The temporal nature of legitimation: the case of IFRS8

Legitimation can operate on an episodic or continual basis [Suchman, M.C. (1995). Managing legitimacy: Strategic and institutional approaches. Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 571–610]. We examine the temporal legitimation of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB)’s actions during the adoption and review of International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 8 ‘Operating Segments’. We conceptualise the controversy surrounding IFRS8 as an episode when the IASB sought segmental reporting convergence with the US standard, Statement of Financial Accounting Standard 131. Interpreting evidence from 15 (20) semi-structured interviews undertaken in 2009 (2011), before (after) entities reported under IFRS8, reveals its adoption precipitated an episodic legitimacy threat from selected audiences to the actions of the IASB. We discuss the IASB's attempt to influence legitimation for this episode through commitment to a post-implementation review [IFRS Foundation. (2011). Post implementation reviews: Plan for developing the framework for conducting post-implementation reviews. IASB Board meeting February 2011. Retrieved July 27, 2011, from http://www.ifrs.org/NR/rdonlyres/3E1502E4-F1E8-4907-838B-FFB20C7268ED/0/PIR02111st2ndb04obs.pdf] of IFRS8. Interpreting legitimacy concerns across diverse audiences about specific actions of the IASB (the introduction of IFRS8) enables us to draw conclusions about the resilience of the IASB as a standard setting organisation, in itself.     

Problems in Place: Using Discursive Social Psychology to Investigate the Meanings of Seasonal Homes

Researchers continue to explore the nature of place meanings and especially how these meanings are created, disseminated and contested. This paper uses the conceptual framework of discursive social psychology to identify varying interpretive frames homeowners use to characterize the meaning and significance of their seasonal homes as vacation and recreation residences. Among the frames are refuge from modern life, the importance or centrality of seasonal homes in people's lives, obligations and burdens entailed by maintaining dual residences and interactions within a community. The paper advocates for an approach to place meaning that acknowledges the social basis of meaning yet recognizes and focuses on how individuals appropriate and use interpretive frames to explain their relationships to place.     

Preparing for a world without markets: legitimising strategies of preppers

ABSTRACT

‘Prepping’ – the storing of food, water and weapons as well as the development of self-sufficiency skills for the purpose of independently surviving disasters – is an emerging market as well as an expression of generalised anxiety about existential threats (e.g. technological collapse and catastrophic climate change). Whilst accounts of eccentric prepping are common in mainstream media, there is little empirical investigation into how consumers imagine and prepare for a temporary or permanent halt to functioning market systems, and with it, a consumer society. A netnography of European preppers reveals prepping to be an anticipatory mode of practicing for a post-market, post-consumer society before it becomes a reality. We find that preparation is a struggle for cognitive legitimacy through four different modes: vulnerabilising the market, common-sensing market signals, othering civilian consumers and unblackboxing objects.     

企业声誉的转换机制：合法性和认证竞赛

企业声誉源自企业社会绩效，然而企业社会绩效是一个客观流量，企业声誉则是一个主观存量，正是合法性机制促成了这一转换，而认证竞赛则是合法性机制在特定制度环境下的具体表现形式。     

景点与游客：景点介绍文本的语言学分析

景点介绍在旅游业中起到吸引游客、帮助游客了解景点的作用。运用语用学及系统功能语言学理论和分析方法，对天津盘山风景区景点介绍文本中话语策略进行分析，发现景点介绍文本的中心是景点而非游客，缺乏与游客的互动交流，不利于与游客产生共鸣，达到吸引游客的目的。本文对此进行思考并提出相应对策，探索提高景点宣传效果的语言学方法。     

When the burger becomes halal: a critical discourse analysis of privilege and marketplace inclusion

Although a rich body of research provides insights to understanding stigma within the marketplace, much less is known regarding its direct corollary, privilege. We posit that this void is problematic as it may inadvertently support and legitimate existing socio-political arrangements which inhibit consumer wellbeing and marketplace equality. The present study addresses this gap by offering a theoretical understanding of privilege within the marketplace. Using a Foucauldian approach to privilege and power, we draw on the discursive perspective on legitimation to critically investigate the contentious debate over the inclusion of halal meat at a popular burger chain in France. In light of French political secularism (laïcité), we demonstrate how power discursively operates through narratives on rights and moral responsibility to constitute, defend and challenge a certain state of privilege within the marketplace. Our resulting theoretical discussion extends existing studies on marketplace equality and the growing body of literature related to the “marketization of religion”.     

STRATEGIC PLANNING AND PERFORMANCE: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS IN NORTHERN IRELAND

Based on qualitative data this paper explores the resons for the non-profit housing sectors enthusiastic embrace of strategic planning practices. Evidence is presented on the use of specified techiniques by housing associations in Northeren Ireland and their impact on the performance of the assocaitions. Without dismissing rational goel seeking explanations for adoption, the study concludes the strategic planning is also a legimation seeking practice. Evidence suggest that the contested nature of performance in the non-profit sector makes it hard for chief executives to sustain a rational goal based argument for adopting strategic planing.     

Exploring Material‐Discursive Practices

Our intent in this commentary is to support the turn to materiality in organizational research, and contribute to it by considering some differences in our approach from that proposed by Hardy and Thomas. Drawing on agential realism – which theorizes the entanglement of matter and meaning – we explore the relation between discourse and materiality in terms of the ideas of materialization and performativity as enacted in a study of hotel valuation in the hospitality industry. We offer our comments in the spirit of constructive engagement and hope that our discussion along with others in this Point‐Counterpoint will generate further explorations.     

Ritual legitimation, de-coupling and the budgetary process: managing organizational hypocrisies in a multinational company

The study of participation in the budgetary cycle has formed a prominent part of the research literature concerned with the budgetary process. More recently there has emerged a body of literature concerned with exploring the political and symbolic nature of the budgetary process. The paper reports upon the outcomes of an empirical study of the introduction of `budgetary participation' in a division of a European subsidiary of a large North American car manufacturer. We detail the long process of consultation and negotiation within the subsidiary, and between it and the European Headquarters. The study provides a revealing instance of the roles of formal budget participation as a ritual of control and legitimation without the substantive involvement of middle managers and suggested to us the introduction of de-coupling and organizational hypocrisy alongside the introduction of budget participation. The study pays close attention to the contingent effects of the wider political context of the division and the relationships between the division, its organizational context and organizational environment, and how this context played upon the budgetary process in the division. The outcomes that we analyse at `Delta' reflect the de-coupling strategies and organizational hypocrisies commonly found in public sector organizations. In this wider setting the corporation persists with the ritual of `tight' budget negotiation and target setting and apparent underachievement in performance. Yet we conclude that the complex technological and political context to the formation and siting of Delta continued and may continue to support its existence.$g0     

多语旅游环境建构与旅游资源价值提升

语言不仅可以描述旅游资源,而且可以建构旅游资源,提升旅游资源的价值。构建多语旅游环境更是对提高旅游资源的价值具有特殊意义。从天津旅游资源的实际出发,运用话语建构理论的研究成果,在国际化都市文化旅游环境发展战略的指导下,讨论构建天津多语旅游环境的战略与措施,以期构建体系完善、功能齐全、特色突出的多语旅游环境,提升天津旅游资源价值。