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1 – 10 of over 1000Sylvain Durocher, Claire-France Picard and Léa Dugal
This paper aims to examine how auditors make sense of the ill-theorized and contentious notion of other comprehensive income (OCI), specifically by uncovering their use of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine how auditors make sense of the ill-theorized and contentious notion of other comprehensive income (OCI), specifically by uncovering their use of metaphors to make OCI plausible and intelligible.
Design/methodology/approach
This interpretative paper draws on a collection of 21 interviews with experienced auditors. The analysis first uncovers metaphors that naturally surface within the talk and sensemaking of auditors about OCI (elicited metaphors). The authors then encapsulate these elicited metaphors into second-order constructs (projected metaphors) to synthesize and further explain auditors’ practical sensemaking.
Findings
Auditors conceive OCI as a “safety” that ensures the well-functioning of fair value accounting, metaphorically qualifying this notion as a “necessary evil”, a “passage obligé”, and a “parking lot” resolving fair value-related issues and aberrations. Auditors also metaphorize OCI as a “purifier” that allows “polluted”, “noisy”, and “unloved” items to be “parked” outside net income.
Practical implications
The study’s findings further the understanding of auditors’ tendency to remain uncritical throughout their sensemaking process. Making sense of professional standards of practice through metaphors indubitably involves shadowing and silencing other worldviews.
Originality/value
This paper extends knowledge of auditors’ sensemaking, specifically showing how auditors easily make sense of complex notions even in the absence of conceptual grounds. This study also highlights that metaphors are a powerful sensemaking device that auditors mobilize to render complex notions intelligible and mitigate IFRS inconsistencies.
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This research aims to examine the challenges of recruiting participatory action research (PAR) in managing innovation projects. An enhanced methodology based on PAR was developed…
Abstract
Purpose
This research aims to examine the challenges of recruiting participatory action research (PAR) in managing innovation projects. An enhanced methodology based on PAR was developed to mitigate the challenges related to recruiting PAR in managing innovation projects. The proposed methodology was evaluated by comparing it to established methodologies/frameworks such as Scrum, Design Thinking (DT) and The Lean Startup (TLS). The evaluation aimed to determine the advantages and limitations of the proposed methodology in managing innovation projects.
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed enhanced methodology consists of eight steps, ranging from developing an understanding of the industry and business structure to learning and knowledge management. In addition, the enhanced methodology uses other techniques, such as Force field analysis and 12 boundary questions.
Findings
The research findings indicate that using the proposed methodology can improve the formalization of collaboration in PAR, enabling the organization to respond better to market changes. It helps define the project scope more clearly, encouraging innovation, addressing communication barriers and considering different worldviews and practical issues. Based on the findings, the proposed enhanced methodology could complement other methodologies/frameworks such as Scrum, DT and TLS.
Research limitations/implications
The current research adds to the existing literature by identifying the challenges of recruiting PAR in managing innovation projects. A deductive reasoning process was utilized because there is no comprehensive research concerning the challenges of recruiting PAR in managing innovation projects. On the other hand, the PAR 4-phase cycle has been reviewed and enhanced to manage innovation projects.
Practical implications
The proposed methodology was used in a new product development project. The case study was done on one of the payment service provider companies that design, develop and deploy a digital product for marketing, installation, repair and maintenance of electronic funds transfer at point of sale devices.
Originality/value
No research has yet sought to identify the challenges of using PAR in innovation project management (IPM). Identifying the challenges associated with applying PAR in the IPM and providing an enhanced methodology to mitigate the challenges could fill a gap in IPM studies.
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Henrik Saabye, Daryl John Powell and Paul Coughlan
Being acquainted with both lean and action learning in theory and in practice, this study finds that the theoretical complementarity of these two research streams has…
Abstract
Purpose
Being acquainted with both lean and action learning in theory and in practice, this study finds that the theoretical complementarity of these two research streams has traditionally been underexploited. In this conceptual paper, this study aims to advance the theoretical understanding of lean by exploring the complementarity of lean thinking and action learning leading to a proposed integrated theory of these two research streams. Target audience is the operations management research community.
Design/methodology/approach
By deliberately adopting a process of theorising, this paper explores, reflects upon and combines individual experiences of researching, teaching and engaging in lean and action learning as operations management scholars.
Findings
Having taken a gemba walk through the literature and practices of lean and action learning, this study views and notices a systematic and complementary relationship between the two domains. The overlapping theoretical and practical complementarities of lean and action learning suggest that these two research streams are ripe for synthesis into an integrated theory. This finding provides an opportunity to (1) progress towards an integrative design of interventions leading to more sustainable lean system adoptions and (2) add new depth to our theoretical explanation of the success and failures of lean system adoptions.
Originality/value
This paper contributes an original integrated theory perspective on lean and action learning.
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Jeff Gold, Patricia Jolliffe, Jim Stewart, Catherine Glaister and Sallyann Halliday
The purpose of this paper is to argue that human resource development (HRD) needs to embrace and include futures and foresight learning (FFL) as a new addition to its field of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to argue that human resource development (HRD) needs to embrace and include futures and foresight learning (FFL) as a new addition to its field of theorising and practice. The question to consider is: How can FFL become a new feature of HRD? A key part of the authors’ argument is that the inclusion of FFL will enable HRD to add to the success of any organisation and make a vital contribution to the management of people at work.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper firstly considers some of the debates surrounding the meaning of HRD. The authors suggest that instability of the time serves to disturb any comforts that have been created in HRD and that there is a need to consider how there might be different futures for what we still call HRD in research, practice and praxis. This paper then considers how FFL might become one possibility for expanding the existing boundaries of HRD. The authors characterise futures and foresight as a learning process, which provides new but complementary features to what is already considered as HRD. This paper will show how FFL can lead to organisation's success and the way this can be achieved.
Findings
There is a wide variety of meanings of the term HRD; however, HRD is still cast as a “weakened profession” which has to play a subservient role to others in the workplace. Over the last 15 years, the expansion of the meaning of HRD has been seen as evidence of its evolving and emerging nature and development based on a co-creation with other disciplines. This creates a space for FFL, defined as an ongoing learning process to find predictable, probable, possible and/or a variety of long-term futures. FFL embraces three key processes of scanning, futuring and reconfiguring, all of which contain a high potential for participants and others to learn as they proceed, providing outcomes at each stage. FFL has been shown to enhance organisation performance and success and HRD interventions can play a key part in implementation. This represents a significant opportunity for the HRD profession to move from weakness towards strength.
Research limitations/implications
For HRD researchers, while FFL is not yet on its radar, the authors would argue that the uncertainties of the future require that more attention be given to what might lie ahead. Indeed, HRD researchers need to ask the question: What is the future of HRD research? In addition, if the authors’ call for FFL to be included in the practice of HRD, such practice will itself provide new pathways for HRD research. Further research questions might include: To what extent is FFL practiced in organisations and what role do HRD practitioners play in delivery? How does FFL impact on organisation behaviour and outcomes? What new products and services emerge from FFL? What new skills are required to deliver FFL? Can FFL enhance the status of HRD practitioners in the work place and its role in decision-making? and How can the HRD profession develop as a hybrid profession with respect to machine learning (ML)/artificial intelligence (AI)?
Practical implications
FFL produces outcomes that have importance for strategy, HRD practitioner can learn to facilitate FFL by action learning and in leadership development programmes. FFL offers a significant opportunity to enhance the importance of HRD in organisations and beyond. FFL offers those involved in HRD a significant opportunity to transfer ideas into practice that have an impact on organisation sustainability. HRD can play a significant role in the design and delivery of ML and AI projects.
Originality/value
This paper concludes with a call for embracing FFL as a challenging but important addition to how we talk about learning at work. The authors argue that FFL offers a significant opportunity to enhance the importance of HRD in organisations and beyond. At its centre, FFL involves learning by people, groups, organisations and machines and this has to be of concern to HRD.
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Erik Melin and Johan Gaddefors
The purpose of this article is to explore how agency is distributed between human actors and nonhuman elements in entrepreneurship.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to explore how agency is distributed between human actors and nonhuman elements in entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach
It is based on an inductive longitudinal case study of a garden in a rural community in northern Sweden. The methodology includes an ethnography of the garden, spanning the course of 16 years, and a careful investigation of the entrepreneurial processes contained within it.
Findings
This article identifies and describes different practices to explain how agency is distributed between human actors and nonhuman elements in the garden's context. Three different practices were identified and discussed, namely “calling”, “resisting”, and “provoking”.
Originality/value
Agency/structure constitutes a longstanding conundrum in entrepreneurship and context. This study contributes to the on-going debate on context in entrepreneurship, and introduces a posthumanist perspective—particularly that of distributed agency—to theorising in entrepreneurship. Rather than focussing on a human (hero)-driven change process, induced through the exploitation of material objects, this novel perspective views entrepreneurship as both a human and a nonhuman venture, occurring through interactions located in particular places and times. Coming from the agency/structure dichotomy, this article reaches out for elements traditionally established on the structure side, distributing them to the agency side of the dichotomy. As such, it contributes to an understanding of the agency of nonhuman elements, and how they direct entrepreneurship in context. This theoretical development prepares entrepreneurship theories to be better able to engage with nonhuman elements and provides example solutions for the ongoing climate crisis.
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Susan Lilico Kinnear and Sarah Bowman
This study attempts to identify the drivers for change in Public Relations education and what assumptions are made about professional practice. The authors suggest signature…
Abstract
Purpose
This study attempts to identify the drivers for change in Public Relations education and what assumptions are made about professional practice. The authors suggest signature pedagogy has the potential to deepen our understanding of the teaching and learning of Public Relations and what this means as the Public Relations curriculum adapts. The paper has theoretical and practical value. It forefronts the concept of signature pedagogy as a fresh way to look at Public Relations teaching and learning that can be developed.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper aims to explore the historical and contemporary context of teaching Public Relations within a university setting, how it has evolved and the assumptions that underpin it both nationally and internationally. Using a mixed methods approach, the paper investigates how the curriculum has changed since 2000, how it interacts with industry and how it reflects educational historical and contemporary frameworks. It also explores the assumptions on which Public Relations education was and is based and whether signature pedagogy is evidenced.
Findings
This study concludes that, from a signature pedagogy perspective, many current Public Relations curricula emphasise surface structures of learning. Deep structures, focusing on critical engagement and conceptual approaches to problem solving, are more variable, disconnected and contested. The data indicate the existence of an Anglo-American, skills-based approach to Public Relations knowledge, alongside international nuances around multi-culturalism. From a practical viewpoint, the paper contributes to how Public Relations programmes can be designed, taught and adapted in the future.
Originality/value
The paper evidences fully unique, primary research.
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The article contributes to affective ethnography focussing on the fluidity of organizational spacing. Through the concept of affective space, it highlights those elements that are…
Abstract
Purpose
The article contributes to affective ethnography focussing on the fluidity of organizational spacing. Through the concept of affective space, it highlights those elements that are ephemeral and elusive – like affect, aesthetics, atmosphere, intensity, moods – and proposes to explore affect as spatialized and space as affective.
Design/methodology/approach
Fluidity is proposed as a conceptual lens that sits at the conjunction of space and affect, highlighting both the movement in time and space, and the mutable relationships that the capacity of affecting and being affected weaves. It experiments with “writing differently” in affective ethnography, thus performing the space of representation of affective space.
Findings
The article enriches the alternative to a conceptualization of organizations as stable entities, considering organizing in its spatial fluidity and in being a fragmented, affective and dispersed phenomenon.
Originality/value
The article's writing is an example of intertextuality constructed through five praxiographic stories that illustrate the multiple fluidity of affective spacing in terms of temporal fluidity, fluidity of boundaries, of participation, of the object of practice, and atmospheric fluidity.
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The purpose of this study is to gain insight into the dynamics and considerations of professionals regarding the sharing of tacit, personal knowledge in their practice.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to gain insight into the dynamics and considerations of professionals regarding the sharing of tacit, personal knowledge in their practice.
Design/methodology/approach
Adopting a social-constructivist ontology, the qualitative design deploys semi-structured interviews and focus groups. Data were coded, and analysed through interrelating and reasoning.
Findings
Personal knowledge is difficult to share precisely, but can be shared to some extent using reflection and stories. Knowledge also provides a position and professional agency, emphasising boundaries and impacting the decisions on interaction and sharing. As such, professional commitment is vulnerable and contextual and, by extension, material becomes part of this interplay of professional practice and collaborative development.
Research limitations/implications
Findings imply that exchange and use of knowledge and material present in organisations are impacted by individual professionals’ autonomy and decisions, which consequently impact on employees’ practice. This calls for research that focuses on individual factors such as autonomy, professionalism and attitudes in addition to organisational and facilitative matters.
Practical implications
Stimulating professional commitment and interpersonal learning is a matter of valuing personal knowledge and practice to avoid protectionism, boundaries and segregated agency. Management and professionals should consider how and why individuals exchange their personal knowledge, paying attention to social structures and individuals’ voices and objectives in forming communities.
Originality/value
This study combines the concept of tacit knowledge with the younger field of practice theory. By connecting personal knowledge to practice, it extends agency to the material world and offers a more individual perspective to knowledge sharing in and between entities.
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Filippo Ferrarini and Ylenia Curzi
The literature has recognized the key role of the human resource management (HRM) practices for enhancing firms’ innovative performance. At the same time, scholars have…
Abstract
Purpose
The literature has recognized the key role of the human resource management (HRM) practices for enhancing firms’ innovative performance. At the same time, scholars have consistently demonstrated open innovation (OI) to be an effective approach for boosting companies’ innovative outcome. Nevertheless, academics have largely overlooked to investigate the complex relationship between HRM practices, OI and organizations’ innovativeness, while claiming further research on organizational antecedents on OI. Using the ability, motivation and opportunity (AMO) framework as analytical lens, this study investigates the direct and indirect relationship between AMO-enhancing practices and firms’ innovation capacity, hypothesizing a potential mediating role of OI.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing from the European Company Survey 2019, a large-scale representative dataset of more than 20,000 establishments at European level and building on the “human-side” of OI, the study proposes two hypotheses regarding the relationship between AMO-enhancing practices and OI in fostering product and process innovation in European firms.
Findings
The results show that companies that invest in AMO-enhancing practices not only have higher probability to innovate, but also are more inclined to collaborate with external partners. Moreover, OI not only enhances the innovation capacity of the firm but also partially mediates the relationship between HRM and organizations’ innovativeness.
Originality/value
This is one of the first studies which empirically investigate how the AMO framework increases the likelihood of engaging in an OI process by firms, thereby, increasing their innovation capacity. The results shed further lights on both “the human side” of OI, as well as in the mechanisms linking HRM practices with innovation. Moreover, the analysis provides a deeper understanding about the organizational antecedents of the OI process, as well as corroborating the recent theoretical contributions on HRM and OI.
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Ville Jylhä, Noora Hirvonen and Jutta Haider
This study addresses how algorithmic recommendations and their affordances shape everyday information practices among young people.
Abstract
Purpose
This study addresses how algorithmic recommendations and their affordances shape everyday information practices among young people.
Design/methodology/approach
Thematic interviews were conducted with 20 Finnish young people aged 15–16 years. The material was analysed using qualitative content analysis, with a focus on everyday information practices involving online platforms.
Findings
The key finding of the study is that the current affordances of algorithmic recommendations enable users to engage in more passive practices instead of active search and evaluation practices. Two major themes emerged from the analysis: enabling not searching, inviting high trust, which highlights the how the affordances of algorithmic recommendations enable the delegation of search to a recommender system and, at the same time, invite trust in the system, and constraining finding, discouraging diversity, which focuses on the constraining degree of affordances and breakdowns associated with algorithmic recommendations.
Originality/value
This study contributes new knowledge regarding the ways in which algorithmic recommendations shape the information practices in young people's everyday lives specifically addressing the constraining nature of affordances.
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