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The conceptual foundations of performance measurement and management (PMM) are predominantly rooted in control systems research. However, the appropriateness of this paradigm for volatile and uncertain environments has been questioned. This paper explores whether grounding PMM in social systems theory and viewing uncertainty from an organisational behaviour perspective provides new insights into the PMM theory–practice gap.

A framework, rooted in social systems theory and practice theory, is created that describes how organisational behaviour shapes the social processes associated with organisational change. Semi-structured interviews of 35 people from 16 organisations coupled with thematic analysis are employed to identify the organisational behavioural characteristics that influence how PMM is executed in practice. PMM is then reconceptualised from the perspective of this social systems-based framework.

This investigation proposes (1) performance management is concerned with elements of PMM-related practices open to flexible interpretation by human agents that change the effectiveness of organisational practices, whereas performance measurement is concerned with elements of PMM-related practices not open to interpretation but deliberately reproduced to provide a consistent comparison with the past; (2) the purpose of PMM should be to achieve organisational effectiveness (OE) and (3) the mechanisms underlying performance management and performance measurement are social intervention and embeddedness, respectively.

This first social systems perspective of PMM advances the development of PMM's theoretical foundations by providing a behaviour-based interpretation of, and framework for, PMM-mediated organisational change. This competing approach has strong links to practice.

It is predicted that virtual business and related research possibilities will expand significantly. In this context, the aim of this paper is to use insights from a virtual research project to present a theoretically‐informed toolbox of practical suggestions to guide the conduct of virtual world business research.

Archival evidence is presented, and data from a study conducted in Second Life^® in 2007 is interpreted through Llewellyn's framework (physical, structural, agential, cultural and mental dimensions).

With the burgeoning of virtual business applications, appropriate systems that encompass the dynamics of both the real and the virtual will need to be developed by and for accountants, auditors and business professionals. Researchers of virtual business activities will need to adapt to the physical, structural, agential, cultural and mental dimensions unique to virtual worlds.

While based on reflections from a single study in Second Life, this paper identifies possibilities for future virtual research on issues of accountability and accounting relating to virtual worlds.

The practical toolbox will assist virtual researchers to deal with the possibilities and practicalities of conducting research in virtual worlds.

Despite the proliferation of virtual worlds, predictions of virtual business applications, and consequent accountability and accounting implications, there is a paucity of academic literature on conducting business research in virtual settings. This prescient paper develops a conceptual framework to guide the conduct of research in virtual worlds, and identifies the unique opportunities and challenges they present.

In a complex, ever-changing, and turbulent business world, encouraging employees to express their improvement-oriented novel ideas through voice behavior is crucial for organizations to survive and thrive. Understanding how to foster employee promotive voice at work is a significant issue for both researchers and managers. This study explores how to foster employee promotive voice through specific HRM practices and positive employee attitudes. It also examines the effect of employee promotive voice on perceived organizational performance.

This study employed a time-lagged multisource survey design. Data were collected from 215 executives, 790 supervisors, and 1,004 employees in 113 firms, and analyzed utilizing a multilevel moderated serial mediation model.

The findings of this study revealed that promotive voice was significantly related to perceived organizational performance. Innovation-enhancing HRM was positively associated with employee promotive voice. The HRM-voice relationship was partially mediated by employee job satisfaction. Power distance orientation was found to significantly moderate the relationship between innovation-enhancing HRM and employee job satisfaction at the firm level. Our findings showed that innovation-enhancing HRM policies may fail to foster promotive voice if they do not enhance employee job satisfaction.

This study challenges some taken-for-granted assumptions in the literature such as any high performance HRM bundles (e.g. HPWS) can foster employee promotive voice, and the effects of HRM are direct and even unconditional on organizational outcomes. It emphasizes the need to avoid potential unintended effects of HRM on employee voice and the importance of contextualizing voice research.

The voices of children and young people have been largely neglected in discussions of the extent to which the internet takes into account their needs and concerns. This paper aims to highlight young people’s lived experiences of being online.

Results are drawn from the UnBias project’s youth led discussions, “Youth Juries” with young people predominantly aged between 13 and 17 years.

Whilst the young people are able to use their agency online in some circumstances, many often experience feelings of disempowerment and resignation, particularly in relation to the terms and conditions and user agreements that are ubiquitous to digital technologies, social media platforms and other websites.

Although changes are afoot as part of the General Data Protection Regulation (herein the GDPR) to simplify the terms and conditions of online platforms (European Union, 2016), it offers little practical guidance on how it should be implemented to children. The voices and opinions of children and young people are put forward as suggestions for how the “clear communication to data subjects” required by Article 12 of the GDPR in particular should be implemented, for example, recommendations about how terms and conditions can be made more accessible.

Children and young people are an often overlooked demographic of online users. This paper argues for the importance of this group being involved in any changes that may affect them, by putting forward recommendations from the children and young people themselves.

In the context of the Australian Government’s attempts to impose budget austerity measures on publicly funded universities in its higher education sector, the purpose of this paper is to assess the sector’s financial health.

The multi-dimensional study is based on seven years of government financial data from all 39 publicly funded Australian universities, supplemented by information from universities’ annual reports. Using a financial health model that reflects vulnerability, viability and resilience, the authors examine sector data using a suite of metrics. The authors analyse differences between those universities in the Top 10 and Bottom 10 by revenue, as a window into the financial health of the sector at large.

While mostly financially viable, the sector shows signs of financial vulnerability, particularly in the areas of expense control and financial sustainability. Possibly in response to an uncertain funding environment, universities are managing long-term liquidity by growing reserves. Debt represents largely untapped potential for universities, while differences between the Top 10 and Bottom 10 universities were most evident in the area of revenue diversity, a strong predictor of financial viability.

Focussing on a specific set of financial metrics limits the scope of the study, but highlights further research possibilities. These include more detailed statistical analysis of data, financial case studies of individual universities and the implications of revenue diversification on academic standards.

The paper contributes to higher education literature, providing empirical evidence of universities’ finances. It highlights the importance of universities’ financial resilience in an uncertain funding environment.

This chapter draws upon our experiences of using materials in research interviews. We build on the work of Woodward (2016, 2020) by reflexively exploring how our use of material objects; in this case, Lego enabled both participants and researchers to connect more fully with the entrepreneurial phenomena under investigation (Williams et al., 2021). In doing so, we unpack how our use of objects reveals the research interview as a more complex phenomenon than is typically represented (Gubrium et al., 2012).

The paper aims to show how professional identity is constructed at a very early stage of initial management education. In so doing, it questions the notion of le métier in management.

The paper is based on a study of the experiences of six French management apprentices (or apprentis) who participated in a management apprentice programme in 2005. The research methodology is qualitative and illuminates the process of professional identity building. The central question of the study concerns the manager as an individual, an actor, and the link between the individual and his or her métier.

The findings suggest that from their very first immersion into the real world of corporate employment at junior management level, students construct different types of professional identity which can be shown as a 2×2 matrix whose independent axes are the type of acting displayed by the apprentis; and the degree to which the apprentis enacted their roles. This can be interpreted using the coupling system metaphor. Some of these types of professional identity are born of cynicism and disillusion engendered by their experiences.

The research is based on a small number of students drawn from one business school and concentrated in one job function – marketing.

The paper draws attention to the implications of the findings for those in business schools and organisations concerned with the formation of professional identity in young graduates.

The article proposes a new model for the formation of professional identity; and is the first study that deals with the French Apprenti manager programme.