Fahrenheit 451 Ignorance

Rational ignorance is very similar to apathy, and by reading, we can rid ourselves of the urge to Just not care. Ray Bradburys Fahrenheit 451 attempts to warn readers of the price that comes with rational ignorance by creating an example society much like our own. This society has given up all intellectual thought and sharing of ideas. By â€Å"paying the price† characters like Mildred give up the human experience and become void due to lack of independent thoughts. Characters like Clarisse pay a much higher toll: life and dignity.Characters like Guy Montag and Granger pay the price by being surrounded with nothings but Mildreds. In F451 , society believes that limiting education and sharing of ideas actually enhances life by excluding bad thoughts. In Ray Bradburys dystopian future, every character pays the price for ignorance. Most characters, though, willingly and unknowingly do so. In the novel, life is not valued the way it should be; living is not meaningful anymore. In the very beginning of the book, Mildred tries to kill herself for, what seems like, no reason. This happens so often that technicians are sent to speedily fix he problem rather than doctors.After the technicians do their duty to Mildred, her parlor â€Å"uncle† states mvyell, after all, this is the age of disposable tissue. Blow your nose on a person, wad them, flush them away, reach for another, blow, wad, flush† (17). Even after the ordeal, Mildred is not upset that she failed in taking her own life, as if indifferent to the subject. For her, life is no different than death. Mildred's â€Å"uncle† is correct in comparing a modern day person to a tissue. People have worth based on their thoughts, actions, and relations with people. If one has no houghts, real actions, or connections, their life cannot be worth very much.Mildred has as many independent thoughts as a tissue and values her life precisely for how much it is worth. In the same sense, one cannot value another's life if they cannot value their own. When Guy confronts Mildred about where Clarisse McClellan has been, Mildred nonchalantly says she died, as if it did not matter. Mildred shows that Clarisse's death means nothing to her when her reasoning for net telling Montag sooner was I forgot all about it† (47). Mildred says that she wants to forget sad things, but it does ot seem like this event makes her very sad at all. Mildred's fickle mind cannot assess a tragedy.It was not a surprise that Mildred did not pay heed to her death, but that she died with nothing to show for her life. The multitude of suicides, mentioned earlier, are no tragedies considering the quality of the life being taken. Clarisse's death was unfortunate because she lived. To Clarisse, there was a large difference between life and death because she, unlike her peers, experienced life. Comparable to Clarrise's death, the death of the random citizen (who seems to enjoy life too; he as on a stroll at nigh t) killed in place of Montag (149) suffered a similar fate of no dignity after death.Intellectuals like Montag, Granger, and all ot the travellers who memorize books pay by being surrounded by an endless amount of Mildreds. After introducing himself and showing Montag the end of the manhunt, Granger explains, When we were separate individuals, all we had was rage. I struck a fireman when he came to burn my library years ago. IVe been running ever since† (150). Granger bridges his own experiences to Montags to illustrate Montags future. Granger is far too wise to be bitter about his situation.When intellectuals have no choice but to either suffer amongst the ignorant or outcast themselves, they are the ones who pay the most. Ignorance is most certainly not a satisfying path, but neither is a life of suffering. Not one character in Bradburys controversial novel escapes the price of ignorance. However, the payment methods differ from character to character. â€Å"Ignorance is vo id† should become a popular saying for in the midst of ignorance, one either becomes empty or outcast. Either way, no one wins. Ridding the world of complex, â€Å"painful† thoughts does not lessen pain, it lessens emotion and human experience.

Panera SWOT Essay

A SWOT Analysis is a â€Å"situational in which internal strengths and weaknesses of an organization, and external opportunities and threats faced by it are closely examined† to provide an adequate strategy (http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/SWOT-analysis.html). Panera Bread Company has become one of the leading companies in the quick casual restaurant market. Strengths The Strengths that Panera Bread Company has are the following: a strong presence in its niche segment, a strong relationship with their franchisees, they focus on having a specialty bread and robust financial performance. In 2008, the company operated in 1,252 bakery-cafes in 38 American States and Canada. Panera Bread Company’s success relies on the strategy of quick service and high quality food. According to Wall Street Journal, Panera scored the highest with customer loyalty in their market niche. In 2007, Sandleman & Associates Quick-Track â€Å"Awards of Excellence,† put Panera Bread Company as one of the top chain restaurants for the sixth consecutive year. They have a very strong brand image, which also contributes to their success. Panera Bread Company has a strong relationship with their franchisees. It expects to operate 256 additional franchisees or area developers from their 725 franchise-operated bakery-cafes. Panera primarily operates through franchise agreements throughout the United States and this positive relationship that headquarters has with these companies has led to their success. This aids the growth of the company. The company has a high focus on being a specialty bread store. Panera Bread Company produces Artisan breads. Artisan bread utilizes natural ingredients with skilled attention, which differentiates the company from commercial competition. This helps the company become secure in its segment of the market. Panera Bread Company has had robust financial performance. Its revenues increased by 21.8% from 2007 to 2008. The companies net profit increased by 17.4% from 2007 to 2008. This continued growth provides the company with a positive future. The company also purchased 51% of the outstanding stock of Paradise. Weaknesses Panera Bread Company has highly concentrated geographic operations, meaning the company is confined to operating in North America. This is a problem because if a change in state taxes could bring a risk to the market concentration. It also loses the opportunities that their competitors will have to establish themselves in foreign markets. The company does not operate in the Asia-Pacific region or Europe-Africa, which could be potential areas they could benefit from. Another weakness that Panera Bread Company has is its lack of scale. When compared to its competitors, Panera Bread Company has a lot smaller revenues. Companies such as Starbucks or McDonalds dwarf this company, in yearly revenues. Panera needs to expand to other regions to become a worldwide competitor. Opportunities The three opportunities that Panera Bread Company has are the following: controlling of operating cost, expansion to grow top line and growth demand for organic products. Panera decided to focus its menu primarily with breakfast and lunch. This is why the company removed the Crispani from its product line. The pizza like pastry was intended to attract a late afternoon to early evening consumer, but had little growth. The little growth was believed to be caused by the recession, which made the company have to focus its menu to two meals a day. The expansion of the company has created more geographic presence for top line growth. Panera Bread Company opened its first company in Toronto, Ontario in 2008. In that same year, the company opened 91 new bakeries. This will help give the company a better presence, but another region for expansion would be Europe and Asia. The growing demand for organic products is a huge opportunity for the company. The already natural ingredients in its Arti san bread make this an easy transition for the company. According to article created by Datamonitor titled â€Å"Organic Food in the United States,† the company had a compound annual growth rate of 17.9%. This opportunity would reflect positively on product sales for the company. Threats Panera Bread Company has four major threats to its success. The first threat to the company’s success is the highly competitive restaurant industry. The company has to compete in three different industries. Panera competes in the specialty food, quick service and casual dining retailers. It major  competition is Starbucks, McDonald’s, Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, Potbelly Sandwich Works and Yum! Brands. This competition could impact Panera Bread Company’s market share. The second threat to Panera Bread Company would be a disruption in the company’s supply. The company provides fresh dough to each location by temperature controlled vehicles. If there happens to be poor weather conditions, labor difficulties, technical issues or damage to any vehicles in the fleet, then the company could have shortage problem. Depending on how long there is a problem in the fleet; Panera Bread Company would see a decline in sales from those locations affected. The increasing popularity of vegetarian food is the third threat. â€Å"At an average growth of 9% per year, this market is projected to reach $1,700 million by 2010† ( http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=44704860&site=bsi-live). The increase of a preference of healthy, natural, and fat free food has created a very successful market. If Panera Bread Company does not adhere to this trend in the market, then they could be left behind by its competitors. The increase in the minimum wage is the fourth threat to Panera Bread Company. The steady increase in minimum wage has increased labor costs, which have impacted the company’s profit. Hopefully, the minimum wage remains at $7.25 because this is affecting overall administrative costs for the company.

A cleaner and greener place Essay

We all should make our the home,your city, your nation a cleaner and greener place because we can live in a peace, happy, beautiful, clean, free from pollution, wonderful from surrounding. Now a days people generally use vehicles to go to little distance so, we should all stop this. Some slogans that we should follow are listed below: 1-One tree can make a million matches. One match can destroy a million trees. 2-Hug a tree, they have less issues than people 3-Less pollution is the best solution 4-Cut a Tree, Cut a Tree and there’ll be no more left to see. 5-Lets go green to get our globe clean 6-Pollution aint cool, so don’t be a fool! 7-Protect our earth today for our children’s tomorrow 8-Go Green, help clean 9-Once all the rainforests are cut down, once all the rivers have dried up, and once all the resources are diminished, we will finally realize we can’t eat money. 9-Over Population leads to Over exploitation 10-Plant your seeds now, reap your rewards later  greener: don’t waste papers as these come from cutting trees. plant at least a tree per month and tel every one to plant trees at least one per year. don’t use vehicles too often as it pollutes the air. recycle papers instead of cutting down trees. Cleaner: tel everyone in your society to clean infront of their house, so in this way we can clean the whole street! also dont use vehicles as it pollutes the air. dont smoke- it pollutes the air. 1. when you eat fruits bury the unwanted seed or flesh inside the soil†¦ if it is a seed it may grow or if it is flesh it works as a wonderful manure and helps the plant to grow well 2. Please take chances, please do not think that it is the cleaner’s duty to clean the roads and stuff†¦ whenever you see some unwanted in the road you can also dispose it, you also have the same hands that the cleaner’s have.

International Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

International Management - Essay Example As much as they try to deal with one culture in another country, they still experience others as they venture into other markets in search for cheap labor and raw materials. There are different moral standards within the countries, which brings challenges to the operation of multinational companies. Because of this, successful multinational companies require to solve these ethical issues to maintain their stability towards realizing the organizational goals. Ethical Issues Traditional Small-Scale and Large Scale Bribery Most of the developing countries lack strict laws to minimize bribery of the public officials. This is a contradictory to the practices by the developed countries where bribery is offense and punishable by law. In the developing countries, multinational companies experience ethical issues as they are forced to bribe foreign officers in exchange of the violation of the official duties. Foreign officers need bribes to offer services which they are meant to perform. This also implies in a case when the multinational companies fails to comply with certain provision and are forced to give bribery as a justification or failure. Similarly, multinational companies have to give hefty bribes in order to influence the making of policies or in case of a violation (MacDaniel, Hair & Lamb & 2007, 72). The issues of bribery are very rampant in the developing countries unlike in the developed countries where most of the multinational companies base. Because of this, theses corporations are operating in a dilemmas which they need to find a solution. Pricing Developing countries are characterized by unfair pricing and questionable invoicing where the buyer request for invoice showing a different price from the actual price of the product or service delivered. The regimes fix the corporation prices in order to face off local competition. The companies also dump their prices to below their mother countries and engage in the business practices, which are illegal in their home countries but are legal in their host country (Rendtorff, 2009, 436). These practices in pricing raise the ethical issues in which the multinationals companies operates in the host countries. As much as they want to remain relevant and capture the market share, they are forced to indulge in unethical activities to remain relevant to the laws and regulation governing business activities in the host country. Any corporation that wants to remain successful has to find a way of dealing with these ethical issues without being victim to the host nation by not complying with the law. However much it may pose a challenge more so when operating in a new business environment, the multinational companies have to strive, and do their best in managing their corporations to enable them meet their goals. Legal Issues Multinational companies face legal issues in their host countries different from their mother countries. Different countries operate under certain laws and vary depending w ith the framework in which the government requires them to operate. The legal challenges may come with undefined way of doing things that cause the company to close its operations or continue operating under inflexible and strict laws minimizing its full potential. In many cases, Legal issues affect the company in terms of penetrating the inner market and its relation with its stakeholders. Legal issues are binding and meant to influence the organization towards a certain direction.

Information Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Information - Essay Example Another aspect of the black female writers’ problem is gender. As reiterated in yellow wallpaper, The American society in the context of the black community placed much pressure on women due to their gender and this considerably resulted to people overlooking their potential and even seriousness in their works as explained by the black literary scholars. The finally part of their hurdle is the idea of color. It is evident that most of the black-American female writers’ works was not particularly representative of the blacks. They were considered mere fiction without real life connection as they seemed to focus on the middle class and elite readers. The central theme of women oppression comes out in the yellow wallpaper as John seems to define everything that the narrator must do. Even when the narrator is sick, John is portrayed as a patriarch who is self-centered and takes little consideration of the narrator’s feeling due to her gender. The literary work on the yellow wallpaper is a reflection of the gender-based discrimination that women suffer every day in their efforts to disobey odds and express their ideas. Chapter five is a confirmatory test of the continued socio-economic challenges female artists, poets and novelists have to overcome. This can be supported by Alice Walker and Maya Angelou’s experiences with fictional writing in the female fraternity. Their assertions on the obstacles that continue to haunt women is clearly resonated by the narrator in the yellow

Lloyds Banking Group Integration Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Lloyds Banking Group Integration - Essay Example One of the outcomes of the Housing Bubble Bust and the concomitant recession was the recognition of a pressing need for industry self-regulation bolstered by commensurate statutory and institutional reforms (Global Finance 2009). Especially, the financial markets in Europe today are governed by a general agreement and consensus as to the inevitability of internal and external monitoring of the banks and financial institutions (Global Finance 2009). The banks in Europe are increasingly under the state and stakeholder driven pressure to affect structural and remuneration reforms that positively discourage and restrain extreme risk taking and promote productivity and efficiency. Lloyds Banking Group, which performed miserably during the subprime mortgage debacle, is no way different from any other bank, as far as the requirement for restructuring and going lean is concerned (Fleming and West 2010). This essay intends to analyze as to varied organizational structures that the Lloyds Bank ing Group could resort to and the accompanying managerial, cultural and performance related aspects associated with the proposed options. Lloyds Banking Group It goes without saying that Lloyds Banking Group is indeed a prominent and important British Financial Institution. Lloyds Banking Group came into existence, after Lloyds TSB acquired HBOS in 2009. The British Government commands near to a 41 percent stake in the organization’s shareholding. Lloyds Banking Group comprises of four business divisions that are Retail Banking, Wealth & International, Wholesale and Insurance (Lloyds Banking Group 2010). The bank has business interests and operations scattered around a significant part of the world, including Asia, Middle East, US and Europe (Lloyds Banking Group 2010). Until now, to sell, promote and manage its highly diversified range of financial services and products, the group has predominantly relied on a divisional model, which is primarily a vertical structure, with i ts advantages and the accompanying bureaucratic arrangements, organizational hassles and inflexibility. Lloyd Banking Group’s behemoth size is what worries the regulatory bodies, organizational management and the common and institutional investors (The Economist 2010). Even as per some of the conservative estimates, Lloyds Banking Group has a hold over say 1/5th to 1/4th of the overall UK market for mortgages, small business loans, personal loans, retail accounts and credit cards (The Economist 2010). Added to this, when one takes into consideration the Groups constrained borrowing options, Lloyd Banking Group qualifies to be called a task, which is still far from being over (The Economist 2010). No wonder, the Group is definitely in the need of a desperate restructuring job that boosts its organizational efficiency and profitability, thereby enabling it to assure sustenance with its limited deposits and dried up borrowing sources. Need of Adopting the Right Structure It goes without saying that organizations and especially the financial institutions like banks are not static entities, but organic structures that imbibe sustenance, support and nourishment from the external micro and macroeconomic environment and do react and respond to external and internal changes and stimuli (Earley 1997). It is this very ability of a financial institution to be sensitive to the economic and regulatory changes that ensure its success and viability in the long run. The busting of the

Work issues Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Work issues - Assignment Example Due to the shortage, nurses have to extend their working hours under hectic, demanding, and traumatic situations. This elevates their chances of experiencing fatigue, are more likely to be harmed as a result of loss of concentration caused by tiredness, and are also likely to appear more de-motivated in their work. Long working hours also increasing the chance of medical errors (Maville and Huerta, 2012). According to Maville and Huerta (2012), "Lack of necessary manpower to provide this care will result to work-related stress; poor health practices such as skipping meals, overeating, or excessive drinking off alcohol; working long hours; and possibly physical and mental exhaustion or profession dropout" (p. 441). It is also worth noting that the quality of health care as well as delivery is affected by nursing shortages. Less motivated nurses as a result of being overworked are more likely to deliver low quality services. Delivery of services is affected as patients have to wait for long hours queuing in health institutions as a result of inadequate nurse to patient ratio (Maville and Huerta, 2012). In conclusion, inadequate number of nurses attending to the high number of patients in many health institutions can have health consequences on the part of nurse due to long working hours, low levels of concentration on their work, low levels of motivation, and also patient spend a lot of time

The importance of volunteering in my community to make it a batter Essay

The importance of volunteering in my community to make it a batter place - Essay Example A volunteer helped him to the home. I immediately called for an ambulance and in no time, dad was taken to the hospital. It was all happening before my eyes, and the remembrance of that feel haunts me till this day. My father, who was both a parent and a spiritual guide to me, was struggling breath by breath for life. Any moment, anything could happen. Nonetheless, this saddest experience of my life taught me the importance of volunteering. In the few days I spent at the hospital to nurse my father as he was recovering, I used to see volunteers offering help to the needy and counseling them to raise their self esteem. I was totally impressed. After all, it was a volunteer that helped my father reach home when he was in trouble! That day, I took an oath to volunteer any way by which I could benefit my community. Few activities that I have made my habit and part of everyday routine in an attempt to benefit my community and making the environment better for them is picking up garbage fr om the streets and throwing it in dustbins, buying seeds and growing plants as many as I can, and providing people with due help in the way the need. I truly believe that volunteering is something much more sacred and noble than our possessions.

Personal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 6

Personal - Essay Example I would be able to realize my potential as a businessman and live life to the fullest. All because my grandfather ensured that the future generations of his family would have the chance that he never had in life. So after the properties were sold and I got my share of the inheritance, I felt so rich. I know I only received $25 thousand but to me, that meant I was in the league of Donald Trump. Unfortunately, with the money that I inherited, I decided to live like Donald Trump did also. What a big mistake that was. The first thing I did was to resign from my job and enter into a silent partnership in a business with my best friend. He assured me that the business would have a 100% return on investment in a years time. I also put a down payment on a house in one of the upper middle class neighborhoods in our area and bought my dream car. It was second hand, but it was still my dream car. My parents and other relatives kept on reminding me to set some money aside for investments and liquidity and i kept telling them not to worry, I was in control of the situation. I was not going to lose the money I had. I was too shrewd and careful to do that. I had business advice coming in from my friends and they all had various investments that I could go into quite safely. Being my friends, I did not think twice about entrusting my money to them. All was well for a period of time. I was living the high life and getting dividends from my stock investments and loans that I gave to my friends. The business seemed to be doing well also. I will admit, I did not know anything about business. All I knew was that I was promised money in exchange for letting my friends handle my finances. I know realize what a big mistake that was. The Wall Street crash of 2008 happened in the blink of an eye. Just like everyone else in the world, my finances were severely affected. Suddenly, my friends who invested my finances were

Influence of bullying on society Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Influence of bullying on society - Essay Example Human beings develop or grow by observing the surroundings and so they are called as social animals. Bullying is not what which is imbibed by birth, the situations and people around them make children harass whoever comes in contact with them. Children at young age don't have that much understanding to differentiate between genders or elderly people, teachers, family members and friends are the easiest scapegoats. The beginning of bullying may start from people surrounding the child start interfering in their matter and trying to alter their thoughts and at the same time molding them in a way what their parent or guardians need their wards to grow. This noble effort may be a good weapon to blend their children into a multi-talent adolescent, but it may have serious consequences if the child is already preoccupied by thoughts of his own. At this time if someone tries to interfere with their thoughts and intentions, emotions that may burst paving a way of bullying whoever tries to bother them. Children at tender age can't differentiate between teaching and strict discipline. Their lies a very thin line between teaching and discipline. If the child experiences this he/she may get disturbed and may get averse to the situations and will react unruly. The g... One of the reasons for children and adolescents is suspected weakness in themselves or in others. They try to cover up their weaknesses by aggressive behavior and showing the power personally. If a student is found weak mentally or in aspect of human or common intelligence then the surrounding adolescents whoever are aggressive in nature start bullying. This can be a stepping-stone to the child or adolescent to start bullying their immediate or fellow students and their teachers. Children bullying at tender age may just tease their fellow student, neighbors and teachers but when they grow up with such mentality, bullying altogether take a different meaning and as it expands, date violence, sexually harassing girls. The very beginning of bullying at tender age should be checked and corrected so that it may not continue up to adult hood. Not checking and correcting at tender age is also a specific reason for adolescents and adults bullying, once children and adolescents taste the sarcastic magic of bullying, it entices and tempts them to whip out their natural behavior by replacing aggressive and power full behavior in to their character. The combination of power and aggression makes them fell supreme. Generally adolescents look to their peers for help all times. If their peers are noble enough then such behavior made declaim in adolescents. But if they are not, then adolescents become most notorious and when they continue to grow which such behavior up to adult hood then bullying will be key component of sexually harassment, gang attacks, date violence critical assault, marital violence, child abuse, work place harassment and elder abuse, another

1.3&1.4 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

1.3
.4 - Essay Example In as much as every medical personnel has some insight on these effects, different professionals have varying levels of competence (understanding) in each field as a result of various specializations. This network of assistance is evidenced, for instance, when an occupational therapist decides that it is essential for the patient to communicate over the phone with their child, say in Melbourne. This is however difficult because the stroke suffered by the client has left them with a wanting arm’s motions range and scapulohumeral rhythm. In this case, a speech therapist is needed to ascertain whether the patient is able to use the mouth muscles in talking with the child while a physiotherapist ensures the patient utilize the arms and shoulders well by putting them through certain exercise regimes such as the range of motion exercises. In the example above, the consenting patient gets the best health care provision and therapy from the sound collaboration of these three medical professionals. Effective communication strategies between the three fields of healthcare ensure that all the relevant data and outcomes concerning the client are shared. This results in the best possible delivery of health care. Different health care workers have various beneficial views on healthcare that may stand in good stead for a particular client condition. Collaborative approach to healthcare instills confidence in the family of the patient and ensures that the families do not see the need to unnecessarily shift the patient from one doctor to another of different view or from one hospital to the next. There is thus continuity and progress in provision of care. The central theme of communication amongst medical workers became evident during the handover, in the movie, between the two nurses. In the first case between the two nurses, the

Third King Jigme Dorji Wangchcuk Essay Example for Free

Third King Jigme Dorji Wangchcuk Essay The third druk gyalpo was born on may 2,1928 at thruepang palace near the trongsa dzong. in his early education included study of hindi,English languages and the Buddhist literature. he started the training at his father’s royal court early learning through the instruction from his father and court officials, the tradition and driglam namzha. In 1943,at the age of 14, he was awarded the post trongsa droenyer the red scarf. the prince went to kalimpong and then to great britian for further studies. his father his majesty jigme wangchuck deeply thought of giving the future king a broader education. After arriving back to bumthang ,jigme dorji wangchuck was appointed paro poenlop at the age of 17. in 1952 ,he married azhi kezang chedon and princess choeying wangmo dorji Gongzim sonam tobgye dorji Gongzim ugyen dorji Sherpa penchung pala Azhi kezang choedon,gongzim palden dorji Ugyen dorji who served as he gyadrung to trongs poenlop was later promoted to gongzim when ugyen wangchuck assumed the throne. sonam tobgye dorji took the post of gongzim in the rein of 2nd king Jigme wangchuck. sonam tobgye dorji’s son palden dorji took the post after the death of his father. In 1952 the 2nd king passed away leaving the throne to jigme dorji wangchuck. Jigme dori wangchuck was by then well trained and educated by his father and was ready to take the throne. his majesty had a aim of making a organized government and to preserve Bhutan’s rich culture and tradition. His majesty assumed the position of head o state and government (the commander in chief and the ultimate court of appeal). The king after receiving the scarves of kingship from the sacred shrine of zhabdrung participated in three day ceremony in paro. Massive crowd gathered including the British official and choegyal of Sikkim. the capital was moved to thimphu and had become the permanent national capital and built his palace at kazhinag,dechencholing. Social Reforms removal of slavery and serfdom he had put in lots of effort to abolish the practice of seftdom and slavery which had been in country since he 17th century.

Representation Of Consciousness In To The Lighthouse English Literature Essay

Representation Of Consciousness In To The Lighthouse English Literature Essay This paper examines the view that consciousness is a key theme in To the Lighthouse  [1]  and is used to explore the nature of reality both as it relates to the subjective world of individuals and the objective world that society agrees on. Further, that Mr and Mrs Ramsay appear to represent the two aspects, Mr Ramsay objective and Mrs Ramsay subjective and that Lily Briscoes character is used to resolve the question of how one person can make sense of these apparently conflicting internal and external views of reality. In a sense, the end of the book when Lily has her vision could be read as her solving Mr Ramsays life work into subject and object and the nature of reality. (p.26) In many ways Woolfs style is stream of consciousness; lots of thoughts presented without clear distinctions between them or who is having them. Sometimes we see the characters through their own eyes, sometimes one character is thinking about another one, and sometimes the author appears to be making her own comment on a character without being absolutely sure of her facts about them. We see how internal struggles impact outward actions and affect the way characters perceive each other. Woolf uses her authorial voice in the way she frames and selects certain aspects of her characters that she would like us to see and not others. If a stream of consciousness technique had been used throughout however, this would not have been so obvious. As Ayers puts it: To the Lighthouse presents the consciousness of various characters in an idiom which sometimes is borrowed from the minds and voices of the characters, and at other times is cast in a narrative voice which is independent of the character(s) even while it narrates according to their thought and knowledge. This means there is still an authorial voice present  [3]   She selectively dips in and out of her characters thoughts, into the mind of another character, and back again. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦the lines separating narrator and author, and narrator and character, are, in most cases, very obscure. In some instances, therefore, it is vital to see, to feel, the various ways the author places the narrator, since the position the reader feels will often establish for him the narrators location in the setting; and this not only firmly identifies him but also clarifies his relationship to the action.  [4]   All her characters speak in the same idiom, they can not really be differentiated by the words they use. They are not thinking off the top of their heads; their thoughts are articulated in a highly formulated prose. Mr Ramsay is characterised by the omniscient narrator in terms of rational facts and outward reality: What he said was true. It was always true. He was incapable of untruth; never tampered with a fact; never altered a disagreeable word to suit the pleasure or convenience of any mortal being, least of all his own childrenà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ (p.4) Later on in the first section the same argument about whether it will be fine enough to go to the Lighthouse tomorrow is continued, but this time we are taken into the consciousness of Mr Ramsay and see that his view of reality is, after all, coloured by passion. But it is a passion for the absolute as it affects his family. He wants their internal reality to match the external world: The extraordinary irrationality of her remark, the folly of womens minds enraged himà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦and now she flew in the face of facts, made his children hope what was utterly out of the question, in effect, told lies. (p.36) More is revealed about how him, however, when we are shown Mrs Ramsays perceptions. Mrs Ramsay is depicted as the opposite of her husband, relying on her feelings and intuition to unite people  [5]  : To pursue truth with such astonishing lack of consideration for other peoples feelings, to rend the thin veils of civilization so wantonly, so brutally, was to her so horrible an outrage of human decency. (p.37) Three consciousnesses are used in this example to show that reality is not just what is out there in the physical world, but that there is also an inner reality of feeling, which cannot be separated from external pressures. In each example above, the sense of reality shifts slightly, as does the readers perception of each characters consciousness. This sense of shifts in consciousness and reality is set up from the first page: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦James Ramsay, sitting on the floor cutting out pictures from the illustrated catalogue of the Army and Navy Stores, endowed the picture of a refrigerator as his mother spoke with heavenly bliss. It was fringed with joyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦though he appeared the image of stark and uncompromising severity, with his high forehead and his fierce blue eyesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦so that his mother, watching himà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦imagined him all red and ermine on the Bench or directing a stern and momentous enterprise in some crisis of public affairs. (pp.3-4) The omniscient narrator shows us James sitting on the floor, dips into his consciousness to tell us how he is feeling, goes back out again to describe what he looks like then goes into his mothers imagination as she looks at him. Auerbach  [6]  calls this the multipersonal representation of consciousness and Nussbaum  [7]  tells us the reader isà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦constantly made aware of the richness of consciousness, and of the tremendous gap between what we are in and to ourselves, and the part of the self that enters the interpersonal world. None of the characters are shown to the reader with absolute clarity, as seen through a photographers lens, but as perceived by human consciousness; glimpses caught and revelations made. Woolf is trying to show life as it is lived. Not as a neatly packaged event with well understood motives and defined beginnings and endings, but as a series of perceptions and small moments of understanding which constantly shift over time according to the influence of those people around us. Characters are shown trying to deal with the conflict between their own internal reality, their consciousness or state of being, and the external reality, the real world with its expectations of how things are, as generated by society and the way nature is real independent of any human force on it. James thinks things that a six year old boy would not actually be thinking. Woolf takes James simple hate of his father thwarting him and uses highly stylised and metaphorical language comprised of grammatically precise sentences  [8]  to explain how he feels about his father disrupting his relationship with his mother. he hated him for the exaltation and sublimity of his gesturesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦but most of all he hated the twang and twitter of his fathers emotion which, vibrating round them, disturbed the perfect simplicity and good sense of his relations with his mother. (p.42) In this case, James consciousness is not hazy at all; it is sharp and focused, but the language used forces the reader to the conclusion that this perception is given to him by the narrator for her own purposes, to heighten the tension and create an atmosphere of instant hatred. That it does not accurately describe the words that a boy of James age would use does not necessarily mean that it is not truthful, that it does not accurately convey his feelings. That the voice of the narrator is mixed with James highlights the difficulty of reconciling an internal reality with an external codified and recognised one. This constant shifting in narrative voices also highlights the difficulties of ever knowing all of another person, which Love has presented as a problem: The difficulty with the Ramsays, in short, is this: People who seem to know one another do not truly know one another. They have a certain tense harmony and union, but even as they are united, they are discordant within themselves and with one another. Knowledge is unknowing; harmony contains disharmony  [9]   But much of what Woolf seems to be saying with her characters is that they do not actually know themselves fully. Just as there is no one reality, no meaning of life, there is no one unwavering internal core of self knowledge and belief; it is constantly changing with external influences. Even when Lily Briscoe has her vision it is acknowledged as fleeting, as a small part of life: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦she looked at her canvas; it was blurred. With a sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a second, she drew a line there, in the centre. It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision. (p.242) Lily could be read as a combination of both Mr and Mrs Ramsay as she wants to get beyond her inner reality, typified by Mrs Ramsay and represent it through her art, in an outward way. This is what Mr Ramsay does, although he uses words rather than art and does not have to struggle in the same way that Lily does to give herself permission to paint. His internal struggle is more of the nature of knowing he is not quite the Great Man he would like to be, but he does know that it is his right to be one, whereas Lily feels that the mere act of painting and expecting to be taken seriously as an artist is something she has to fight for, she is aware of her own inadequacy, her insignificance. (p.22) Ayers sees To the Lighthouse as having a pessimistic conclusion because Lilys painting is destined to be confined to a future attic  [10]  but it could also be interpreted as being positive on the individual scale as Lily does have her vision; she comes to an understanding of life and her place in it that does not depend on being shown in an art gallery of the (male) establishment. So there is more than a [tentative suggestion of] the importance of art in transfiguring the moment  [11]  because that transfiguration takes place on an individual basis. Lily has achieved her own personal unity in the face of opposing, controlling forces and expectations such as Mr Ramsays greatness and his demands for sympathy, George Tansleys remembered women cant paint, cant write (p.184) and Mrs Ramsays reverence for men and her role as the familys emotional centre. In that moment she reconciled the internal and external, the subjective and objective. Woolf it seems is saying that it is only on this fleeting moment-to-moment basis that life can be understood but that these moments build on top of each other to provide fresh versions of reality, which can in turn be renegotiated and perceived.

Law of equity emerged

Law of equity emerged The law of equity emerged to mitigate the severity of the rules of common law . Instead of simply replacing or adding to the common law, equity grew up as a separate branch of jurisprudence, leading to a system of common law dualism The reasons for the creation of equity firstly, and secondly its distinction from the common law go back to the thirteenth century. Briefly, the law of equity developed due to the inflexibility of the common law . Claimants would only have a successful claim if the claim could be matched with an existing writ. Thus petitions for remedies were made to the King, which were in time delegated to the Chancellor, which in time was taken over by the Chancery, which was seen as separate to the common law courts. Equity thus became a kind of supplementary jurisprudence which was intended to fill up the gaps in common law Equity and common law worked separately, administered by different courts until the Judicature Act fused the different courts of equity and the common law, so that a claimant could go to a court and and have both equity and common law available to him, instead of having the two separate courts. However despite being merged in administration, the two streams of jurisdictiondid not mingle their waters , meaning that the rules and principles from equity and common law still exist separately as they did before, but are now applied by, and are available to all courts. If ever a dispute between law and equity arose, the rules of equity shall prevail , this rule is to ensure that equity actually has an application when its used to supplement the common law. Ashburners quote is proven by the trust, in which English law still draws a fundamental distinction between legal and equitable rights The trust refers to the duty or aggregate accumulation of obligations that rest upon a person described as trustee . The trustee is bound to hold the land on behalf of a beneficiary, and thus under the common law the land belongs to the trustee, equity would hold that it belongs to the beneficiary. Equity supplements but does not contradict the common law according to Lord Templeman. This issue is a source of lucrative debate, with most agreeing with Lord Templeman, but some argue that equity is contradictory in nature, Worthington suggests that because equity was applied where common law was inadequate, it follows that equitys rule would have to be different than those of the common law, which would naturally lead to conflict and contradiction . Following the Judicature Acts the debate over the nature of equity became more important, with both systems being at a judges disposal they could be conflicting than ever. Using the trust as an example, the classic point thought to be a contradiction between common law and equity is where A (trustee) is the owner in law, and B (beneficiary) is the owner in equiry. Hohfeld is one academic who believes that equity is contradictory. The example used by him is firstly to imagine what the state of things were like without equity. B would ask A told hold the land on his (Bs) behalf, however A, under common law has no obligation to do anything, A is now owner of the land and can do with it as he pleases. Similarly B has no rights over the land, he does not even have a right to be on the land. Hohfeld then goes on to imagine Parliament enacting a statute that states that A, on holding the land for B is under a duty to hold the land for Bs benefit and to not do as he pleases with it. Hohfeld states that this statute conflicts, substantively, with the common law rules, and repealed them . Thus in extending this analogy to the modern trust and equity, Hohfeld hop e to show that equity and the trust are contradictory to the common law. However Hohfeld is assuming that because equity reacts differently to a trust than common law does there is a contradiction, this is a misunderstanding of what equity is trying to achieve, which is a supplement to the common law which is not necessarily a contradiction. Equity builds upon the common law to improve it. So A must own the property in common law in order that he can fulfil Bs wishes and to protect his interests in it. B being see as the owner in equity has his superior interest in the property secured. Equity and common law are working together, proving why Maitland describes the trust as the greatest and most distinctive achievementin the field of jurisprudence Maitland disagrees with the idea of having two owners of the land, He stated that if A and B were both owners, there would be civil war and utter anarchy and there would be the contradiction that Hohfeld spoke of. According to Maitland equity never said that the cestui que trust was the owner of the land, it said that the trustee was the owner of the land but with the added burden of holding the land for the beneficiarys benefit. Furthermore if there was a contradiction here Maitland points out that the Judicature Act would have abolished the trust. Hohfeld seemed to see equity as a rival system to the common law, which we ought not to do says Maitland. Equity is more of a parasitic system, it needs the common law to survive as alone it is nothing as its doctrines and rules build upon the pre-existing common law. To take Maitlands example, if equity were to be abolished, the common law would stand up fine on its own, however if the common law were abolished, there would be anarchy. Equity was not a self-sufficient system at every point it presupposed the existence of common law. Equity does not act contrary to the common law and does not go against it, it works with it to create a more just system. In conclusion Maitland is right when he says that equity is supplementary. Equity should be seen as an addition to the common law, an added extra. The rules of equity with regards to the trust do not say that the common law is wrong, instead it adds rules on, rules that only exist within equity, so the existing common law rules can stand. With the example of a trust, the common law says A is the owner, and in equity agrees with this, but adds the fact that A must hold the property on behalf of B. Without the common law the idea of a trust would disappear completely if A could not be the owner of the land at law, or else he would not be able to fulfil his duty as trustee on the beneficiarys behalf. . Without the intervention of the trust the common law alone would allow A to do anything with the land B asked him to hold, a truly unsatisfactory and unfair outcome, equity mitigates this harshness, by building on it, it does not contradict it by creating a antithetical system.

The Symbolic Use of Hunger in Literature :: essays research papers

The symbolic use of hunger in literature   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Throughout history, both men and women have struggled trying to achieve unattainable goals in the face of close-minded societies. Authors have often used this theme to develop stories of characters that face obstacles and are sometimes unable to overcome the stigma that is attached to them. This inability to rise above prejudice is many times illustrated with the metaphor of hunger. Not only do people suffer from physical hunger, but they also suffer from spiritual hunger: a need to be full of life. When this spiritual hunger is not satisfied, it can destroy a life, just as physical hunger can kill as well. Characters such as Edna Pontellier of Kate Chopin's The Awakening, Hugh Wolfe of Rebecca Harding Davis' Life in the Iron Mills, Jane Eyre of Charlotte Bronte's novel, and the woman being force fed in Djuna Barnes' How It Feels to Be Forcibly Fed all suffer from an insatiable hunger, which, in most cases, ultimately is not fulfilled. Poets such as Anna Wickham also describe the plight of humanity using hunger as a means to illustrate the feeling of deprivation. Although all of these characters come from different walks of life, they share a common struggle. Edna belongs to upper class Creole society, Hugh Wolfe is a poverty-stricken immigrant laborer, and Jane Eyre, an orphan. These characters lived during the middle to the end of the nineteenth century, in completely distinct worlds, yet all had their creativity stifled by society. Similarly, Djuna Barnes poem of the British woman who goes on a hunger strike in an attempt to get the vote and Anna Wickham's poem The Affinity describin g the angst of a deprived wife, both depict women who lived during the early twentieth century and, although different, were both suppressed in some way. Edna Pontellier was a woman who was forced to comply with the rules of Creole society, but, in being reluctant to do so, found herself in a world where she felt trapped. She saw how women were supposed to behave but did not have that behavior instilled in herself. She felt confined by her husband's expectations, and did not want to live out the typical role of wife and mother. When Robert came into her life, she began to feel that she was being 'awakened.'; She was beginning to experience life in a new light and the hunger for change began to emerge.

My Future in The Intelligence Community of the U.S. Navy Essay

Introduction As a student and a midshipman at University, my college life has been divided into two responsibilities; one, being a student majoring in Mathematics and two, a midshipman training to become an officer in the U.S. Navy. During my freshman year here in University, having these two roles put me in a very difficult situation. It was difficult, in the beginning, because I was torn between wanting to become a Mathematics teacher someday and wanting to be a part of the military. However, after three years of training and learning more about the military, it became easier for me to decide as to where I want to be; and that is, to serve in the military. The more I learn about the U.S. Navy, the more I want to become a part of it. There are many different communities in the Navy, and the community that I am hoping to become a part of is the intelligence community. Technology and Intelligence Community of the U.S. Navy Technology plays a big role in the military. One of the primary reasons technology changed and became so advanced in the military, nowadays, is because of the role that the wars played in the past and the tragic events that have occurred recently such as the attacks in 2001. Wars in the past changed the military’s technology because the military had to adapt and learn from the mistakes from the past to find better ways to protect the nation’s and everyone’s safety. For instance, during the War of 1812, the U.S. Navy used certain technological advances that made it difficult for the Royal Navy to attack. ("War of 1812:," ). â€Å"In the 200 years since the war of 1812, technological innovation has been an essential component in the ships, aircraft, sensors, and weapons that have contributed to victories by America... ...sourcing affect workforce stability. Retrieved from http://www.afcea.org/signal/articles/templates/Signal_Article_Template.asp?articleid=1440&zoneid=222 Pappas, A., & Simon, J. (June). Central intelligence agency. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol46no1/article05.html Stanovov, A. (2010, May 05). [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20100505/158882709.html War of 1812: The navy & technology. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://ourflagwasstillthere.org/why-commemorate/the-navy-a-technology.html Image/Video (2010). Navy reserve intelligence officer. (2010). [Web Video]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEW2EVFrtec (n.d.). WWII: The war that changed the world. [Web Photo]. Retrieved from http://en.rian.ru/images/15888/28/158882814.jpg

Spirit Bound Chapter Four

I DECIDED IT'D BE BEST not to mention my conversation with Adrian's mother to him. I didn't need psychic powers to sense his mixed mood as we walked back to guest housing. His father had annoyed him, but his mother's seeming acceptance had cheered him up. I didn't want to damage that by letting Adrian know she was only okay with our dating because she figured it was a temporary, fun thing. â€Å"So you're going off with Lissa?† he asked when we reached my room. â€Å"Yup, sorry. You know–girl stuff.† And by girl stuff, I meant breaking and entering. Adrian seemed a little disappointed, but I knew he didn't begrudge our friendship. He gave me a small smile and wrapped his arms around my waist, leaning down to kiss me. Our lips met, and that warmth that always surprised me spread through me. After a few sweet moments, we broke apart, but the look in his eyes said it wasn't easy for him. â€Å"See you later,† I said. He gave me one more quick kiss and then headed off to his own room. I immediately sought out Lissa, who was hanging out in her own room. She was staring intently at a silver spoon, and through our bond, I could sense her intent. She was attempting to infuse it with spirit's compulsion, so that whoever held it would cheer up. I wondered if she intended it for herself or was just randomly experimenting. I didn't probe her mind to find out. â€Å"A spoon?† I asked with amusement. She shrugged and set it down. â€Å"Hey, it's not easy to keep getting a hold of silver. I have to take what I can get.† â€Å"Well, it'd make for happy dinner parties.† She smiled and put her feet upon the ebony coffee table that sat in the middle of her little suite's living room. Each time I saw it, I couldn't help but be reminded of the glossy black furniture that had been in my own prison suite back in Russia. I had fought Dimitri with a stake made from a chair's leg of similar style. â€Å"Speaking of which†¦ how was your dinner party?† â€Å"Not as bad as I thought,† I admitted. â€Å"I never realized what an asshole Adrian's dad was, though. His mom was actually pretty cool. She didn't have a problem with us dating.† â€Å"Yeah, I've met her. She is nice†¦ though I never thought she was nice enough to be okay with scandalous dating. I don't suppose Her Royal Majesty showed up?† Lissa was joking, so my response floored her. â€Å"She did, and†¦ it wasn't awful.† â€Å"What? Did you say ‘wasn't'?† â€Å"I know, I know. It was so crazy. It was this really quick visit to see Adrian, and she acted like me being there was no big deal.† I didn't bother delving into the politics of Tatiana's views on Moroi training for battle. â€Å"Of course, who knows what would have happened if she stayed? Maybe she would have turned into her old self. I would have needed a whole set of magic silverware then–to stop me from pulling a knife on her.† Lissa groaned. â€Å"Rose, you cannot make those kinds of jokes.† I grinned. â€Å"I say the things you're too afraid to.† This made her smile in return. â€Å"It's been a long time since I've heard that,† she said softly. My trip to Russia had fractured our friendship–which had ended up showing me just how much it really meant to me. We spent the rest of the time hanging out, talking about Adrian and other gossip. I was relieved to see she'd gotten over her earlier mood about Christian, but as the day progressed, her anxiety grew about our pending mission with Mia. â€Å"It's going to be okay,† I told her when the time came. We were heading back across the Court grounds, dressed in comfortable jeans and T-shirts. It was nice to be free of school curfew, but again, being out in the bright sunlight didn't make me feel very covert. â€Å"This'll be easy.† Lissa cut me a look but said nothing. The guardians were the security force in our world, and this was their headquarters. Breaking in was going to be anything but easy. Mia looked determined when we reached her, though, and I felt encouraged by her attitude–and that she was wearing all black. True, it wouldn't do much in sunlight, but it made this all feel more legitimate. I was dying to know what had happened with Christian, and Lissa was too. Again, it was one of those topics best left unexplained. Mia did, however, explain her plan to us, and I honestly felt it had about a 65 percent chance of working. Lissa was uneasy about her role since it involved compulsion, but she was a trooper and agreed to do it. We went over everything in detail a few more times and then set out to the building that housed guardian operations. I'd been there once before, when Dimitri had taken me to see Victor in the holding cells adjacent to the guardians' HQ. I'd never spent much time in the main offices before, and as Mia had predicted, they were lightly staffed this time of the day. When we walked in, we were immediately met by a reception area like you'd find in any other administrative office. A stern guardian sat at a desk with a computer, filing cabinets and tables all around him. He probably didn't have much to do at this time of night, but he was still clearly on high alert. Beyond him was a door, and it held my attention. Mia had explained that it was a gateway to all the guardian secrets, to their records and main offices–and surveillance areas that monitored high-risk regions of the Court. Stern or not, the guy had a small smile for Mia. â€Å"Isn't it a little late for you? You aren't here for lessons, are you?† She grinned back. He must have been one of the guardians she'd grown friendly with during her time at Court. â€Å"Nah, just up with some friends and wanted to show them around.† He arched an eyebrow as he took in me and Lissa. He gave a slight nod of acknowledgment. â€Å"Princess Dragomir. Guardian Hathaway.† Apparently our reputations preceded us. It was the first time I'd been addressed by my new title. It startled me–and made me feel slightly guilty about betraying the group I'd just become a member of. â€Å"This is Don,† explained Mia. â€Å"Don, the princess has a favor to ask.† She looked meaningfully at Lissa. Lissa took a deep breath, and I felt the burnings of compulsion magic through our bond as she focused her gaze upon him. â€Å"Don,† she said firmly, â€Å"give us the keys and codes to the records archives downstairs. And then make sure the cameras in those areas are turned off.† He frowned. â€Å"Why would I–† But as her eyes continued to hold his, I could see the compulsion seize him. The lines on his face smoothed into compliance, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Plenty of people were strong enough to resist compulsion–particularly that of ordinary Moroi. Lissa's was much stronger because of spirit, though you never knew if someone might break through. â€Å"Of course,† he said, standing up. He opened a desk drawer and handed Mia a set of keys that she promptly gave to me. â€Å"The code is 4312578.† I committed it to memory, and he beckoned us through the all-powerful door. Beyond it, corridors spread in all directions. He pointed to one on our right. â€Å"Down there. Take a left at the end, go downstairs two flights, and it's the door on the right.† Mia glanced at me to make sure I understood. I nodded, and she turned back to him. â€Å"Now make sure the surveillance is off.† â€Å"Take us there,† said Lissa firmly. Don couldn't resist her command, and she and Mia followed him, leaving me on my own. This part of the plan was all on me, and I hurried down the hall. The facility might be lightly staffed, but I could still run into someone–and would have no compulsion to help me talk my way out of trouble. Don's directions were spot-on, but I still wasn't prepared when I punched in the code and entered the vault. Rows and rows of filing cabinets stretched down a huge hall. I couldn't see the end of it. Drawers were stacked five high, and the faint fluorescent lighting and eerie silence gave it all a spooky, almost haunted feel. All the guardians' information from before the digital age. God only knew how far back these records went. To medieval days in Europe? I suddenly felt daunted and wondered if I could pull this off. I walked to the first cabinet on my left, relieved to see it was labeled. AA1 it read. Below it was AA2 and so forth. Oh dear. It was going to take me several cabinets to even get out of the As. I was grateful the organization was as simple as alphabetical order, but I now understood why these cabinets went on forever. I had to go back more than three quarters of the way down the room to get to the Ts. And it wasn't until I got to the TA27 drawer that I found the file for Tarasov Prison. I gasped. The file was thick, filled with all sorts of documents. There were pages on the prison's history and its migration patterns, as well as floor plans for each of its locations. I could hardly believe it. So much information†¦ but what did I need? What would be useful? The answer came quickly: all of it. I shut the drawer and tucked the folder under my arm. Okay. Time to get out of here. I turned around and began heading for the exit at a light jog. Now that I had what I needed, the urgency of escape was pressing on me. I was almost there when I heard a soft click, and the door opened. I froze as a dhampir I didn't recognize stepped through. He froze as well, clearly astonished, and I took it as a small blessing that he didn't immediately pin me against the wall and start interrogating me. â€Å"You're Rose Hathaway,† he said. Good lord. Was there anyone who didn't know who I was? I tensed, unsure what to expect now, but spoke as though us meeting here made perfect sense. â€Å"So it would seem. Who are you?† â€Å"Mikhail Tanner,† he said, still puzzled. â€Å"What are you doing here?† â€Å"Running an errand,† I said breezily. I indicated the file. â€Å"The guardian on duty down here needed something.† â€Å"You're lying,† he said. â€Å"I'm the guardian on archive duty. If someone needed something, they would have sent me.† Oh, shit. Talk about best-laid plans failing. Yet as I stood there, a strange thought came to me. His appearance wasn't familiar at all: curly brown hair, average height, late twenties. Pretty good-looking, really. But his name†¦ something about his name†¦ â€Å"Ms. Karp,† I gasped. â€Å"You're the one†¦ you were involved with Ms. Karp.† He stiffened, blue eyes narrowing warily. â€Å"What do you know about that?† I swallowed. What I'd done–or tried to do for Dimitri–wasn't without precedent. â€Å"You loved her. You went out to kill her after she†¦ after she turned.† Ms. Karp had been a teacher of ours a few years ago. She'd been a spirit user, and as the effects of it began to drive her insane, she'd done the only thing she could to save her mind: become a Strigoi. Mikhail, her lover, had done the only thing he'd known to end that evil state: search for and kill her. It occurred to me that I was standing face-to-face with the hero of a love story nearly as dramatic as my own. â€Å"But you never found her,† I said softly. â€Å"Did you?† He took a long time in answering, his eyes weighing me heavily. I wondered what he was thinking about. Her? His own pain? Or was he analyzing me? â€Å"No,† he said finally. â€Å"I had to stop. The guardians needed me more.† He spoke in that calm, controlled way that guardians excelled at, but in his eyes, I saw grief–a grief I more than understood. I hesitated before taking a shot at the only chance I had to not get busted and end up in a jail cell. â€Å"I know†¦ I know you have every reason to drag me out of here and turn me in. You should. It's what you're supposed to do–what I'd do too. But the thing is, this†¦Ã¢â‚¬  I again nodded at the folder. â€Å"Well, I'm kind of trying to do what you did. I'm trying to save someone.† He remained quiet. He could probably guess who I meant and assumed â€Å"save† meant â€Å"kill.† If he knew who I was, he'd know who my mentor had been. Few knew about my romantic relationship with Dimitri, but me caring about him would have been a foregone conclusion. â€Å"It's futile, you know,† Mikhail said at last. This time, his voice cracked a little. â€Å"I tried†¦ I tried so hard to find her. But when they disappear†¦ when they don't want to be found†¦Ã¢â‚¬  He shook his head. â€Å"There's nothing we can do. I understand why you want to do it. Believe me, I do. But it's impossible. You'll never find him if he doesn't want you to.† I wondered how much I could tell Mikhail–how much I should. It occurred to me then that if there was anyone else in this world who understood what I was going through, it would be this man. Besides, I didn't have a lot of options here. â€Å"The thing is, I think I can find him,† I said slowly. â€Å"He's looking for me.† â€Å"What?† Mikhail's eyebrows rose. â€Å"How do you know?† â€Å"Because he, um, sends me letters about it.† That fierce warrior look immediately returned. â€Å"If you know this, if you can find him†¦ you should get backup to kill him.† I flinched at those last words and again feared what I had to say next. â€Å"Would you believe me if I said there was a way to save him?† â€Å"You mean by destroying him.† I shook my head. â€Å"No†¦ I mean really save. A way to restore him to his original state.† â€Å"No,† Mikhail said swiftly. â€Å"That's impossible.† â€Å"It might not be. I know someone who did it–who turned a Strigoi back.† Okay, that was a small lie. I didn't actually know the person, but I wasn't going to get into the string of knowing-someone-who-knew-someone†¦ â€Å"That's impossible,† Mikhail repeated. â€Å"Strigoi are dead. Undead. Same difference.† â€Å"What if there was a chance?† I said. â€Å"What if it could be done? What if Ms. Karp–if Sonya–could become Moroi again? What if you could be together again?† It'd also mean she'd be crazy again, but that was a technicality for later. It felt like an eternity before he answered, and my anxiety grew. Lissa couldn't compel forever, and I'd told Mia I would be fast. This plan would fall apart if I didn't get out soon. Yet, watching him deliberate, I could see his mask falter. After all this time, he still loved his Sonya. â€Å"If what you're saying is true–and I don't believe it–then I'm coming with you.† Whoa, no. Not in the plan. â€Å"You can't,† I said swiftly. â€Å"I've already got people in place.† Another small lie. â€Å"Adding more might ruin things. I'm not doing it alone,† I said, cutting off what I figured would be his next argument. â€Å"If you really want to help me–really want to take a chance on bringing her back–you need to let me go.† â€Å"There's no way it can be true,† he repeated. But there was doubt in his voice, and I played on it. â€Å"Can you take that chance?† More silence. I was starting to sweat now. Mikhail closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. Then he stepped aside and gestured to the door. â€Å"Go.† I nearly sagged in relief and immediately grabbed the door handle. â€Å"Thank you. Thank you so much.† â€Å"I could get in a lot of trouble for this,† he said wearily. â€Å"And I still don't believe it's possible.† â€Å"But you hope it is.† I didn't need a response from him to know I was right. I opened the door, but before going through, I paused and glanced at him. This time, he no longer hid the grief and pain in his face. â€Å"If you mean it†¦ if you want to help†¦ there might be a way you can.† Another piece of the puzzle had unraveled itself for me, another way we might pull this off. I explained what I needed from him and was surprised at how quickly he agreed. He really was like me, I realized. We both knew the idea of bringing back Strigoi was impossible†¦ and yet we so, so wanted to believe it could be done I slipped back upstairs alone after that. Don wasn't at his desk, and I wondered what Mia had done with him. I didn't wait to find out and instead headed outside, off to a small courtyard that we'd established as our rendezvous point. Mia and Lissa were both waiting there, pacing. No longer distracted with anxiety, I opened myself to the bond and felt Lissa's agitation. â€Å"Thank God,† she said when she saw me. â€Å"We thought you'd been caught.† â€Å"Well†¦ it's a long story.† One I didn't bother with. â€Å"I got what I needed. And†¦ I actually got a whole lot more. I think we can do this.† Mia gave me a look that was both wry and wistful. â€Å"I sure do wish I knew what you guys were doing.† I shook my head as the three of us walked away. â€Å"No,† I replied. â€Å"I'm not sure that you do.†

Mangement Control Systems

vigilance story look for 23 (2012) 205223 bunco gametents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect steering be look journal homepage www. elsevier. com/locate/mar toy? guring forethought hustletrol schemes Theorizing the insect bitesolidation of schema and sustainability Jean-Pascal Gond a,? , Suzana Grubnic b,1 , Christian Herzig c,2 , Jeremy Moon c,3 a b cCass logical argument celestial sphere School, City University, 106 Bunhill Row, EC1Y 8TZ London, UK Loughborough University, School of shrink fromdescension and e gipomicals, Loughborough, Leicestershire LE11 3TU, UK Nottingham University Business School, International Centre for Corporate affable Responsibility, Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road, Nottingham NG8 1BB, UK a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Although brass sections carry embraced the sustainability grandiloquence in their give-and-take and extraneous inform, myopic is cognise ab surface the cognitive litigatees whereby counselling vis ualise agreements app intercept to a deeper bustlesolidation of sustainability at quarter organisational makeup.This sensitives sneakstitution publisher addresses this cracking and mobilizes a mulct? guration nest to fiddletemplate the fictional characters and workouts of crusade authority agreements (MCSs) and sustainability work systems (SCSs) in the desegregation of sustainability at tail end organisational scheme. acquirestruction on Simons levers of guard poser, we severalize ii viable applys of a MCS and a SCSa symptomatic employ and an synergistic determinationand we specify the modes of MCSs and SCSs integrating. We rely on these 2 core dimensions to identify eight-spot organisational read? gurations that re? ect the motley go fors as nearly as their modes of integrating of SCS and MCS.We characterize these ideal- display suit of clothes con? gurations, develop their clashing on the manifold bottom broth, and attain which mechanisms render organizations to pretend from wiz con? guration to a nonher. In so doing, we utmostlight diametric paths toward sustainability consolidation or marginalization at bottom organizations. Finally, we explain how our utilization nonplus raft clog future look for on the shargon of MCS and SCSs in the integrating of sustainability at heart schema. 2012 Elsevier Ltd. on the on the whole rights reserved. Keywords way wangle systems Levers of break desegregation Sustainability account Strategic foc employ method of accounting . Introduction There is a ontogenesis consensus that . . . thithers no substitute to sustainable egress (Nidumolu et al. , 2009, p. 57). This is from a mix of pips from concern with the manipulation of humans influence in modality transpose to bargon-ass-made imperatives for achieving rivalrous advantage. Sustainability take outs organisational strategicalal surrogate (Hart, ? Corresponding auth or. E-mail addresses jean-pascal. email comforted ac. uk (J. -P. Gond), s. emailprotected ac. uk (S. Grubnic), christian. emailprotected ac. uk (C. Herzig), jeremy. emailprotected ac. uk (J. Moon). 1 Tel. +44 01509 223126 fax +44 01509 223960. 2 Tel. +44 0115 8466617 fax +44 0115 8468074. 3 Tel. +44 0115 9514781 fax +44 0115 8468074. 1044-5005/$ see motion matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http//dx. doi. org/10. 1016/j. mar. 2012. 06. 003 1995 Shrivastava, 1994) as closely as the creation of raw(a)-sprung(prenominal) collusive practises which drive, for example, the experience of carbon paper trading markets (Callon, 2009 MacKenzie, 2009) and sustainability accounting and get acrossing (Adams and Whelan, 2009 Gray, 2010). Accordingly, on that point suck emerged substitute(a) paradigms to ? ancial pro? t maximization vexd in much(prenominal) phrases as the trey bottom tune in which frugal, loving and ecologic criteria of execution argon antic ipate to be mix ind (Bansal, 2005 Elkington, 1997 Hopwood et al. , 2010). Although m distributively organizations take a shit embraced the sustainability rhetoric in their orthogonal storeying and their burster statements (Newton and Harte, 1997), these reports whitethorn serve as veils privacy activities (Deegan, 2002) whose sole purpose is the re plait of an crumble legitimacy (Banerjee, 2008 Gond et al. 2009). This sceptical take in is nurtured by a lack of athletic fi old age of the 206 J. -P. Gond et al. / trouble accounting system enquiry 23 (2012) 205223 intra-organisational preserve of sustainability (Bebbington, 2007 Milne and Grubnic, 2011), and by the s potfult assist devoted(p) to the role of commission fake systems backing sustainability deep down organizations (Durden, 2008 Herzig et al. , 2012). The accompaniment is compounded by anxieties concerning the mental object of any strategic take toward sustainability to alter organisational practices (Hopwood, 2009).However, beca enforce way train systems (MCSs) shape actors practices (Ahrens and Chapman, 2007 Hopwood, 1976), and confirm dodging (Kober et al. , 2007 Lang? eld-Smith, 1997), they after part, if utilise appropriately, push organizations in the maneuverion of sustainability. MCSs ar central to dodging-making, as they shape the serve fountainhead of scheme outcome and concord the executing of deliberate strategies (e. g. , Henri, 2006 Marginson, 2002 Mundy, 2010 Otley, 1999 Simons, 2000). Accordingly, lasting attempts to integrate sustainability inside schema, beyond international reporting, discourse and complaint statements, should be re? cted at roughly stage at bottom pro forma absorb on mechanisms (Gond and Herrbach, 2006). Although sustainability has been contended in the heed affirm belles-lettres to describe the emergence of sustainability visit systems (hereafter SCSs) such as eco reign, this stream of seek is in the mai n foc utilize on the in? uence of these systems on environmental and ? nancial death penalty (Henri and Journault, 2009, 2010). Little is known about the reputation and mode of integrating surrounded by SCSs and much than than handed-down MCSs (Durden, 2008).Yet, SCSs at a abase placesurface contri besidese to an effective desegregation of sustainability within schema entirely when they inform MCSs and ar non pulmonary tuberculosis as free strategic tools (Burgelman, 1991 Simons, 1995). Short of this, SCSs whitethorn roost peripheral and decoupled from core logical argument activities and betray to reshape schema. As a result, we whitethorn observe dickens check worlds of MCSs and SCSs. The rank of this cover is to job further the roles and uses of MCSs and SCSs in the integrating of sustainability within dodging. We seek to meditate the neglected relationships among MCSs and SCSs, as well as their co-in? ence in the work of organisational sch eme learning. Our aim is to clarify how MCSs and SCSs atomic number 18 related to, and how together, and in relation with system-making, these systems shadower encumber or relieve the emergence of sustainability at a strategic direct and lastly the desegregation of sustainability and out livestock. primaeval to our argument ar twain concepts the uses and the integration of MCSs and SCSs. Our concept of uses of MCSs is derived from Simons levers of master (LOC) manikinwork (Simons, 1991, 1994, 1995, 2000, 2006). More speci? ally, we distinguish sub callable systems utilise by executives as counsel by exclusion tools ( diagnostic) to redress actors actions, from those guarantee systems use as actual strategic levers ( synergistic) to focus actors circumspection on strike goals and sanction changes aligned with graduate(prenominal)er strategic objectives. By integration we refer to the stage of circle betwixt the two types of potency systems under study. W e shape up integration as a thick socio- skilful process (Emery and Trist, 1969) which admits adept and methodological (Schaltegger and Burritt, 2005) as well as liberal (Ahrens and Chapman, 2007 dark-brown and Duguid, 991) and cognitive (Hoffman and Bazerman, 2007) components. We search the combinings of modes of integration and diagnostic vs. synergetic uses of potency systems to attract a parsimonious derive of plausible con? gurations of SCSs and MCSs within organizations. We approach these con? gurations as ideal-types, in the Weberian sense experience of the term, that is the one-sided accentuation of one or more pull downs of pile and by the tax write-off of a great many diverse, more or slight nowadays and once in a while absent concrete unmarried phenomena (Weber, 1904, p. 90).We theorize the relationship betwixt these ideal-types and organizations cogency to b broken in up a sustainability dodge. In line with previous con? guration theory- cooking (D oty and Glick, 1994 milling machine, 1987, 1996 Mintzberg, 1983), we specify our framework by explaining which fly the coops between con? gurations suffer support a change in strategic orientation toward sustainability. Finally, we discuss how this framework tail assembly support further empiric studies on the role of glob command systems in the integration of sustainability within organisational strategy. The paper is organized as fol down in the mouths. vox 2 describes he role and uses of MCSs for strategy-making. opus 3 speci? es the problem of heed and sustainability realize systems integration. Part 4 explores the confused(a) con? gurations of approximately(prenominal) unbendable MCSs and SCSs, renders data-based illustrations for distributively con? guration, and explains how they relate to speci? c approaches to sustainability strategy. Part 5 theorizes how moves across con? gurations explain the integration of sustainability within organizational strategy. Part 6 discusses the implications of the framework for future research on the role of perplexity accountants and way mince for promoting practices on sustainability. . Management maintain systems and strategy-making 2. 1. How MCSs in? uence strategy Simons (1990) conveys the idea of perfunctory tick off systems in? uencing strategic processes within organizations. Although Hopwood (1987) pointed to the transformational electric potential drop of accounting and ways in which accounting change gives rise to preconditions for ulterior change, researchers view tended to reach correspond systems as passive and non constitutive of change. In billet, Simons (1991) conveys the idea of formal comptroller systems in? uencing strategic processes within organizations. Speci? ally, Simons (2000) highlights the role of information-based routines and procedures in two elucidating strategic uncertainties and revealing strategic assays. Accordingly, formal conquers have a role in strategic alternate in the minimization of organizational threats and in the include of opport unit of measurementies arising from competitive changings or interior(a) competencies. In more newfangled-fangled work, Simons (2006) illustrates strategic renewal by deeming different stages in a ? rms championship life-cycle and the practices of impertinently appointed managers seeking to take charge and promote agendas and strategies. J. -P. Gond et al. Management history Research 23 (2012) 205223 207 In reviewing the publications on MCSs and strategy, Lang? eld-Smith (1997) bespeaks that strategy is multidimensional in nature but that this is r argonly recognized by researchers who simply assume that all managers view their organizations strategy in the same ground. Following on, she points to problems in under-specifying strategy and implies that c atomic number 18 should be taken in research excogitate in allege to uphold the integrity of research ? ndings. In a simil ar vein, Chenhall (2003) argues that strategy constructs used in accounting studies whitethorn be outdated.As a consequence, strategy in slip of paper-based studies lack non be con? ned, for example, to typology ( persuasionor, analyzer, defender) (Miles and Snow, 1978), legation (build, hold, harvest) and competitive position ( salute proceedership and differentiation) (Porter, 1980). Further, Lang? eld-Smith (1997) observes that strategy is under continual construction or, in her basis, an ongoing incremental process. Her study paves the way for alternative, fighting(a), conceptions of strategy. The following sub-section claims Simons (1995) LOC framework and whether and how MCSs contribute to strategy-making.We focus on this framework to check out how MCSs in? uence strategy and sustainability. 2. 2. Two uses of MCSs for strategy-making Central to the Simons (1991, 1995, 2000) analysis is the characteristic between synergistic and diagnostic control systems on the pe destal of their respective contributions to the strategy-making process. While diagnostic control systems are tools that help in the consummation of organizations intended strategies, interactive control systems pass on input into the formation of strategy.That is to say, interactive control systems stimulate and guide uphill strategies in response to opportunities and/or threats within an organizations see to it environment. The purpose of interactive control systems is to direct managers tending toward strategic uncertainties and to instruction novel strategic responses to a changing environment. synergetic control whitethorn be exceptional to one system only (Simons, 1991) or, given turbulent operate environments where complex information ? ows are valued, more than one system. snarfsistent with Simons (1991) study, the present paper views formal control as preponderantly contributing to e actually strategy homework or to strategy implementation. Use of formal control is mostly for the development of emergent strategies or else for the realization of intended strategies. In terms of the former, interactive control systems involve dialogue between heyday managers and subordinates in an effort to stimulate organizational learning and the development of new strategic initiatives.The cerebrate between interactive control and strategy-making is fortify by Wideners (2007) ? nding that interactive control is used to s flock the external environment and, by implication, feed into strategic positioning. In relation to the latter, diagnostic controls are used by executives as focusing by exception tools in parade to correct actors actions and align activities toward the achievement of critical conquest factors. Focus upon two levers of control from Simons (1995) LOC framework should non be interpreted as the neglect of the other two levers. Interactive and diagnostic controls are used in assign to identify con? gurations of control systems and, in so doing, theorize on an organizations capacity to integrate sustainability into strategy. As depicted diagrammatically by Simons (1995, 2006), persuasion and terminus ad quem systems surround the use of interactive and diagnostic controls and in that locationfrom can non be considered as separate from them. Empirical support is put upd by Widener (2007) that belief systems do and then in? uence each of the other iii systems.Further, Simons (2000) alludes bi-directional relations between interactive and belief systems on the one hand and boundary and diagnostic systems on the other. The pairs are divinatoryly plausible given that interactive-belief systems serve to place organizational actors and boundary-diagnostic systems seek to constrain and date compliance with rules. On a pragmatical take aim, belief and boundary controls are subatomic amenable to systematic investigation but, neverthe little, can be used to elaborate on and interpret ? ndings. 2. 3.Identifying MCSs for strategy-making In a draft review of the approaches taken by researchers in the operationalization of the LOC framework, Mundy (2010) observes differences in choices made in the picking of MCSs. For the purpose of this study, and consistent with Mundy, a piece of land of MCSs is put forward, any one of which can be used by directors in forming or supporting strategy. 6 The natural selection of speci? c MCSs was informed by ternion criteria (i) relevance to con temporary organizations (ii) complete when considering cybernetic controls in practice and, (iii) tangible in nature.Firstly, we note, for example, the argument of Nixon and Burns (Nixon and Burns, 2005) that there is a gap between the extant focus control literature and practice as well as between the concepts in charge control literature and conceptual developments in strategic vigilance. Accordingly, controls presented in former literature (see Berry et al. (2009) for a recent review) have been adjusted to have public applicability to national and multinational organizations 4 We thank the one of our Reviewer for this observation. A similar focus on the unmistakableion between and attention upon interactive and diagnostic controls can be found in a number of industrial plant including Abernethy and Brownell (1999), Bisbe and Otley (2004), Henri (2006), and Kober et al. (2007). 6 Although our focus on actual MCSs embodying the broader supposition of lever of control whitethorn depend to arti? cially constrain the original framework proposed by Simons (1995, 2000), it is instrumental in our reasoning as it allows for identifying types of MCSs and SCSs that can be combine or used in speci? c ways, as illustrated with experiential examples in the attendant sections of this manuscript.However, the con? gurations delineated by have a variety of forms of integration and uses of systems are broad enough to support a variety of abstractive perspectives and empirical operationaliz ations. Hence, they allow us to bring back the metaphysical and empirical ? exibility of interpretation that has been lost by buy outing the restrictive approach to levers of control. We thank our arcminute Reviewer for having drawn our attention to this outstanding assumption in our analysis. 208 J. -P. Gond et al. / Management story Research 23 (2012) 205223 table 1 Management control systems used by point managers and corresponding sustainability control systems. Management control systems Strategic grooming Budgeting Description of the attention control systems Long- clutch planning lotion a ? ve-ten year period (based upon forecasts of competitive environments). A plan specifying goals to be achieved in the next year incorporates initial homework and on-going revisual sensations and updates More speci? c ? nancial information than that contained in the budget (includes information such as Re shape on Investment (RoI) and Economic Added Value (EVA)).Measurements express ed in non-? nancial terms (e. g. , introduction of new products, market positioning). Examples of sustainability control systems deriving from the accounting control systems Sustainability planning (Bonacchi and Rinaldi, 2007) environmental budgeting (Burritt and Schaltegger, 2001) Sustainability budgeting (Roth, 2008) environmental/Material ? ow follow accounting systems (Herzig et al. , 2012 Wagner and Enzler, 2006), Sustainable value added (Figge and Hahn, 2004) Environmental surgical procedure evaluation systems (Dias-Sardinha et al. (2002), Material and free ability ? w accounting systems (Herzig et al. , 2012 Wagner and Enzler, 2006) Sustainability feat metre (Schaltegger and Wagner, 2006), Sustainability balance scorecard (Figge et al. , 2002 Hubbard, 2009) Socio-eco-ef? ciency analysis (Schmidt et al. , 2004), Environmental investment appraisal (Burritt et al. , 2009) Reward system based on multidimensional action system (Dutta and Lawson, 2009) Financial measuring r od systems Non-? nancial quantity systems Hybrid measuring systems Project instruction Evaluation and reward A tag of ? nancial and non-? ancial indicators to assess the achievement of strategic objectives (e. g. , fit scorecard, tableaux-de-bord) Review of discrete blocks of organizational court-ordered action intended to ensure delivery to duration and budget (e. g. , to break pop attributes) To direct the efforts of individuals and groups within an organization (e. g. , bonus payments). operating in a competitive environment. Secondly, the abounding range of cybernetic controls as identi? ed in recent MCS research has been incorporated. The MCSs report controls presented by Malmi and Brown (2008) in their prescriptive conceptual framework of forethought controls.This framework is based on extensive literature review, spanning forty years and covering the works of Chenhall (2003), Fisher (1995, 1998), Flamholtz et al. (1985), Lang? eld-Smith (1997), Otley (1980), and Simons (1995) amongst others. Finally, the use of accounting controls (in contrast to other systems such as human resources) is for pragmatic reasons (see to a fault the works of Bisbe and Otley, 2004). By focusing on controls with form, we are able to observe more right off the relationships between MCSs and SCSs. 7 Table 1 provides an overview of the MCSs package that results from our analysis of prior studies.Formal controls, as presented in columns 1 and 2 of Table 1, comprise strategic planning budgeting ? nancial measurement systems non-? nancial measurement systems hybrid measurement systems project focus and, evaluation and reward. The inclusion of three nearly performance measurement systems corresponds with Simons (2006) shift towards performance measurement as well as remarks by Lang? eld-Smith (1997) and Widener (2007) that performance measures are essential regardless of strategy pursued. According to the management control literature, budget systems (e. g. , Abernet hy and Brownell, 1999 Bisbe and Otley, 2004 Kober et al. 2007), non? nancial measures (e. g. , Vaivio, 2004), hybrid measurement systems such as fit scorecards or tableaux-debord (e. g. , Bisbe and Otley, 2004 Henri, 2006 Marginson, 2002 Tuomela, 2005), and project management (e. g. , Bisbe and Otley, 2004 Davila, 2000) have been used interactively as well as diagnostically within organizations. The MCSs included in our package have been shown to contribute to strategy-making with deployment of interactive controls in the studies of Bruining et al. (2004), Mundy (2010), and Widener (2007). In the next section, bangs of integration in relation to SCSs, MCSs and strategy are discussed. . Sustainability and management control the integration challenge 3. 1. The emergence of sustainability control systems The MCSs exposit above were traditionally real to align organizational and behavioural structures with the economic goals of organizations and to assist in emend economic perfor mance. Despite more recent developments in hybrid and non-? nancial measurement systems and research indicating that ? nancial and non? nancial information can be considered equally serious for some(prenominal) strategy deployment and development (Bhimani and Lang? ld-Smith, 2007), these traditional MCSs are seen to be determineed in incorporating the interests of a broad range of stakeholders other than shareholders and in addressing environmental and companionable issues as well as their interrelationships with ? nancial issues (Bonacchi and Rinaldi, 2007 Burritt and Schaltegger, 2010 Durden, 2008 Herzig et al. , 2012 Norris and ODwyer, 2004). As a response to these limitations and to the prevalence of contemporary sustainability issues such as climate change, various internal sustainability accounting systems and techniques have been veritable and implemented by organizations.Column 3 of Table 1 provides an overview of some speci? c sustainability approaches to management accounting and control. They are principally derived from the large body of literature on environmental management accounting and eco-control that has burgeoned in the last two decades and, more recently, has started to capture the broader aspects 7 In deviation from Malmi and Brown (2008), the study does not explicitly include informal controls such as egest in the amicableization of organizational members finished training or the practice of association controls (Ouchi, 1977).J. -P. Gond et al. / Management Accounting Research 23 (2012) 205223 209 of sustainability (Burritt and Schaltegger, 2010 Lamberton, 2005 Thomson, 2007). 3. 2. The integration problem Within the ontogeny stream of research on SCSs, attention has often been paid to the development of individual systems and tools of environmental/sustainability management accounting and control (such as environmental budgeting, environmental/sustainability performance evaluation systems, eco-control or sustainability bal anced scorecard).In contrast, little research has investigated the interplay of these systems with perpetual management control, the improvements in conclusiveness-making created through better integration and how to outperform organizational barriers checking such integration (Durden, 2008 Gond and Herrbach, 2006).With the exception of a very few in-depth chance studies that have examined the relationships between MCSs in the mount of genially responsible managerial decision-making (Durden, 2008 Norris and ODwyer, 2004) empirical march is scarce and our arrangement of the interaction among these new forms of SCSs and their relationship with fixedness MCSs is limited. Some have thence called for more research into the involve and the speci? decision daubs of managers as well as the use of various systems and tools when making environmental or sustainability related decisions (Herzig et al. , 2012). Similarly, others have stressed that the implementation process and rela ted questions that arise from the use of management accounting tools and systems in the context of sustainability (such as integration-oriented cooperation and boundary-crossing, organizational learning) requires more attention (Bebbington, 2006 Burritt, 2004 Larrinaga-Gonzalez and Bebbington, 2001).In illume the various organizational processes whereby sustainability accounting contributes to training awareness about and facilitating communication on sustainability issues inside organizations, we aim to contribute to locomote the discipline of sustainability management accounting and providing an movement for future research. Likewise, it appears that the current evolution of the ? eld of sustainability in strategic management (Parnell, 2008) would bene? t from a broader perspective that to a fault looks at the relationships and interactions between MCSs and SCSs.As discussed in the previous section, MCSs are seen to play a critical role in in? uencing the process of strategy-m aking end-to-end the organization and thereby guiding organizational learning. Embedding stakeholders expectations and sustainability issues within the strategy then calls for a closer look at the interplay between these two kinds of systems and how organizational moves towards more sustainability can be enhanced by strategic and simultaneous mobilization of these two systems.Drawing on Milne (1996) we argue that approaching the ? eld of sustainable strategic management from this process perspective increases the judgment of the power of management accounting systems in meeting the increasing complexness of world(prenominal) problems and contributing to the sustainability strategy expression process. Our research re? ects the general lack of gain understanding of managers key arguments or contrast logic for adopting sustainability strategies (Salzmann et al. 2005). We propose that better understanding of the cogitate between the two kinds of systems and their contribution to making a good sustainability strategy could enable organizations to move away from sustainability accounting systems operated in tally to the tied(p) management control and often strengthened in response to external legal and societal pressures (Zadek, 2004) to more corporate and dynamic uses of control systems which support the development of new subscriber line opportunities. . 3. Dimensions of integration In order to clarify the processes whereby MCSs and SCSs can be incorporated, this paper conceptualizes integration as a socio- skilful process (Emery and Trist, 1969) that is, a thick interface between both types of system that encompasses organizational, cognitive, and technical dimensions. technological Integration refers to the necessity of considering single practices of sustainability control within a broader system of management control. It is de? ed here as the integration of regular MCSs with activities and systems that can be described as internal sustainability management control but are dealt with outside the management control function of organizations. Despite the display of two parallel worlds, the descriptions of MCSs and SCSs (Table 1) reveal potential for methodological integration. However, in practice, these accounting systems, actual and used for managing and reporting sustainability impacts, vary in the way they are coordinated into regular MCSs (Adams and Frost, 2008).When SCSs are run in parallel to traditional MCSs in practice, organizational decision-making is seeming not be based on the broadest possible foundation of economic, ecological and amicable data available in the organization (Burritt and Schaltegger, 2010). Therefore, technical integration involves methodological links between the two encompassing types of systems, such as the presence of a youngness calculability infrastructure to gather information for both systems.Organizational integration refers to the organizational dimensions that may or may not u nderlie MCSs and SCSs and point to actors practices in relation to both types of control systems. Rather than seeing regular and sustainability management control just as something organizations have, we argue that integrating sustainability into management control and strategy should likewise be approached as something pack do, in line with recent calls for a practice perspective in management control and strategy (Ahrens and Chapman, 2007 Heidmann et al. 2008 Johnson et al. , 2007 Whittington, 1996, 2007). By de? ning actors roles and organizations formal structure in ways that relieve the friendlyization of management accountants to dumbfound specialists of sustainability reporting and control and that enhance the ?nancial accounting skills of sustainability managers, organizations can reach a form of general integration, irrespective of the level of systems technical integration. We therefore argue that integration should also be approached through the social practice len s.Organizational integration can be reached through groups which may have developed similar practices of reporting or management control, although they 210 J. -P. Gond et al. / Management Accounting Research 23 (2012) 205223 do not belong to the same part of the organizational structure and do not operate through the same systems. This community of practice (Brown and Duguid, 1991) can be made up of accountants and managers using both or different systems except sharing a find of common practices (Ahrens and Chapman, 2007). Finally, our broad approach to integration encompasses cognitive dimensions.Regular and sustainability control systems can also be viewed as communication platforms that facilitate interaction and create opportunities for discussion between people who bring with them different patterns of thinking, mind stiffs and working viewpoints with regard to sustainability (Heidmann et al. , 2008). The main aim of such dialogue is to attempt an exchange of friendship b etween those involved, to reach an understanding and to submerge or rede? ne cognitive boundaries. cognitive dimensions of integration have been deemed as critical for sustainability integration within organizations in prior works (Hoffman and Bazerman, 2007).Therefore, we argue, a complete overlap of both management and sustainability control systems should also be re? ected in overlap cognitions among the managers working on mainstream strategy/control and sustainability. Crucial to overcoming cognitive biases that are socially and environmentally dysfunctional and that perpetuate unsustainable practices (Hoffman and Bazerman, 2007) is the process of working towards a common frame of reference or a shared perception of reality (Levine and Moreland, 1991). Even if the bankers acceptance of sustainability and its integration into management control is viewed as necessary, this is easier said than done.An expansion of perspectives requires knowledge that is transfer and assimil ated into the respective individuals own knowledge structures (Godemann, 2008). It should be noted that these three forms of integration can co-exist within the same organization and may compensate each other and work together in bridging MCSs and SCSs. For example corporate cognition or shared practices among users of two distinct control systems focused all on sustainability or management may compensate for a lack of technical integration between these systems by allowing a smooth circulation of information and knowledge.Furthermore, it is through empirical observation and conceptually plausible to surmise that integration on one dimension can tow to tighter coupling on one or both of the other dimensions as an (un)intended consequence. For instance, fuddled technical integration may lead to the enhancement of organizational integration through the construction of new shared practices and thisin turnmay create regenerate common understanding for users with different background s (Bechky, 2003 Carlyle, 2004). Although we consider integration as a continuum covariant that re? cts an aggregated level of technical, organizational and cognitive integration, incorporation of empirical evidence allows us to consider different forms of integration and to highlight the challenges of moving from one con? guration to another. 4. De? ning con? gurations of control systems In order to appreciate the modes of sustainability integration within organizational strategy, we rely on the various uses of both sustainability and management controls (diagnostic vs. interactive) as well as on their level of integration to delineate ideal-types of organizational con? urations. To do so, we distinguish two encompassing types of systems (management control vs. sustainability) and consider an general level of systems integration that encompasses technical, organizational, and cognitive dimensions. Within these restrictive assumptions we delineate eight organizational con? guration s relating to integration of MCSs and SCSs and to their speci? c uses. These eight con? gurations are summarized in Table 2 and discussed in-depth below. We present these ideal-types by moving from diagnostic to interactive uses of systems.We ? rst break low levels of integration con? gurations (characterized by a loose coupling between MCSs and SCSs) and then con? gurations with high levels of integration (tight coupling of MCSs and SCSs). Building on Millers (1986, 1996) insight that con? gurations puzzle strategy, for each con? guration we discuss the relationships between systems (considering technical, organizational and cognitive dimensions of integration), provide an empirical illustration, and then specify some key parameters of these con? urations, namely their stability, their empirical verisimilitude and their capacity to enhance concurrently the environmental, social and economic dimensions of the bottom line (that is, the triple bottom line). 4. 1. Dormant decoupled strategy (con? guration A) A ? rst ideal-type of organizational con? guration corresponds to a smirch within which the organization possesses parallel systems of control for management and sustainability, yet uncomplete of them is actually mobilized to deploy any kind of strategy.As explained by Simons (1991, p. 60) when top managers of large business concern do not have a quite a little for the futureor a sense of urgency about creating such a visionthey do not appear to make control systems interactive. In this context of torpid decoupled strategy, the organization lacks vision for future development in both the strategic and sustainability domains. This situation pr planets the emergence of a clear strategy and the focus is on a diagnostic control system. such a lack of vision on sustainability and strategy may be rein oblige by an absence of cognitive integration between both domains that could be perceived by executives as totally separated worlds (Swanson, 1999) and may also re? ect low organizational and/or technical integration of MCSs and SCSs preventing the emergence of a community of practice around systems. This situation can breathe, for instance, for developed or bureaucratized organizations enjoying a high level of monopoly power in their market but whose power is declining delinquent to the entry of new more dynamic competitors.In such organizations, control systems for traditional management and sustainability may have grown increasingly and independently with emphasis on diagnostic use. Some large formerly state-owned European utility and transport companies face up these challenges when the energy market was liberalized in Europe. The asleep(predicate)(ip) decoupled strategy con? guration can also occur in the less J. -P. Gond et al. / Management Accounting Research 23 (2012) 205223 211 SCS, sustainability control system MCS, management control system TBL, triple bottom line performance. requent contexts described by Meyer and Zuc ker (1989) as permanently flunking organizations within which actors fail to agree on a clear strategic direction and indeed maintain uncertainties about the organizations future. The con? guration of a static decoupled strategy may also exist in uncertain business situations in which organizations operate illegally and under constrained circumstances. Such situations can emerge, for example, in developing countries where there are corrupt of? cials and ineffective jurisprudences.Herzig et al. (2012, pp. 148172) report the look of an electroplating attach to in the Philippines which was essential to move its shop because of landownership problems. Due to stupid and short-sighted decisions, the business was re-located to a mixed-zone which then forced the attach to to operate behind closed gates and at reduced capacity for more than one year. Strategic options to the ships company were limited as was the interactive use of regular and environmental control systems of the c ompany.A low triple bottom line performance could be observed from a combination of reduced economic performance, risks in operations and low legitimacy within the topical anaesthetic community. Moreover, these threats to the existence of the company support the view that this con? guration is low in stability. For organizations performing in dynamic and competitive markets and within effective regulatory frameworks, such a situation is in all probability to be transitory, as pressures for strategizing are potential to emerge either from external stakeholders such as shareholders, disposal or competitors.A persistent lack of strategy in a competitive environment would probably force the organization out of business. We can therefore assume that the empirical verisimilitude of this con? guration is low and con? ned to periods of strategy crisis (Simons, 1991)apart from the relatively exceptional baptistery of permanently failing organizations (Meyer and Zucker, 1989). The entran ce of a new head or chief operating officer may indeed stimulate the word meaning of a new clear vision (Simons, 1994, 2006).Overall, organizations characterized by such a hibernating(a) decoupled strategy are unlikely to patch up environmental, social and economic performance either in the short or in the long run. 4. 2. dodge emergence through sustainability (con? guration B) A possible move from the dormant decoupled strategy con? guration consists in having a change in the use of the SCSs. The move from a diagnostic to an interactive use of SCSs can re? ect an emerging strategic renewal through sustainability.In this case of strategy emergence through sustainability, MCSs and SCSs are still not integrated, but the sustainability system is mobilized strategically by the top management team to deploy a sustainability strategy (Simons, 1994). Hence, the strategy emerges from the sustainability field of view within a dormant context (Mintzberg and Waters, 1984). Although such a con? guration seems to be empirically less plausible, its existence can be explained, for instance, by the creation of a dynamic new segment for sustainable development or CSR, made of entrepreneurial actors who trigger changes within a bureaucratized orCon? guration D Schizoid sustainability strategy stability low-pitched frequence strength TBL blue (short term) Con? guration B schema emergence through sustainability perceptual constancy fair Frequency pocket-size TBL fair Con? guration A Dormant decoupled strategy perceptual constancy imprint Frequency Low TBL Low Level of control systems integration (cognitive, organizational, technical) Low Decoupling Con? guration C Compliance- set sustainability strategy perceptual constancy High Frequency High TBL fair Uses of control systems (diagnostic vs. interactive) Table 2 Con? uring uses and integration of control systems. a High Tight coupling Con? guration E Dormant integrated strategy Stability Low Frequency Low TBL L ow diagnostic use of MCS Diagnostic use of SCS Con? guration F Sustainability-driven organizational Strategy Stability Low Frequency sensitive TBL Medium Interactive use of SCS Con? guration G Peripheral sustainability integration Stability High Frequency Medium TBL Medium a Interactive use of MCS Diagnostic use of SCS Con? guration H inter attached sustainability strategy Stability High Frequency Low TBL High (long term)Interactive use of SCS 212 J. -P. Gond et al. / Management Accounting Research 23 (2012) 205223 jump on organization. These changes can be co-opted by top managers aiming at testing the ecological viability of this strategy within the organization (Burgelman, 1991) and thus using this control system interactively (Simons, 1990). The emergence of this con? guration can also be related to the willingness of a new top management team to promote strategic renewal through sustainability, by focusing managers attention on this speci? c system (Simons, 1994).In such co ntexts, members of the newly appointed sustainability team may have pro? les and backgrounds (e. g. , ex-civil servants or managers from NGOs) that persuade signi? cantly from the preponderating managerial one, preventing cognitive integration between users of MCSs and SCSs or may also work within an organizational unit in general coupled to the rest of the organization or develop their own distinct systems of data-collection on sustainability issues. Such conditions can limit the organizational and technical integration of MCSs and SCSs.Strategy emergence through sustainability may occur in mature and stable industrial sectors that become subject to profound transformations collect to new and emerging sustainability agendas such as global warming. For instance, several energy companies and utilities that operated by relying in general on a diagnostic use of their MCSs have started thinking about sustainability strategically. Gond et al. (2010) report the case of British Utilit y for which a change in the industrial sector pushed the executives to recruit a team of experts in order to strategize sustainability.However, this team was made up of newcomers who were loosely integrated into the company from an organizational and cognitive viewpoint. They only had a exist SCS which was decoupled from daily managerial activities. Although MCS and SCS integration was low across the three components, the newly appointed team started transforming the use of SCSs to make it a strategic device for engaging employees and managers. Hence, new opportunities for strategic renewal emerged progressively, even though the con? guration was characterized by a dormant mainstream strategy and low system integration.Within such a con? guration, it can be expected that organizations perform well on the non-? nancial dimensions. Although strategic renewal through mobilizing the SCS may also be motivated by economic considerations organizations will probably scramble to enhance th eir ? nancial performance in the fair or long term without refocus on a broader set of control systems in this con? guration where systems are less integrated, resulting in a ordinary capacity to achieve a triple bottom line. Therefore, the stability of this con? guration is medium. 4. . Compliance driven sustainability strategy (con? guration C) A turn possible move out of the dormant decoupled strategy refers to the situation within which an organization mobilizes one of its MCSs to deploy its strategy (Simons, 1991, 1994, 1995), yet pays little attention to sustainability issues which are managed diagnostically through a system that operates parallel to the dominant MCS. nonpareil case in point is the development of the sustainability control system driven by external pressures to report on social and environmental issues (e. g. legal pressures and/or stakeholder pressures) (Kolk, 2003 ODwyer and Owen, 2007). According to many observers of organizational life, this situation is often observed during early stages of sustainability integration (Maon et al. , 2009, 2010 Mirvis and Googins, 2006 Zadek, 2004). For instance, at the early stages of the Nike case describe by Zadek the company realized it couldnt just shut out the noise. It lastly responded to activists demands for labour codes and, after further pressure, concur to external audits to verify whether these codes were organism oblige (Zadek, 2004, pp. 28129). The corporate tariff department of Nike emerged as an organizational answer to these external pressures (Zadek, 2004 Zheng, 2010). With this compliance-driven sustainability strategy, the sustainability control system is usually used as a management by exception tool to happen a big issue and to record (e. g. , through disclosure of sustainability performance information in annual reports) that the organization has everything under control. In this regard, this con? uration presents an important level of stability, except that the sust ainable discourse and practice run the risk of organism externally perceived as greenwashing or window dressing (Banerjee, 2008 Deegan, 2002). Within this type of con? guration, the sustainability data produced by the organization can hardly feed into any internal management processes as there is a low level of technical and organizational integration, re? ected in a decoupled organizational context (Boxenbaum and Jonsson, 2008 Meyer and Rowan, 1977).Similarly, executives and managers confronted with sustainability issues tend to ? rstly consider them as unrelated to their core business (Zheng, 2010), re? ecting low cognitive integration. Thus, this con? guration leaves little room for innovation and organizational learning through the diagnostic use of the sustainability system (Gond and Herrbach, 2006 Maon et al. , 2009). Accordingly, the organizational capacity to improve a triple bottom line performance be low at this stage, even though the organization may exhibit high levels of ? nancial performance. 4. 4.Schizoid sustainability strategy (con? guration D) The one-fourth and last con? guration exhibiting lowintegration from a technical, organizational and/or cognitive viewpoint refers to an organizational context within which contradictory sustainability and traditional strategies are followed and deployed through parallel MCSs and SCSs. Although this schizophrenic sustainability strategy is probably unusual, its existence ? nds theoretical and empirical support. Theoretically, Kets de Vrie and Miller (1984) argued that organizations are likely to experience neurotic symptoms such as chizophrenia. Prior research suggests contradictory injunctions are not uncommon within organizational contexts (Emery and Giauque, 2003), and these situations may trigger schizophrenic symptoms (Watz justnessick, 1979). Accordingly, the deployment of control systems supporting contradictory logics can be a way of delegating to lower managerial echelons the management of t radeoffs J. -P. Gond et al. / Management Accounting Research 23 (2012) 205223 213 and tensions which have not been effectively managed at the higher end of the organization.It could also re? ect a disagreement at the board level about the levels of priority to grant to strategic uncertainties. Both situations will de facto enhance the criminal maintenance of low technical and organizational integration, and prevent cognitive integration of sustainability and strategy. Other theoretical arguments explain the presence of a loosely coupled yet fully developed sustainability strategy. For instance, such a sustainability strategy is a stronger shield to buffer external pressures and external scrutiny through manipulation and tops(predicate)? ial reporting exercises in order to present a facade of conformity (Oliver, 1992). A ? realist facade of conformity can be a way to attract institu? tional support for illegitimate actions (Elsbach and Sutton, 1992), a case in point cosmos the ins trumentalization of CSR practices by Ma? a organizations (Gond et al. , 2009). Empirically, diversi? ed US-based multinational corporations have been shown to exhibit contrasted sustainable behaviours in various countries, supporting the view of corporate actors being good while being fully grown (Strike et al. 2006). Accordingly, this con? guration could be of a medium frequency. Critical analyses of the corporations which are the most invested in by responsible investors also suggest that sustainability performance may vary to a great extent across their different impacts on stakeholders (Banerjee, 2008 Markowitz, 2008). For instance, Microsoft is simultaneously praised for its social initiatives while having been found nefarious of violations of the anti-trust legal framework (Markowitz, 2008).In addition, a temporary lack of systems coordination can also be a transitory situation faced by an organization implementing an organizational change toward sustainability. This con? g uration is thus characterized by a low level of stability. Finally, in terms of triple bottom line performance, this con? guration can generate high intersection point between the various dimensions of performance in the short run, even though it does not enable this convergence to be carry on in the long run. We now turn to the characterization of a second set of ideal-type con? urations that correspond to situations where MCSs and SCSs are strongly coupled and integrated, through cognitive, organizational and/or technical processes (bottom line of Table 2). This high integration means that SCSs and MCSs are merged and overlap. Yet, important differences emerge from the various uses of both systems in these contexts. 4. 5. Dormant integrated strategy (con? guration E) Although both systems can be strongly tied from a technical, organizational or cognitive viewpoint, they are not unavoidably mobilized to deploy any kind of strategy.This situation of dormant intergated strategy can be found, for instance, in an organization that has recently integrated sustainability within its balanced scorecard (technical integration) but does not mobilize this system due to the emergence of new radical uncertaintiese. g. , prospect of a merger or of an at loggerheads takeoverwhich temporarily prevents the adoption of strategic action. Such a situation arose from a part privatization of one of the largest water submit and sewerage companies in Germany (Berliner Wasserbetriebe) as describe by Gmindner and Bergner (2002).The organizations control of and reporting about environmental issues was regularly well-developed because environmental issues had a high strategic relevance to the organization (as provider of boozing water to the public) and were subject to strict regulation (under environmental law). After part-privatization of the public law institution, the new management board espouse a more defensive environmental strategy as it thought that environmental i ssues had been given too much attention in the past (at most, the board seek to meet regulations in a cost ef? ient way). As the public law company still acted in a monopoly position, move to public price regulation, no clear strategy emerged. This was, on the one hand, re? ected in the managements decision to implement a new balanced scorecard without clarifying its strategic role and its relationship with the public budgeting processes and economic plan. On the other hand, due to lasting cognitive biases at top management level, it was dif? craze to clarify which strategic issues of an environmental and social nature would receive priority in the future.The dormant integrated strategy con? guration ? nds similar rationale to the dormant decoupled strategy con? guration except that control systems are integrated here, either technically, organizationally or cognitively. In our German illustrative case, there are high levels of technical integration (e. g. , through the balanced scorecard), however organizational uncertainties prevent a more proactive approach to sustainability strategy being developed (see next con? guration). The parameters of this con? uration are expected to be similar to the ones of the dormant decoupled strategy, with a low level of stability, a low frequency and a low capacity to create a convergence between the various dimensions of performance. However, in this situation, given a lack of strategic vision, the prospects for sustainability strategizing are higher than in the dormant decoupled strategy case, because interactive engagement by the top management team with one of the two systems may be suf? cientdue to high systems integrationfor a move towards a con? uration which entails high potential for sustainability integration (see the next two con? gurations). 4. 6. Sustainability driven strategy (con? guration F) A second high integration con? guration is the case of an organization within which the MCS is not used interactivel y and where the strategy-making process is driven by sustainability through the interactive use of the SCS. This sustainability driven organizational strategy corresponds, for instance, to the situation of sustainable businesses at their very early stage of development.Organizations at an early stage of development may have not yet integrated any formalized MCSs into their strategy-making process. Yet, as these organizations business models embed sustainability, the need to formalize and control sustainability related data and behaviour may be far higher, leading to an interactive use of this system, and to the development of an integrated MCS as a by-product. This con? guration can be observed in the case of green start-ups addressing sustainability issues through 214 J. -P. Gond et al. Management Accounting Research 23 (2012) 205223 their business model or at the early stages of organizational development focused on social responsibility or sustainability products/services. Medium sized corporations having constructed their business model around sustainability such as Innocent Drinks, for instance, may ? nd that having such a con? guration with a dominant focus on the sustainability parameters of their activities constrains growth. Because it re? ects a transitory stage of sustainable organizational development, this con? urations stability and empirical frequency are both medium. From a triple bottom line perspective, organizations in this situation may perform well from a social and environmental perspective, yet struggle to secure enough ? nancial resources for their development. As a result, their triple bottom line performance can be expected to be only modest. 4. 7. Peripheral sustainability integration (con? guration G) A third con? guration exhibiting a high level of integration of control systems is peripheral sustainability integration.This situation corresponds to the case of an organization within which only the regular MCS is used interactively to deploy the strategy, the management of sustainability being used as a diagnostic tool. This con? guration seems highly plausible from an empirical viewpoint, especially for organizations that have derived their sustainability systems from existing MCSsand thus enhanced technical or organizational integrationwhile considering that the main strategic uncertainties are not related to the sustainability area (low cognitive integration), for instance because of the speci? s of their industrial sector. In such a con? guration, as sustainability data do not feed the process of strategy-making, sustainability-driven innovation is very unlikely (Gond and Herrbach, 2006). However, they may engender some constraints and boundaries related to sustainability owing to diagnostic observe of sustainability issues. This situation corresponds to the approach of sustainability or social responsibility management which overshadowd the design school of strategy (Mintzberg, 1990) as well as the plan ning school of strategy (Ansoff, 1965).Both schools of thought regarded these responsibilities as external constraints deliberateness on strategic choices rather than business opportunities on their own for strategy making or competitive advantage construction (Burke and Logsdon, 1996 Porter and Kramer, 2006). Drawing upon the Prince of Wales Accounting for Sustainability concrete Insights (Hopwood et al. , 2010) text, peripheral sustainability integration is exhibited by Sainsburys, HSBC, and Novo Nordisk.In each case, it is evident that strategy is aligned to a commercially driven business model where economic progress is at the avant-garde of business activity. As acknowledged by the authors of the Sainsburys case, given the economic crisis, it is not known if sustainability would be embraced if there was not scope to contribute to cost-cutting within the company and across supply chains. Similarly, at Novo Nordisk, ? nancial considerations dominate for the majority of investo rs despite articulation of social, economic and environmental interests within the companys Articles of Association.The cases reveal environmental scanning of stakeholder concerns and thoughtful investment practices in order to protect against negative impacts on reputation and therefore ? nancial losses. Novo Nordisk seeks to identify emerging issues that are potentially material. HSBC has implemented the Equator Principles and in-house policies to allow management of sustainability risk as the bank has some knowledge of what loans will be used for and is thus able to refuse to make loans where social and environmental consequences will impact negatively upon likely repayments.Theoretically, the less than ideal deployment of a sustainability strategy of this con? guration can be linked to lasting cognitive barriers within an organization. Mindsets, for example, may prevent members of the top management team from perceiving the strategic uncertainties related to sustainability (Hof fman and Bazerman, 2007 Swanson, 1999), even though SCSs and regular MCSs are integrated technically and organizationally. Executives may thus fail to give full consideration to this issue in their strategy-making processes (Simons, 1994). This con? uration is also likely to occur when the sustainability control systems are instanter derived from a reporting system strengthened to comply with external pressures and expectations. Because compliance remains an important driver of organizations engagement toward sustainability, we can expect this con? guration to be relatively frequent. From a triple bottom line performance viewpoint, organizations characterized by such a con? guration may perform only at a medium level, as social and environmental dimensions of performance perhaps regarded as relatively low organizational priorities, in contrast with ? ancial dimensions of performance. Within the cases, the integration of MCSs and SCSs may in part be attributed to the in? uence of the Accounting for Sustainability project (A4S), at least in the cases of Sainsburys and HSBC if not Novo Nordisk as the latter had not adopt the Connected Reporting Framework8 at the fourth dimension of writing. Technical integration is apparent in Sainsburys application of the A4S decision-making tool and in HSBCs linking of sustainability with ? nancial information in external reports.To this end, HSBC invested in a tailored, group-wide online system in 2004 that collates data on energy, water, waste and carbon dioxide emissions. These data were previously collected within a series of standalone spreadsheets and not connected to ? nancial data. Organizationally, coupling between the systems has been facilitated by business case reasoning and adoption of a agelong-term perspective. However, evidence in the cases suggests that more is involve to move toward stronger communities of practice and common frames of reference.Pertinently, a member of the Non-? nancial Data Management team at Novo Nordisk commented on the need for 8 The Connected Reporting Framework was developed by A4S and aims to provide a new approach to corporate reporting that re? ects longerterm considerations. By measuring and linking sustainability and ? nancial performance, the aim is to provide a more rounded and balanced view of an organizations overall performance and, in so doing, build credibility with a broader set of stakeholders. J. -P. Gond et al. / Management Accounting Research 23 (2012) 205223 215 ognitive integration I see challenges ahead in relation to a common understanding and language between the ? nancial and the non-? nancial people, a whole cultural thing, a way of thinking (Hopwood et al. , 2010, p. 224). In general, evidence suggests that stability at the three organizations can be considered high owing to adoption of a longer timeframe when making decisions and to a systematic approach to identifying potential stakeholder concerns. Sainsburys, for example, recogni ze that there is a need to support farmers if a continuous supply of lamb in the chain of supermarkets is to be secured.Given that social and environmental dimensions of performance serve to enhance economic dimensions at Sainsburys and HSBC, medium performance on the triple-bottom line can be expected. 4. 8. compound sustainability strategy (con? guration H) A last con? guration corresponds to an ideal-type of interactive use of both integrated systems. In this context of integrated sustainability strategy, sustainability strategy and strategy-making overlap completely, allowing the deployment and renewal of a sustainability strategy through the use of coherently integrated systems.This ideal con? guration if empirically rarecorresponds to the highest level of sustainability or social responsibility implementation described in prior models of CSR deployments (Maon et al. , 2009, 2010 Mirvis and Googins, 2006 Zadek, 2004). It uncovers the control infrastructure that needs to be in place for embedding sustainability. execution toward an integrated sustainability strategy is demonstrated by the Aviva, BT and EDF Energy cases included in the Accounting for Sustainability Practical Insights (Hopwood e