PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to report the outcome of an interdisciplinary discussion on the concepts of profit and profitability and various ways in which we could potentially problematize these concepts. It is our hope that a much greater attention or reconsideration of the problematization of profit and related accounting numbers will be fostered in part by the exchanges we include here.Design/methodology/approachThis paper adopts an interdisciplinary discussion approach and brings into conversation ideas and views of several scholars on problematizing profit and profitability in various contexts and explores potential implications of such problematization.FindingsProfit and profitability measures make invisible the collective endeavour of people who work hard (backstage) to achieve a desired profit level for a division and/or an organization. Profit tends to preclude the social process of debate around contradictions among the ends and means of collective activity. An inherent message that we can discern from our contributors is the typical failure of managers to appreciate the value of critical theory and interpretive research for them. Practitioners and positivist researchers seem to be so influenced by neo-liberal economic ideas that organizations are distrusted and at times reviled in their attachment to profit.Research limitations/implicationsProblematizing opens-up the potential for interesting and significant theoretical insights. A much greater pragmatic and theoretical reconsideration of profit and profitability will be fostered by the exchanges we include here.Originality/valueIn setting out a future research agenda, this paper fosters theoretical and methodological pluralism in the research community focussing on problematizing profit and profitability in various settings. The discussion perspectives offered in this paper provides not only a basis for further research in this critical area of discourse and regulation on the role and status of profit and profitability but also emancipatory potential for practitioners (to be reflective of their practices and their undesired consequences of such practices) whose overarching focus is on these accounting numbers.

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As corporate discourses of ‘openness’ and ‘inclusion’ become increasingly ubiquitous, an important task for organization studies today is identifying how actors might make their organizations more inclusive. The paper aims to understand why and how practices that often embody the exclusionary aspects of organizations could develop to foster a sense of belonging. Studying alternative organizations, such as cooperatives and social movements, where the members may often be more willing and able to develop such practices, could offer lessons about the possibilities and pitfalls of organizational belonging and inclusion more generally. The paper focuses on discussions of financial targets and budgets, practices that confront the members with tensions between their social aims and the need to survive in a competitive market, and that may enact capacities to work through these and other related difficulties. A case of a Spanish cooperative, analysed using a Latourian anthropological approach, demonstrates two main contributions. First, it builds positively on critical assessments of the pitfalls of corporate constructions of belonging, which seek employee commitment despite persistently exclusionary practices. The case demonstrates how the practical work of belonging can enable organizations to become more inclusive and ‘liveable’. Second, it shows that organizational practices are neither inherently exclusionary, nor intrinsically inclusive. Their role depends on the context and specific socially orientated abilities among the members, which can develop through their interactions with budgets.

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