Voices from higher up the ladder: exploring the team leader role in call centres

This paper focuses on an under‐researched employee category in the call centre literature—the team leader. The paper, drawing on data from nine Australian call centres, finds that the team leader role is integral to the effectiveness of call centres, yet it is a role that consists of considerable complexity and contradictions. The research demonstrates the critical role performed by team leaders: coach, mentor, trainer, performance evaluator, communicator and supervisor. It also shows team leaders as being far more positive about many of the features of the call centre work environment compared with those on the front line. However, there does appear to be a need for greater acknowledgement of their challenging role, the contradictions that are inherent in the job and the need, in many cases, for increased support being made available to assist.     

Enforced informalisation: The case of liquor retailers in South Africa

After a decade of unsuccessful efforts to migrate informal businesses to South Africa's formal economy there remains little understanding of the dynamics in this sector, especially as regards micro-enterprises. International literature discusses ‘exit’ and ‘exclusion’, holding that poor law enforcement is the reason for the persistence and growth of the informal economy. Through examining the informal liquor retail (shebeen) sector, we demonstrate that enforcement actually produces informality in this sector. Illustrated with examples from one of our sites in Delft South, Cape Town, the article describes key aspects of shebeen business practice, including the responses to greater law enforcement. Notably, instead of closing shop or facing the hurdles of compliance, the great majority of shebeens continue to evade the law by downscaling their activities. This finding has implications not just for liquor policy in South Africa, but for understanding both theories of formalisation and theories of the informal economy.     

Discourses surrounding the evolution of the IASB/FASB Conceptual Framework: What they reveal about the “living law” of accounting

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) recently published the final version of Chapter 1 of their joint Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting (IASB/FASB, 2010). In this article, we focus on two of the key issues addressed in Chapter 1: stewardship and the definition of the primary user groups of financial statements. To address the discourses surrounding the evolution of Chapter 1, we introduce the concept of “living law” from sociological jurisprudence into accounting scholarship. We first trace the role of stewardship/accountability in the evolution—from antiquity to the present day—of the living law of accounting. We then explore the origin, nature, and implications—from a living law perspective—of the moral traditions associated with stewardship/accountability. Our analysis suggests that stewardship has been, and continues to be, embedded in the living law of accounting—notwithstanding the formal pronouncements of standard setters. We also examine the social accounting project from a living law perspective and we suggest that such an analysis provides new possibilities for addressing core social accounting concerns. We conclude by arguing that, particularly in light of the far reaching impact of the neoliberal agenda, there is an urgent need for scholars in both contemporary “social” and “mainstream” accounting to recognize and build upon their shared living law heritage rooted in the age-old traditions of stewardship/accountability.     

Marry capital giving cycle with deferred giving cycle

This article suggests a way to transform the future to the present by transferring planned giving techniques into capital campaigning. The author discusses the merits of his case by instilling the needs of the donor first and the success of the institution as a natural second.     

Shining light on the darkness. Placing tourists within North Korean tourism. Comment on: Desiring the dark: ‘A taste for the unusual’ in North Korean tourism?

Few studies exist of tourism in North Korea. Many passing references to tourism have been distanced from actual tourists. Visiting North Korea is a form of moral political tourism that has no relationship to dark tourism or fantasy, but represents tourist interest in seeking to discover a ‘real’ North Korea that is distinct from hegemonic political narratives from outside or inside the country. Tourism is associated with the need to evaluate and reconsider political orthodoxies and ideologies, and discover an everyday environment.