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The purpose of this paper is to promote the use of pragmatism within industrial marketing and purchasing (IMP), business-to-business (B2B)/network research with its enhanced emphasis on developing adaptable, workable solutions to practical problems. The usability of findings and the study produced means that implications and impact become a natural part of the research process rather than an afterthought concluding a research project. Although the reader might feel that the approach oscillates between viewing pragmatism in its everyday sense (through the use of terminology such as “a pragmatic approach […].,” the intent is to elevate the discussion to one where pragmatism is viewed as a guiding philosophy.

It blends literature review and conceptual contemplation and challenges convention by “reading against the grain” (Brown and Wijland, 2018).

The authors do this to challenge convention and advocate for pluralism and diversity, theoretical evolution based on empirical evidence and increased sensitivity to the critical role of discourse, semiotics and abduction as a catalyst between theory, method and empirical activities. This conceptual blending portrays “activities” and beliefs as mutually constituted through the symbolic mediation of rhetoric and discourse.

Existing elements of American pragmatism and discourse are identified as already a tacit constituent of the IMP oeuvre. Combining these approaches more explicitly is advocated as a suitable basis for a potential future “IMP 3” research agenda with significant potentials afforded to IMP and B2B marketing research.

This paper contributes to the development and dissemination of alternative and critical perspectives in marketing theory. The implication is that activities must usually be justified by actors within communication as believable and this process always involves mixtures of rational and non-rational appeals. Existing elements of American pragmatism and discourse are identified as already a tacit constituent of the IMP oeuvre. Combining these approaches more explicitly is advocated as a suitable basis for a potential future “IMP 3” research agenda with significant potentials afforded to IMP and B2B marketing research.

The conflict between institutionalism and neoclassicism in the 20th century has been investigated by scholars over the years. Many of them believe that in the postwar period, neoclassicism triumphed while institutionalism largely disappeared. The present chapter takes a very different view. The late 20th century represents a broad synthesis of neoclassical and institutional themes in a methodology we call pragmatic empiricism. That approach combines the mathematical model building and theoretical formalism of neoclassical economics with the institutional economist’s data-driven statistical analysis and concern for developing institutional forms. We use as a case study the history of American locational economics from the 1930s to the present. The mixing of institutional and neoclassical themes is quite evident in the work of three young scholars at Harvard who effectively initiated American locational economics. In the postwar period, we find a series of outstanding, well-published papers that capture the spirit of the “founders.” These papers do use more modeling, but they also focus on major institutional developments. A broader review of locational works is consistent with the pragmatic empiricism label. The history of locational economics supports the claim that institutionalism, far from disappearing, continues to provide fundamental questions and techniques for modern pragmatic empiricism.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the practice paradigm of pragmatic constructivism.

Pragmatic constructivism emphasizes the role of the actors in the construction of organized reality. For such construct to function successfully, four dimensions of reality must be integrated in the actor-world relations.

This includes an examination of pragmatic constructivist theory as an alternative to traditional realism and critical theories of organizational reality. The papers of the special issue include methodological, conceptual and empirical studies to expand the understanding of management accounting in relation to the actors’ construction of functioning organizational practices.

As pragmatic constructivism is a relatively new paradigm, there is a need for further methodological and conceptual development and empirical studies of functioning practices.

In a discipline such as management accounting that can be theoretically polarized between the “realist” scientific mainstream and social constructivist criticism, pragmatic constructivism offers a mediating model in which realism is retained as the pragmatic criteria of success of the organizational actors’ construction.

The purpose of this paper is to better understand management accounting automation by exploring the programmability of management accounting work.

We build upon the literature on digitalization in management accounting and draw upon the pragmatic constructivist methodology to understand how digitalization takes place at the individual actors' level in accounting practice. The paper uses a data set from an interventionist case study of a machinery manufacturer.

We examine an actual process of automating management accounting tasks. During this development process, surprisingly, calculation tasks remained more fit for humans than machines though, initially, they were thought to be programmable.

According to our findings, practitioners may interpret experts' nonprogrammable work tasks as programmable and seek to automate them. Only identifying the factual possibilities for automating accounting-related work can lead to automation-improved efficiency. Our findings can be increasingly relevant for advanced analytics initiatives and applications within management accounting (e.g. robotic process automation, big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence).

Practitioners need to carefully analyze the entity they wish to automate and understand the factual possibilities of using and maintaining the planned automatic system throughout its life cycle.

The paper shows that when processes are assessed from a distance, the nonprogrammable management accounting tasks and expertise can become misinterpreted as programmable, and the goal of automating them has little chance of success. It also shows possibilities for human accountants to remain relevant in comparison to machines and paves the way for further studies on advanced decision technologies in management accounting.

The chapter discusses abductive thematic analysis as an innovative qualitative methodology in hospitality and tourism research. The novelty of the abductive approach is to combine the power of both deductive and inductive reasoning: it is possible to initiate the research starting from an existing theoretical, without renouncing to a creative phase where the researcher interprets the phenomenon beyond the words utilized and theorizes dependencies between concepts. The chapter further presents a case study to illustrate how abductive thematic analysis can be applied to study small hospitality and tourism businesses. The chapter further highlights the benefits of adapting thematic analysis to abductive reasoning, which is a paradigmatic position thus adding rigor to hospitality and tourism. The chapter finally highlights future avenues for development of methodology research toward adding further rigor to this novel methodology.

A widely accepted belief holds that social economics is logically inconsistent with the pragmatic philosophy. This view has been very clearly and forcibly expressed by Mark A. Lutz at the Third World Congress for Social Economics. Lutz has summarised his conclusions in the following quotation:

Explicates and analyses selected economic methodologies: praxeology, positivism and institutionalism. Praxeology is a rationalistic methodology which utilizes deductive logic to deduce conclusions concerning economic behavior from postulates, which are self‐evident truths, but praxeologists deny that empirical verification is either necessary or desirable. Positivism is a methodology which combines deductive rationalism as a method of deriving substantive hypotheses and inductive empiricism as a method of verifying these hypotheses. Institutionalism is a pragmatic methodology which is based on an empirical epistemology and which utilizes inductive logic to formulate economic policy and to solve practical problems. Concludes that institutionalism is more empirically relevant than either praxeology or positivism, and that, therefore, institutionalism is superior to the other methodologies.

This chapter provides a roadmap for a systematic literature review built around the guiding questions of basic research design. First, we highlight the relevance and development of systematic literature reviews in tourism research. Second, we put the systematic review into perspective by outlining its characteristics and by clarifying the methodological assumptions. Third, we bring together recommendations based on previous research and review guidelines and present a step-by-step tutorial for a systematic literature review. From this chapter, readers will understand the foundations of systematic literature reviews, will be able to apply the methodology to their review projects and are introduced to further readings and best practice examples.

This paper aims to address a dilemma raised in the accounting literature on how managers of creative practices can produce and use accounting measurements that support employees’ self-determination to create whilst also building trust in them to work for the interests of the organisation.

Using pragmatic constructivism as a paradigmatic setting, the paper develops a learning method of trust building as a way for organisations to produce and use accounting measurements. Empirical analysis of the European Capital of Culture Aarhus 2017 demonstrates the method in action.

The study displays a learning method of trust building as an effective way for organisations to account for their creative practices without intruding on the creative process of the people involved. The method involves proactive judgement and pragmatic observation of the trustworthiness of the actors’ language games, construction of quality in the conceptual structures of management narratives and measurement models, and learning that narrows the gap between the actors’ proactive judgement and the pragmatic observation of trustworthiness. Through such processes, including principles of truth, dialogical interactions, ongoing reflections and co-authorship, trust can be built in self-determining, creative actors to drive intentional results.

The learning method of trust building extends the literature on trust building and on knowledge processes of performance measurement of actors in creative practices.

This is the first attempt in the accounting literature to develop a learning method of trust building.

The purpose of this paper is threefold. To clarify what is meant by “pragmatism” as a philosophy for social and environmental accountability (SEA) research, to survey its use within this research field and to explore how a further pursuit of pragmatism may extend this research field.

An extensive review of the SEA literature was conducted in order to determine what aspects of the philosophy of pragmatism have been used within the research. The authors organised the discussion of the literature around the pragmatist ideas of “truth” and “sensemaking”.

SEA research is a heterogeneous space in which various ideas are commonly attributed to the philosophical notion of pragmatism. However, there is a tension in the literature between seeing accounting as a medium for representing social and environmental organisational activities and a pragmatist view of accountings as a way of allowing managers and stakeholder to make sense of these same activities.

A clearer development of the ideas of pragmatism may be used to redirect the focus of SEA research in a number of useful ways. Seeing accounting as a medium of sensemaking between organisations and their stakeholders allows the authors to widen the exploration of accounting not only to the production of reports but also their interpretation by users. The ideas of pragmatism also allow the authors to explore the ways stakeholders might affect change within organisations and how accounting may support this process rather than capture or limit it.

This paper concludes by providing a set of methodological prescriptions for conducting future SEA research in a way that is inspired by pragmatism. It outlines an approach to research that focuses on users and their sensemaking and encourages an exploration of the possible ways accounting may create positive change in organisations.

Overall, this paper refines what it means to follow pragmatism within SEA research. It will promote a clearer understanding of how we, as a research community, may engage with practice in more positive ways in order to facilitate corporate social responsibility.