Search results

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977 and its amendment – the Trade and Competitive Act of 1988 – are unique not only in the history of the accounting and auditing profession, but also in international law. The Acts raised awareness of the need for efficient and adequate internal control systems to prevent illegal acts such as the bribery of foreign officials, political parties and governments to secure or maintain contracts overseas. Its uniqueness is also due to the fact that the USA is the first country to pioneer such a legislation that impacted foreign trade, international law and codes of ethics. The research traces the history of the FCPA before and after its enactment, the role played by the various branches of the United States Government – Congress, Department of Justice, Securities Exchange commission (SEC), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); the contributions made by professional associations such as the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICFA), the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), the American Bar Association (ABA); and, finally, the role played by various international organizations such as the United Nations (UN), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). A cultural, ethical and legalistic background will give a better understanding of the FCPA as wll as the rationale for its controversy.

This study contributes to the existing literature that corporate governance consist of internal and external governance behavior which refers to the complementarity of the elements of (1) competing values framework and (2) corporate legality framework theories and proper orientation in the provisions of the elements leads to a good corporate power in the modern legal environment. A questionnaire is designed, a survey is conducted based on the constructed corporate governance model in the study, which investigates the evolutionary background of the elements with the view of establishing the right corporate culture and corporate legality behavior. The empirical results revealed that there is a positive linear relationship between the elements of corporate culture provisions with internal governance behavior and a significant positive association between the elements of corporate legality provisions with external governance behavior. The model does not take into account long-term external factors. Therefore, measuring corporate governance may not be an easy task and may not be suitable for specific countries that have strong legal systems and corporate ownership. The elements in the model are practical to implement and facilitates corporate to improve shareholder involvement and governance reporting and hence prevent failure. The constructed model span almost every attribute embedding high quality corporate social responsibility and corporate governance for corporate to identify areas for improvement and contributes to existing corporate governance literature that, connecting corporate culture and corporate legality behavior positively affect financial markets and firm performance.

The purpose of this paper is to establish an integrated framework of the antecedents of enforcement after contract violations in construction projects and to examine whether contract provisions (control and coordination provisions) and trust (goodwill and competence trust) affect enforcement mechanisms (contractual enforcement and relational enforcement).

A survey method was employed to test the hypotheses. The authors collected data from the Chinese construction industry, and general contractor respondents were asked to answer a questionnaire about a contract violation by one of their subcontractors.

Control provisions and competence trust are positively related to contractual enforcement, but goodwill trust is negatively related to contractual enforcement. Relational enforcement is influenced by goodwill trust and competence trust.

This study treats contract violations as a given variable, and it focuses on contract violations by subcontractors. The cross-sectional design makes it difficult to confirm the causality of the relationships.

Overly strict contractual enforcement can generate disputes and a vicious cycle of retaliation, and overly severe relational enforcement can damage a potentially profitable long-term relationship. In construction projects, the violating party will benefit from this study to avoid excessively contractual enforcement and relational enforcement, thus developing a more collaborative atmosphere on the current project and even establishing a solid long-term relationship.

This study extends the project management literature by investigating the antecedents of enforcement after contract violations, an area not yet fully researched.

Offers a general historical analysis of the development of public service provision in Britain. First discusses the slow emergence of industrialism in Britain, then discusses the development of social services in this context. Suggests that there are three significant stages in development: local public administration, 1870‐1950; central Welfare State, 1950‐1980; and decentralized provision, 1980‐1995. Goes on to argue that, in order to understand this sequence, and especially the emergence of centralized public provision, it is necessary to discuss modes of delivery of services within these institutional frameworks of provision. Examines different stages in patterns of organization for delivery of services which overlap with stages of provision. Suggests that the recent re‐emergence of decentralized provision has a certain inevitability, but that it is important that this takes an appropriate form. Identifies this form as a participative management

This study set out to collect data from assistive technology professionals about their provision of speech‐driven environmental control systems. This study is part of a larger study looking at developing a new speech‐driven environmental control system. A focus group for assistive technology professionals was conducted. This focus group was recorded, transcribed and then analysed using a framework approach. The analysis suggested that professionals have a ‘mental model’ of a successful user of a speech‐driven system and that in general they consider such systems either as a ‘last resort’ or to work in parallel with another system as a back‐up. Perceived poor reliability was highlighted as a major influence in the provision of speech‐driven environmental control systems although there were also positive perceptions about the use of speech under controlled circumstances. Comparison with published data from end‐users showed that professionals highlighted the majority of issues identified by end‐users. Assistive technology professionals think that speech has potential as an access method but are cautious about using speech‐driven environmental control systems predominantly due to concerns about reliability. Professionals seem able to empathise well with the challenges faced by end‐users in use of these systems.

A public–private partnership (PPP) is an agreement between the government and private investors to deliver long-term public services. The efficiency of PPP projects depends on PPP contracts stipulating contractual parties' corresponding responsibilities and rights to deal with relational and performance risks. Although more complex contracts provide more remedies for mitigating ex-post transaction costs, they also result in the increased ex ante transaction costs associated with contract writing. Thus, contractual complexity is a design choice that can reduce the overall contract transaction costs.

Using 365 transportation PPP projects in China from 2010 to 2019, this study applies the Poisson regression model to examine the effects of payment mechanisms, ownership by investors and equity structure on contractual complexity.

PPP contracts have control and coordination functions with unique determinants. Parties in the government-pay mechanism are more likely to negotiate coordination provisions, which results in greater contractual complexity. PPP projects with state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have less contractual complexity in terms of both two functions of provisions, whereas the equity structure has no impact on contractual complexity.

These findings provide a nuanced understanding of how various contractual provisions are combined to perform control or coordination functions and make managerial recommendations to parties involved in PPP projects.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mechanisms adopted by cities to control the provision of externalized public services and to explore the determinants of such control choices.

The paper presents the results of a multiple case study based on the experiences of three cities and three public services (transport, solid waste collection and home care services for the elderly), where control mechanisms and their possible antecedents were analyzed.

The results show that the control models found in the cases analyzed do not correspond to the “pure” patterns described in the private sector literature and that the factors identified by management control contributions do not seem to be exhaustive in explaining the configuration of control systems in the public sector. While environmental and task characteristics only partially explain the adoption of certain configurations of control, the features of the control systems seem to be rather influenced by variables that are related to party characteristics.

The paper shows that the combinations of control mechanisms are more multifaceted than those presented in the literature, and that the factors identified in the private sector literature do not seem to explain comprehensively the configuration of control systems in the public sector.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of individual provisions of firm‐level shareholder rights on the cost of equity capital in the USA setting.

Prior literature has shown that strong shareholder rights, as measured by aggregated shareholder rights indices, could mitigate the agency costs and reduce the cost of equity capital. Stepwise regression method with control variables for financial risks and corporate governance risks is used to empirically test whether individual shareholder rights provisions have varying degrees of impacts on a firm's cost of equity capital.

Of the 24 shareholder rights provisions in the shareholder rights index, four provisions are found to be the most significant determinants of cost of equity capital with the absence of three provisions (poison pill, golden parachute, and control share cash out) and the presence of fair value provision reducing the firm's cost of equity capital.

First, the results suggest that a few individual provisions are major determinants of firm value. Hence, investors and regulators should pay the most attention to these provisions. Second, the result that some provisions that limit shareholders' rights actually reduce cost of equity capital suggests that investors and regulators should not view all aspects of weak shareholder rights negatively.

This paper tests the impact of shareholder rights on cost of equity capital from an individual provision basis.

The role of call-centres during service recovery has attracted much attention in research. However, marketers know less about controlling customers during recovery interactions and consequences of such control. In order to address this gap and empirically ascertain whether service interactions are marked by customer centricity or by employees exerting control over customers, the aim of the authors was to organise an empirical research in two Brazilian call-centres.

The research consisted of direct, open observation and 33 semi-structured interviews with insiders (call-centre managers, supervisors and operatives).

Four key findings emerged during interviews with insiders. First, control over customers may be more widely practiced than assumed in certain sections of marketing academe. Second, such control is viewed positively by call-centre insiders and is sanctioned by management. Third, control does not disempower and demoralise call-centre staff but protects operatives. Finally, control does not seem to unavoidably generate lasting customer dissatisfaction. These findings are incorporated in a framework of call-centre management which incorporates control through scripting.

The discussion calls for the revisit of certain marketing concepts and philosophies, including customer orientation, by demonstrating that control over customers is practised and should not be viewed negatively or avoided altogether in practice and as a topic of analysis. A re-conceptualisation of call-centres as sites of control over customers is proposed.

Control and power are rarely analysed in services marketing. This is one of a few studies that makes sense of providers' (insiders') viewpoints and argues that control may play a constructive role and should be seen as a legitimate topic of services and call-centre analysis. As such it addresses a question of intellectual and practical importance which is rarely discussed and may be viewed as incongruous with an age when customers are assumed to have rights.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the non-discretionary determinants of bank loan loss provisions in Africa after controlling for macroeconomic fluctuation, financial development and investor protection.

The author uses static and dynamic regression estimation to test for the determinants of bank loan loss provisions.

The author finds that non-performing loans (NPL), loan-to-asset ratio and loan growth are significant non-discretionary drivers of bank provisions in the African region. The author observes that bank provision is a positive function of NPL up to a threshold beyond which bank provisions will no longer increase as NPL increases. Also, bank loan-to-asset ratio is a significant driver of bank provisions when African banks have higher loan-to-asset ratios. The author finds that larger banks in financially developed African countries have fewer loan loss provisions while increase in bank lending leads to fewer bank provisions in countries with strong investor protection. Finally, higher bank lending is associated with higher bank provisions during economic boom.

This study is the first to assess the determinants of non-discretionary bank provisions in Africa as part of micro-prudential surveillance of banks in the African region.