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This paper explains how recent statements by the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) leadership – including the new Chief of the SEC’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) Unit – signal the American regulator’s intent to “level the playing field” by stepping up its investigations and enforcement of companies worldwide and what non-US issuers can do to prepare.

Uses information included in the announcement naming Charles E. Cain as Chief of the SEC’s specialized FCPA Unit to lay out an argument that the Unit’s priorities may focus more on non-US companies than US companies.

Based on past statements and written accounts made by Mr Cain, and with the tacit support of other senior SEC officials, it can be assumed that non-US companies will experience additional scrutiny from the SEC, in the name of leveling the playing field. Furthermore, it can be assumed that the SEC will place additional pressure on anti-corruption regimes in other international jurisdictions to do their part in combatting corruption.

This paper is of value to personnel within non-US issuers who are responsible for creating and enforcing their organization’s anti-bribery or anti-corruption policies and internal controls. It is also of value to legal counsel interested in developing an understanding of the current priorities of the SEC as far as the FCPA is concerned.

Internet characteristics — enhanced distribution customer relationships and information access in an information intensive industry — fit the tourism industry. There is little sense having an Internet presence though if visitors cannot find and use the website or receive answers to their e‐mail inquiries. Research lauds online tourism initiatives, yet little research investigates Internet use in wine tourism. Given the competitive nature of wine tourism, an important research area is what website features and e‐mail policies do wine tourism operations use for better site navigation site popularity and relationship marketing? Two online analyses of eight wine tourism operations, within and outside Western Australia, illustrate a methodology and dozens of possible metrics for analysing the competition and marketing electronic wine tourism. The results give wine tourism managers insights into short‐term competitive advantages via website features and e‐mail policies, and add to the academic literature and future research of the Internet's role in wine tourism.

The purpose of this paper is to determine if high versus low ethnocentric consumers differ in their attitudes toward buying domestic and foreign brands of underwear that are made domestically or in foreign countries.

Australian residents recruited through a mall intercept participated in this study through a self‐completed questionnaire. Fishbein's Multi‐Attribute model was used as the measure, along with repeated‐measures ANOVA and t‐tests, to examine whether the groups differed in their attitudes toward buying underwear with “Made in Australia”, “Made in the USA”, and “Made in China” labels.

The findings generally indicated that there is no significant difference between high and low ethnocentric consumers in attitude towards underwear that are made in Australia and the USA. On the other hand, high ethnocentric consumers viewed domestically made and branded underwear as more durable, easier to care for, better priced, more colourful, more attractive, more fashionable, of stronger brand name, more appropriate for occasions, and more choices of styles. Domestically‐made but foreign‐branded underwear is viewed as easier to care for and better priced.

The study suggests that China should improve its country image as compared to such developed nations as Australia and the USA in terms of production and manufacturing standards. The study also purports that American underwear brands with strong presence in the global fashion world that have not already established operation in Australia can consider entering the market.

The paper fills the gap in the ethnocentrism literature by validating the study in Australia and focusing on the attitudes of high ethnocentric (and low ethnocentric) consumers. It also examines underwear, which is a common product category in apparels but inherently deficient in the literature.

This study identifies a new type of advertising, sponsored ad forwarding, in microblog contexts. It tests the effectiveness of designs of a message with an ad with regard to receivers who are purely online friends or offline friends.

In the main experiment, a three-by-two experimental design was employed. By random assignment, message senders forwarded an ad with either an other-oriented or a self-oriented message to a group of offline friends or purely online friends. In the control group, there was no message accompanying the ad. The data of 218 effective sender-receiver dyads were collected and compared.

The results show that a message with an other-oriented appeal is more effective than one with a self-oriented appeal for dyads with an offline relationship, and a message with a self-oriented appeal is more effective than one with an other-oriented appeal for dyads with a purely online relationship. Overall, the use of appeals significantly boosts ad effectiveness.

This study identifies a new type of marketing practice in social media, namely sponsored ad forwarding. It also proposes appeal orientation as a novel type of message content design. It shows how to apply the right appeal orientation to the right receiver groups, that is, offline or purely online friends.

Unlike traditional products and services, customer motivation to purchase green products/services may be due to non-marketing factors, such as their personal values about health. In this study, the authors aim to propose and validate an integrative model using both advertising attitude factors and health beliefs to explain purchase intention and word of mouth in the context of green marketing. The authors focus specifically on collectivist consumers as values and social norms that tend to be more salient in driving their decisions.

The model was tested empirically using a survey study with 308 Chinese consumers in Hong Kong. The data were analyzed using confirmatory composite analysis (CCA) and partial least squares structural equation modeling.

All health beliefs were significant predictors of green advertising attitude. Green satisfaction fully mediates the relationship between green advertising attitude and positive word of mouth for products and services with green advertising for collectivist Chinese consumers. Meanwhile, green satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between green advertising attitude and purchase intention. In addition, green brand equity partially mediates the green advertising attitude–purchase intention/positive word of mouth link.

The significant impacts of health belief factors on green advertising attitude present important implications to advertising managers in terms of the use of information appeal in promoting green products/services. Green brand equity should also be developed in order to optimize green advertising effectiveness, especially in the context of collectivist customers.

This research is one of the first few studies investigating the mediating role of green satisfaction and green brand equity for collectivist consumer behaviors based on the health belief model (HBM).

The purpose of this study is to examine the interaction effect of perceived psychological distance toward the luxury brand and construal level of the CSR ad content on young consumers' perceptions toward the CSR ad (i.e. ad-brand congruency and perceived trust on CSR ad). This study also investigates the mediation effects of ad-brand congruency and trust on electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) intention on social media.

A two (low vs great psychological distance) by two (low vs high construal level) between-subjects experimental study is conducted with samples of social media users (n = 570) in the United States. Participants were randomly assigned to view one of the four CSR ads and instructed to respond to questions in the survey. The proposed hypotheses are tested using moderated serial mediation.

The interaction between psychological distance and construal level significantly influences ad-brand congruency. When participants view detailed information content (i.e. low construal level) with an accessible luxury brand (i.e. low psychological distance) in the CSR ad, they are more likely to perceive the ad is congruent with the brand compared to the CSR ad with abstract information content. There is no difference in ad-brand congruency for the aspiration luxury brand according to different content (i.e. low vs great construal level). Importantly, however, for both brands, the results reveal dual roles of the ad-brand congruency which increases eWOM intention directly and indirectly through trust. Findings confirm serial mediation effects of ad-brand congruency and CSR trust on the eWOM intention on social media.

By uncovering the interaction effect of psychological distance and construal level on ad-brand congruency, this study implicates how luxury fashion brands need to differently create CSR ad content. Our findings confirm dual ways of information processing that lead to positive engagement (i.e. eWOM) on social media, particularly among young consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically compare the risk factors in public-private partnership (PPP) projects in developing and developed countries, represented by Ghana and Hong Kong, respectively.

A structured questionnaire survey was conducted with PPP practitioners in Ghana and Hong Kong. In total, 103 valid responses were received for analysis. Kendall’s coefficient of concordance and mean ranking were used for data analysis.

The results show that respondents from Ghana ranked country risk factors higher, whereas their Hong Kong counterparts ranked project-specific risks higher. The top five significant risks in Ghana are corruption, inflation rate fluctuation, exchange rate fluctuation, delay in project completion and interest rate fluctuation. In Hong Kong, the top five significant risk factors are delay in land acquisition, operational cost overruns, construction cost overruns, delay in project completion and political interference.

The results of the study inform international investors of the appropriate risk mitigation measures and preventive actions to use when engaging in PPP arrangements in any part of the world. Further, governments who are yet to use the PPP concept would be informed of the prevailing risk factors in other neighbouring countries (i.e. developing or developed countries).

Despite widespread media attention and growing interest from researchers, pay transparency remains an under-studied field of research and its impact on organizational outcomes like job turnover is not well understood. This study explores the impact of pay transparency on job turnover intentions through the mediating effect of perceived organizational support (POS) and organizational justice.

Data from quantitative surveys conducted with 299 employees at four South African organizations with different pay transparency practices were used to test the conceptual model of pay transparency impacting job turnover intentions through the mediators of POS and organizational justice.

The authors found a weak negative relationship between pay transparency and job turnover intentions and the role of the mediating variables was confirmed. Unexpectedly, the role of the organization emerged as a key variable. Controlling for organization type showed that the direct effect of pay transparency on turnover intentions became insignificant, indicating a stronger effect from organizational factors, of which pay transparency practices are just one.

Identifying a contextual (organizational) dimension to pay transparency practices extends the understanding of this concept and has implications for practice. The study also makes a methodological contribution by demonstrating the value of linking respondent data to a particular organization when researching pay transparency.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the similarities and differences of critical success factors (CSFs) for public-private partnership (PPP) projects in developing and developed countries, using Ghana and Hong Kong as examples.

An empirical questionnaire survey was conducted with experienced PPP practitioners in Ghana and Hong Kong. Survey responses were analysed using Kendall’s concordance analysis, mean score ranking, quartile groupings analysis and Mann-Whitney U test.

The results indicate that a favourable legal and regulatory framework is very critical in both jurisdictions. Further, technology transfer, technological innovation, public/community participation and coordination and government providing financial support are of low importance in both jurisdictions. The non-parametric test shows that 16 CSFs are of different importance in Ghana and Hong Kong. Specifically, CSFs related to the socio-political and economic conditions of PPP projects are very critical in Ghana, whereas CSFs directly related to the organisation and relationship of PPP projects are very critical in Hong Kong.

The outputs of this study add to the international best practice framework for successful PPP implementation. Further, international private investors and governments who are yet to adopt the PPP concept would be considerably informed of the investment strategies to employ when engaging in PPP arrangements.

Traditional attribute control charts are based on the monitoring of the number of nonconforming items in a sample of fixed size. In modern manufacturing processes, since items can be checked automatically, use of samples of a fixed subjective size with traditional charts is not suitable for on‐line continuous inspection. Furthermore, the sample size usually has to be large when the process fraction nonconforming is not reasonably high. If a decision is to be made only when a sufficient number of items are manufactured and inspected, many nonconforming items might have been produced. In this paper, a control scheme is presented based on the monitoring of cumulative counts of items inspected. This procedure will limit the number of consecutive nonconforming items to a small value when the process has suddenly deteriorated, can detect a sudden process shift quickly and is suitable for continuous inspection processes. The exact probability control limits are derived and the implementation procedure is described.