Rhizomatic stories of representational faithfulness, decision making and control

There is a tendency in accounting theory, both external reporting and management accounting, to express a representational ideal. This to be understood in the sense that accounting information, independent on whether it is reported externally or used for control purposes internally, ought to represent something underlying, whether this is revenue, costs, performance or other things inscribed in the accounting information. In some cases the underlying is not an object, but a procedure which is developed with the purpose of standardising the calculations as to become comparable (Financial Accounting Standards Board, 1980a). In the beginning of the 1970’s in the accounting information literature, simultaneously with the foundation of the American Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), an academic discussion regarding which qualitative characteristics accounting information ought to have, emerges (e.g. Ijiri, 1975, Hines, 1988 og Ingram and Rayburn, 1989). This was caused by FASB’s work on a conceptual framework Standard of Financial Accounting Concepts (SFAC), which was meant as a guide to the standard setters in the development of new accounting standards/principles. A new notion, representational faithfulness, was introduced in SFAC no. 2. The discussion about representational faithfulness is equivocal and no unambiguous definition of what representational faithfulness actually is. This has occasioned a range of dialogues about the representativity of accounting information, the accounting setters’ roles and effects of disclosure of accounting information..

Engagementets tælling og fortælling: Et studie af brugen af medarbejderengagementsundersøgelser som dialogskabende og beslutnings-faciliterende præstationsmålingsinformation

Måling af medarbejderengagement er en efterhånden udbredt praksis i mange virksomheder. Denne artikel undersøger og beskriver brugen af information fra medarbejderengagements (EE) modeller i organisationer, med henblik på at forbedre medarbejderengagement og organisationens præstation. Undersøgelsen er baseret på interviews med ledere fra organisationer, der bruger EE-undersøgelser og konsulenter, der leverer EE-undersøgelser. Undersøgelsen viser, at information fra medarbejderengagementsmodeller bruges som et resultatstyringsværktøj med det formål at 1) evaluere engagementets præstationer og 2) give nyttige oplysninger til beslutningstagning vedrørende forbedringer af medarbejderengagement. Begge dele understøtter formålet med at gennemføre medarbejderengagementsundersøgelser, som handler om at forbedre organisationens præstation gennem præstations-drivere. Hvor en del af litteraturen stiller sig kritisk overfor sådanne målinger og deres evne til at gøre engagementet tælleligt og generelt indfange de objekter, de påstår at repræsentere, hævder en anden del af litteraturen, at problemstillinger af en sådan karakter bør håndteres ved at forbedre det tekniske måleapparat.  Snarere end at be- eller afkræfte disse standpunkter argumenterer vi for, at det afgørende ligger i, hvorledes information om medarbejderengagement bruges for at opnå organisatoriske effekter af målingerne. I et forsøg på at bidrage konstruktivt til dette viser vi specifikt, hvordan en kontekstualisering af Armstrong (2000) 's præstationsledelsesmodel i forhold til mobilisering af medarbejderengagementsmålinger kan bruges til at strukturere måden, hvorpå organisationer kan skabe effekter af EE-informationer med henblik på at forbedre organisationens præstation

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

The value of research activities “other than” publishing articles: reflections on an experimental workshop series

Purpose The purpose of this essay is to explore the opportunities and challenges that Early-Career Researchers (ECRs) face when they seek to contribute to academic knowledge production through research activities “other than” those directly focused on making progress with their own, to-be-published, research papers in a context associated with the “publish or perish” mentality. Design/methodology/approach Drawing broadly on the notion of technologies of humility (Jasanoff, 2003), this reflective essay develops upon the experiences of the authors in organizing and participating in a series of nine workshops undertaken between June 2013 and April 2021 as well as the arduous process of writing this paper itself. Retrospective accounts, workshop materials, email exchanges, and surveys of workshop participants provide the key data sources for the analysis presented in the paper. Findings The paper shows how the organization of the workshops is intertwined with the building of a small community of ECRs and exploration of how to address the perceived limitations of a “gap-spotting” approach to developing research ideas and questions. The analysis foregrounds how the workshops provide a seemingly valuable research experience that is not without contradictions. Workshop participation reveals tensions between engagement in activities “other than” working on papers for publication and institutionalized pressures to produce publication outputs, between the (weak) perceived status of ECRs in the field and the aspiration to make a scholarly contribution, and between the desire to develop a personally satisfying intellectual journey and the pressure to respond to requirements that allow access to a wider community of scholars. Originality/value Our analysis contributes to debates about the ways in which seemingly valuable outputs are produced in academia despite a pervasive “publish or perish” mentality. The analysis also shows how reflexive writing can help to better understand the opportunities and challenges of pursuing activities that might be considered “unproductive” because they are not directly related to to-be-published papers