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1 – 3 of 3Matthew Scobie, Ellie Norris and Holly Willson
This study explores the concept of intergenerational accountability to address the grand challenge of a just transition. Intergenerational accountability extends the notion of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study explores the concept of intergenerational accountability to address the grand challenge of a just transition. Intergenerational accountability extends the notion of accountability for the other to include future generations in ways that avoid the trap of long-termism and delayed action.
Design/methodology/approach
We follow a critical qualitative case study approach with an Indigenous community in a settler colony. Sources of empirical materials include semi-structured interviews and documentary reviews, analysed abductively through thematic analysis.
Findings
Intergenerational accountability extends the notion of accountability for the other temporally by including future generations. Indigenous temporalities offer a way to address concerns that accountability to distant future generations could delay the urgency to act now. Findings suggest that the “eternal present”, where aspirations of ancestors and obligations to descendants coalesce into a contemporary obligation, has the potential to help confront the climate crisis. However, the ability to actively practice these understandings is constrained by commercial “best practice” and the colonial state. These constraints necessitate struggles for Indigenous self-determination that also exist in the eternal present.
Originality/value
We extend the concept of accountability for the other to include future generations, but avoid the trap of long-termism delaying action through the eternal present of Indigenous temporalities. However, these temporalities are constrained, so struggles for Indigenous self-determination become closely intertwined with struggles for a just transition.
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Kylie L Kingston, Belinda Luke and Eija Vinnari
The purpose of this research was to seek a more refined understanding of the ways beneficiaries are evaluating nonprofit organisations (NPO), from the beneficiaries’ perspectives…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research was to seek a more refined understanding of the ways beneficiaries are evaluating nonprofit organisations (NPO), from the beneficiaries’ perspectives. Understanding evaluation from beneficiaries’ perspectives is not only important theoretically, but also for enabling evaluation processes to authentically contribute toward enhanced downward accountability.
Design/methodology/approach
Theorisation of immanent evaluation (Deleuze, 1998), the ontological view that there is no form imposed from outside or above but instead an articulation from within, was drawn upon to direct attention toward understanding beneficiaries’ inherent productive evaluative capacity and agency. This theorisation enabled a different way of observing and understanding beneficiary evaluation within a qualitative case study conducted in an Australian NPO. Data was sourced from interviews, observations and document analysis.
Findings
Findings suggest beneficiaries largely viewed the NPO’s evaluation processes to be unsatisfactory toward meeting their needs in relation to meaningful engagement. However, beneficiaries’ evaluative capacity was noted to include their own evaluation criteria and evaluative expressions indicating the production of an evaluative account. Here beneficiaries’ evaluative expressions are representations of events of evaluation, initiated by them. Findings enable a more refined understanding of beneficiaries’ engagement in evaluation, moving beyond traditional considerations of participative evaluation, and illustrating beneficiaries’ agency and active role in the production of evaluation.
Originality/value
This research furthers understandings of downward accountability and participative evaluation by detailing how beneficiaries’ evaluative capacity is part of an NPO’s evaluative environment, and as such, conceives of an immanent theory of beneficiary evaluation. Findings highlight how evaluation, as a mechanism of downward accountability, functions from beneficiaries’ perspectives and the type of organisational environment capable of enabling and better supporting beneficiary engagement.
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Andreas Walmsley and Ghulam Nabi
The purpose of this paper is to identify entrepreneur mentor benefits and challenges as a result of entrepreneurship mentoring in higher education (HE).
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify entrepreneur mentor benefits and challenges as a result of entrepreneurship mentoring in higher education (HE).
Design/methodology/approach
An entrepreneurship mentoring scheme was developed at a UK university to support prospective student entrepreneurs, with mentors being entrepreneurs drawn from the local business community. A mentor-outcomes framework was developed and applied to guide semi-structured interviews.
Findings
Results supported the broader applicability of our framework, with a revised framework developed to better represent the entrepreneur mentor context. Alongside psychosocial and personal developmental outcomes, mentors benefitted from entrepreneurial learning, renewed commitment to their own ventures and the development of additional skills sets. Enhanced business performance also manifested itself for some mentors. A range of challenges are presented, some generic to the entrepreneur setting and others more specific to the higher education (HE) setting.
Research limitations/implications
The framework offered serves as a starting point for further researchers to explore and refine the outcomes of entrepreneur mentoring.
Practical implications
The findings serve to support those considering developing a mentor programme or including mentoring as part of a formal entrepreneurship education offer, specifically in a university setting but also beyond.
Originality/value
The vast majority of entrepreneurship mentoring studies focus on the benefits to the mentee. By focusing on benefits and challenges for the entrepreneur mentor, this study extends our knowledge of the benefit of entrepreneurship mentoring. It offers an empirically derived entrepreneur mentor outcomes framework, as well as offering insights into challenges for the entrepreneur mentor within an HE setting.
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