Co-production of social research: strategies for engaged scholarship

There are incentives on both sides of the practitioner–academic divide for co-production of research. This article identifies and evaluates five strategies for achieving more engaged and engaging scholarship. At one end of the spectrum are models involving relatively low levels of involvement by practitioners, for example as the providers of data or passive recipients of research findings. At the other end, practitioners play an active role in commissioning, overseeing and learning from studies. Higher levels of engagement should enhance the prospects of utilization but may risk politicizing the research process. So it is important to be clear about the benefits of and barriers to different forms of co-production and to recognize what works best, in which circumstances and for whom.     

Debate: Increasing the impact of academic research on public policy

Audit committees were perceived as overcoming the difficulties of operating in a political environment. In general, they achieved good ratings for monitoring internal audit but were seen as less effective in engaging with external auditors and risk management. In some key aspects the attitudes of internal auditors differed from those of committee chairs and CFOs.     

Co-production in research: some reflections on the experience of engaging practitioners in health research

This article reports the activities undertaken to develop co-production in health research. It is a response to the call for more discussion of the issue made in an earlier issue of this journal. Consideration of the practicalities of undertaking research in this way is an important contribution to the debate.     

Debate: Academia can tax one's patience

Public procurement processes have been extensively studied, but previous research has not sought to explain public procurement in terms of cognitive heuristics. This paper examines the award of a large public sector contract and outlines how the decisions were made. Heuristics were used throughout the process. Three heuristics—EBA, conjunctive, and WADD—were used in combination to reduce the number of bidders for the contract from a somewhat unmanageable 63 down to four. This paper allows the underlying stages to be viewed from this perspective and therefore it explores procurement in a way that sheds new light on the processes involved.     

On time: contributions from the social sciences

This paper provides a brief review of the anthropology and psychology literature as it relates to time, an important variable in finance. First, the paper discusses ways that individuals represent time, and introduces cultural variations in the perception of time. Then the experience of time passing, and behavioral pace, is discussed. The succession of time and the orientation toward past, present, and future, are described. The paper may provide implications for academics whose finance research is related to behavior over time.     

Is it possible to make scientific forecasts in social sciences?

This article attempts to answer the question, whether and how it is possible to make scientific forecasts in social sciences through the investigation of the actual scientific-philosophical problems and methodological aspects of futures studies.¹ Following a critical analysis it describes the scientific-philosophical features of uncovering and forecasting the possible futures from the classic predictions to the latest approaches. In the methodological chapter it turns its attention to the impossibility of making scientific predictions and demonstrates the methods with the help of which—reacting to the challenges of uncertainty, instability and various changes—futures studies can perform its original function, i.e. supports present decisions providing information about the future.     

Clinical budgeting: Experimentation in the social sciences: A drama in five acts

Clinical budgeting systems are increasingly being introduced into the British National Health Service. This paper examines in some detail the testing of one particular budgeting system. It discusses the aims, execution and evaluation of the test. The paper is written as a play partly for reasons of clarity and entertainment but also and, more seriously, to reflect recent concerns in the sociology of scientific knowledge whereby attention is drawn to the parallels between analysts' and participants' attempts to render a definitive view of the social world.     

Doing qualitative field research in management accounting: Positioning data to contribute to theory

In this paper we argue that theory, method, methodology, and knowledge gains in qualitative field studies are intertwined through the ongoing hypothesis development in the field. We develop our argument through a discussion of specific qualitative field studies in management accounting. We emphasise in particular the distinctive role of theory in qualitative research as relating to expression of a subjective reality more than clarification of an objective one. In considering this subjectivity we discuss the ways in which the doing of qualitative research brings to bear discipline on the researcher allowing us to assess the trustworthiness of their accounts. The intention is to develop a more appropriate basis for judging the plausibility of qualitative field studies than notions borrowed from positivistic methodology.     

The prophecy of Ulrich Beck: signposts for the social sciences

Abstract

This special issue on the legacy of Ulrich Beck is aimed to stimulate reflection both on the specific uses to which Beck’s conceptual and theoretical apparatus can be put within risk studies and the wider significance of his academic project for the social sciences. In this end-piece, we draw out the key themes which surface in the different contributions relating to five particular areas: the nature of risk; advancements in methods; issues of non-knowledge and uncertainty; the development of cosmopolitan risk communities; and the situated character of individualization. We discuss the implications of the accounts contained in this special issue and reflect on the impact and influence of Beck’s sustained engagement with colleagues around the globe, concluding that the concepts and methods that Beck bequeathed the social sciences are set to live on and thrive.     

Contradictory approaches? On realism and constructivism in the social sciences research on risk, technology and the environment

This article discusses approaches to researching the risk-problems of industrial societies. It examines why the risk-constructivism neglects questions of the material production of risks in favor of questions of their communicative construction, while the risk-realism does it the other way round. Subsequently the possibilities of a synthesis of both approaches are being considered. The societal functions of risk-constructions are accordingly not limited to their efficacy in the sphere of social communication processes. They lie as well in the field of regulation of the metabolism of societies and their ecological environment. The validity of risk-constructions is consequently not only bound to their cultural weightiness, whether one believes in them or not, but to their capacity to manage realities, measured by their ability to bring expectations in accordance with events. Risk-constructions are not only transformed in the milieu of discourses, but also in the context of social practices which give the opportunity to acquire experiences and to perform learning processes in order to optimize risk-constructions as regulative instruments.     

Potential influence of the holistic paradigm on the social sciences

Recent developments in various scientific disciplines have contributed to a new holistic paradigm, characterized by its emphases on totality, the replacement of the observer by the participant, thinking in terms of processes, an affinity with systems theory, and by ecologism as distinct from anthropocentrism. This new paradigm has not yet entered the world of the social sciences. This article considers two main issues: why are the social sciences closing their doors on the new paradigm? and in what way could the new paradigm influence and change the social sciences?