This paper provides a structured literature review of digital entrepreneurship to generate insights into recent developments in the field, critique the research to date, and identify opportunities ...for future research. We have applied the three aspects of critical research – insight, critique, and transformative redefinition – to analyse and synthesise the literature. We distil the definitions of the key constructs and identify three research development phases corresponding to practice development. Analysis of 133 scholarly articles by discipline, time, methodology, geography and theoretical focus informs that digital entrepreneurship research has been fragmented, divergent and slow to respond to practice. However, the field is now rapidly acquiring legitimacy and an identity, growing rapidly and is becoming more interdisciplinary. We explore how established views of entrepreneurial processes and clusters are being upended in a digital world. In outlining the future of the field, a preponderance of single case study and conceptual articles need to be supplemented with longitudinal, mixed methods, multiple case study and quantitative research. More integrative research, preferably presented as dynamic models, would advance the field. Design and action research output, and collaborations with practitioners will yield practice-driven insights. This paper will facilitate an interdisciplinary dialogue for evidence-informed policy and practice.
•Research output has expanded in the last two years and is at the cusp of rapid growth.•Three broad phases of research correlate with practice and technology development.•Theorising with socio-material and digital technology-perspective is developing.•Interdisciplinarity will lead to greater design science and action research output.•Context rich research in geographies, industries and business models is needed.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to present a method for a structured literature review (SLR). An SLR is a method for examining a corpus of scholarly literature, to develop insights, critical ...reflections, future research paths and research questions. SLRs are common in scientific disciplines dominated by quantitative approaches, but they can be adapted in accounting studies since quantitative and qualitative approaches are commonly accepted.
Design/methodology/approach
– A literature review, as a piece of academic writing, must have a logical, planned structure. The authors also argue it requires tests based on qualitative and quantitative methods. Therefore, the authors describe ten steps for developing an SLR.
Findings
– The SLR method is a way that scholars can stand “on the shoulders of giants” and provide insightful and impactful research that is different to the traditional authorship approaches to literature reviews.
Research limitations/implications
– Traditional literature reviews can have varied results because of a lack of rigour. SLRs use a process that, through a set of rules, potentially offers less bias and more transparency of the execution and measures and techniques of validation and reliability.
Practical implications
– SLRs provide an approach that can help academics to discover under-investigated topics and methods, nurturing, therefore, the development of new knowledge areas and research approaches.
Originality/value
– The paper presents accounting researchers with an opportunity to develop insightful and publishable studies, and also serves as a basis for developing future research agendas in the accounting field. The authors advocate the SLR method especially to higher degree research students and emerging scholars as a way of potentially developing robust and defensible research agendas and questions.
This paper reviews the field of integrated reporting ( ) to develop insights into how research is developing, offer a critique of the research to date, and outline future research opportunities. We ...find that most published research presents normative arguments for and there is little research examining practice. Thus, we call for more research that critiques ’s rhetoric and practice. To frame future research we refer to parallels from intellectual capital research that identifies four distinct research stages to outline how research might emerge. Thus, this paper offers an insightful critique into an emerging accounting practice.
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine intellectual capital research (ICR) methods and critically analyse how they have been utilised. The data set for this analysis is based on examining ...IC papers published in specialist IC and important generalist accounting journals from the years 2000 to 2011.Design methodology approach - The basis of the analysis is Alvesson and Deetz's critical management framework of "Insight", "Critique" and "Transformative redefinition" with the goal of widening the discourse about how to research IC. This paper is motivated by Guthrie et al., who identify a third stage of ICR which is "based on a critical and performative analysis of intellectual capital (IC) practices in action".Findings - This paper argues that there is an increasing performative research agenda however many researchers appear caught in an "evaluatory trap" (Olson et al.) whereby the researchers' approach to ICR remains stuck in an ostensive approach (see Mouritsen) that characterises second stage ICR (see Petty and Guthrie). The paper also identifies how many accounting researchers are impacted by a "dominance structure" and suggests that they need to break free from the dominance of "accounting" practice before they can understand and realise the potential of IC.Research limitations implications - The implication of this paper for ICR and practice is to create a continued discourse about evolving approaches to ICR so we can continue communicating leading edge, third wave ICR, which develops IC theory in practice and effective IC management through praxis.Originality value - From 2004 onwards, Guthrie et al. claim the third stage was gaining impetus and thus this paper is novel because it investigates how ICR has transitioned and how ICR might continue to develop.
This paper explores one organisation's journey into non-financial reporting, initially motivated by a crisis in public confidence that threatened the organisation's legitimacy to the present with the ...organisation embracing integrated reporting. The organisation's journey is framed through a legitimation lens and is illustrated by aligning internal reflections with external outputs guided by predominant paradigms of good practice, such as the GRI guidelines and more recently integrated reporting (IR). We find that the organisation's relationship with external guidelines has evolved from pragmatic adoption as a means of seeking external legitimation to the present position where those that prepare external reports are informed by the organisation's strategic positioning and not constrained by the promulgation of voluntary guidelines. From the case study, we suggest that the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) may face two hurdles: First, organisations may define social norms based on a broader definition of stakeholders than the definition currently published by the IIRC. The second hurdle is to convince report preparers that adopting integrated reporting (IR) will positively impact on capital flows.
PurposeThe paper’s purpose is to investigate the concept of integrated thinking as part of the International Integrated Reporting Council’s (IIRC’s) Integrated Reporting () framework. It explores ...integrated thinking as a cultural control and analyses how it operates.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a case study of ResBank (a pseudonym), a small Australian bank, which is participating in the IIRC’s Pilot Programme Business Network. ResBank issued its first integrated report in 2012. Using semi-structured interviews, we examine whether integrated thinking develops as espoused by the IIRC.FindingsIn ResBank’s case, we find that the responsible banking culture that was in place prior to joining the Pilot Programme is a stronger cultural control, alongside personnel, results and action controls. The implication for the IIRC is that integrated thinking clashes with the existing organisational culture rather than driving a new organisational culture.Practical implicationsIf integrated thinking is to prevail, it may become a source of inertia rather than change because it advocates that an entire workforce should think the same way. We also question whether breaking down silos, as advocated by integrated thinking, is necessary across all organisational functions, especially concerning material organisational risks and reputation, because these silos foster independent thinking.Social implicationsThe problem with the arguments proposed by the IIRC is that they aim at a one-size-fits-all approach. Not every organisation has a disconnection between strategy, governance, past performance and future prospects nor do they all have disconnected departments that need reconnecting. Therefore, a fundamental problem with is that the IIRC argues ‘why’ companies need , not ‘how’ to implement , and especially not ‘how’ to operationalise integrated thinking.Originality/valueThe paper is a must-read because it contributes to the growing debate on the benefits of by examining and critiquing an early adopter’s practice.
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to answer the question "What are the barriers to the use of IC concepts?" by discussing and critiquing two contemporary grand theories about IC, being ...market-to-book ratios as a representation of IC and that disclosing IC leads to greater profitability.Design methodology approach - The paper reviews contemporary IC literature and explores reasons why these grand theories of IC hinder its adoption.Findings - The research finds that these grand theories mislead because they cannot be proven empirically. Therefore, managers should attempt to better understand the possible causal relationships between their people, processes and stakeholders (human, structural and relational capital) rather than adopting someone else's mousetrap.Practical implications - In order to improve the use of IC concepts they should be examined as differentiation theories of practice that take into account the agent (people) as a unit of analysis, the actual practice of IC and the resultant changes within an organisation, rather than trying to achieve the impossible generalisations of IC grand theories. Researchers need to conduct more critical and performative research into IC rather than ostensive research.Originality value - Allows academics and practitioners to understand the barriers to implementing IC in organisations, potentially allowing for the development of better engineered IC practices rather than the development of additional IC models.
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate intellectual capital (IC) measurement critically so that the dynamics of intangible value creation can be better understood and to provide ...insights into how IC is constructed rather than what IC is.Design methodology approach - This paper presents a case study on how a division of a large Australian financial institution utilised an approach based on complexity theory to investigate IC in practice. The method utilises narrative, numbers and visualisations to make sense of IC at a particular point in time.Findings - It is argued that trying to "fit" existing popular frameworks to gather IC measurements inside organisations has little relevance to understanding the value-creation process. As a result of the investigation of IC in this paper, it is found that, to date, IC measurement has relied heavily on "accountingisation" and that alternate methods to understand IC need to be developed. The paper highlights that academics and practitioners need to develop new skills.Research limitations implications - The case study is limited to the use of an alternate method to investigate IC in a particular organisational and cultural setting. The research opens the possibility of the benefits of changing thinking about both research into, and the practice of, measuring IC.Practical implications - Rather than being constrained by the traditional models of measuring intangibles, by way of contemporary IC reporting frameworks, a more open process is outlined that could improve the timeliness and use value of the information.Originality value - This paper has relevance to both IC academics and practitioners as it critically examines the contemporary IC frameworks and offers an alternate method for examining IC which has the potential to add to a discourse which focuses on additional understanding of IC.
The purpose of this paper is to review and critique the field of Intellectual Capital Accounting Research (ICAR). The literature indicates that an organisational and business revolution is in ...progress concerning the need to understand the value of knowledge resources and how to manage them. The paper explores the field of ICAR by examining a decade of published research since Petty and Guthrie's (2000) seminal paper on ICA, “Intellectual capital literature review: Measurement, reporting and management” as published in the Journal of Intellectual Capital.
The paper has four specific contributions. The first contribution is to identify the field of scholarship associated with ICAR. The second is to provide a comprehensive picture of what has happened in the field of ICAR over the past decade. Third, it provides evidence as to how and why the field of ICAR is changing. Fourth, it highlights areas for future research and policy developments.
From these four contributions our definition of Intellectual Capital Accounting (ICA) emerges. That is, ICA is an accounting, reporting and management technology of relevance to organisations to understand and manage knowledge resources. It can account and report on the size and development of knowledge resources such as employee competencies, customer relations, financial relationships and communication and information technologies. Additionally, the analysis highlights several interesting patterns and worrying trends in the field of ICAR.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to offer a personal critical reflection on the future of intellectual capital (IC) based on my experience as an IC researcher, author, editor, teacher and ...practitioner.
Design/methodology/approach
– Offers a first-hand reflection on the future of IC, using evidence collected from IC in the field and the author’s personal reflections.
Findings
– I argue that the authors need to abandon reporting and instead concentrate on how an organisation discloses what “was previously secret or unknown”, so that all stakeholders understand how an organisation takes into consideration ethical, social and environmental impacts in keeping with an eco-systems approach to IC.
Research limitations/implications
– While much of the empirical evidence presented in this paper is freely available to all scholars, the interpretation and findings is subjective. Other researchers, given the same opportunity and evidence, may not necessarily make the same conclusions.
Social implications
– We are now on the cusp of the fourth stage of IC research (Dumay, 2013), whereby IC expands its boundaries into the wider eco-system, to “go beyond IC reporting” (Edvinsson, 2013, p. 163).
Originality/value
– Offers a critical review of the impact of IC reporting which is relevant to consider because of the newfound resurging interest in IC, based on the current push for integrated reporting (
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