Search results

Explores the development of regulations for “Accounting for Research and Development” in four countries: USA, UK, Federal Republic of Germany and Sweden. Seeks to illuminate the processes of accounting regulation in the specific institutional contexts of each advanced capitalist country, with reference to the particular mix of organizing principles of dispersed competition, hierarchical control and spontaneous solidarity.

It is possible to say that an expert in any field of knowledge can be expected to know particular things and techniques. This can be said of a stone mason, a physicist or a midwife. The expertise consists of a notional core of knowledge and skills (i.e. applied knowledge). Such expertise arguably can be found in other experts in the same field, although there will be idiosyncrasies of approach and valuation and quite probably divergencies in what is considered “right” and “wrong”.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the origins and development of the “Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal (AAAJ) Community”, a flourishing international interdisciplinary accounting research community. This scholarly community has emerged over some 30 years from the publication in 1988 of the inaugural issue of AAAJ under the joint editorship of James Guthrie and Lee Parker. This historical account discusses the motivation for establishing the journal and the important publishing initiatives, developments and trends across this period. The study positions the journal as a key thought leader, the catalyst for other Community activities such as the Asia-Pacific Interdisciplinary Research in Accounting conference.

The investigation involved a selective review of the contents of AAAJ, particularly the annual editorials published since inception, and other relevant literature, analysis of the main research themes and the most cited papers, and oral history interviews with the joint editors. The future prospects for the AAAJ Community are addressed.

The AAAJ Community has shaped and led developments in interdisciplinary accounting research. Recognised for innovation and with a reputation for nurturing scholars, AAAJ continues to grow in stature as one of the world’s leading accounting journals, challenging the status quo and fostering inclusive scholarship.

The study does not examine the journal’s publication patterns nor assess in detail the research studies that have been published in the journal.

The study recognises AAAJ as central to the development of an interdisciplinary accounting research community, firmly located in the sociological, critical and interpretative tradition also associated with some other leading accounting journals.

To consider Critical Management Studies as a social movement.

The purpose is fulfilled by reflecting upon the history of Critical Management Studies by reference to social movement theory, institutional theory and the social theory of hegemony.

Critical Management Studies is plausibly understood as a social movement.

The chapter offers a fresh perspective on Critical Management Studies by representing it as a movement rather than as a specialist field of knowledge.

We explore the significance of social ontology and its capacity to inform the specification of organizational status, architecture and capacities. We consider how different conceptions of social ontology are critical for explicating a range of epistemological and socio-economic questions concerning organizations and develop a research agenda oriented to studying these issues from the perspective of management and organization studies.

This article reports on a recent study of personnel management in the life insurance industry. Until recently the industry has enjoyed a comparatively untroubled expansion largely because of the investment‐seeking surplus incomes of an increasingly affluent population and the market protection which large asset bases provided for the established companies. Recent developments are eroding the stability, though not the overall potential, of the market and it is against this background that our analysis takes place.

Explores the relationship between new trends in management thought (e.g. corporate culture, the Excellence literature) and postmodernist ideas. Argues that a central theme of postmodernism is the de‐differentiation of the spheres of economy and culture. Suggests that this theme is present in new management philosophies that celebrate the virtues of play, flexibility and indeterminacy. But that this celebration is partial and instrumental as, paradoxically, it is intended to extend the life of modernist institutions.

The paper adopts an organizational perspective to explore the conditions of possibility of the recent re-emergence of overt class-based discourse on one hand, epitomized by the ‘We are the 99%’ movement, and the rise on the other hand of a populist, nativist and sometimes overtly fascist right. It is argued that these phenomena, reflecting the increasingly crisis-prone character of global capitalism, the growing gap between rich and poor and a generalized sense of insecurity, are rooted in the dismantling of socially embedded organizations through processes often described as ‘financialization’, driven by the taken-for-granted dominance of neoliberal ideology. The paper explores the rise to dominance of the neoliberal ‘thought style’ and its inherent logic in underpinning the dismantling and restructuring of capitalist organization. Its focus is upon transnational value chain capitalism which has rebalanced power relations in favour of a small elite that is able to operate and realize wealth in ways that defy and often succeed in escaping the regulation of nation states.