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The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

This paper aims to examine the effect of the independent board of commissioners and profitability on Islamic social reporting (ISR) disclosure implemented in companies that belong to the group category of Indeks Saham Syariah Indonesia (ISSI). This study also examined the advanced effect of ISR disclosure as a company strategy to obtain a firm’s value.

The data of the independent board of commissioners, profitability, ISR disclosure and firm’s value were obtained from the annual reports of companies whose shares belong to the calculation of ISSI, totaling 24 companies. The ISR disclosure was measured using the content analysis method. While the research model used path analysis.

This study found that the independent board of commissioners directly affects the ISR disclosure while indirectly affects the firm’s value as mediated by the ISR disclosure. This finding indicates that the independent board of commissioners is regarded as capable of protecting investors’ interests from problems that may be incurred from asymmetry information. However, this study failed to prove that profitability directly affects the ISR disclosure.

A list of ISR disclosure items in this research adopted the list developed by Haniffa and Othman, without any additional items. While the measurement of ISR disclosure used the content analysis, therefore there may be subjectivity issues accidentally done while scoring.

This study recommends management of companies which belong to ISSI to optimize their independent board of commissioners because it has been proven in this study that their presence can significantly encourage a more independent, objective and fair climate while one of its main principles is to pay attention to the interests of minority shareholders and other stakeholders. Besides, the findings can be used to increase awareness of the company management about the importance of transparency in managing a company because the ISR disclosure has received positive responses from investors.

The findings of this study encourage companies to be more transparent in presenting information. An appropriate disclosure will provide a sense of security so that the investors can account for such earthly issues before Allah SWT, thus their spiritual satisfaction can be achieved.

This paper investigated further the effect of ISR disclosure on firm’s value which has never been performed by previous scholars. The ISR disclosure is a strategy to obtain legitimacy from investors, which was analyzed using the legitimacy theory.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of managerial ability on informative earnings management (hereafter IEM) and to examine the moderating role of the chief executive officer and board of commissioner relationship (hereafter CEO-commissioner relationship) and board independence between managerial ability and IEM.

Sample consists of 864 firm-years listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange. Informative earnings management is measured by the relationship between discretionary accruals and earnings growth. Managerial ability is measured by data envelopment analysis. This research uses firm-effect logistic regression to perform the data analysis.

Based on firm-effect logistic regression, managerial ability increases IEM. It confirms the managers’ stewardship behavior where managers tend to engage in IEM and provide higher quality information for shareholders. The result also shows that the absence of a CEO-commissioner relationship and higher board independence leads higher ability managers to engage more in IEM. It confirms the role of corporate governance to reduce managers-shareholders conflict (in the context of agency theory) or to facilitate higher ability managers to act as both controlling and minority shareholders’ stewards (in the context of stewardship theory) by engaging more in IEM and providing higher-quality information.

This research contributes to filling the previous studies gap that provides conflicting results on managerial ability and earnings management by considering earnings management motivations, CEO-commissioner relationship and board independence. This research also contributes to providing new evidence of managerial ability, IEM, CEO-commissioner relationship and board independence, especially in Indonesia.

This paper examines the communication modalities on Twitter to broadcast content to citizens and measures the effectiveness of the posted content in activating the citizens’ political participation proposing an retweetability rate.

Through content analysis of the European Commissioners’ posts, this paper identifies the most used communication modalities to broadcast content to the citizens. A retweetability rate is proposed to measure the effectiveness of the posted content in activating the political citizens’ engagement. The methodology is applied to the tweets posted by European Commissioners, who are currently facing democracy legitimation issues and Euroscepticism.

Empirical results show that Twitter is not fully used yet as a citizen engagement tool. However, the paper highlights the potentiality of Twitter to broadcast contents of value and build a relationship of citizens and institutions.

Measuring citizen engagement based on the posted messages can help the institutions to evaluate the effectiveness of the posted social media content. Moreover, the paper gives suggestions regarding how governments might implement social media content capable of fostering a dialogic communication with citizens.

A measurement of citizen engagement permits the identification of which kinds of public communication stimulate the engagement and favor a closer bond between citizens and public institutions.

The Commissioner for the South African Revenue Service has wide discretionary powers. In this article, the meaning, purpose, types, extent and exercise of these powers are examined. Do these powers promote uncertainty and/or unfairness and inconsistency, and if so, which of these powers do so? The extent of the powers given by some of the discretions not specifically subject to objection and appeal is questioned: no discretionary powers involving liability for tax should be allowed, especially not without the right to objection and appeal. Because of the general administrative relationship between the Commissioner and the taxpayer and because exercising a discretionary power constitutes an administrative action, the constitutionality of this power was examined in terms of taxpayers’ right to just administrative action. Only discretionary powers not specifically made subject to objection and appeal are open for constitutional attack.

Diversity in the boardroom is a social factor that spurs public debate in academic and practical arenas. In a two-tier governance system, the question lingers on the impact of board of commissioners and board of directors’ diversity on a company’s performance. This study aims to investigate this issue based on a comprehensive set of diversity variables, namely, age, tenure, gender, education level, culture, functional expertise, industry experience, school of origin and “busyness.”

The authors constructed diversity indices for board of directors and board of commissioners and used multiple linear regressions to test the hypotheses using samples of companies listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange from 2014 to 2018.

Board of director (commissioner) diversity has no significant (a positive) impact on corporate performance. However, the latter does not moderate the relationship between board of director diversity and company performance.

Although the theories of human capital and upper echelons are applied here, the results more likely support a contingency argument, as the effect of diversity may vary by company and period, hence leading to offsetting effects. Thus, the impact of diversity on corporate performance might be better observed through in-depth case studies.

The positive impact of the board of commissioners’ diversity on firm performance might indicate the importance of close monitoring by this board. The results further suggest that appointment decisions of directors and commissioners from diverse backgrounds should be based on criteria other than financial performance.

No study has constructed comprehensive diversity indices of the board of commissioners and directors in a two-tier governance context. The study fills this gap.

In the Foreword to the first Annual Report of the Commissioner for the Rights of Trade Union Members, Mrs.Gill Rowlands says “As Commissioner I am able to provide material assistance to union members contemplating or taking certain proceedings in connection with … matters specified [in] … the 1988 Act. If assistance is granted, the applicant will know that he/she will not be placed at a disadvantage by a lack of ability to obtain legal advice or pay legal costs in connection with those proceedings.”

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to determine the self-perceived proficiency level of Commissioners of Agriculture in six leadership skill areas. Major findings noted their proficiency in these areas. Researchers recommend providing professional development opportunities and software training for Commissioners at their annual conference.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the Police and Crime Commissioners have been scrutinised in their first nine months in office, focusing primarily on one particular force area.

A brief analysis of the most current writing on this topic, including official documents such as minutes of police and crime panel meetings and Home Affairs Committee and Welsh Affairs Committee evidence sessions, as well various online news sources are provided. Academic literature spanning 30 years is also drawn upon.

In considering particular major events in the first nine months of the implementation of Police and Crime Commissioners, central government have been required to take a more prominent role in scrutiny in certain regions than first envisaged, due to ambiguity of legislative guidelines.

As an exploratory paper, one force area (Gwent) is the primary focus, sampled because of the issues faced in that area and its widespread coverage in the media.

Problems with the legislative guidance for Police and Crime Commissioners, Police and Crime Panels and other involved agencies and individuals are highlighted.

The paper contributes to the body of research investigating how the new policing governance framework in England and Wales is unfolding in practice. It is informed by both academic perspectives and real life examples.