openness and Neuroticism, rather than Extraversion and Conscientiousness, are associated with significant and substantive changes in the probability of engaging in some online politically activities. This is consistent with research investigating the relationship between the Big 5 and risk aversion, given that public servants in Canada work in an environment with a highly cautious discourse portraying social media as a serious risk to impartiality.

The findings also speak to best practices for public service human resource managers by shedding light how public servants’ behavior can be better understood and managed by paying attention to their underlying personality traits.

This study moves beyond analyzing trends between public and private sector employees, to instead examine public servants’ online political activity. This study offers theoretical and empirical insight into how public servants’ disposition to be politically active online is, in part, influenced by their underlying Big 5 personality traits, specifically, Neuroticism and Openness.