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The purpose of this study is to examine the usefulness of disgust imagery in a nonprofit organization context as one part of the broader social marketing paradigm.

An experiment was conducted in the child victim segment of the market using disgust and nondisgust images. Data were collected from 167 subjects via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Dependent variables measured included donation intention, empathy and guilt. Control variables included religiosity and attitude toward helping others, along with demographic factors.

MANCOVA results indicate that while the disgust image evoked greater empathy, the nondisgust image evoked greater donation intentions. The disgust image had a nonsignificant effect on the level of guilt felt by subjects. Mediation analysis indicates that empathy serves as a competitive mediator for the disgust–donation intentions relationship.

This study examines the effects of disgust images on empathy, guilt and donation intentions. Although the findings indicate a contrasting effect of disgust on empathy and donation intentions, more research is needed to validate these findings with diverse samples, contexts and various donation behavior measures. Regarding charitable giving, the current findings suggest caution should be used when using disgust images to evoke empathy, as the tactic may also negatively affect donation intentions.

Nonprofits that effectively apply marketing can change individual and community behavior. To continue their work, they rely on donors and volunteers. This study provides social marketers.

Past research has demonstrated the effectiveness of disgust appeals for deterring behavior. In contrast, this research provides unique insights into disgust appeals as a catalyst for motivating behavior. This research provides a much-needed empirical evaluation of disgust appeals in a social marketing context.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of ownership structure on dividend policy of listed firms in Turkey. Particularly, it attempts to uncover the effects of family involvement (through ownership and board representation), non-family blockholders (foreign investors, domestic financial institutions and the state) and minority shareholders on dividend decisions in the post-2003 period as it witnesses the major economic and structural reforms.

The paper uses alternative dividend policy measures (the probability of paying dividends, dividend payout ratio and dividend yield) and uses appropriate regression techniques (logit and tobit models) to test the research hypotheses, by focusing on a recent large panel dataset of 264 Istanbul Stock Exchange-listed firms (non-financial and non-utility) over a 10-year period 2003-2012.

The empirical results show that foreign and state ownership are associated with a less likelihood of paying dividends, while other ownership variables (family involvement, domestic financial institutions and minority shareholders) are insignificant in affecting the probability of paying dividends. However, all the ownership variables have a significantly negative impact on dividend payout ratio and dividend yield. Hence, the paper presents consistent evidence that increasing ownership of foreign investors and the state in general reduces the need for paying dividends in the Turkish market.

Because of the absence of empirical research on how ownership structure may affect dividend policy and the data unavailability for earlier periods in Turkey, the paper cannot make comparison between the pre-and post-2003 periods. Nevertheless, this paper can be a valuable benchmark for further research.

The paper reveals that cash dividends are not used as a monitoring mechanism by investors in Turkey and the expropriation argument through dividends for Turkish families is relatively weak. Accordingly, the findings of this paper may benefit policymakers, investors and fellow researchers, who seek useful guidance from relevant literature.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to examine the link between ownership structure and dividend policy in Turkey after the implementation of major reforms in 2003.

The authors empirically investigate the association between acquisition, ownership structure and accrual earnings management (AEM) on real earnings management (REM) using Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)-listed firms' context.

The authors' sample consists of 1,892 firm-year observations for the period from 2007–2017, and the authors adopt a panel data approach in investigating the interrelationships in this study. The authors employ different econometrics approach to test the authors' hypotheses.

The findings reveal that acquiring companies engage more in AEM if compared to REM. In terms of ownership structure, institutional ownership and state ownership mitigate the engagement in REM, whereas foreign ownership is found to be an ineffective mechanism in reducing engagement in REM. The authors report similar findings on ownership structure for AEM. The authors also find that the GCC firms engage more in REM when the firms engage in AEM, suggesting a complementary relation between these two earnings management techniques. These findings are robust after controlling for different aspects including any endogeneity issue in the authors' models.

The authors' research highlights the importance of understanding REM and AEM dynamics in GCC context. Also, the authors' findings on ownership structure suggest that GCC-listed firms can gain from institutional and state ownership which restricts earnings management, improving firm transparency and subsequently impacting firm performance.

This paper aims to investigate empirically the common alternative methods of measuring annual report narratives. Five alternative methods are employed, a weighted and un-weighted disclosure index and three textual coding systems, measuring the amount of space devoted to relevant disclosures.

The authors investigate the forward-looking voluntary disclosures of 30 UK non-financial companies. They employ descriptive analysis, correlation matrix, mean comparison t-test, rankings and multiple regression analysis of disclosure measures against determinants of corporate voluntary reporting.

The results reveal that while the alternative methods of forward-looking voluntary disclosure are highly correlated, important significant differences do nevertheless emerge. In particular, it appears important to measure volume rather than simply the existence or non-existence of each type of disclosure. Overall, we detect that the optimal method is content analysis by text-unit rather than by sentence.

This paper contributes to the extant literature in forward-looking disclosure by reporting important differences among alternative content analyses. However, the decision regarding whether this should be a computerised or a manual content analysis appears not to be driven by differences in the resulting measures. Rather, the choice is the outcome of a trade-off between the time involved in setting up coding rules for computerised analysis versus the time saved undertaking the analysis itself.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of regulations, reforms and legal environment on dividend policy in a different institutional setting. Particularly, it examines the firm-level cash dividend behaviour of publicly listed firms in Turkey in the post-2003 period, since there were major economic and structural reforms as well as significant regulatory changes of dividend payout rules imposed by the supervisory bodies.

The paper focuses on a recent large panel data set of 264 Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE)-listed firms over a ten-year period 2003-2012. First, it employs a modified specification of Lintner’s (1956) partial adjustment model for analysis regarding target payout ratio and dividend smoothing. Second, it performs a logit model for analysis in identifying the link between financial characteristics and the likelihood of paying dividends.

The results show that ISE firms now follow the same determinants as suggested by Lintner. They, indeed, have long-term payout ratios and adjust their cash dividends by a moderate level of smoothing, and therefore adopt stable dividend policies (although less stable policies compared to their counterparts in the developed US market) as a signalling mechanism over the period 2003-2012. Moreover, the results also report that ownership structure concentration affects the target payout ratio and dividend smoothing in the Turkish market. In addition, the results further show that more profitable, more mature and larger sized ISE firms are more likely to pay cash dividends, whereas ISE firms with higher investment opportunities and more debt are less likely to distribute cash dividends in the post-2003 period.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first major research that examines the implications of reforms and regulations on cash dividend payments and dividend smoothing over time in Turkey during its market integration process in the post-2003 period.

This review aims to examine how photography and video have been used in a variety of fields.

The paper examines how these visual methods have and can be used in marketing.

Photography and video have important strengths. They help us overcome the typically fleeting nature of observation. They also allow us to record behavior in its situational context, allow for reflection, informants, coding, and use of the behavior or situation for illustration. In addition to their analysis of behavior, visual methods can also be used for the purpose of analysis of environments. Photographs and videos can also reveal insights into the interpretive side of the equation – examining people's focus and interpretation of their behaviors and rituals. This visual information can be qualitative – aiming for naturalistic, descriptive, and “rich” data; they can also be used to quantitatively measure circumstances and events.

Understanding the potential uses of photography and video in observational research as well as their strengths and weaknesses will allow us to gain the most value from their application.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of corporate governance factors on audit features, namely, audit fees and the selection of Big 4 audit firms within the UK SMEs context.

The author uses different regression models to investigate the impact of corporate governance characteristics on audit features, and employs cross-sectional time series models as well as two-stage least squares technique. In addition, the author has used logit analysis to examine the effect of corporate governance factors on the selection of Big 4 audit firms.

The author provides new evidence that governance mechanisms in SMEs affect different audit features. The results show that corporate governance mechanisms are important in determining audit fees. The author detects a positive impact of board independence, audit meeting and board size on audit fees. The author also reports evidence that governance factors determine the selection of Big 4 audit firms. In particular, the author reports that independent directors and audit diligence positively affect the decision to select Big 4 audit firms.

This paper investigates the under-researched relationship between audit features and corporate governance using UK SMEs. In so doing, the author aims to provide new insights into this relationship within the SMEs context.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of external financing needs on both firm value and corporate governance mechanisms within the UK SME context. This framework is of importance because of the limited external financial resources SMEs might face.

The authors consider the endogeneity problem between corporate governance mechanisms and firm value, and hence, the three stages least squares and the instrumental variables based on two stages least squares estimation methods are employed.

The authors find a positive relationship between external financing needs and firm value. In addition, the authors detect that size and profitability are positively associated with firm value in the sample. Concerning the corporate governance index (CGI), the authors detect that big SMEs and those with low-debt levels have better corporate governance structures.

The authors employ a CGI for the sample which is constructed using ten corporate governance variables. The authors also examine different factors that affect SMEs 2019 governance by applying different models including logistic analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the ongoing debate of dividend policy, which is considered one of the most controversial topics in corporate finance literature.

The paper provides a survey of literature; it, first, outlines the main theoretical arguments of dividend policy and then critically discusses the most important and influential previous empirical studies in the dividend literature.

The analysis of literature review detects that no general consensus has yet been reached after many decades of investigation, despite extensive debate and countless research. Consequently, the main motivation for paying dividends is still unsolved and thus remains as a puzzle. In addition, there is no doubt that carrying the dividend debate into the context of emerging markets attaches more pieces to this puzzle.

This paper offers an updated and more comprehensive survey of literature by examining the relationship between theory and practice from both developed and emerging markets.

This paper aims to assess the interactive impact of dispositional threat orientation and affirmation (both self-affirmation and self-efficacy) on the effectiveness of fear appeals.

A 3 × 2 × 2 × 2 fully crossed, mixed experimental design is used. The study is conducted through an on-line survey platform. Participants are nationally representative in terms of age, gender and geographic location within the USA.

Threat orientation impacts individuals’ responses to fear appeals. Control-oriented individuals respond in a more adaptive manner, heightened-sensitivity-oriented individuals are a “mixed-bag” and denial-oriented individuals respond in a more maladaptive manner. Affirmations (both self-affirmation and self-efficacy) interact with threat orientation in some cases to predict response to threat.

This research used a cross-sectional approach in an on-line environment. A longitudinal study with a stronger self-affirmation intervention and self-efficacy manipulation would offer a stronger test.

Social marketers should consider whether their primary target market has a general tendency toward a particular threat orientation when considering the use of fear appeals. Social marketers should consider the potential benefits of a self-affirmation intervention.

Individuals’ personality dispositions impact how they respond to fear appeals, which may explain why some seemingly well executed fear appeals are unsuccessful whereas others succeed.

Little or no research has examined the use of self-affirmation to overcome the challenges posed by dispositional threat orientation. This research gives an early glimpse into how these issues interplay.