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Organizations desire more accurate cost systems as competition increases, and consequently increase cost system complexity, as cost systems with greater complexity are potentially more accurate than simpler systems. However, even complex systems are prone to impactful inaccuracies, for example, due to design or calculation issues, that can adversely affect decision-making and firm performance. The authors investigate whether and the extent to which cost system complexity and competition decrease managers’ attribution of cost-system-driven adverse firm effects to the cost system. The authors find greater cost system complexity (by inspiring greater confidence in the cost system) and higher competition (by providing a plausible external cause) decrease managers’ attribution of cost-system-driven adverse firm effects to the cost system. With both greater cost system complexity and higher competition, managers observing signals of material cost inaccuracies are potentially the least likely to attribute cost-system-driven adverse firm effects to the cost system.

We highlight two mechanisms of limited attention for expert information intermediaries, i.e., analysts, and the effects of such limited attention on the market price discovery process. We approach analysts' limited attention from the perspective of day-to-day arrival of information and processing of tasks. We examine the attention-limiting role of competing tasks (number of earnings announcements and forecasts for portfolio firms) and distracting events (number of earnings announcements for non-portfolio firms) in analysts' forecast accuracy and the effects of such, on the subsequent price discovery process. Our results show that competing tasks worsen analysts' forecast accuracy, and competing task induced limited attention delays the market price adjustment process. On the other hand, distracting events can improve analysts' forecast accuracy and accelerate market price adjustments when such events relate to analysts' portfolio firms through industry memberships.

Recent reports suggest that employees have concerns about their company’s leadership and ethical environment. Despite more stringent regulations, top executives are continuing to pursue aggressive financial reporting practices by managing earnings. In this study, the authors find that individuals have more significant concerns about the workplace environment when the chief financial officer (CFO) manages earnings that result in personal gain relative to when the CFO manages earnings that benefit other stakeholders (i.e., employees and investors). Further, the authors show that this negative effect of earnings management for personal gain on workplace environment quality becomes more prominent when the control environment is weak and when the CFO possesses accounting expertise. The authors add to the body of academic knowledge on financial reporting, ethical leadership, and the workplace environment. Business practitioners can use our study to inform their decisions, particularly those about financial reporting and managing the workplace environment.

A growing body of research on nonviolent movements has focused upon backfire or the paradox of repression, whereby repression increases support for these movements and the likelihood of their achieving their goals. The relationship between reforms and nonviolent movements, however, has received less attention. The existence of the paradox of repression suggests the inverse possibility of the paradox of reform, whereby reforms drain support away from nonviolent movements or even contribute to greater support for violent forms of contention. An exploratory, triangulated analysis of the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland establishes an instance of the paradox. Within the civil rights movement, the announcement of reforms contributed to the exiting of moderates and the growing influence of those less committed to nonviolent forms of contention. Dominant group backlash resulted in vigilante attacks on both the movement and minority areas, intensified repression, and stalling on promised reforms. In response to these changed conditions, many in the minority group came to see armed rebellion as a more viable form of struggle for social justice than nonviolent protest. The case underscores the need to carefully consider the mediating role of reforms in the relationship between repression and nonviolent mobilization as well as to recognize multiple internal and external obstacles that promised yet slowly implemented reforms can present to movements pursuing social change through nonviolence.