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This chapter first examines the role of attention in the garbage can model of decision making and compares it both to prior approaches in the Carnegie School tradition and the attention-based view of the firm. Both the garbage can model and the attention-based view rely on the same assumption, one that is rarely recognized nor understood – that organizational decision making is characterized by situated attention, where organizational participants vary across time and place in what they attend to. In the garbage can model, decision opportunities are the temporal contexts for situated attention; in the attention-based view, attention is situated in both time and place within the organization's communication channels. In the garbage can, situated attention is also shaped by the ecology of problems and opportunities competing for attention. The final part examines the determinants and consequences of tight versus loose coupling of channels in organizations and its effects on participants’ situated attention. Attention structures external to channels and the architecture of channel structures shape the degree of coupling found in organizations. In viewing coupling as a variable, the chapter suggests that a modified garbage can model, combined with an increased focus on situated attention, provides the foundations for a more general theory of nonroutine decision making.

This paper aims to develop and apply a service design method that allows for stronger recognition and integration of human activities into the front-end stages of the service design process.

Following a discussion of different service design perspectives and activity theory, the paper develops a method called activity-set mapping (ActS). ActS is applied to an exploratory service design project to demonstrate its use.

Three broad perspectives on service design are suggested: (1) the dyadic interaction, (2) the systemic interaction and (3) the customer activity perspectives. The ActS method draws on the latter perspective and focuses on the study of human activity sets. The application of ActS shows that the method can help identify and visualize sets of activities.

The ActS method opens new avenues for service design by zooming in on the micro level and capturing the set of activities linked to a desired goal achievement. However, the method is limited to activities reported by research participants and may exclude unconscious activities. Further research is needed to validate and refine the method.

The ActS method will help service designers explore activities in which humans engage to achieve a desired goal/end state.

The concept of “human activity set” is new to service research and opens analytical opportunities for service design. The ActS method contributes a visualization tool for identifying activity sets and uncovering the benefits, sacrifices and frequency of activities.

Drawing on recent research, which recognises the situated nature of accounting practices, the purpose of this paper is to extend the Burns and Scapens (B&S) framework and to illustrate its potential for studying the situated nature of management accounting practices. The extended framework distinguishes field-level institutions (which the authors term broader institutions) and institutions within the organisation (which the authors term local institutions). To extend the B&S framework the authors draw on recent debates in institutional theory, both new institutional sociology, where the focus is now on the institutional logics perspective, and old institutional economics, where there has been debate about the relationship between institutions and actions.

While the B&S framework focussed on institutions within the organisation, the extended framework explicitly recognises institutions which extend beyond the boundaries of the organisation. It also recognises the way in which rationality and deliberation are related to human agency, as well as the power of specific individuals and/or groups to impose new rules. To illustrate the usefulness of the extended framework the research note draws on a recent study of performance measurement in the Accounting and Finance Groups of the Universities of Groningen and Manchester.

It is argued that local institutions within the organisation combine with the broader institutions to shape the forms of situated rationality which are applied by individuals and groups within the organisation. Different groups within an organisation (e.g. engineers and accountants) can have different forms of situated rationality, and contradictions in these forms of rationality can be a source of institutional change or resistance to change within the organisation, and can explain why accounting changes can by implemented in different ways in different organisations and also in different parts of the same organisation.

The extended framework will be useful for studying: (1) how situated rationalities evolve within an organisation, more specifically how they are shaped by both local and broader institutions; and (2) how prevailing situated rationalities shape the responses to accounting change.

This paper aims to offer an incremental contribution, augmenting the notion of situated rationality as proposed by terBogt and Scapens (2019). Through insights from empirical data, the authors explore the role of situated rationalities of key individual actors in processes of management control change.

A qualitative research approach was adopted with qualitative data collected in a single public service organisation through face-to-face interviews, organisation documentation and observations.

The findings present the important role of key individual actors in bringing about a new situated rationality in a housing department. External austerity forces combined with actors’ experience rationalities acted as a stimulus to change existing management control practices in the management of public services.

The paper conceptualises “experience” rationality, capturing the experiences of a key actor, including elements of leadership style. Drawing on a story of a complex process of management control change, this paper thus reveals interactions between generalised practices and situated rationalities which were not highlighted by the extended framework of terBogt and Scapens.

This paper aims to examine the differences in epistemological underpinnings of conventional information systems analysis and design (ISAD) approaches (such as structured system and analysis design methodologies) and a recently developed situated ISAD approach.

This empirical investigation involved constructing a simulated field situation to allow a conventionally trained IS analyst to analyse the same case as had been previously analysed by applying the situated ISAD methodology.

While the conventional approach focuses on articulated knowledge and observes the system under study with a detached stance, the situated approach includes tacit knowledge and recognises the importance of the environment. The situated analyst is immersed in the system, attempting to take the subject position of an actor in the system, while also maintaining some analytical distance.

The research method and framework presented is a novel way to compare the epistemological underpinnings of other systems analysis and design methodologies. Validity issues are explicitly addressed in the paper; although it is based on a single case, the fact that it is a real‐world problem gives it high external validity.

The investigation is based on an actual system design case and shows that, in analysis and design, the different epistemological underpinnings affect what is identified as a problem and hence the type of solution proposed.

There has been little previous work comparing epistemological commitments of alternative ISAD methodologies as they are played out in actual application. This paper makes a significant contribution to the theoretical foundations of IS.

This paper aims to present a high‐level conceptual framework to strengthen the conceptual bridge between project management and workplace learning by applying situated learning theory to project management practice to guide shared learning within and between projects.

The paper bridges situated learning theory from the workplace learning literature and the resource‐based view (RBV) of project management from the strategic management literature, using them as lenses to view two learning mechanisms in the project management domain, project reviews and communities of practices.

The paper finds that situated learning theory can be applied to project management to highlight processes that enable capability development through shared project learning.

This paper is conceptual in nature and intended to make a case for empirical research that draws on workplace learning literature which is useful to project management as there remains the challenge of leveraging these perspectives for project management practice.

The paper believes that situated learning theory offers insights that can be leveraged to make project management environments more effective through improved intra‐project and inter‐project shared learning.

This paper presents a high‐level conceptual framework to bridge situated learning theory to the RBV of project management. The paper finds that situated learning theory is well suited to contribute to an understanding of shared learning in projects and justifies future research.

This article seeks to answer the following research question: How does the focus of attention and situated attention contribute to the formulation and implementation of the service orientation in the business strategy?

Structural equation modelling is used as a research methodology.

The paper suggests that the formation and implementation of service orientation in the business strategy is influenced strongly by managerial attention.

The results suggest that a survey is suitable for investigating managerial cognition and attention, but future research should benefit from obtaining data on managerial attention through interviews or secondary data such as company documents.

The main effect on strategy implementation and the moderating role of situated attention suggest that managers should be aware of the potential inertia by implementing a service‐oriented business strategy. The main effects for strategy formulation suggest that the formulation of a service‐oriented business strategy is triggered through decreasing product margins in the case of product‐oriented companies, whereas it is triggered by increasing customer expectations for service‐oriented companies.

The study examines the moderating effects of focus of managerial attention and situated management attention on the service orientation of business strategy.

Extant consumer behavior research has alluded to consumer learning; however, little research exists regarding situated learning and its relation to coping with respect to stressful consumption experiences. The purpose of this research is to study situated or in situ learning in two cultural contexts – that of the USA and China.

Online data were collected from non-students in both the USA and China, and structural equations modeling was used to analyze data.

Results demonstrated that situated learning helped cope better with stressful episodes for both cultures. Psychological closeness to the problem mediated the relationship between the antecedents and situated learning for US consumers more than for Chinese consumers.

Since US consumers tend to be psychologically close to the stressor during the consumption process, firms should preemptively inform and educate them about potential stressors to help them learn and cope. However, as Chinese consumers tend not to be psychologically close to the problem, they need to be dealt differently.

This research provides a holistic view of situated learning and coping as a process involving consumers, firms and situations and examines their underlying factors in stressful consumption encounters. It establishes the mediating role of psychological closeness between antecedents and consumers’ situated learning and explores the differences of psychological closeness in two different cultures, that of the USA and China.

Biculturals are portrayed as “ideal” boundary spanners and conflict mediators in MNC who switch between or transcend multiple cultural and/or organizational. The paper aims to critically analyze the assumptions behind this positive view on dual identity in MNC and provide an alternative conceptualization re‐positioning dual identity as a situated and potentially contested process.

The paper theoretically juxtaposes existing concepts of dual identity in the international business literature with recent advances in research on identity in organization studies and psychology as well as critical perspectives on identity.

A situated approach to biculturalism provides for a greater variety of identity management strategies corresponding to the metaphors of “surfer”, “soldier”, “struggler”, and “strategist” alike, depending on the identity repertoire available, the perceived situation at hand and the interactive processes of identity construction unfolding. From this perspective, the conflict potential associated with dual identity in MNC does not automatically dissolve as suggested by the literature so far, but depending on the situated enactment of dual identity might actually increase, intensify or even re‐direct the lines of conflict.

The paper develops a comprehensive concept of situated bicultural identity processes in organizational contexts, which can serve as a guiding framework of further empirical research on biculturalism in MNC and also provides initial discussions about suitable hypotheses development in this area.

The international business literature so far is dominated by a limited understanding of biculturalism in MNC, strongly influenced by the concept of frame switching in cross‐cultural psychology. The paper introduces an alternative concept of biculturalism as a situated process, which can serve as a framework for further and more varied research on biculturalist identity negotiation in MNC.

To connect students with the real world of management practice, the purpose of this paper is to extend and operationalize the situated cultural learning approach (SiCuLA) through five learning processes occurring within communities of practice. These include integration of cultural contexts, authentic activities, reflections, facilitation, and the construction of a collaborative learning community.

To investigate the complex processes and principles of cultural learning, a multi-method approach is applied to an extensive comparative study of default and intervened cases within three management classes. Evidence is drawn from multiple sources of qualitative data including class observations, meeting minutes, focus groups, and group interviews with students and instructors.

Results indicated that in default cases, little explicit attention was given to a situated perspective of culture, or to the rich sources of cultural knowledge available among members of the classroom community. In contrast, following the intervention cases where SiCuLA was applied, there was strong evidence that much more attention was given to enhancing student contextual knowledge. Nonetheless, there were some challenges in applying these processes within the classroom context.

This is the first study to extend and operationalize SiCuLA in a classroom setting. More importantly, the evidence forms the empirical basis for deriving theoretical principles for cross-cultural management (CCM) education and training. It contributes to studying cultural contexts as sources of knowledge for learning through active co-participation. It also contributes to positive CCM learning with an emphasis on human agency that encourages students to take more responsibility and ownership of their cultural learning.