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In the 1990s and beginning of the next decade, a series of financial accounting scandals occurred in the United States (USA or US) and in several other countries of the world. The USA and Italy (among others) responded with legislation to reform financial reporting and corporate governance in these jurisdictions. This paper aims to compare the regulatory response of Italy to that of the USA.

This paper includes a review of relevant literature and evaluation of the actions of the regulatory authorities.

In the case of the financial reporting crises, the rapid response put the USA into the role of the “first mover” with the European Union (EU) reacting to US initiatives and eventually converging to a large degree with the provisions of the US legislation. Italy has adopted many of the same regulatory reforms as the USA and has added some reforms that are directed to the specific needs to Italy.

In conjunction with legislative initiatives like Sarbanes-Oxley, private enforcement mechanisms, such as shareholder class action suits in the USA, play an important role in discouraging and punishing financial accounting fraud.

In the absence of significant reforms of the Italian private enforcement system, corporate governance abuses and the potential for accounting scandals may still be persistent. As a whole, cooperative efforts continue between the USA and the EU. Such efforts are needed more and more, as companies become increasingly globalized.

This paper provides comparison and evaluation of corporate governance reform efforts in the USA and Italy.

There has long been an “ideal” model of the profession in the sociology of the professions. Our point of departure is that the independent professional is something of a vanishing species, and professional practice is increasingly carried out within non-professional organizations (organizations not managed nor largely staffed by fellow professionals). Indeed, can we expect to recognize our “ideal” professional at all whether in the multi-disciplinary professional service practice or more focussed large private practices? Might in fact there be something fundamentally flawed about both in this model? This chapter explores these issues and their implications for how ethical dilemmas are resolved.

The purpose of this paper is to report on findings from an evaluative research study which looked at a timed intervention model of practice comprising of up to 24 weeks of intensive meetings with adult service users set up by one local authority in England, to prevent and delay the need for care and support. A particular focus of this paper is on adults who hoard.

The study employed a mixed-methods design, consisting of interviews with service users (n=13), social workers (n=3), social work managers (n=2) and stakeholders from external services and agencies (n=6). It included a costing analysis of staff time and an analysis of goals of service users and “satisfaction with life” self-report questionnaires (n=20), completed at pre- and post-intervention stages.

There was evidence that social workers used strengths, relationship-based and outcome-based focused approaches in their work. The techniques used by social workers to engage, achieve change and assess effectiveness with service users varied. These techniques included the use of photographs to enable the service user to map and assess their own progress over time, encouraging hoarders to declutter and reclaim their living space. The service users valued the time the social workers spent with them and the way that they were treated with sensitivity and respect.

The study focused on one local authority in England; there was no comparison group. This, and the small sample size, means that statistical generalisations cannot be made and only limited conclusions can be drawn from the quantitative data.

The paper provides insights into the work undertaken by social workers with adults who hoard. It contributes to the body of knowledge on effective social work interventions with adults who hoard.

By using the acid/base concept (the electron donor/Acceptor properties) and the solubility parameter it is possible to obtain a greater understanding of the interaction between pigments, binders and solvents. When higher colour strength, better flocculation resistance, gloss and rheology are obtained in a formulation by using these concepts, the cost of the raw materials can be reduced.

Heritability studies attempt to estimate the contribution of genes (vs. environments) to variation in phenotypes (or outcomes of interest) in a given population at a given time. This chapter scrutinizes heritability studies of adverse health phenotypes, emphasizing flaws that have become more glaring in light of recent advances in the life sciences and manifest most visibly in epigenetics.

Drawing on a diverse body of research and critical scholarship, this chapter examines the veracity of methodological and conceptual assumptions of heritability studies.

The chapter argues that heritability studies are futile for two reasons: (1) heritability studies suffer from serious methodological flaws with the overall effect of making estimates inaccurate and likely biased toward inflated heritability, and, more importantly (2) the conceptual (biological) model on which heritability studies depend – that of identifiably separate effects of genes versus the environment on phenotype variance – is unsound. As discussed, contemporary bioscientific work indicates that genes and environments are enmeshed in a complex (bidirectional, interactional), dynamic relationship that defies any attempt to demarcate separate contributions to phenotype variance. Thus, heritability studies attempt the biologically impossible. The emerging research on the importance of microbiota is also discussed, including how the commensal relationship between microbial and human cells further stymies heritability studies.

Understandably, few sociologists have the time or interest to be informed about the methodological and theoretical underpinnings of heritability studies or to keep pace with the incredible advances in genetics and epigenetics over the last several years. The present chapter aims to provide interested scholars with information about heritability and heritability estimates of adverse health outcomes in light of recent advances in the biosciences.

This study collected perceptual data from 162 manufacturing managers to assess whether their perception of organizational learning is related to firm profitability or whether the relationship is indirect through firms’ competitive advantage (quality improvement, cost improvement, cycle-time improvement). The results indicate that managers perceive that organizational learning is significantly related to competitive advantage that, in turn, is positively related to profitability. The results also indicate that the relation between organizational learning and profitability is fully mediated by firm competitive advantage.

Ulf Bengtsson works for Motorola Inc. as an Organization Effectiveness consultant. In this role he works in the area of change acceleration, organization design, and other strategic OD initiatives. His undergraduate degree is in Organizational Communication from Cleveland State University and he earned a Masters in Management and Organizational Behavior (concentration in OD) from Benedictine University. He has done award-winning papers and presentations and has numerous publications on topics including organizational behavior, organization development, and appreciative inquiry. A Swedish citizen, he now resides in Chicago. Ulf can be reached at: Ulfl@motorola.com.Allen C. Bluedorn (Ph.D. in sociology, University of Iowa) is the Emma S. Hibbs Distinguished Professor and the Chair of the Department of Management at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has taught and studied management and the organization sciences, first at the Pennsylvania State University, then for the last 23 years at the University of Missouri-Columbia. These efforts have produced seven major teaching awards, over 30 articles and chapters, and his recently published book, The Human Organization of Time (Stanford University Press, 2002). He has served as president of the Midwest Academy of Management, as a member of the Organizational Behavior Teaching Society’s board of directors, as a representative-at-large to the Academy of Management’s board of governors, as associate editor of Academy of Management Learning and Education, and as division chair of the Academy of Management’s Organizational Behavior Division.David Coghlan is a member of the School of Business Studies at the University of Dublin, Trinity College, Ireland. His research and teaching interests lie in the areas of organisation development, action research, action learning, clinical inquiry, practitioner research and doing action research in one’s own organisation. His most recent books include Doing Action Research in Your Own Organization (co-authored with Teresa Brannick, Sage, 2001), Changing Healthcare Organisations, (coauthored with Eilish Mc Auliffe, Blackhall: Dublin, 2003) and Managers Learning in Action (eds. D. Coghlan, T. Dromgoole, P. Joynt & P. Sorensen, Routledge, 2004).Paul Coughlan is Associate Professor of Operations Management at the University of Dublin, School of Business Studies, Trinity College, Ireland where, since 1993, he has researched and taught in the areas of operations management and product development. His active research interests relate to continuous improvement of practices and performance in product development and manufacturing operations. He is President of the Board of the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management, and a member of the board of the European Operations Management Association.Fariborz Damanpour received his Ph.D. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He joined the Graduate School of Management at the Rutgers University in 1985. Currently he is a professor at the Department of Management and Global Business of the Rutgers Business School, where he served as the chairperson of the management department from 1996 to 2002. Prior to his academic career, he worked as an engineer, an organizational development consultant, and the manager of a start-up unit in a large organization. His primary areas of research have been management of innovation and organization design and change. His papers have been published in several management and technology management journals including the Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, Journal of Management Studies, Management Science, Organization Studies, and Strategic Management Journal. He serves on the editorial boards of the IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, and Journal of Management Studies.Joyce Falkenberg is Professor of Strategy and Associate Dean of the School of Management at Agder University College (HiA) in Kristiansand, Norway. She received a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in 1984. Her dissertation focused on strategic change and adaptation as a response to changes in the environment. Her research has continued the focus on strategic change with an emphasis on implementation. Recent work has combined this emphasis with the strategy issues of congition, strategizing, and resource based perspective. Before coming to HiA in the summer of 2003, Joyce Falkenberg was a member of the faculty at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. She taught in many international programs, including NHHs Masters of International Business; executive masters programs in Russia and Poland; and held seminars in Latvia, China, Switzerland, and Germany. Falkenberg has served on the Executive Board of the Academy of Management Business Policy Division and on the Editorial Board of the Academy of Management Review.Mary A. Ferdig Ph.D., is Director of the Sustainability Leadership Institute in Middlebury, Vermont, a research and education organization dedicated to developing leadership capacity for building a more sustainable world. Her research interests focus on leadership for sustainable organizational and social change, grounded in complexity and social constructionist perspectives. She consults with leaders in not-for-profit and business sectors as well as teaching process consultation and leadership communication in the Management and Organizational Behavior Master’s program at Benedictine University and the Public Administration and Community Services program at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. She also serves as an External Examiner in the Doctoral Program in the Complexity Management Centre, Hertfordshire University, London, U.K.Robert T. Golembiewski is Distinguished Research Professor, Emeritus at the University of Georgia, where he is part of the Public Administration program. Bob G is an internationally-active consultant in planned change, and he is the only pracademic who has won all of the major research prizes in management: the Irwin in business, Waldo Award in PA, the NASPAA Award in public policy, two McGregor awards for excellence in the application of the behavioral sciences, and the ODI Prize for global programs in planned change.

To resolve an inherent dilemma in extant research on geographically dispersed research and development (R&D), this study explores interdependencies between formal and informal network structures. Firms that seek to benefit from the decentralization associated with disperse R&D must align it with an informal structure that enhances organizational members’ motivation to share and assimilate their unique knowledge and skills. On the basis of an investigation among 424 US biotechnology firms between 1973 and 2003, this study reveals the moderating effect of the firm’s informal social structure on the effect that geographically dispersed R&D personnel have on the exploration of new technological opportunities. Specifically, the higher the social network density among R&D members, the more likely geographic disparity is to affect exploration; however, this likelihood decreases with an increase in power asymmetries. These results offer insights into the conditions in which the appropriate management of geographically dispersed R&D varies.

Research on perceptions of organizational politics has mostly explored the negative aspects and detrimental outcomes for organizations and employees. Responding to recent calls in the literature for a more balanced treatment, we expand on how positive and negative organizational politics perceptions are perceived as stressors and affect employee outcomes through their influence on the social environment. We propose that employees appraise positive and negative organization politics perceptions as either challenge or hindrance stressors, to which they respond with engagement and disengagement as problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies. Specifically, employees who appraise the negative politics perceptions as a hindrance, use both problem- and emotion-focused coping, which entails one of three strategies: (1) decreasing their engagement, (2) narrowing the focus of their engagement, or (3) disengaging. Although these strategies result in negative outcomes for the organization, employees’ coping leads to their positive well-being. In contrast, employees appraising positive politics perceptions as a challenge stressor use problem-focused coping, which involves increasing their engagement to reap the perceived benefits of a positive political environment. Yet, positive politics perceptions may also be appraised as a hindrance stressor in certain situations, and, therefore lead employees to apply emotion-focused coping wherein they use a disengagement strategy. By disengaging, they deal with the negative effects of politics perceptions, resulting in positive well-being. Thus, our framework suggests an unexpected twist to the stress process of politics perceptions as a strain-provoking component of employee work environments.