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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” (PoP) 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 un

I slutet av 2019 utbröt covid-19 pandemin vilket ledde till en ökad mängd distansarbete för företag och dess medarbetare samtidigt som användningen av digitala kommunikationsverktyg ökade. Distansarbetet har lett till att företag och organisationer har behövt utforma nya arbetssätt och strategier för att verksamheterna skall kunna fortlöpa utan att medarbetarnas motivation blir lidande. Denna studie innehåller motivationsteorier, distansarbetets påverkan på medarbetarnas motivation samt vilka följder detta kommer att ha på den framtida arbetssituationen inom mediebranschen. Genom kvalitativa intervjuer och en surveyundersökning riktad till medarbetare inom mediebranschen har ett bredare perspektiv framkommit inom ämnet. Studiens slutsats visar på att det finns utmaningar gällande implementeringen av distansarbete och användandet av digitala kommunikationsverktyg men att det kan leda till fördelar om vissa aspekter tas hänsyn till på olika sätt. Slutligen har studien även påvisat att distansarbetet lett till en förändrad arbetssituation i form av en hybridvariant av arbete på plats och distansarbete., At the end of 2019, the covid-19 pandemic broke out, which led to an increased amount of teleworking for companies and their employees at the same time as the use of digital communication tools increased. Teleworking has led companies and organizations to design new working methods and strategies so that the operations can continue without the employees' motivation suffering. This study contains motivation theories, what impact teleworking has on employees' motivation and what consequences this will have on the future work situation in the media industry. Through qualitative interviews and a survey aimed at employees in the media industry, a broader perspective has emerged in the subject. The study's conclusion shows that there are challenges regarding the implementation of telework and the use of digital communication tools, but that it can lead to advantages in certain aspects due to different ways. Finally, the study has also shown that teleworking has led to a changed work situation in the form of a hybrid variant of on-site work and teleworking.

We perform fully kinetic simulations of flows known to produce dynamo in magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), considering scenarios with low Reynolds number and high magnetic Prandtl number, relevant for galaxy cluster scale fluctuation dynamos. We for that Landau damping on the electrons leads to a rapid decay of magnetic perturbations, impeding the dynamo. This collisionless damping process operates on spatial scales where electrons are nonmagnetized, reducing the range of scales where the magnetic field grows in high magnetic Prandtl number fluctuation dynamos. When electrons are not magnetized down to the resistive scale, the magnetic energy spectrum is expected to be limited by the scale corresponding to magnetic Landau damping or, if smaller, the electron gyroradius scale, instead of the resistive scale. In simulations we thus observe decaying magnetic fields where resistive MHD would predict a dynamo., QC 20200713

This paper draws attention to people’s pension savings and their responses to the increasing calls urging them to engage in practices of calculation about their future life as retirees. Recurring studies report that these calculation exercises have turned out to raise problems to people, provoking – at times – frustration or even indifference among pension savers. But why is that so? Why do people not engage in this kind of calculations? Prior literature suggests that mechanic calculation presupposes a set of conditions. Individual knowledge-based capacity (Lusardi and Mitchell 2007) as well as commensurate translations that enables possibilities for comparisons between different kinds of choices (Espeland and Stevens 1998; Callon & Law, 2005) are but a few conditions that are suggested to be fulfilled in order to make rational calculation feasible. There are situations, however, when calculation is called for and expected to be attended to without controversy, but still turn out as moments where rational principles of calculation do not seem to apply (Espeland and Stevens 1998). Calculating one’s pension might be argued to represent one such situation. Based on our empirical observations, the basis for rational calculation seems to be challenged when pension savers are asked to imagine an existence taking place in a future several decades ahead from the life they lead today. Hence, in order to further explore the reasons to this experienced calculative dilemma, we ask: What role does future play in practicing pension calculations? The aim of this paper is to extend our understanding of the conditions of calculation. The idea is to investigate situations in which calculation entail dilemmas of rationality. To frame the conditions of calculation, we draw on Jaspers’ idea of boundary situations (2010). A boundary situation is a moment in which a person is faced with discrepancies and contradictions that cannot easily be resolved by means of rational thinking. We s

This paper reports from a study of four pension reforms in Sweden over the last century. The paper tests the dominant idea that pension systems as well as accounting technologies are a part of the neoliberal influenced financialization of the private sphere. Although corroborating the proposition about financialization, the paper suggests that programs such as financialization is temporal because they are challenged by obligatory points of controversy. These obligatory points of controversy recur over time as issues that pension systems need to handle with decisions and calculations. The study finds that the obligatory points of controversy, however, are never solved because they interact and are in flux. In Sweden, the three controversies that are repeated are the discussion of demography, finance and ideology. These three issues forces the decisionmaker to answer such issues as “what is it to be Swedish?”, “can we afford this?” and “what is our idea of involvement between of the state/the private sector?”

This paper is concerned with the role of emotions in reading and interpreting financial accounts. Even though people’s capacity to understand accounting to a large extent has been taken as given in the accounting research field, some studies have shown that accounting information nor the ability to interpret it, seldom inhibit any universal meaning. Prior research demonstrates how accounting users tend to engage in various kinds of sense making activities, referred to as “accounting talk”, in which cognitive capacities are developed, helping people translating accounting information into local contextualized knowledge. Whereas previous studies of accounting talk have focused on how the individual’s cognitive resources are developed, this paper broadens the analytical scope to include the emotive resources for making sense of financial accounts. The paper provides a detailed close-up of how pension-savers interpret and react to financial accounts presented to them during individual pension advisory meetings. Informed by a sociological approach to emotions, the empirical results indicate that emotions play several but different roles in people’s interpretations of financial accounts, and should not necessarily be perceived as inhibiting people’s cognitive sense-making ability. In fact, the relation between rational reasoning and emotions in relation to accounts should be understood as a symbiotic interdependence.

Earlier literature has shown that accounting overcomes distances to make the things actionable. This paper aims to add to this literature by proposing that it is the account that is at stake when organizations produce distance. We mobilize ideas from the study of proxemics which holds that social interaction is dependent on the ways distance is achieved between two actors. By reporting on a study of a board designing a scorecard as well as producing and analyzing reports, this paper shows that the board is committed to achieving different distances and that the accounts are mobilized differently to accomplish a comfortable proximity. Albeit the strains of making fair representations is a recurring issue for the board, we find that the board mobilizes accounting to achieve separate, and plural distances by imagining ‘the other.’ The board recognizes that accounts are enacted by others (including themselves in the future), and this puts demands on the board to mobilize accounts in ways in which the outcome is a comfortable and plural distances. The board adds to earlier research by concluding that the work of producing, communicating and consuming reports are affected by the ways 'the other' is imagined. That is, the representational dilemma, so often highlighted in accounting, would benefit from including the presumed consumer of the report. After all, there might be someone reading and be acting on the incomplete representation.

In an organization where performance is perceived to be difficult to measure, the paper studies how the performance information producer relates to the measurement dilemma in reporting by numbers to information users at different levels of distance. The paper is a case study of measurement practices, from the perspective of the information producer, focusing on the top management level in a publicly funded theater. The qualitative research design incorporated interviews, participant observations and document analysis. The analysis draws mainly from literature in measurement and intangibles. In the study, an anxious use of numbers in reporting to distant information users illustrates how the confidence in reporting numbers regarding intangibles is related to the (dis)trust in external users’ second-order measurement practices, and the (lack of) control of users’ framing of measurement. The case reveals efforts made for controlling external users’ framing of reported numbers, implicating how accountability relations and long-distance control by numbers may work bi-directional.

In arts and culture organizations significant targets referrers to intangible value creation that is difficult to measure. Aiming to support further improvements in approaching non-measureable value creation in accounting and management accounting, this paper discusses the role of accounting in the context of a publicly funded theater. The research design comprises two case studies and a literature review. A theoretical framework for the analysis is synthesized from arts management and accounting literature on intangibles and intellectual capital. The findings imply that accounting in a theater organization is multi-facetted; the role of accounting may be explained as having two different general tasks, an internal and an external task, which both occur in a tangible and an abstract dimension. Drawing from arts management theory, the paper suggests that accounting in an art firm can be viewed as an 'aesthetic play' in which given accounts are actors that need to be given place to play in order for intangible performance to render visible.

Uppsatsen gör en genomgripande kvalitativ analys av redovisningens roll i institutionsteatern, i två fallstudier, med fokus på synliggörande av värdeskapande. Syftet är att öka förståelse för redovisningens funktion vid styrning av verksamheter med icke-finansiella mål. Ytterligare en ambition med uppsatsen är att föreslå ett förhållningssätt till icke-mätbara värden i redovisning och styrning. Inledningsvis presenteras de två analysobjekten som valts för fallstudier; Stockholms stadsteater och Västerbottensteatern. Genom samtalsintervjuer och observationer gör författaren närläsningar av analysobjekten som sedan relateras till utvald litteratur, praktiker och modeller av relevans för studien. Här förs resonemang kring de båda analysobjekten utifrån rådande teori inom redovisning, styrning och arts management. Studien antyder att redovisningens roll i teatern är mångfacetterad; den fyller en inre och en yttre funktion, i en konkret respektive abstrakt dimension. Studien indikerar också att icke-mätbara värden inte synliggörs om redovisningen endast belyses ur ett perspektiv. Avslutningsvis föreslår författaren att redovisningen har potential att kunna synliggöra institutionsteaterns substantiella värdeskapande, om alla delar av redovisningen betraktas som indikatorer för spelare i en samverkande process., The thesis attempts to recognize the role of accounting, and its ability to articulate value creation, in the public sector. The study is carried out by two case studies, in publicly funded theaters. The main aim is increased understanding of the accounting’s role in organizations where the core goals are non- financial, or even non-measureable. An additional aim is, to suggest an approach to non-measureable values in accounting and management accounting. At first, the two case studies are presented: Stockholms Stadsteater and Västerbottensteatern. The case theaters are represented in the study by an analysis of performed conversation interviews and observations. In the analysis the author considers relevant literature and theoretical models in the research areas of accounting, management accounting and arts management. The thesis implies that the role of accounting is multi-facetted. The role of accounting can be explained as two tasks, an internal and an external task, which both occur in a tangible and an abstract dimension. The two dimensions of the two tasks makes four characters of the accounting. The study upholds problems in recognizing value creation by only taking one of these characters into account. In order to articulate the value creation, the author suggests that all of the recognized characters of accounting are to be considered, as the value created only can be recognized in the in-between of these characters.

The constitutive role of accounting, proposed in social studies of accounting, complicates the understanding of the relationship between organizational realities and accounting representations of organizations. Making this conflict an empirical question, the study attends to the ontological work in practices of representing organizational Performance in a boardroom. The study draws upon an ethnographic study of management and board work in a theatre company in 2010-2015. By attending particularly to the ontological work in accounting practices of knowing company performance, the aim of the paper is to contribute to the understanding of the role of accounting in the enactment of organizational realities. Findings illuminate how board practices of monitoring and reporting on Performance produce multiple ontologies of Performance. Rather than striving for commensuration or elimination of such differences, the theatre board organizes its practices to uphold multiple, ontologically different, versions of Performance. The study contributes to recent discussions on fluidity and ontological multiplicity in accounting practices, and the paper calls for further analysis of ontological compatibility between accounting technologies and the practices in which these are used.

This paper sets out to contribute to the earlier propositions that accounting creates a distance and that accounts make it possible to manage at a distance. By moving away from distance as a problem and instead attending to how accounts are mobilized to enact distance, this study seeks to reconsider the relationship between accounting practices and distance. That is, to study the interrelation between accounting representation and action we explore practices of distancing. We report from an ethnography of board work in a theatre company, where we analyse the link between accounts and distance inside and outside of the boardroom. We find that when mobilizing accounting, actors in and around the board imagine the future consumption of accounts. Findings illustrate that distancing involves the enactment of a future self (self- distancing) as well as of the absent ‘others’. Thus, distance is an effect of the way accounts are mobilized and consumed and accounts are mobilized in particular ways to enable the enactment of particular distances. A second finding, that distancing takes place in many places simultaneously, implies that the link between accounting and distance cannot be conceptualized as singular. We suggest that the mediating function that accounting may serve between organization and action may have more to do with the ontological work in the consumption of accounts than with inherent properties of the accounts.

Based on four years of immersion with managerial and board work in a performing arts company, this paper examines the ontological work involved in translations between organizational matters and numerical representation. While the managers struggle with commensuration to make their arguments for increased funding coherent in numbers, the political representatives in turn struggle to extract ‘fundable objects’ from commensurate numbers. The study finds the process of ‘making things the same’ to enable budgeting decisions to be accompanied with a no less significant counterachievement of ‘making things different’. The study links accounting literature on commensuration to recent studies of ontology in Science and Technology Studies. It thus emphasizes the ontological achievement implicit in work with representations, contributing to our understanding of representation in accounting practice.

The study introduces the notion of accounting proxemics to analyse the relationships between accounts, action, and distance. Earlier literature has emphasized that distance is a problem in accounting, relating not least to the issues of representational distance as well as the relationship between distance and control. While earlier research has convincingly shown that accounting and distance are interlinked, the ways in which various concerns with distance are addressed in practice have received less attention. In response, this paper develops the notion of accounting proxemics to analytically approach questions about how various concerns with distance are addressed in practice.Empirically, the paper recounts a narrative of how a board approached distance as a concern in its work with the design, communication, and consumption of accounts. The paper finds that the board mobilized accounting to process three concerns with distance: the long-distance, immediacy, and constitutive problems. The paper details the ways in which the board continuously ‘made up’ multiple users to simulate the ways in which the accounts may invoke possible problems of the long-distance, immediacy, or constitutive aspects of accounting representation. In effect, the design of reports is influenced by how ‘the other reader’ is imagined. This imagined ‘other’ reader is a central character who is invited into the discussion of how to achieve a comfortable distance, i.e., a distance that offers the possibility of (in)action.

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” (PoP) 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 un