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The idea that education should be made relevant to students is long-standing and pervasive in American society. Recently, motivation scientists have clarified important characteristics of students’ relevance beliefs, ways to intervene, and individual characteristics moderating intervention effects. Yet, there has been little consideration of the role of situational constraints and sociocultural influences on students’ relevance appraisal processes. We describe how societal changes and broader educational purposes affect the issues that students consider to be relevant to their educational experiences and the values they subsequently attribute to their studies. After differentiating components of relevance and highlighting ways in which particular components may be influenced by changing sociocultural milieus, we consider the implications of these processes for the development of subjective task value beliefs. Specifically, we show how the proposed model of relevance helps to parse out aspects of relevance appraisals that can be used to differentiate between components of subjective task value and argue that there is need to expand current models proposed in expectancy-value theory (EVT). Finally, we explore how recent global events may impact the social construction of educational relevance and constrain students’ developing beliefs about the value of their educational opportunities and implications for future research and educators.

In vol. 6, 1976, of Advances in Librarianship, I published a review about relevance under the same title, without, of course, “Part I” in the title (Saracevic, 1976). [A substantively similar article was published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science (Saracevic, 1975)]. I did not plan then to have another related review 30 years later—but things happen. The 1976 work “attempted to trace the evolution of thinking on relevance, a key notion in information science, [and] to provide a framework within which the widely dissonant ideas on relevance might be interpreted and related to one another” (ibid.: 338).

This chapter discusses the focus of learning in lesson study research in initial teacher education. Whose learning should be considered in lesson study cycles? The learning of the student-teachers, the learning of the pupils or both? Relevance theory implies that meaningful interaction develops as a consequence of the heuristic interplay between the communicative and the cognitive principles of relevance, that is, the dynamics of any given interaction create meaning as the interactional process unfolds and relevance is maximised. The participants in the interaction at hand will thus create the best solution in any given set of circumstances. They will subconsciously strive towards the most relevant outcome of their interaction, which equals maximisation of relevance irrespective of the quality of the outcome. This approach will be used to discuss the role of the student-teachers and the pupils in learning processes and lesson study cycles. The student-teachers influence the interactional process from the point of view of the communicative principle of relevance, and the pupils influence the interactional process from the point of view of the cognitive principle of relevance. These dynamics will also have a bearing on the unfolding of the lesson study cycle, and consequently imply that lesson study research should take into account the learning of both the student-teachers and the pupils from the point of view of collaborative learning and reflective practices.

This study applies social identity theory (SIT) to explore the perceptual differences among various stakeholder groups regarding the relevance of social and environmental accounting (SEA), SEA education and mandatory disclosure of SEA.

The study adopts a mixed method applying a qualitative and quantitative approach. In total, 325 structured questionnaires were analyzed quantitatively, using ANOVA and group comparison methods. Responses from 18 interviews were analyzed qualitatively to provide complementary evidence for the quantitative study.

There were significant differences between various stakeholder groups regarding the relevance of SEA practice and SEA education. Regulators were mostly affected by considerations about the external perception of work quality, followed by financiers. Practitioners and shareholders were influenced by the ability of SEA in its current state to affect actual work quality. This possibly indicates that academic qualifications have marginal effects on predicting considerations about SEA compared to social identity.

This is the first application of SIT to SEA research and contributes to the effort to improve SEA within emerging economies, highlighting that a one-size-fits-all approach may be ineffective.

Purpose – The author introduces the Eastern philosophy of wisdom, especially its epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing as the Eastern cognitive frame, to shed light on the debates over the distinction and integration between research and practice as well as between qualitative and quantitative methods so as to solve the problems of relevance-rigor gap as well as complexity-simplicity gap. The author also applies the frame of Yin-Yang Balancing to the development of a novel method of case study.

Methodology/Approach – This is a conceptual article.

Central theme – The Eastern philosophy of wisdom is better at an open-minded exploration of open-ended issues by emphasizing relevance and complexity, while the Western philosophy of science is better at a closed-minded exploitation of close-ended issues by emphasizing rigor and simplicity. A geocentric integration of both Eastern and Western philosophies is needed.

Research and practical implications – Management research is far behind the need for theoretical insights into practical solutions largely due to the increasing gaps between relevance and rigor as well as between complex problems and simple solutions. The root cause of the two gaps lies in the overreliance on the Western philosophy of science, so a new light can be found in the Eastern philosophy of wisdom, and the ultimate solution is a geocentric integration of Eastern and Western philosophies. A novel method of case study can be built by applying the Eastern philosophy.

Originality/Value – The author highlights the urgent needs for the Eastern philosophy of wisdom and its integration with the Western philosophy of science toward a geocentric meta-paradigm. As a specific application of the geocentric meta-paradigm, the author proposes a novel method of case study called Yin-Yang Method.

This study aims to explore what characteristics contribute to the definition of relevance in business-to-business (B2B) marketing research and how/why different strands of B2B marketing maintain or lose their relevance.

This study is conceptual. It adopts a performative-phenomenal standpoint for B2B marketing research and approaches relevance through the concept of episteme, which is considered pivotal for understanding this phenomenon.

This study proposes four axioms that define the characteristics of relevance in B2B marketing research and discusses their implications for scholars and practitioners. Consequently, an action plan for revitalizing B2B marketing research is developed, comprising learning and temporal dimensions, resulting in nine different relevance types.

The central argument put forward in this study is that different research strands of B2B marketing have deeply rooted epistemic underpinnings that influence their interpretation of relevance. Consequently, fostering dialogue between practitioners and scholars is considered necessary to sustain relevance in B2B marketing research. B2B scholars are urged to think beyond their subspecialized silos and acknowledge how the business environment and the various strands of B2B marketing congruently shape B2B marketing relevance, while also embracing research methods that bring them closer to business practice.

Marketing practitioners and academics continue to drift apart. This study puts forward three recommendations to bring marketing academics and practitioners closer together.

The study contributes to the B2B marketing literature by grappling with the theory-praxis gap and critically exploring what constitutes relevance in B2B marketing research.

The paper aims to provide empirical evidence of the impact of IFRS adoption on the value relevance of accounting information in the emerging market of Saudi Arabia.

The sample consists of 98 non-financial listed firms operating in Saudi Arabia from 2014 to 2019, representing the years before and after IFRS adoption. The authors apply basic and extended price models to examine the value relevance of select accounting figures.

The authors findings provide evidence that accounting information is, generally, value relevant to the Saudi Arabian capital market. However, mixed results exist for particular accounting variables. Both earnings and cash flows are value-relevant in the period before and after IFRS adoption; equity is only relevant in the post-adoption period. Furthermore, IFRS adoption also increases the explanatory power of earnings. An increase in the value relevance of earnings and equity hurts the value relevance of cash flows. The effects are moderated by leverage and dividend policy.

The authors contribute to the ongoing discussion of the economic effects of IFRS adoption in emerging markets. The empirical findings show that initial concerns about IFRS adoption, as reflected by the negative coefficient within the regression analysis, are mitigated once the usefulness of the individual accounting variables published in financial statements is investigated.

This paper is motivated by the ongoing debate on the value relevance of cash flow statement (CFS) between bank regulators, on one hand, and accounting standard setters, on the other hand. The importance and usefulness of cash flows during economic turmoil exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic has recently gained attention. Hence, this paper investigates the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the value relevance of cash flows (CF) beyond accounting earnings and book equity.

A panel of 236 bank-year observations is examined for value relevance in emerging capital markets of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Using value relevance regression, operating and non-operating CF items are tested for value relevance beyond earnings and book value of equity during the periods 2018–2019 (pre-pandemic) and 2020–2021 (pandemic).

There is limited value relevance of CF beyond accounting earnings and the book value of equity. The distinction between operating and non-operating CF is not informative. However, the value relevance is significant during the pandemic, indicating that investors rely on CF for valuation purposes at times of uncertainty, corroborating further research on CF distress predictive ability.

This paper provides novel evidence on value relevance of CF and its superiority to accounting earnings and equity values during times of uncertainty. It extends a small body of research in the banking sector in emerging markets. Hence, it complements prior literature and has practical implications to accounting standard setters and bank regulators in emerging markets.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between audit quality and value relevance and subsequently ascertain the moderating effect of business ethics on integrated reporting (IR)–value relevance.

This study applied linear regressions with panel data using the Thomson Reuters ASSET4 database from European countries to analyse data of 510 companies belonging to the environmental, social and governance (ESG) index between 2010 and 2022.

A significant positive relationship was found between audit quality and value relevance. The results also suggest that IR has significant explanatory power on value relevance, and that business ethics moderate the relationship between IR and value relevance in European ESG firms.

Managers will see IR, business ethics and audit as a business strategy with incremental market value. In this regard, this study tried to provide insights and managerial solutions for managers of international companies to improve their strategy by drawing on the social, moral and business ethics approach. This finding will improve the informational relevance for investment opportunities, thus resulting in improved business performance.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the moderating role of business ethics in the relationship between IR and value relevance. This paper fulfils a recognised need to study the influence of audit quality on investor decisions. Furthermore, the contribution of this study could be observed in the fact that the market value analysis differs between the contractual and the business ethics approaches. Also, including a moderating variable in the explanation and determination of value relevance remains somewhat underexplored.