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This thorough field research report and reference guide by Bruce Rubinger of Global Competitiveness Council, One Devonshire Place, Boston, MA 02109, is an excellent resource. Based on interviews and Japanese language source information from over 100 firms, research institutes, and faculty specialists, this massive data collection is well organized, and presented without bias or journalistic hype. The author provides a broad overview of the artificial intelligence (AI) tools and applications and apparent strategic objectives of the major players in the Japanese commercial, government, and university environment. He then details the key public sources of information about AI research and applications, including professional societies, exhibitions, publications, and research groups‐complete with leaders' names, addresses, and phone numbers.

An important part of any strategic competitive analysis has always been access to timely and relevant data that can be pruned into useful information. Some new and still rapidly evolving technology is lowering the cost and simplifying access to huge data banks. This technology is already having an impact on competitive analysis. What once may have been a million‐dollar research effort taking many months, can now be accomplished in a few hours using a well‐equipped desktop PC that can read the new data sources.

Important new tools are now available to planning professionals and their information systems support staff. These new tools create both opportunities and hazards—including the hazard of overlooking an opportunity for competitive advantage. The problem is that, while changes in price and performance are happening so fast that rapid obsolescence of equipment and software is inevitable, the costs of frequent replacement must be weighted against the cost of missed opportunities.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the intersection of professional values and career roles in accountants’ presentations of their professional identity, in the face of enduring stereotyping of the accounting role.

This study presents a qualitative investigation of accountants’ construction of their professional identities and imagery using a Goffmanian dramaturgical perspective. Viewing professional identity construction as a presentational matter of impression management, the investigation employs a reflexive photo-interviewing methodology.

Accountants use a variety of workplace dramatisation, idealisation and mystification strategies inside and outside the workplace to counter the traditional accounting stereotype. They also attempt to develop a professional identity that is a subset of their overall life values.

Their professional orientation is found to embrace role reconstruction and revised image mystification while not necessarily aiming for upward professional mobility. This has implications for understanding the career trajectories of contemporary accountants with associated implications for continuing professional development and education.

The paper focusses on professional role, identity, values and image at the individual accountant level, while most prior research has focussed upon these issues at the macro association-wide level. In offering the first use of reflexive photo-interviewing method in the accounting research literature, it brings the prospect of having elicited different and possibly more reflective observations, reflections and understandings from actors not otherwise possible from more conventional methods.

The purpose of this paper is two‐fold: first, it sets out to suggest that when a new ERP system or an upgrade is considered it may be best to begin with a formal analysis of the market leader's IT strategy. This study must address how they use information across the extended enterprise from suppliers to customers. Second, it aims to suggest a simple competitive audit matrix (CAM) that can be used to structure this analysis.

The argument that a formal analysis is necessary to minimize the risk of disappointing ERP results is developed from the literature, and the CAM is adapted from a model presented in the “competitive analysis of the firm” literature. Because, inside data are usually not available, the model is designed to rely on publicly accessible data.

While there are considerable challenges in undertaking a competitive IT analysis, the use of a case study, 7‐Eleven Japan, suggests that there is much to be learned by following a structured approach at this early stage in the development of an ERP project.

Since, this appears to be the first paper focusing on the use of competitive data in establishing IT strategy, there is considerable opportunity for others to verify the usefulness of this approach, to use the framework in uncovering strategies that are common to market leaders in different industries, or to suggest other frameworks altogether.

Companies that are considering an ERP, or more likely an upgrade to an existing ERP, should find this simple framework most useful in provoking the kinds of discussions that are necessary before major strategic IT decisions are made.

This is the first paper that presents a framework for undertaking analysis of a competitor's IT integration strategy.

Reports from 2016 to 2017 suggest that approximately 870 cases of non-familial child abduction (NFA) are recorded in England and Wales per year. Yet, empirical knowledge of the victims, offenders and offence characteristics is limited in comparison to other forms of child victimisation. Furthermore, much of the available knowledge is constrained by a lack of clarity around the differences between acquaintance and stranger abductors. This systematic literature review aims to develop a comprehensive overview of acquaintance and stranger child abductions, focussing on the similarities and differences in offending behaviours.

Research databases (PsycArticles, Google Scholar, Science Direct, PsycINFO, Criminal Justice Abstracts, MEDLINE and ERIC) and the Grey Literature (ETHOS and EBSCO) were screened for peer-reviewed research published between 1995 and 2021. Sixteen articles met the inclusion criteria and were critically appraised using a modified version of the Joanna Briggs Institute Checklist for Case Reports.

Six key areas within NFA offences and their characteristics were identified as offering potential for differentiating acquaintance and stranger abductors: victim–offender relationship, number of victims and offenders, motives, modus operandi, victim injury, sexual assault and mechanism of death (in fatal cases). The results of this review are discussed with consideration given to investigative implications, limitations and directions for future study.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to systematically review the current NFA literature, from which pragmatic recommendations for practice and future academic enquiry are drawn.

The stereotypical image of the profession is poor with accountants appearing in the popular media as either the object of satire or the criminally inclined expert who deceives the public for self-gain. Extant research on the portrayal of the stereotypic accountant is limited in two ways: (1) existing research assumes a unitary concept by inferring a dominant image when the accountant stereotype is multifaceted; and (2) it is unclear from existing research whether the dominant image results from perceived character traits or the duties undertaken by accountants. This paper relies on qualitative methods of data analysis to unpack the elements that underpin stereotypical images in accounting to develop a framework of external perceptions that distinguishes one image from another. The framework is constructed on two broad criteria that comprise accountants (personality traits and physical characteristics) and accounting (task functionality). The interplay of these two criteria creates four subtypes representing positive (Scorekeeper and Guardian) and negative (Beancounter and Entrepreneur) interpretations of the two basic categorizations: bookkeeper and business professional. Further analysis revealed four primary dimensions (Ethics and Sociable, Skill and Service) that underlie the construction of the subtypes. In general, the ‘Scorekeeper’ rates more highly than the ‘Beancounter’ on ‘Ethics and Sociable’ and the ‘Guardian’ rates more highly than the ‘Entrepreneur’ on ‘Ethics’. Accounting researchers and the profession could benefit from understanding how stereotypical perceptions are constructed and managed.

This chapter focuses on techniques and technologies to aid groups in making decisions, with an emphasis on computer-based support. Many office workers regularly meet colleagues and clients in virtual meetings using videoconferencing platforms, which enable participants to carry out tasks in a manner similar to a face-to-face meeting. The development of computer-based platforms to facilitate group tasks can be traced back to the 1960s, and while they support group communication, they do not directly support group decision making. In this chapter we distinguish four technologies developed to provide support to group decisions, clustered into two main traditions. Technologies in the task-oriented tradition are mainly concerned with enabling participants to complete tasks to solve the group's decision problem via computer-supported communications. Group Decision Support Systems and social software technologies comprise the task-oriented tradition. Alternately, in the model-driven tradition, participants use computers to build and use a model that acts as a referent to communicate, mostly verbally, about the group's decision problem. System modeling and decision-modeling technologies constitute the model-driven tradition. This chapter sketches the history and guiding ideas of both traditions, and describes their associated technologies. The chapter concludes with questioning if increased availability of online tools will lead to increased use of group decision support technologies, and the differential impact of communication support versus decision support.

Organizational researchers studying well-being – as well as organizations themselves – often place much of the burden on employees to manage and preserve their own well-being. Missing from this discussion is how – from a human resources management (HRM) perspective – organizations and managers can directly and positively shape the well-being of their employees. The authors use this review to paint a picture of what organizations could be like if they valued people holistically and embraced the full experience of employees’ lives to promote well-being at work. In so doing, the authors tackle five challenges that managers may have to help their employees navigate, but to date have received more limited empirical and theoretical attention from an HRM perspective: (1) recovery at work; (2) women’s health; (3) concealable stigmas; (4) caregiving; and (5) coping with socio-environmental jolts. In each section, the authors highlight how past research has treated managerial or organizational support on these topics, and pave the way for where research needs to advance from an HRM perspective. The authors conclude with ideas for tackling these issues methodologically and analytically, highlighting ways to recruit and support more vulnerable samples that are encapsulated within these topics, as well as analytic approaches to study employee experiences more holistically. In sum, this review represents a call for organizations to now – more than ever – build thriving organizations.

Concepts equip the mind with thought, provide our theories with ideas, and assign variables for testing our hypotheses. Much of contemporary research deals with narrowly circumscribed concepts, termed simple concepts herein, which are the grist for much empirical inquiry in the field. In contrast to simple concepts, which exhibit a kind of unity, complex concepts are structures of simple concepts, and in certain instances unveil meaning going beyond simple concepts or their aggregation. When expressed in hylomorphic structures, complex concepts achieve unique ontological status and serve particular explanatory capabilities. We develop the philosophical foundation for hylomorphic structures and show how they are rooted in dispositions, dispositional causality, and various mind–body trade-offs. Examples are provided for this emerging perspective on “Big concepts” or “Big Ideas.”