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The study seeks to address the research question: “How can Gadamerian and Ricoeurian hermeneutics be operationalized in an interpretive accounting research project”? The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to review the key hermeneutic concepts of philosophers Gadamer and Ricoeur; and second, to share insights from the researcher’s experience of applying Gadamerian and Ricoeurian hermeneutics to an interpretive accounting research project.

The paper draws on the extant literature and the researcher’s own experience using hermeneutics theory in an interpretive accounting research project involving in-depth interviews with organisational managers.

The process of interpretation is described using the core concept of the hermeneutic circle where the reader and the text engage in dialogue. The readers’ pre-understandings play a key role in this dialogue and assist in drawing meaning from the text. However, it is necessary for the reader to adopt a critically reflexive approach remaining alert for both unproductive pre-understandings and hidden power structures and ideologies in the text being interpreted. Each reading of a text involves the completion of one cycle of the hermeneutic circle in which the reader transitions from pre-configuration to configuration and ultimately re-configuration concluding with the reader acquiring new horizons of understanding. The researcher’s experience of applying hermeneutic theory to an interpretive accounting research project are reflected on and nine lessons are offered.

These insights will prove valuable to interpretive researchers within the social sciences, including accounting and management studies, as well as those working in the natural sciences.

In the UK, major IT public procurement projects regularly fail at significant cost to the taxpayer. The prevalence of these failures presents scholars with a challenge; to both understand their genesis and to facilitate learning and prevention. Functional approaches have revealed numerous determinants of failure ranging from procurement specifications to risk escalation, but true and definitive causes remain elusive. However, since failure is not itself an absolute truth, but rather a concept which is reached when support is withdrawn, the survival of a project depends on there being sufficient belief in its legitimacy. We use critical hermeneutic methods and the conceptual lens of legitimacy to reveal powerful legitimating influences that enable and constrain action, but which are not analysed in the retrospective government inquiries that determine lessons learned.

India is a country of socio-cultural diversity. Every society and culture existing in India is full of values, ethics and morality regarding good deeds. The exhaustive survey of corporate social responsibility (CSR) literatures from Indian philosophical perspectives observes many studies based on the socio-cultural and religious aspects. It has been observed all these philosophical views and concepts covering socio-cultural and religious backgrounds have received attention in the field of CSR. It is observed that almost all views have been fully explored in the context of CSR. Therefore this chapter tries to detect the drivers of CSR with all these philosophies prevalent in the culture of Indian society. This study utilises the hermeneutics, a qualitative research methodology which involves an in-depth study, critical analysis, thoughtful understanding and explanatory interpretation of the concepts of CSR originated from diversified Indian society and culture. In a nutshell, from these viewpoints and philosophies of different cultures, CSR is seen from an inside-out perspective.

A number of researchers have drawn attention to the way in which information systems development is an inherently political activity. Using the critical social theory of Jurgen Habermas, discusses the development of an information system in mental health. Using critical ethnography, reveals otherwise hidden agendas, power and managerial assumptions to be deeply embedded in the project. Raises broader questions about the extent to which information systems can be seen as “colonizing mechanisms”.

Human development is the most modern development approach. However, the proposed human development indexes for implementation of Islamic human resource management (HRM) do not suffice to realize the Islamic developed society. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the economic‐managerial indexes of human development based on HRM from the viewpoint of Islam and The Quran.

This paper applies the hermeneutic method and considers the question: “what are the proper human resource (HR) economic‐managerial indexes from the viewpoint of Islam?”.

Referring to the Islamic development basics and goals, it analyzes economic interaction among Muslim activists in an objective situation of the human development from the viewpoint of Islam and finally, it proposes human development economic‐managerial indexes among other required indexes, through planning an acceptable economic quasi‐system.

In the Islamic approach, human development occurs when a person's capacities improve so that he/she becomes able to manage internal and external contradictions and conflicts; and steps forward in the route of the faith and the righteous deed and in the space of the widespread justice to reach the God proximity and to replace the natural life by the Hayat‐e‐Tayyebeh.

Education for equity in global development and cultural diversity calls for professional capacity building to perceive diverse perspectives on complex procedures of globalisation. The discipline of human geography is such a “provider of perspectives”. The purpose of this paper is to propose a historic series of how theories of geography and human development have emerged.

This paper contributes to education and training by proposing a historic series of how theories of geography and human development have emerged.

The outcomes of this analysis of geographic paradigms offer options for the management of multicultural education in development. A critical synopsis and a combination of various paradigms on global development seem most promising for a holistic and comprehensive understanding of globalisation.

In particular, recent developments in human geography exhibit rapidly changing paradigms (ironically called “the Latin America of sciences”) and are hence difficult to systematise.

Spaces are understood to be communicational spaces, the substrate of which is enabling communication technologies. The theoretical contemplations of this paper permit to design learning environments, learning styles and related technologies.

Perception and understanding of contradicting theories on global (economic and human) development facilitate education fostering multiple cultures of understanding. The author's own professional experience shows that only esteem for all paradigms can provide the full picture. Success means “collective production of meaning”.

Understanding history frees us to reach future consensus.