Recent value changes in Western Europe

This article analyses value changes in Western Europe in relation to changes in social institutions. Important institutional changes have been that families have become have become smaller and more fragile and the labour market has become larger and more heterogeneous, especially because of the increase in the number of married women having paid jobs. Finally, globalization has resulted in a double trend of heterogenization and localism. These changes have influenced the values of the population in Western Europe. The overall change is an increase in individualization and a more fragmented value system which means, eg, that there are no clear political cleavages. The value changes can be summarized in three processes: from industrial to green values; from authoritarian values to libertarian values; and from church-oriented to personal religious values. These trends suggest that we are approaching a society with a diversity of lifestyles where many value structures are competing.     

Through the organizational looking glass: you can't plan tomorrow's organizations with today's assumptions

It's hard to imagine what our industrial society would be like if, for instance, there were no factories. How would things get produced, how would business survive? But are we, in fact, an industrial society? Are factories going to be the prime production place for a society that is conserving energy and doesn't need to travel to work because the silicon chip makes it more efficient to work at home? Who knows what the impact of energy conservation and women in the work force will be on future organizations? One thing we can be sure of, this author writes, is that whatever tomorrow brings, today's assumptions probably cannot account for it. We are, he asserts, entering a period of discontinuous change where the assumptions we have been working with as a society and in organizations are no longer necessarily true. He discusses three assumptions he sees fading--what causes efficiency, what work is, and what value organizational hierarchy has--and then gives some clues as to what our new assumptions might be. Regardless of what our assumptions actually are, however, our organizations and society will require leaders willing to take enormous risks and try unproved ways to cope with them.     

Cultural resources and public trust shape attitudes toward climate change and preferred futures—A case study among the Norwegian public

Since climate change mitigation likely will affect most sectors of society, adapting to climate change essentially requires the public to envision and adjust to alternative futures. There is a need for more studies on the social basis for climate change asking why people hold the attitudes they do, rather than the dominant tendency to ask how to change attitudes and behavior. Research in different fields show that fundamental life values and worldviews are shaped through life and heavily influenced by early life socialization and culture, which in turn can shape attitudes toward specific phenomena like climate change. We surveyed a representative sample of the Norwegian public and examined how cultural resources and trust in environmental governance institutions are related to attitudes toward climate change. High levels of trust are associated with a tendency to perceive climate change as human caused, and low levels of trust correspond with stronger beliefs that climate change are natural phenomena. High levels of cultural resources are found among climate change deniers as well as believers, indicating that groups with different political, professional and intellectual orientations, as well as life histories, may not trust climate change science. We argue that improved knowledge about the social basis for climate change is an imperative part of futures-oriented expertise.     

The weak human and the saving grace of the welfare state: German pupils’ perception of future social change and drivers of change

Social change has often been seen as a desired goal of critical pedagogy. Interestingly; there is little research about how pupils in Germany perceive the concept of social change and what drives social change. This article presents the outcome of a three year long research project that aimed to analyse how a sample of German pupils makes sense of social change and what forces drive social change in society through future narratives (written assignments and interviews). The study finds that pupils have an implicit and explicit understanding of politics and the state as a driving force, but that this is challenged by external drivers such as the global economy/technology and internal drivers such as human self-interest/egoism and insecurity/fear. In this study, the pupils often describe the present economy as being organised and the future economy to become more and more disorganised. Using future narratives in critical pedagogy can be a way to work more closely with the students and their perceptions of social change and drivers of change.     

风险与社会保障：一个解释性框架

当今世界正经历着一个充满各类风险而个体普遍无力应对的风险社会时期。现代社会保障制度在应对工业化风险,保障社会成员基本生活,提升社会福利方面成效显著,但自福利国家危机以来,社会保障制度也正经历着深刻的变革。通过对人类不同发展阶段的社会风险和风险保障机制的考察,我们试图厘清和解读风险与社会保障的互动与变迁过程,建立起社会保障作为风险管理的社会机制的解释性框架,从而揭示其带给当代中国社会保障制度改革的启示意义。     

Visualizing the negative space: Making feminine accounting practices visible by reference to Japanese women's household accounting practices

This study explores the nature of feminine accounting practices by examining the household accounting practices of Japanese women in the second half of the twentieth century. Household accounting in Japan provides an excellent research site to understand the nature of feminine accounting practices. The social significance of the Japanese household and the country's cultural emphasis on interdependence mean that accounting has a different meaning in the life of Japanese women, compared to what has been identified in Anglo-Saxon-based studies. The study finds that their accounting practice is characterized by the integration of masculine and feminine qualities, as illustrated by Dillard and Reynolds (2008), and is more enabling in nature. Women use ‘hard’, objective accounting figures both to foster the long-term development of the family and to contribute to Japanese society. Accounting has been a vehicle for women to express their motherhood and construct their identity as women. The distinctive nature of Japanese women's accounting practice and the role this practice plays in facilitating feminine values highlight how important it is to further investigate feminine accounting practice in different social and cultural contexts in order to develop gender research in accounting.     

Modernity,space-based patriarchy and global capitalism: implications for Syrian women accountants

This paper contributes to the current literature on gender, modernity, patriarchy and accounting by bringing insights into the experiences of women accountants in Syria: an Arab and predominantly Muslim country. By doing so, this paper enhances understanding of women's interrelationship with accounting beyond the Anglo-American context that currently dominates the research agenda on gender and accounting. Face-to-face interviews with 20 women accountants were carried out in Syria in 2008. This study reveals that in the context of global capitalism and patriarchy, factors of class, alienation, tradition and economic difficulties are contributing to the subordinated role of women in society in general and in the accounting profession in particular. The increased commercialisation of the accounting profession in the Arab world, including Syria, has resulted in socio-economic hierarchies and discriminatory practices, where interviewees spoke of discrimination based on class, sex and on the knowledge held. Further, despite advances to Syrian women's access to the public space, the public space for Syrian women accountants often operates based largely on how men act in this space. Men (and socially/financially advantaged women) often occupy aspects of the public (accounting) space that are perceived to be more significant and better financially rewarded. Thus, the dichotomy of public/private spaces in this study is understood in a broader sense to incorporate the symbolic as well as spatial aspects. This paper concludes that the accounting profession's aspirations need to be challenged through critically evaluating and redefining work roles and values to ensure emancipation for women. Furthermore, in the Arab world, dominant patriarchal structures will only be challenged and changed when obstacles preventing women from enjoying their human rights and contributing fully in society are addressed and eliminated.     

Management and the Professions: How Cracked is That Glass Ceiling?

All prestigious or highly-paid occupations in Britain are dominated by men: this is as true of the public sector as it is of industry. This article examines the evidence for discrimination in the public sector. It deals with both the situation at work and the one at home. It looks at various explanations as to why this is the case, as well as the evidence on how men and women deal with the inequality. The author concludes that there are good reasons why men and women do not see or confront the issues discussed in her article. Unless men and women wake up to the fact that we live in an unequal society and wish to see the glass ceiling well and truly broken, little is likely to change.     

Culture and accounting in Indonesia: An empirical examination

This study examines the relationships among the cultural characteristics of Indonesian society, reporting practices of Indonesian firms, and accounting standards promulgated by the Association of Indonesian Accountants. It is argued that an empirical relation exists between the change in cultural values, as conceived by Hofstede's theory of the five dimensions of cultural values (power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, masculinity, and time horizon and the change in accounting values as captures by Gray's four dimensions (professionalism, conservatism, secrecy, and uniformity). Using LISREL to evaluate data between 1981 and 1992, three of Hofstede's five cultural values (power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and individualism) have significant relationships with one or more accounting value. This limited confirmation of the culture-accounting relationships suggest that particular historical and economic configurations must be considered in longitudinal analysis. The conflicting influences of extensive government involvement in the economy and nascent market competition are a possible explanation of the Indonesian results.     

Utopian and dystopian thought in climate change science and policy

Climate change policies are increasingly seen as integral to sustainable development policies. This article examines how visions of future society have been employed in climate science and multilateral negotiations. Using elements of utopian and dystopian thought, we have categorized UNFCCC documents, IPCC assessments, and special reports and peer-reviewed climate policy articles. Our results indicate that utopian thinking surfaces with reference to sustainable development and emissions scenarios. Such visions of future society fall into three categories: projections, dystopian thought, and utopian thought. Dystopian thought is mainly evident in the rhetoric of various actors, and is used to spur action or inaction, to avoid either economic catastrophe by acting too fast or ecological catastrophe by not acting fast enough. Utopian elements in climate change science and policy refer to decoupling greenhouse gases and economic growth, evenly distributing the benefits of economic globalization, and smoothing technological development. The present piecemeal invocation of sustainable development concepts in climate science and policy emphasizes the difficulties of integrating environmental, social, and economic concerns. The article concludes that utopian thinking regarding sustainable development could result in more integrated and holistic visions of future society in climate science and policy.     

Future risk communication

Science and technology have transformed risks and communications in the last century. Smallpox is gone, and polio is fading fast, thanks to vaccines. Communications, commerce and risk have gone global. Wireless networks, wideband communications and immersive interfaces are already in some homes. In the future, ubiquitous communications aids in the form of smart risk agents could tailor both the medium and the message, placing a risk in context for a specific person. By sensing physical risk characteristics and collecting and synthesizing risk information, weighted by judgments about the sources of that information, and conveying these in the media of choice, a smart agent or active technology could provide the ultimate risk communication. Yet theories of risk communication are in their infancy, with some emphasizing cognition and risk control, others social and affective responses that drive behavioral change. To create moral agents, we need to understand how our own and others’ values and goals arise and change in this increasingly information intense society, and how virtual realities can evoke or displace affect, cognition, and social context—that is, life as we know it. Otherwise, we may cross the divide from informed decision making to persuasion without reason.     

Peak energy and climate change: The double bind of post-normal science

Insofar as the viability of industrial society is at stake, energy supply and climate change are not normal scientific issues. Fossil fuel is the ultimate finite resource, and the atmosphere the ultimate finite sink. There is dispute about the most fundamental issues and values to be promoted or defended. The concept of post-normal science has been introduced for precisely this kind of situation, where “facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent (Ravetz [1, p. 349]).” Although this applies equally to energy supply and climate change, the related knowledge regimes offer a remarkable contrast. Mainstream energy science, on the one hand, has refused to engage in post-normal science. The accredited experts at the International Energy Agency (IEA) and elsewhere have left “peak energy” to mavericks at the fringes or outside mainstream scientific discourse. Consequently, the pressing issue of future energy scarcity has been kept from the public agenda. Official climate science, on the other hand, has embraced post-normal science. But even though the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been uniquely successful in placing climate change on the public agenda, the inherent ambiguities of post-normal science have plunged climate science into a deep legitimacy crisis. Most people prefer denial and self-deception to an unvarnished vision of the truth when intractable problems such as peak energy and climate change are at stake. In such cases, scientists are in a double bind: they are damned if they do and doomed if they do not engage in post-normal science.     

Men, women & alcohol: a distinctly unequal & dangerous relationship

This article illustrates how women who abuse alcohol are at greater risk physically, emotionally and socially than their male counterparts. As a result, I recommend that clinical assessment and underwriting of women, who abuse or have the potential to abuse alcohol, change to reflect the increased risks which these women face.     

Social cultural influences on current and future coastal governance

Australians have strong attachments to the coast. The impact of climate change brings to the fore deep-seated socio-cultural values, which add to the already complex and uncertain biophysical changes that challenge our preparations for future climate change.Our research aims to examine the role of worldviews and deep seated values in decision-making in response to climate change. The objective is to show how a multi-layered discourse analysis using causal layered analysis (CLA) can provide a powerful means of revealing the underlying social and cultural influences on decision-making and provide more insight into potential pathways for more effective responses to complex phenomena such as climate change. A case study of coastal governance in the south west of Western Australia, which is highly vulnerable to sea-level rise, provides the context of the research.We have found that CLA as a critical research tool has proven to be a useful method in uncovering the dominance of the administrative rationalist worldview on coastal governance. In our view, future coastal governance would benefit from a shift towards greater participatory governance and the incorporation of more reflexive practice so that the deeper emotional and relational aspects of decision-making balance out the dominant problem-solving discourse.     

Exploring the interaction between technology and morality in the field of genetic susceptibility testing: A scenario study

With the rise of genomics promises and concerns have emerged about future possibilities for screening of genetic susceptibilities to common diseases in the population. In this article we start from the assumption that for a better understanding of the future ethical implications of genetic susceptibility screening we need to address the interaction between technological and moral developments in society. We introduce a techno-ethical scenario approach and show how it may help us to explore more systematically potential future interactions between technological and moral developments in the field of genetic susceptibility screening. The first step is a historical account of population screening, focussing on the ways in which emerging practices of (genetic) screening have been mediated by an evolving moral landscape in our society. Based on this history we present a techno-ethical scenario of the future, showing how technological developments may shape conditions in our society in which the introduction and use of genetic susceptibility tests more and more become a matter of private decisions, reinforcing claims to individual self-determination as a deeply rooted value in the moral landscape of our society.     

Designing the future—A reflection of a transdisciplinary case study in Austria

The paper presents a transdisciplinary case study which aimed to encourage a vital regional process for building more sustainable structures and regional networks in the future. The case study looks at the industrial city of Steyr which is located in a highly dynamic region in Upper Austria and has to compete with other regional industrial centres and on the global market with internationally acting companies in the automotive sector. For finding local strategies to cope with globally induced pressures and changes several foresight techniques and transdisciplinary approaches have been applied such as interviews, photo elicitation, workshops and scenario building. The transdisciplinary case study is reflected by exploring three major research questions: first, how does transdisciplinarity work in practice, second, what are the benefits and limitations of transdisciplinary research in regional foresight processes and third, how can transdisciplinary research contribute to initiating a long-term process for building sustainable networks and structures in the region. Some answers can be given from the empirical example of Steyr. The case study shows that particularly in regions with a long industrial history and tradition and where existing paradigms cannot easily be overcome, a transdisciplinary procedure provides clear advantages over sole expert solutions. Transdisciplinarity can be the key to get through to the local actors, to develop perfectly fitting strategies for the region and to initiate joint learning and in an ideal situation a long-term change process. New ideas, structures and networks are established which are essential for improving the long-term development of a region.     

Academic entrepreneurial hybrids: Accounting and accountability in the case of MegaRide

The current paper focuses on how multiple values shape accounting and accountability practices in hybrid organizations. It concentrates on the complex domain of academic spin-offs, more fully described as hybrid knowledge-intensive organizations, aiming to understand how accounting and accountability practices can be constitutive of hybrid academic entrepreneurial logics and identities and how these, in turn, favor the development of accounting and accountability practices. The study employs a theoretically informed in-depth single case study of the academic spin-off MegaRide of the University of Naples Federico II (Italy) for the period January to May 2021. The findings show how, in MegaRide, hybrid academic entrepreneurial identities emerged at both the individual and organizational levels, leading to successful technology transfer, with an undeniable impact on the local context and society.     

Swedish mothers’ and fathers’ worries about climate change: a gendered story

Abstract

The present study considers whether parenthood has an impact on the worries that women and men have about climate change for the next generation and examines whether there are differences between the worries of mothers and fathers. The empirical material is based on a questionnaire-based survey that was administered in 2011 to a random selection of 3500 individuals in Sweden, with a response rate of 31%. The results indicate that parenthood, regardless of the parent’s gender, increases an individual’s worries about the impact of climate change on the next generation. Fathers are significantly more worried about climate change than men who are not parents; however, mothers do not worry significantly more than women who are not parents. In general, regardless of parenthood status, women worry about climate change more than men.     

The ‘Whys’ and ‘Hows’ of ethical investment: Understanding an early-stage market through an explorative approach

Over the last decade, markets for investments have changed in Europe. Consumers have become more aware of ethical standards and violations of social values and norms. While in some countries, such as the United States, this change took place decades ago, the market for ethical investment in Europe is still at an early stage. The present study investigates the underlying motives for ethical assets of consumers in early-stage markets. Using seven interviews with financial experts and five focus groups with ethical and conventional investors, we examine how investors view ethical investment, how ethical investors are described in terms of socio-demographics and personality characteristics, and which attitudinal factors are related to ethical investment behaviour. Interviews and focus groups are recorded and qualitatively analysed according to grounded theory. Ethical investment is found to be characterised through negative and positive ethical criteria. Our findings demonstrate how essential it is for ethical investors to lead a certain lifestyle driven by particular ecological and social values. Attitude theory serves to explain ethical investment behaviour. Conclusions for the marketing of ethical investment funds and for future research are drawn.     

Vegetarian Utopias: Visions of dietary patterns in future societies and support for social change

The current study draws on the collective futures framework to examine how visions of future societies where most people consume plant-based, vegetarian or vegan diets are related to current support for social change towards plant-based diets. Participants were 506 university students in Aotearoa New Zealand invited to imagine a society in 2050 where most individuals consume a plant-based, vegetarian, or vegan diet. A thematic analysis was conducted on responses to an open-ended item asking how these future societies would be different to today. Participants reported a variety of potential positive and negative outcomes for individuals and wider society. Subsequent analyses of attitudes scales investigated the relationships between the collective dimensions of plant-based future societies and support for policies to promote plant-based diets. For a vegetarian future, the strongest predictor of current support for social change was the expectation that widespread vegetarianism would reduce societal dysfunction. For a vegan future, the strongest predictor of support for social change was an expectation of increased warmth in a vegan society. Implications for theory and advocacy are discussed.