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This chapter analyzes how the macro-environment determines corporate dividend decisions. First, political factors including political uncertainty, economic policy uncertainty, political corruption, and democracy may have two opposite effects on dividend decisions. For example, firms learn democratic practices to improve their corporate governance, but dividend policy may be the outcome of strong corporate governance or the substitute for poor corporate governance. Second, firms in countries of high national income, low inflation, and highly developed stock markets tend to pay more dividends. A monetary restriction (expansion) reduces (increases) dividend payments, as economic shocks like financial crises and the COVID-19 may negatively affect corporate dividend policy through higher external financial constraint, economic uncertainty, and agency costs. On the other hand, they may positively influence corporate dividend policy through agency costs of debt, shareholders' bird-in-hand motive, substitution of weak corporate governance, and signaling motive. Third, social factors including national culture, religion, and language affect dividend decisions since they govern both managers' and shareholders' views and behaviors. Fourth, firms tend to reduce their dividends when they face stronger pressure to reduce pollution, produce environment-friendly products, or follow a green policy. Finally, firms have high levels of dividends when shareholders are strongly protected by laws. However, firms tend to pay more dividends in countries of weak creditor rights since dividend payments are a substitute for poor legal protection of creditors. Furthermore, corporate dividend policy changes when tax laws change the comparative tax rates on dividends and capital gains.

This study aims to address the following four research questions: first, whether auditors report critical audit matters (CAMs) to shield themselves against possible litigation; second, whether reporting quality affects auditors’ propensity to report CAMs; third, whether auditors’ tenure length – reflecting familiarity with clients’ financial reporting – affects their likelihood to report CAMs; and fourth, whether auditors’ conservatism increases the likelihood of CAMs reporting.

Data are manually collected from audit reports including CAMs in 10-K, then financial data are collected from the Capital IQ database, and market data are collected from the CRSP database. Using propensity score matching, the initial sample of companies with CAMs is matched with companies without reported CAMs. Performance adjusted discretionary accruals, real earnings management proxy, Khan and Watts’ (2009) C-score, propensity to issue a going concern opinion, Dechow et al.’s (2011) F-Score, Rogers and Stocken’s (2005) model and Houston et al.’s (2010) model are used to measure reporting quality, auditor conservatism, misstatement risk and litigation risk, respectively.

The results do not show that auditors report CAMs opportunistically to shield themselves from litigation risk. However, the results do suggest that auditors have a greater tendency to report CAMs when reporting quality is low and when they are more conservative. On the other hand, they have less tendency to report CAMs in their first year of engagement.

The findings of this study have important implications for the auditor behavior literature as it shows that, when it comes to reporting CAMs, auditors actually behave objectively and do not report in a trite way. This study also provides early archival evidence on a standard that relates to the first major change to the auditor’s report in decades. To the best of the author’s knowledge, it is the first to provide evidence on the association between auditor conservatism and auditors tendency to report CAMs and the first to triangulate prior research on auditor litigation risk by providing the first archival evidence on the auditors “litigation-shielding” concern.

This study examines whether auditors attempt to meet the stated objective of reporting CAMs by signaling information about reporting quality. This study demonstrates that reporting CAMs is not a “boilerplate” communication. This study has implications for standards setters, as it shows that CAMs are reported in a way consistent with the objectives of the new standard, namely, via signaling information in the audit report on the quality of the financial statements.

In terms of originality, this paper uses a manually collected sample and, to the best of the author’s knowledge, is the first to focus on auditor’s behavior rather than on investors or clients reactions to CAMs. Also, this paper addresses a recently issued standard using US data and archival approach, rather than experimental. This paper also provides relevant evidence related to concerns raised earlier but were not empirically examined, such as reporting CAMS as “boilerplate” expectations. This paper provides new evidence on the auditors’ behavior with regard to litigation risk.

The purpose of the article is to outline the insights provided by Alan Fox in Man Mismanagement in relation to the rise of the New Right political economy and the spread of unitarist managerialism. The article assesses the contemporary work and employment relations implications of mismanagement arising from a “second wave” of the New Right ideology from 2010 in the UK.

Responding to the Special Issue on Alan Fox, the article focuses on Alan Fox's book Man Mismanagement, considering industrial relations developments arising between the 1st (1974b) and 2nd (1985) editions relating to the political rise of the New Right. It reviews various literature that illustrates the contemporary IR relevance of the book and Fox's insights.

The New Right’s ideology has further fragmented work, disjointed labour rights and undermined collective industrial relations institutions, and macho mismanagement praxis is even more commonplace, compared to when Fox wrote Man Mismanagement. The stripping away of the institutional architecture of IR renders the renewal of pluralist praxis, like collective bargaining and other forms of joint regulation of work, a formidable task.

The value of the article relates to the identification of dramatic historical industrial relations events and change in the UK in Alan Fox's book Man Mismanagement, most notably relating to the rise to power of the Thatcherite New Right in 1979. Originality is evidenced by the authors’ drawing on Fox's ideas and assessing the implications of the “second wave” of the New Right in the contemporary industrial relations (IR) context of the 2020s under the conceptual themes of fragmented work, disjointed labour rights and undermined collectivism.

Current research aims to investigate the relationships between Chinese national cultural values (uncertainty avoidance (UA), power distance, masculinity (MAS), individualism (IDV) and Confucian dynamism) and accounting practices (professionalism, uniformity, conservatism and secrecy).

A sample of 842 users/preparers of financial statements participated in this cross-sectional, questionnaire-based survey from China. Covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) was used to test the proposed relationship.

Results show that cultural values strongly impact financial reporting practices in China. Chinese society is characterized by low UA, high power distance, collectivism, future orientation (Confucianism) and masculine traits. These values show an overall preference for uniformity, conservatism and secrecy in financial reporting with weak professionalism. The findings show that Chinese society emphasizes law abidance, strict codes of conduct, written rules and regulations and respect for consistent orthodox measures.

This study provides valuable input for policymakers in developing regulations and accounting standards in the Chinese market. Understanding the relationship between cultural dimensions and accounting values helps to address societal challenges and align policies with cultural values to acquire desired financial reporting values. Global firm managers must consider cultural dimensions in accounting when entering Chinese markets or negotiating with partners from different cultures. Findings also suggest local managers gain self-awareness of their cultural biases and accounting values, enabling them to navigate businesses and society's financial reporting needs.

This study enriches the existing literature on cultural and accounting practice studies by validating the role of stakeholder and social contract theories in Gray–Hofstede’s framework and highlighting the influence of dominant cultural values on accounting values. The study provides a unique empirical analysis of the Chinese market by using a questionnaire survey and structural equation modeling (SEM). Further, it also opens avenues for future research on the relationship between cultural dimensions, accounting practices and their global impact. These findings emphasize the importance of cultural sensitivity and adaptability, especially in multicultural environments.

This study sheds new light on the personality trait and provides evidence regarding the relation between narcissism and desirable accounting practices, specifically the impact of CEO narcissism on accounting conservatism.

The authors test the relation between CEO narcissism and accounting conservatism for a sample of 907 US companies and their corresponding CEOs for the period between 2010 and 2018. The authors apply three established models of accounting conservatism and measure executives' narcissism using a non-intrusive approach ubiquitous in the literature.

The authors find that CEO narcissism is associated with speculative accounting practices in the form of timely recognition of positive news and more prudent financial reporting of anticipated negative news. The authors provide the first empirical evidence that, despite its well-known negative effects on corporate financial reporting, executive narcissism can also produce positive outcomes.

While managerial overconfidence has received much attention, the effects of executives' narcissism are still widely unexplored (Chatterjee and Hambrick, 2007). The authors thus contribute to the literature by investigating the relationship between CEOs' narcissism and accounting conservatism. The authors conjecture CEO narcissism should have a twofold effect on prudent financial reporting. On the one hand, CEOs' narcissism should be associated with low levels of unconditional conservatism due to excessively fast good news recognition. On the other hand, narcissistic executives should be associated with early recognition of negative news and hence with higher levels of conditional conservatism.

This chapter explores what it means for adults to claim child rights. Focussing on activism against institutional child abuse, it considers the question of what happens to the mobilisation of child rights discourse when the person claiming those rights is no longer a child. In other words, how is the concept of child rights used retrospectively and what does this reveal, both about childhood and about child rights? The chapter begins with the contention that childhood needs to be understood as not only a concept that speaks to the lives of children, their experiences, and their place within the social structure. Rather, we suggest that a more expansive view enables recognition of the enduring significance of childhood in adults’ lives. We illustrate this argument with examples of the formation of collective identities based on childhood experiences, before turning to the ways that child rights are marshalled by adults in activism, in commissions of inquiry, and in the legal sphere. Throughout the chapter, we consider issues of temporality. We explore the ways in which adult survivors of childhood abuse retrospectively claim rights denied to them in the past and we examine how activism, official inquiries, and legal mechanisms position adults in relation to their childhood selves. We then consider some of the dilemmas that arise with retrospective rights claims; particularly questions of retroactivity in relation to responsibility and redress for past abuse. Finally, we explore the temporal repositioning of childhood and how past and present is bridged. This occurs through survivor activism and, in more formal mechanisms such as inquiries, by focussing on how people are represented as child victims in the past and survivors in the present.

This study aims at offering a comprehensive thesis about the relationship between different cultural values and innovativeness.

Building on the human emancipation perspective and using data from Hofstede’s, Schwartz’s, and Inglehart’s cultural frameworks, the authors conduct a cross-national investigation into the effects of cultural values on national innovativeness.

The analyses show that emancipatory cultural dimensions such as rationality, secularity, self-expression, individualism, low uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation, mastery and autonomy have significantly positive associations with national innovativeness. The opposing cultural values, such as traditionalism, religiosity, survival, collectivism, high uncertainty avoidance, short-term orientation, harmony and conservatism, have negative associations with national innovativeness.

This study contributes to the literature by putting forward a comprehensive and theory-driven explanation of the relationship between cultural values and innovativeness, by using all of Hofstede’s, Schwartz’s and Inglehart’s dimensions, by incorporating ethnic, linguistic and religious diversities and by applying alternative measures of the national innovativeness.