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According to neo-institutional scholars, experts need to support decoupling, yet doing so may be more or less subjectively understandable for those who are employed as experts. The authors mobilize the phenomenological concept of the life-world as a lens for reconstructing how individuals give meaning to decoupling processes. Based on a hermeneutic analysis of a human resource management expert’s reflections on his activities, the authors highlight the subjective experience of decoupling as a process of solving tensions between an individual’s convictions and the relevances imposed by an organization. The authors conclude that a phenomenological lens enriches microfoundations debates by focusing on an individual’s learning within the framework of an imposed organizational reality.

Social theory contains contributions related to the processes of semiosis. Between the subjective experience of intentional meanings and objectivized structure of meanings there is a sphere of meaningful interactions and collective actions. Arguments are presented that it is possible to integrate symbolic interactionist orientation and Durkheimian tradition in the study of social symbolism in the perspective of collective action approach and pragmatism. That allows going beyond the cognitive limitations inherited from phenomenological view on symbolism as manifested in the concepts of P. Berger and T. Luckmann about the social construction of reality. A model for a multidimensional analysis of social symbolism and its functions is proposed.

With a departure point in the Schutzian concept of “The stranger”, the aim of the article is to examine the usefulness of the concept as a tool for understanding information seeking practices from an outsider perspective in the context of leaving school and planning to apply to a university programme in Sweden.

The paper draws on the phenomenological sociology of Schutz together with narrative theory. In this study stories of information seeking gathered in interviews are related to a discourse of nationality and analysed using the concept of cognitive authority together with the concept of the stranger.

The findings reveal the effort required for young people with roots in other countries or from non‐academic homes to connect and interact with potentially valuable sources of information and that the concept of the stranger can be employed to render visible implicit dimensions of information seeking.

The article is based on an in‐depth study of the information seeking activities of one young person in a specific national, political and cultural context. It is particular and personal but at the same time can be related to wider issues in contemporary society through narrative analysis. The stories of information seeking taken up exemplify the social nature of barriers of access to information and may be of help in the planning of research projects on a larger scale.

In a time when a discourse of nationality is pervasive and integration policies are under question in Europe this study provides insight into the individual experience from the perspective of library and information science.

Organizations, especially those adapting to rapidly changing environments, face the challenge of being able to solve complex problems within highly constrained timeframes. Complex problem solving has been addressed by theories of bounded rationality. However, these theories focus on solving complex but structured problems, and thus, context and how it emerges and transforms is not a central issue. More recently, theories of the firm as a knowledge‐creating entity have focused on how organizations solve complex unstructured problems. These theories suggest that context and contextualization are central elements in problem solving. Yet, no understanding of how context emerges and transforms emerges from these theories. The present paper focuses on the emergence and transformation of context in solving complex unstructured problems, attempts to remedy the shortcomings of the theories described above and investigates the nature of context. Concludes by explaining its role in tacit knowledge sharing.

Das Kurortmilieu Die im Jahre 1973 verkündeten “Grundsätze der modernen Kurortbehandlung” und die zu ihrer Durchführung führenden “Mindest‐bedingungen für die Anerkennung von Bade‐ und Klimakurorten” der Internationalen Vereinigung für Balneologie und Klimatologie ‐ FITEC (1) setzen für die erfolgreiche Tätigkeit der Heilbäder und der Kurorte die Schaffung und die Bewahrung des Kurortcharakters der diesbezüglichen territorialen Einheiten voraus. Der Kurortcharakter schliesst mehrere Komponenten technischer, ökonomischer, organisatorischer, soziologischer und psychologischer Art ein und kommt seit jeher in einer be‐sonderen Lebensatmosphäre zum Ausdruck, welche wohl als “Kurortmilieu” bezeichnet werden kann.

The starting point for this paper is that the researcher is intimately bound up in all aspects of the research process. This idea of what is a critical aspect of much interpretive methodology has been challenged by some proponents of the interpretive accounting research (IAR) project. The authors suggest that adopting some of the views expounded in the IAR project may lead to the accounting research community becoming isolated from other interpretive methodology inspired disciplines. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Currently popular views on IAR are informed by selective theoretical insights from interpretive sociology. The authors argue that these insights cannot provide a general frame with which to encapsulate accounting research that may be reasonably termed “interpretive.”

The authors’ reading of the literature suggests that the some of the IAR literature exhibits: a tendency to routinely make overly specific claims for what it is possible for interpretive research to achieve; the promotion of a somewhat reductionist view of what the bounds of interpretive research are. The authors suggest that these tendencies detract from the strengths of (adopting a broad view of) IAR.

In expressing the authors’ concerns, the authors do not wish to make an exclusive argument for what IAR is and is not. This would not be in line with writing an interpretive paper. While the authors do not eschew the possibility of a limited building of knowledge by applying interpretive methodological stances neither do the authors see such activity as a central plank of interpretive research.

The authors believe that positivistic commentaries on qualitative enquiry should not be taken as exemplary of interpretive research (in accounting – or elsewhere). The authors feel that IAR needs to be more open to an array of subjectivist motivations, if it is to provide useful critique of the nature of day-to-day accounting practice.

The authors seek to go beyond the rather unhelpful debate about whether IAR should be seen to possess both objective and subjective elements. The authors argue that IAR suffers more from a lack of engagement and debate than it faces dangers from areas of interpretive methodology that adopt positions considered to be too subjectivist.

Phenomenologists are among the strongest opponents of logical positivism. Mostly associated with Edmund Husserl, phenomenology is essentially an analytical method or framework for describing and explaining social relationships and psychological orientations. Phenomenologists attempt to account for the subjective qualities which logical positivists and empiricists assume to be unreal or are mistakenly treated as objective observable phenomena. The authors note that phenomenology has been absorbed into the literature and the language of the field especially in terms of how people do and do not relate to bureaucratic organizations and government programs.

The purpose of this paper is to undertake a phenomenological study of the working conditions and living standards of private security guards (private police) in New Delhi. The focus here is to bring forth their lived experiences as security guards.

The paper touches briefly upon the theoretical formulations on phenomenological sociology. The principal emphasis here is on the field application of phenomenology as a methodology of social inquiry – how phenomenology was put to use, the research problems encountered and how these research conundrums were navigated. The research makes use of interview as the technique of data collection. The study uses purposive and convenience sampling.

The research has tried to bring forth the lived experiences of the private security guards as regards to their job and living conditions, by “bracketing off” the author’s biases to the best of the author’s capacity. From the interview responses, some higher level concepts have been formulated, called the “essence” of lived experiences.

As the sample size is small, the research cannot be considered a peremptory account of the “lived experiences” applicable to all the private security guards in Delhi. Such sweeping generalizations need to be avoided.

Besides highlighting the lived experiences of the private security guards, the larger purpose of this paper to solicit critical comments from the readers so that the field application of phenomenology could be better understood and refined further.

This is an original research work carried out by the author. During the fieldwork, “reflexivity” has been the author’s constant companion, where the author has tried best to keep the author’s prejudices at bay. Its value is twofold: first, as phenomenological research works on private security guards are few in India, this study can stimulate further research works in this field and second, the research can carry forward the debate on how to improve further phenomenological research works.

Consideration of Belbin’s team role model led to the view that some of the roles proposed might require the exercise of control, but others much less so. A hypothesis which indicated which roles might be expected to manifest expressed and wanted control was developed and then tested using Schutz’s FIRO‐B questionnaire. A mixture of graduates in employment and undergraduates still at university were utilised as subjects for the investigation. After consideration of the validity of Schutz’s constructs, the data obtained were construed as supporting the hypothesis and adding weight to the claims for the validity of the Belbin team role model.