“Agency theory has been one of the most important theoretical paradigms in accounting during the last 25 years” (Lambert, 2006, p. 260). Lambert writes that agency theory in the accounting profession focuses on the client-business relationship, specifically how incentives affect information, accounting, and compensation designs and structures. The present work examines “agency” in the accounting profession from a different perspective—as a psychological concept relating to accountants' perceptions of their own control over one's mind, body, and immediate environment, known as “Sense of Agency” (SoA) (Synofzik et al., 2013; Tapal et al., 2017). This concept is further divided into the sub-constructs of sense of positive agency (SoPA) and sense of negative agency (SoNA) with sense of positive agency referring to a sense that respondents believe they can successfully enact desired outcomes and sense of negative agency being they believe they cannot. An online survey administration organization was used to collect data from 90 professionally active accountants living throughout the United States on the variables of gender, generation (age), and Certified Public Accountant (CPA) certification. In addition to collecting responses on Sense of Agency (SoA), the Big Five personality concept of Agreeableness was also included because of its documented connection (Alderotti et al., 2023; Donald et al., 2017; Jejeebhoy et al., 2010). Descriptive statistics and factor analysis were used to examine the relationship between SoPA and SoNA and the variables of gender, generation, CPA certification, and agreeableness. Results indicated partial support of the proposed hypotheses, most specifically a relationship between SoA, both positive (SoPA) and negative (SoNA), of accountants and generation (age). The results of this research add to the body of knowledge and can be compared to initial studies on Sense of Agency in Israel (Tapal et al., 2017 (open full item for complete abstract)

This dissertation illuminates how the experience of growing up during the Chilean dictatorship (1973–1990) affected the individual's sense of self as citizen and the impact on their sense of democratic agency, civic-mindedness, and political engagement in their country's current democracy. To understand that impact, the researcher chose to study her own generation, the “Pinochet-era” generation (Cummings, 2015) and interviewed those who were part of the Chilean middle class, who despite not being explicit victims of perpetrators, were raised in dictatorship and surrounded by abuse of state power including repression, disappearance, and imprisonment. The theoretical frame of the Socio-Political Development Theory (Watt, Williams, & Jagers, 2003) helped to understand the process that participants went through and how they moved from an A-Critical Stage, with a complete absence of awareness and understanding about what was happening in their world at the time of the coup d'Etat, to a stage of critical consciousness surrounded by empathy for those who were suffering human rights violations which were the main drivers to latter participate in a liberation process. This development of a critical consciousness was influenced—among others—by specific family and social context which promoted transgenerational (Uwineza & Brackelaire, 2014) and intergenerational dialogue (Reyes, Cornejo, Cruz, Carrillo, & Caviedes, 2015) processes, where values, heritage, and ways of acting were transmitted. The narrative approach helped to elicit stories about participants' life events from the coup d'Etat to present. Through the exploration of 15 narrative interviews it was also possible to collect participants' memories and observe how they currently manifest their civic commitment and social responsibility. Their collective memory, influenced by a collective grief (Metraux, 2005b), still lingers over 40 years later and helps us to understand their life-long commitment and passion to fight (open full item for complete abstract)

More and more, non profit health and human service organizations are turning to collaboration to address community problems. Challenging economic times are reducing and restricting funding requiring non profits to look for new creative solutions in contrast to restricting themselves to business as usual. Building sustained collaborations provides one solution while reducing overhead costs, eliminating service duplication, and building effective networks. This paper integrates three research studies: a conceptual study; a qualitative study; and a quantitative study. Each study examines elements that can sustain collaboration. The qualitative data suggests that enduring collaborations are characterized, on the one hand, by employee behaviors typically considered aberrant – including rule breaking and rule making – and on the other, “appreciative” participant behaviors. Findings imply non profit governance and leadership can purposefully foster environments in which collaboration ownership can be reproduced. The quantitative study examines the relationship between the sense of ownership felt by non profit partners and their intent to sustain collaboration. We posit that rule breaking, rule making, and appreciative behaviors all encourage participants to develop a sense of ownership leading to collaborative sustainability. Our findings indicate that rule breaking and rule making behaviors reinforce a sense of collaboration ownership, which contributes to collaboration sustainability.

Across many approaches to media studies, little has been done to understand how the various aspects of men and women's involvement with media products coalesce. A narrow focus on gender differences perpetuates a conceptualization of people as always man or woman, determined by biological, religious, psychoanalytical, societal, and/or cultural definitions. The deficit indicates a need for comprehensive studies to explore the whats, hows and whys of men's and women's engaging with media products that were either meant for them or for the other gender. The problem of focusing on gender differences is related to the problem of how people's engaging with the media has been studied. The process of engaging with a media product is complex, with a variety of material, aka structural, and interpretive, aka agentic, factors interacting that must be studied to understand the process. Often times a single study will focus on one particular aspect of this process, assuming the nature of the others, and in these assumptions gender stereotypes can take root. The purpose of this study was to understand individuals' experiences with gendered media that was meant for theirs and the other gender. Using the dialogic interpretive/performative model of the gendering process as the framework for constructing this research, this study sought to uncover gender commonalities and differences in the gendered media engaging processes of selectings, interpretings, utilizings, and the conditions in which either manifests. A series of interviews, using Dervin's Sense-Making Methodology, were conducted with men and women to explore their experiences with these gendered media. By combining Sense-Making Methodology's Lifeline and Microelement interviewing protocols, men and women recalled four types of experiences with gendered media: media meant for men versus media meant for women; and media used only once versus media used repeatedly. Analysis focused on their selectings, inte (open full item for complete abstract)