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The authors investigate the joint effects of two environmental variables, performance-based pay (PBP) and performance monitoring (PM), on behavioral dishonesty in a setting where the controls subsequently are absent. In a laboratory study using 88 participants in a 2×2 experimental design, simulating a work environment, the authors manipulate the presence of PBP and PM. Once the participants are accustomed to their assigned work environment and have completed contractual tasks unrelated to the dishonesty experiment, the authors allow them to privately roll dice to determine the size of a bonus gift card. Dishonesty levels are inferred from differences between treatment groups in the prizes claimed. The authors find an interaction effect, where inferred dishonesty in the performance-based-pay group is higher than the fixed-pay group when there is no PM, but lower when there is PM. Although theory and existing literature did not lead us to hypothesize these exact results, they offer important insights into a complex relationship. By jointly examining the effects of worker contracts and workplace monitoring on dishonesty, this research extends the understanding of the potential consequences of formal controls. As the workplace grows more complex, employers increasingly rely on information provided by frontline employees and managers. Thus, unintended effects of managerial controls on honesty are an important topic in the business literature.

Traditional agency theory assumes monitoring is good for the principal, but we investigate an unintended effect: diminishment of the agent’s preference for honesty. We hypothesize greater dishonest behavior in a monitored environment than in a non-monitored environment, when the agent has the opportunity to cheat outside the scope of monitoring. Relevant theories to explain such behavior are behavioral agency theory, where trust and reciprocity are thought to alter contractual outcomes, and the fraud-triangle theory, where the ability to rationalize deviant acts affects behavior. We utilize participants who have been acclimated to either a monitored or an unmonitored condition in an immediately preceding experiment and seamlessly continue that treatment. Within each of these conditions, participants perform a simple task with a performance-based monetary reward. Half self-report and can safely cheat, while the other half are verified; the difference between verified and self-reported scores is a proxy for dishonest reporting. As hypothesized, unmonitored individuals reciprocate with honest behavior, while monitored individuals tend toward dishonest behavior when the opportunity arises. Implications for fraud prevention are discussed.

Commentators have claimed that business schools encourage unethical behavior by using economic theory as a basis for education. We examine claims that exposure to agency theory acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy, reducing ethical behavior among business students. We experimentally test whether economics coursework or a manipulated competitive vs. cooperative frame affects measured ethical behavior in simulated decision settings. We measure ethical behavior using established tasks. We also measure ethical recognition to test whether agency theory reduces recognition of ethical issues. Exposure to agency theory in either prior classwork or the experiment increased wealth-increasing unethical behavior. We found no effect on unethical behavior that does not affect wealth. We found no effect of exposure to agency theory on ethical recognition. Usual laboratory experiment limitations apply. Future research can examine why agency theory reduces ethical behavior. Educators ought to consider unintended consequences of the language and assumptions of theories that underlie education. Students may assume descriptions of how people behave as prescriptions for how people ought to behave. This study contributes to the literature on economic education and ethics. We found no prior experimental studies of the effect of economics education on ethical behavior.

The article is set against a background of evidence that women often find themselves in low status, low paid and part‐time work. It examines the potential of job evaluation as a vehicle to operationalise the concept of equal value.

Contemporary practitioners of content marketing (CM) often suggest their discipline is an ancient one, yet mainly limit its origins to the custom-published magazines of the late 1800s. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize some of the many definitions of CM and to report the first scholarly history of its development and practice.

This study’s purposes led to the following research questions: To what extent were CM strategies and tactics used before the 20th century? How have the uses and characteristics of CM changed or remained the same over time? Sources included general histories focusing on the earliest uses of advertising and promotions and edited book chapters and journal articles on the histories of branding and early print advertising, marketing and advertising practices in ancient and medieval periods and the development of consumer cultures around the world.

Research findings support three conclusions: CM existed much earlier than often acknowledged; has emerged as a unique marketing discipline, strategically and tactically distinguishable from the others (e.g. advertising and sales promotion); and possesses objectives, strategies and tactics that have remained remarkably consistent in practice across the millennia.

The research supports several insights to the history of marketing and the practice of CM. Some of the CM strategies and tactics identified in this paper, for instance, have previously been concluded to be part of advertising’s history. Findings also reveal that many of advertising’s American pioneers actually used CM to persuade 19th-century businessmen to adopt widespread advertising. In addition, the emphasis on interactive, digital media in CM definitions offers a likely explanation for the recent enthusiasm behind CM as a response to global trends in consumer preferences and global competition, as well as why contemporary CM practitioners have often failed to recognize they are practicing a “new” discipline that has actually been in use for thousands of years.

Successfully measuring effectiveness in management training and development can be a difficult task. Design of a valid measurement programme should include evaluation in key areas; including emotional reaction and knowledge gain measured after training interventions. Behavioural change and organisational impact measurements should be used on a longer time horizon to evaluate the progress and currency of the management development programme. Finally, research shows that maintaining a balance of the above measurements is the final key to success in measuring the effectiveness of management training and development.

The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy such as solar energy is difficult and requires significant ongoing public policy marketing initiatives. Drawing on institutional theory, this paper aims to explore how public policy marketing initiatives through institutional narratives and discourses legitimize solar energy's sustainable consumption in a developing economy.

Using a post-structuralist approach, the authors undertook a thematic analysis to study the process of sustainable consumption. The authors conducted face-to-face interviews with key stakeholders in the solar energy sector and complemented the primary data with secondary analysis of archived published materials and podcasts.

First, narratives on conformance rules and regulations (regulatory legitimacy) are significant sustainable consumption predictors of solar energy. However, the top-down regulatory legitimation narrative alone is insufficient to overcome poorly developed taken-for-granted (cognitive legitimacy) and morally correct consumption behavior (normative legitimacy), especially among the general population. Second, while consumption is primarily seen as a micro-level, residential and commercial customers phenomenon, the intersecting macro- (government) and meso-levels' (industry/market) narratives and discourses influence and direct micro-level consumption.

Future research agenda on legitimizing the sustainable consumption of solar energy needs to consider the dynamic interactions of institutional narratives and discourses through the lens of institutional theory and practice. Sustained, bold and provident government interventions and actions through market structure and policy issues play a crucial role in the consumption process, particularly in developing economies.