1,720,977 research outputs found
Exploring Complexity in Accounting: Aesthetics, Design and Space
Full text linkThis thesis explores the notion of complexity as related to accounting
by relying upon aesthetic modes of inquiry. Prior studies have
presented a variety of approaches to complexity in accounting,
rendering the literature rich but puzzled. A number of scholars have
explored the role of accounting in managing the complexity arising
from the multiple overlapping and conflicting logics that come across
the organization. Further studies have explored complexity as a
feature of accounting and reporting design, which can obfuscate
performance or reveal corporate aspirations. We argue that aesthetic
approaches to ‘accounting for complexity’ and ‘complexity in
accounting’ can reconcile the diverse findings, while providing
innovative venues for research.
The first chapter of this thesis aims to provide a critical review of
prior studies on complexity in accounting and to systematize the
diverse findings that these studies have offered, while outlining
patterns for further accounting research on complexity.
In the second chapter, we explore aesthetic complexity in the design
of corporate reports by adopting a Baroque interpretive lens. The
Baroque is known as the art of complexity, bold ornamentation,
juxtaposition, as well as the grotesque, extravagance, flamboyance,
and illusion. We draw on the experience of Plectra, a large European
bank operating in more than 15 countries, to analyze the aesthetic
features of its Integrated Report. We rely upon an ‘aesthetic inquiry’
into accounting to explore the emotional responses of the designers of
the Integrated Report (i.e. the sustainability managers within Plectra),
as they engage with the aesthetic features of the report in the attempt
to represent ‘sustainable value’. This chapter demonstrates that
aesthetic complexity in reporting design engages with the
subjective/emotional sphere of its designers inside the organization, as
they attempt to fill the conceptual ‘voids’ left in the meaning of
‘sustainable value’ and celebrate it. This attempt leads to an ongoing
search for innovation in reporting design, while perpetuating the
illusion of avoiding the void. We show that complexity in reporting
design may provide its designers with a means for celebration,
heroism, illusion, and consolation, while reassuring them from the
horror vacui, i.e. the fear for ‘sustainable value’ to remain empty, and
for sustainability managers to ‘disappear’.
The third chapter explores the role of accounting in the management
of complexity, as complexity is socially and spatially produced, and as
it is augmented by aesthetic and transcendent aspects. By drawing
upon archival sources concerning the project of construction of the
baroque altar of St. Ignatius (1695 - 1699) in the Church of Gesù in
Rome, Italy, we demonstrate how accounting provided a means for
avoiding the lived space to jeopardize the conceived space of the
project thereby enabling transcendent and aesthetic aspects to engage
with other logics in the making of the altar. Such engagement ‘took on
body’ in the altar, allowing a complex bundle of power and ideology
to ‘materialize’
Accounting for the ‘transcendent self’:spirituality, narcissism, testimony, and gift
Full text linkPurpose: The paper explores the process of construction of the “accountable self”, particularly as this process engages with the spirituality of the self. This study examines the “space of accountability” within which the accountable self constructs itself as such and investigates how different accounts of the self are drawn upon in the making of this space, both defining and transcending it.Design/methodology/approach: The paper relies upon archival material concerning accounting and accountability practices about the project for building the altar of St. Ignatius in the Church of Gesù, Rome, Italy (1691–1706). This study examines calculative and narrative accounts about the project from the perspective of the superintendent, who was the sole person accountable for the building works.Findings: Whereas calculative accounts enabled the self to account for actions within the specific space of accountability of the project, narrative accounts opened up this space, providing for a testimony of actions and a gift of accountability towards future indefinite others. This process was prompted by the spirituality of the self and the narcissistic gratification of fulfilling this spirituality.Originality: The paper adds to the literature on the accountable self and to theological perspectives into accountability. This study suggests exploring how different accounts of the self engage with each other through testimony, gift, narcissism and spirituality in the construction of the accountable self, providing for a “transcendent” space of accountability. This research also adds to studies on narrative accounts by showing that they are drawn upon alongside calculative accounts in the construction of the transcendent, accountable self
Towards a future-oriented accountability:Accounting for the future through Earth Observation data
Full text linkPurpose: This paper follows the call for more future-oriented practices within organisations, particularly in relation to how they respond to growing concerns about Earth’s sustainability and life on the Planet. This study aims to explore how the data produced by major scientific projects in the Space sector can support future-oriented accountability practices by enabling both a projection and an imagination of a more or less distant future, thereby feeding into accountability practices. Design/methodology/approach: We rely upon a multiple interpretative case study analysis and interview-based data from three main organisations in the Earth Observation (EO) value chain: an International Space Company, a Research Centre of Energy Transition, and a European Private Equity Firm. Findings: We find that future-oriented accountability practices can be fed by a creative assemblage of scientific data provided by Space sector’s programmes with different sources of knowledge and information. These data are embedded into a broader accountability system, connecting different actors through a ‘value chain’: from the data providers, gathering data from Space, to the primary users, working on data modelling and analysis, to the end users, such as local authorities, public and private organisations. The predictive data and expertise exchanged throughout the value chain feed into future-oriented accountability efforts across different time-space contexts, as a projected and imagined, more or less distant, future informs the actions and accounts in the present.Originality: This research extends the literature on the time dimension of accountability. We show how a creative assemblage of scientific data with different sources of knowledge and information - such as those provided by Space sector’s programmes and EO data - enable organisations to both project the present into (a more or less distant) future and imagine this future differently while taking responsibility, and accounting for, what could be done and desired in response to it. We also contribute to the limited literature on accountability in the Space sector by examining the intricate accountability dynamics underpinning the relationships among the different actors in the EO data value chain.<br/
Enacting governance at the local level through management control systems:the case of a multinational energy company
Full text linkPurpose: This paper draws on the case of a multinational energy company to explore the role played by Management Control Systems (MCSs) in enacting governance policies at the local (subsidiary) level.Design/methodology/approach: This research mobilizes the literature on governmentality to interpret MCSs as technologies of government that can be drawn upon to translate governance policies into practice. In particular, the authors discuss this process by interpreting ‘governance’ as an epistemic object, that is an object that generates knowledge because of its inherent incompleteness and abstract nature. Findings: The paper shows how MCSs act as technical objects insofar they attract, bind and engage local subsidiary managers in the generation of knowledge about governance policies (i.e. the epistemic object) set at the global level, thereby enacting these policies locally.Practical implications: The findings have practical implications by showing how subsidiary managers engage with MCSs in order to translate and implement broader governance policies in their daily activities.Originality/value: This research contributes to the accounting literature on governmentality by showing the role of MCSs as technologies that enact governance at the local level through the process of knowledge generation that these technologies enable. Such knowledge is triggered by the engagement between different participating subjects, attracted by MCSs in the attempt to define governance in practice.<br/
Il mondo è finito e noi invece no. Antologia di poesia bielorussa del XXI secolo.
No full textAll’interno gli audio dei testi poetici in lingua originale, recitati dagli autori e dalle autrici.
Poesia bielorussa contemporanea: un mondo variegato ma quasi del tutto sconosciuto, che arriva per la prima volta in Italia in forma di antologia. Quaranta autori e autrici, oltre cento poesie che coprono l’arco temporale dal 2000 al 2024 e rappresentano una prima ricognizione nel territorio poetico bielorusso di oggi. Liriche diverse per stile, tematiche e persino lingua e alfabeto: qui si trovano poesie in bielorusso e russo, oltre a due testi in yiddish e tre in ucraino, testimonianza di un plurilinguismo multiforme, ereditato dal passato e di cui il libro vuole conservare una traccia importante.
Saltata agli onori della cronaca dopo le proteste del 2020, la Belarus è una terra segnata da conflitto, repressione e ingiustizia civile, ma è anche un Paese straordinariamente ricco di storia, paesaggi culturali e naturali, racconti in bilico tra mito e religione, realtà oniriche e quotidiana brutalità.
Le voci incluse nel libro raccontano di identità ibride, dilemmi esistenziali, amori per luoghi e persone, ferite insanabili, futuri da immaginare e molto altro, e lo fanno attraverso linguaggi contaminati, permeabili a giochi ed esperimenti fonetici oppure ancorandosi a modelli classici. I testi si offrono a traiettorie trasversali che attraversano le generazioni e le storie individuali, tutte raccolte in un coro tragico e sublime che – in silenzio o a gran voce – ripete: “il mondo è finito e noi invece no”.
Primo volume della collana “ConTesto: Voci dall’Est”
Exploring the craft of visual accounts through arts: Fear, voids and illusion in corporate reporting practices
Full text linkThis paper explores the craft of visual accounts in corporate reporting practices through an arts-inspired perspective. We research the subtle mechanisms underpinning the craft of visual accounts since their preparation phase, as these accounts engage with the emotional sphere of their preparers, including the fear and the power struggles surrounding the preparers’ role within the organization. We rely upon an artistic line of inquiry based on baroque art to unpack the voids and absences underpinning accounting visualizations. By drawing on this lens, we examine the case of a large European bank where we investigate the craft of visual accounts in corporate reports from the perspective of the preparers of these accounts. We extend prior studies on the visual and emotional dimensions of accounting by showing that the craft of visual accounts evolves as the preparers of these accounts experience voids in the meanings that they attempt to represent and the fear of being excluded from their role. We also demonstrate that the mixed emotions of fear and self-celebration, illusion and disillusion experienced by the preparers of accounting visualizations may follow intra-organizational power struggles in between the different organizational roles involved in corporate reporting. In so doing, we reveal how the philosophical underpinnings of artistic movements, such as baroque art, can be drawn upon to critically delve into the power of voids and absences in accounting visualizations
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
- …
