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The topic of this paper strikes the golden mean rather than the extreme ones. The purpose is to describe frameworks and processes that strive to balance and unite conceptual opposites (so‐called “halves”) of the reality spectrum in different areas of literature.

Two related frames of reference in the area of inventory management are used to underpin and illustrate the frameworks and the processes to identify and manage conceptual halves in theoretical descriptions of the reality spectrum.

The tendency to focus on just halves (or lesser pieces) of the reality spectrum in theoretical descriptions of intangibles derived from research efforts creates a kind of blinkers‐syndrome, which is not enough to achieve a thorough understanding of the reality spectrum at hand.

Current and forthcoming theoretical descriptions of intangibles would benefit from paying attention to the underlying message transmitted through the formula of consensus. It is important to remember that the formula of consensus is not only restricted to the counterparts, but also stresses the importance of the reality spectrum between conceptual halves in terms of the compatibility and the complement between the counterparts.

There are numerous halves in theoretical descriptions of the reality spectrum that are related to one another in areas such as constructs, strategies, perspectives, approaches, methodologies and principles. A formula of consensus is therefore introduced which consists of three ingredients (i.e. counterview; compatibility; and complement). It contributes to bridging the dissension of conceptual halves over time and across contexts in theoretical descriptions of the reality spectrum.

The paper aims to provide a response to commentaries in this issue by Andrew Sayer, and Robert W. Scapens and ChunLei Yang on “Case studies and differentiated realities” a paper by Sue Llewellyn published in Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management Vol. 4 No. 1, 2007.

Discusses issues raised in the commentaries around “differentiated realities”, “pluralist ontology” and the “single reality” of social constructivism.

Reiterates an understanding of the idea of “differentiated realities” and discusses the methodological implications that arise from it.

Clarifies Llewellyn's original discussion of differentiated realities and case studies.

Reality breakdowns generate reflexivity and awareness of the constructed nature of social reality. These pivotal moments can motivate institutional inhabitants to either modify their social worlds or reaffirm the status quo. Thus, reality breakdowns are the initial points at which actors can conceive of new possibilities for institutional arrangements and initiate change processes to realize them. Studying reality breakdowns enables scholars to understand not just how institutional change occurs, but also why it does or does not do so. In this paper, we investigate how institutional inhabitants responded to a reality breakdown that occurred during our ethnography of collegial governance in a large North American university that was undergoing a strategic change initiative. Our findings suggest that there is a consequential process following reality breakdowns whereby institutional inhabitants construct the severity of these events. In our context, institutional inhabitants first attempted to restore order to their social world by reaffirming the status quo; when their efforts failed, they began to formulate alternative possibilities. Simultaneously, they engaged in a distributed sensemaking process whereby they diminished and reoriented necessary changes, ultimately inhibiting the formulation of these new possibilities. Our findings confirm reality breakdowns and institutional awareness as potential drivers of institutional change and complicate our understanding of antecedent microprocesses that may forestall the initiation of change efforts.

Postmodernism is often held to be a novel viewpoint of the 20th (and 21st) century. In certain minor respects, it is. But in this chapter I will show that, fundamentally, it is a logical derivative of philosopher Immanuel Kant’s revolutionary views in epistemology. As such, postmodernism rises or falls with the cogency of Kant’s basic epistemological approach.

As a rule during interviews, research and respondent share the same sense of reality. In contrast, how should researchers handle phantasmal narratives during interviews, or descriptions of events that are impossible according to natural law? In this chapter, I report on 38 interviews upon people who encountered ghosts, apply theoretical concepts (James, Schutz, Pollner, Blumer), and, through autoethnographic reflection, suggest three approaches (“debunking,” “distancing,” “detouring”) to handling such phantasmal narratives. I conclude that they are best handled by complete suspension of skeptical thought, concentrating on ghost beliefs and not ghost existence.

Purpose – Hybrid reality television, a burgeoning subgenre spawning from the reality television genre, distinguishes itself from its parent genre through dramatizations that have been described as presenting a “quasi-reality” that is disorientating for the viewer (Caramanica, 2010). In addition to blurring the lines between fact and fiction, hybrid reality programs blur the lines between product placement and entertainment as products are seamlessly blended into the depicted lifestyles. This research explores how consumers negotiate hybrid reality television programs and how this process transpires in viewers' reactions to the consumption portrayals within the programs.

Methodology/approach – Insights were sought from qualitative in-depth interviews with avid viewers of an archetype of the hybrid reality subgenre, the MTV program The Hills.

Findings – The findings reveal varying degrees of self-reflexive consciousness, reflecting viewers' critical awareness of the rhetoric of the program, the artifices of the hybrid reality genre, and their role as an audience. Self-reflexive consciousness facilitates a critical response toward the text in which viewers recognize the artifices of the genre and thus regard the program as “real” and “not real” and simultaneously worth and worthless viewing at the same time, in a textual strategy, we refer to as ironic (dis)engagement.

Originality/value of the chapter – On the basis of this body of data, a typology of viewer responses to hybrid reality programs emerges with corresponding consumption strategies as viewers negotiate the consumption portrayals within The Hills. These findings suggest that viewers embrace product placement within the subgenre and that the program has pioneered and opened up new horizons for lifestyle branding practices within television programming.

Education and new technologies travel parallel pathways, with each often informing development of the other. In recent decades, educators have utilized technologies, such as television and the Internet, to develop and deliver course content. More recently, another technology has emerged that might possibly change education as it is currently practiced. Augmented reality merges manipulable digital imagery into real-world spaces and in real time. The technologies used to create augmented environments already exist in the mass market and have already begun to show up in a wide variety of fields, including education. This chapter will provide an overview of augmented reality and explore current and potential uses in higher education.

You must attach clear, specific meanings to words, i.e. be able to identify their referents in reality…. All philosophical con games count on your using words as vague approximations. You must not take a catch phrase – or any abstract statement – as if it were approximate. Take it literally. Don’t translate it, don’t glamorize it, don’t make the mistake of thinking, as many people do: “Oh, nobody could possibly mean this!” and then proceed to endow it with some whitewashed meaning of your own. Take it straight, for what it does say and mean. Instead of dismissing the catch phrase, accept it – for a few brief moments. Tell yourself, in effect: “If I were to accept it as true, what would follow?” This is the best way of unmasking any philosophical fraud…. To take ideas seriously means that you intend to live by, to practice, any idea you accept as true. Philosophy provides man with a comprehensive view of life. In order to evaluate it properly, ask yourself what a given theory, if accepted, would do to a human life, starting with your own (Rand, 1982, p. 16).We begin this chapter by taking Ayn Rand’s advice. We project – by means of a fictional story – what it would be like for a businessman to accept and live by the philosophy of postmodernism.