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This paper examines the 2012–2013 Starbucks tax crisis in the United Kingdom (UK) as an anatomy of tragedy. The tragedy in relation to Starbucks is the displacement of an opportunity to examine the relationship between financial capital and national capitalisms. The paper illustrates how the crisis displaced opportunities for substantive critique concerning financial capital, national capitalisms, multinationals, taxation and society.

As a critical, discursive intervention, the paper examines how rhetoric was employed in 157 media articles published in six UK newspapers and on two news portals (both in print and online). The paper employs rhetorical redescription to the document archive, presenting the finding and analysis as a play in the style of an Aristotelian tragedy.

Analysis of the Starbucks approach to transfer pricing identifies misunderstandings of accounting, taxation transfer pricing, and ‘‘resolution” and how the media's construction of Starbucks as immoral, anti-British, potentially illegal operated to confuse the politics. The effect of these misunderstandings and confusion was to take attention away from a politics concerning financial capital valorisation and national capitalisms (jurisdictions raising tax revenue for government spending and social services).

First, the paper explores the politics of displacement to illustrate the metonymic concealment of the primary identity of the political. Second, Aristotelian tragedy is employed to study and present methods of displacement. Third, the empirics are depicted in a dramatic format to illustrate how rhetorical interventions by the media and actors displaced the political focus away from financial capital and national capitalisms.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate an element of the internal politics of standard setting by reference to the International Accounting Standards Board’s (IASB) movement to the International Financial Reporting Standard for Small and Medium-Sized Entities (IFRS for SMEs). The authors examine the politics of the IASB’s expertise in technocratic governance by focussing on how the IASB defined SMEs, gave the standard a title and issued a guide for micro-entities.

The narrative case study focusses on central “moments” in the development of IFRS for SMEs. The authors employ Laclau and Mouffe’s condensation, displacement and overdetermination to illustrate embedded politics in articulating IFRS for SMEs.

The authors extend literature on the internal politics of standard setting, such as agenda setting, by examining the condensing of disagreements between experts and political pressures and processes into central decision moments in IFRS for SMEs. The authors illustrate these moments as overdetermined, manifesting in an act of displacement through the production of a micro-entity guide. This form of politics is hidden due to the IASB’s attempt to protect their technocratic neutrality through fixing meaning.

The authors make three contributions: first, overdetermination through condensation and displacement illustrates the embedded nature of politics in regulatory settings, such as the IASB. Second, the authors provide a theoretical explanation of the IASB’s movement from listed entities to IFRS for SMEs, drawing on Laclau and Mouffe. Third, the authors reinforce the necessity of interrogating the internal politics of standard setting to challenge claims of technocracy.

The study draws upon three accounts to examine post-truth politics and its link to accounting. In studying Petrobras, a Brazilian petrochemical company embroiled in a corruption scandal, the authors draw upon a politics of falsity to understand how different depictions of similar events can emerge. The authors depict Petrobras' corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures during the period of corruption juxtaposed against the Brazilian Federal Police investigation (the Lava Jato/Car Wash Operation) and Petrobras' response to the allegations of institutional corruption.

The data set consisted of 56 Petrobras reports including Annual Reports, Financial Statements, Sustainability Reports and Form 20-Fs from 2004 to 2017, information disclosed by the Brazilian Federal Police concerning the Lava Jato Operation and media reports concerning Petrobras and the corruption scandal. The paper employs a discourse analysis approach to depict and interpret the accounts.

Through examining the connection between ontic accounts and ontological presuppositions, the authors illustrate a post-truth logic underpinning accounting, due to the interpretive, contestable and contingent nature of accounting information. Consequently, the authors turn to the “ethics of the real” as a response, as citizen subjects must be cautious in how they approach accounting and CSR disclosures.

Rather than relying on simplistic true/false dualities, the authors argue that the “ethics of the real” provides a courageous position for citizen subjects to interrogate the organisation by recognising the role of discourse and disclosure expectations on organisations in a post-truth environment. The study also illustrates how competing, contingent accounts of the same timeframe and events can emerge.

Volume 19 Number 3 of Sociology contains two articles of interest. In the first, entitled “Integrating Women into Class Theory”, Angela Dale, G. Nigel Gilbert and Sara Arber propose a theoretical framework by which women as well as men may be included in class theory, and a methodology is suggested by which one aspect of women's class location, their relationship to the labour market, may be measured. It is argued that social class in a Weberian sense may be seen as comprising two distinct although related dimensions. Firstly, that based upon relationship to the labour market, measured at the level of the individual; and second, that represented by patterns of consumption (in terms of goods and services), measured at the level of the family. All those with a direct relationship to the labour market may be allocated to an occupational class position, irrespective of position within the family. Data from the General Household Survey are used to produce a preliminary occupational class schema for women which does not depend upon assumptions of skill or the manual/non‐manual nature of the work.

The paper investigates attitudes towards and perceptions of the adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) for small and medium-sized entities (SMEs) in Saudi Arabia, immediately before and during the period of adoption.

The study adopts an interpretive approach, using a new institutional theory framework, drawing on concepts of institutional isomorphism and institutional logics. Research was undertaken using extensive interviews of business owners and managers, accountants, auditors, regulators and others. Interviewees were identified using snowball sampling, and the paper discusses the appropriateness of this method for research in management in MENA countries.

The adoption of IFRS, and in particular IFRS for SMEs, in Saudi Arabia can be understood best as an example of mimetic isomorphism, as many respondents suggested that the country adopted these standards in order to emulate other countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council and the G20 group of countries.

The study examines issues relating to the adoption of IFRS for SMEs in an emerging economy where adoption was not imposed by international financial institutions.

In addition to being the first study of the adoption of IFRS for SMEs in Saudi Arabia, the paper examines snowball sampling as a particularly useful method in MENA countries.

David Punter and Glennis Byron note how the Gothic novel has been divided into two categories: the ‘Male’ and ‘Female’ Gothic. Where the former emphasizes violence and ghosts, the latter focuses on female representation and the disavowal of the supernatural. The Hollywood Gothic films of the 1940s can be said to translate this aspect of the Female Gothic onto the cinema screen: Rebecca (1940), Gaslight (1944) and Secret Beyond the Door (1947) all feature narratives stressing the haunting nature of domestic spaces but there are no actual ghosts present. Robert Zemeckis’s What Lies Beneath (2000) breaks this convention. The film clearly draws on the Female Gothic lineage, situating Claire as a Gothic heroine, and yet there is an important difference: the supernatural is now an integral – and acknowledged – part of the story. This chapter explores this twenty-first century change, arguing that whilst the inclusion of the supernatural can be said to break with previous definitions of the Female Gothic, What Lies Beneath’s depiction of a ghost actually re-imagines and re-emphasizes the concerns at the centre of this tradition: the dramatization of marital and domestic experiences; an interrogation of feminine perception; and the reality of male violence against women.

The introduction of a People’s Academy (PA) within the School of Health and Social Care (HSC) at London South Bank University has created ripples across the pond that is Higher Education. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Working as a coproduction innovation hub, the PA celebrates inclusion of those with a lived experience of HSC services into the academic community as valued members of the teaching and learning team. In its second year the PA has gained attention and achieved a “highly commended” status from external regulating bodies.

In this paper the authors report on aspects arising from an entrepreneurial education approach. First, is the work-based learning experience students achieve within the Higher Education Institution (HEI) setting, preparing them for clinical placements and client encounters. Second are ripples of activity the PA work streams have sent throughout the academic staff via critically creative working practices as a process of entrepreneurial education. Conclusions focus on a sustainable approach to recovery and resilience (whether physical or psychological) and overall well-being that PA members recognise as a raised level of compassion for sustainable health and well-being for all.

The work and enthusiasm of the PA as an authentic social engagement process rippling across the “University” experience; whether for students in the classroom or when working alongside academic staff, is identifiable in all aspects of academic activities. Most importantly is a positive gain in terms of knowledge, skills and confidence for the PA members themselves and their own well-being enhancement.

The PA approach to entrepreneurial education and work-based learning across the HEI setting is one of the first of its kind. This paper outlines core practices to achieve innovative coproduction approach that others may wish to replicate.

This study aims to analyse how the collective processing of the #MeToo legacy in the form of community discourses and activism conceptualises organisational accountability for sexual misconduct at work and enhances the development of new accountability instruments.

The study draws on social movement theory and the intellectual problematics of accountability, together with the empirical insights from two research engagement projects established and facilitated by the author.

The study reveals multiple dimensions of how post-#MeToo community activism impacted the conceptualisation of organisational accountability for sexual misconduct at work. The movement enhanced discourses prompting a new societal sense of accountability for sexual wrongdoings. This in turn facilitated public demands for accountability that pressured organisations to respond. The accountability crisis created an opportunity for community activists to influence understanding of organisational accountability for sexual misconduct at work and to propose new accountability instruments advancing harassment reporting technology, as well as an enhancing the behavioural consciousness and self-assessment of individuals.

The study addresses a topic of social importance in analysing how community activism arising from a social movement has transformed accountability demands and thus both advanced the conceptualisation of organisational accountability for sexual misconduct at work and established socially desirable practices for it. The study contributes to theory by revealing the emancipatory potential of community activism to influence organisational accountability practices and to propose new instruments at a moment of organisational hesitation and crisis of accountability.

This paper examines gender diversity in the Australian valuation industry from the perspective of valuers in senior management and leadership roles and discusses gender diversity policies and practices in their organisations. Then, it explores the initiatives that can be implemented to improve gender diversity in the Australian valuation industry.

A focus group discussion was conducted with valuers in senior management and leadership roles from selected large valuation firms and government valuation agencies in Melbourne, Australia. Data collected through the focus group discussion was combined with secondary data sourced from journals, online articles and archival materials.

The findings reveal that whilst gender diversity in the Australian valuation industry has improved over the years, females remain underrepresented. Nonetheless, whilst some valuation companies have recognised the need to address the underrepresentation of women and introduced specific gender-focussed human resource policies and practices, these initiatives are not streamlined and implemented across the industry.

The study highlights the need for closer collaboration between key stakeholders such as universities, professional associations, valuation companies and government agencies in devising strategies to attract female talents into the valuation industry.

The paper is the first empirical study to assess gender diversity in the Australian valuation industry from the perspective of valuers in management and leadership roles. The proposed policies can inform future initiatives to improve gender diversity in the valuation industry.