Search results

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to explore the question of whether there is an optimal level of time pressure in groups.

Design/approach – We argue that distinguishing performance from productivity is a necessary step toward the eventual goal of being able to determine optimal deadlines and ideal durations of meetings. We review evidence of time pressure's differential effects on performance and productivity.

Findings – Based on our survey of the literature, we find that time pressure generally impairs performance because it places constraints on the capacity for thought and action that limit exploration and increase reliance on well-learned or heuristic strategies. Thus, time pressure increases speed at the expense of quality. However, performance is different from productivity. Giving people more time is not always better for productivity because time spent on a task yields decreasing marginal returns to performance.

Originality/value of chapter – The evidence reviewed here suggests that setting deadlines wisely can help maximize productivity.

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission has a detrimental impact on climate change. There is an increasing trend for firms to use disclosure to signal stakeholders about its environmental responsibilities and performance in dealing with climate change. China is one of the countries producing the most carbon emissions. Over the last decade, Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are becoming important players in international trade. However, the existing literature provides limited evidence on how Chinese SOEs influence GHG disclosure. Through the lens of stakeholder–agency theory, this chapter studies the top 300 listed firms to examine the relationship between Chinese SOEs and the likelihood of GHG disclosure. The result suggests a negative relationship between Chinese SOEs and the likelihood of GHG disclosure. This could be explained as a consequence of the managers' political self-interests, economic and policy-oriented decision-making process and the power differentials between the government and SOE managers. This research extends the GHG literature to Chinese SOEs context, providing direct evidence on how state ownership impacts on GHG disclosure.

This chapter focusses on food systems' vulnerability. In a rapidly and unpredictably changing world, vulnerability of farming and food systems becomes a key issue. The conceptual bases for food vulnerability analysis and food vulnerability assessment are discussed in a systemic perspective with an eye to the transition approach (Geels, 2004) as a perspective capable to analyze how novelties can develop and influence the system capability to fulfil societal functions, and food and nutrition security in particular. A framework for assessing people's food vulnerability is presented together with a simple vulnerability model based on the three dimensions of exposure (the degree to which a system is likely to experience environmental or sociopolitical stress), sensitivity (the degree to which a system is modified or affected by perturbations) and adaptive capacity (the ability to evolve in order to accommodate environmental hazards or change) (Adger, 2006). Then, other sections are dedicated to discuss the general questions that should be answered by a vulnerability assessment exercise, and the specific challenges emerging when the assessment concerns a food system. These elements are then used in the Annex to this chapter as a base for the development of a detailed method based on seven distinct steps for conducting participatory assessments of the vulnerability of food systems.

The field of strategy has long been preoccupied with explaining, and attempting to predict organizational performance. Indeed, the quest to understand how to gain and hold an advantage over competitors is the primary way in which strategy distinguishes itself from other organizational sciences (Meyer, 1991). Strategic choices are made in anticipation of, or in response to, that competitive context and the performance implications that result, are of central interest to strategy researchers.

Purpose – Past literature suggests that the performance and turnover of the subordinate are affected by the support, abuse, and feedback provided by the supervisor. In this study, we posit that support, abuse, and feedback in an accounting firm, are in turn, affected by the supervisor's personality, as defined by the Big Five personality factors.

Methodology/approach – We conducted a web-based study with 115 accountants from a top 100 US accounting firm. The accountants completed questionnaires related to the personality of their supervisors along with questionnaires related to the support, abuse, and feedback they received from their supervisors. We analyzed the data using factor analysis and multiple regression.

Findings – We hypothesize that Openness and Agreeableness increase support; Neuroticism increases abuse, but less so if the supervisor is an Extravert; and Extraversion and Conscientiousness increase feedback. Among the hypothesized relationships, all are supported except the relationship between Openness and support. Additional findings are that Extraversion and Conscientiousness increase support; Agreeableness and Conscientiousness decrease abuse; and Agreeableness increases feedback.

Research implications – Our study contributes to the literature by demonstrating the relationship between the personality traits of supervisors and their behavior toward subordinates in an accounting setting. The results of our study can be used in identifying the supervisors who have the right personality for the position, which will likely improve the work environment and reduce turnover.

This chapter examines whether professional auditors’ affect toward client management influences fraud likelihood judgments and whether accountability and experience with fraud risk judgments moderate this effect. This research also explores the process by which affect influences fraud judgments by examining affect’s influence on the evaluation of fraud evidence cues. Results indicate that more positive affect toward the client results in lower fraud likelihood judgments. Accountability is found to moderate this effect, but only for experienced auditors. These findings have implications for fraud brainstorming sessions where all staff levels provide input into fraud risk assessments and because client characteristics are especially salient during these assessments. Importantly, results also support the proposition that affect impacts inexperienced auditors’ fraud assessments through errant attribution of client likability to evidence cues that refer to management, rather than biasing all client-related evaluations. Together, these findings suggest that education and training can be improved to better differentiate relevant and irrelevant cues in fraud judgment.

Dyadic multi-dimensionality informs the variation that exists within and between network ties and suggests that ties are not all the same and not all equally strategic. This chapter presents a model of dyadic evolution grounded in dyadic multi-dimensionality and framed within actor-level, dyadic-level, endogenous, and exogenous contexts. These contexts generate both strategic catalysts that motivate network action and bounded agency that may constrain such network action. Assuming the need to navigate within bounded agency, the model highlights three strategic processes that demonstrate how dyadic multi-dimensionality underlies the evolution of strategic network ties.

The remarkable achievements being promoted through inclusive education practices make the deficiencies associated with educational exclusion all the more noticeable. Despite many schools adopting the philosophy of inclusion, avoidable educational exclusion of students with special needs still persists in educational systems worldwide. This is because the preparation of competent teachers to respond to variations in student populations in schools is very difficult to achieve. A major reason for this difficulty is that most student education programs fail to nurture collaborative instructional practice culture in student teachers, which can enable them to work well with others to teach all students. Utilizing the status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness (SCARF) model developed by David Rock, this chapter contributes to existing knowledge on student teacher development by theorizing and offering practical ways to enact collaborative instructional practices in inclusive education. The chapter addresses this issue by reporting student teachers' experiences in a course unit on inclusive education in one Australian university that adopted a collaborative instructional practice, deepening their understanding and practice of inclusion.

One of the dominant features of the age of globalization is the rampant expansion of organization. In particular, formal, standardized, rationalized, and empowered forms of organization expand in many domains and locales. We discuss these features of organization, showing that hyper-rationalization and actorhood are main themes of organization across presumably distinct social sectors and national societies. We explain the ubiquity of such organizational forms in institutional terms, seeing the global culture of universalism, rationality, and empowered actorhood as supporting the diffusion of managerial roles and perspectives.

The authors measure the impact of culture on Sharia; Social and Financial Disclosure (SSFD) of Islamic Banks (IBs) around the world.

Content analysis is used to measure levels of disclosure for a sample of 136 IBs of 25 countries for years 2013 and 2014. Different cultural measures are used. These include secrecy/transparency as suggested by Gray (1988) and Hofstede (1980, 1983, 2001, 2010)’s culture dimensions which include: Power Distance; Individualism; Masculinity; Uncertainty Avoidance; Long-Term Ordination and Indulgence. Ordinary least square (OLS) regression is used to test the research hypotheses.

After controlling bank-specific, corporate governance and country characteristics, the authors found that Hofstede’s culture dimensions have a significant impact on SSFD. They also found that Gray's transparency dimension positively influence levels of sharia, social and aggregated disclosure. Therefore, they conclude that culture influences levels of disclosure in IBs.

This study has policy implications for managers and regulators of Islamic banking industry.

This study is the first to use both Gray and Hofstede models in the context of IBs around the world. It also the first to explore the impact of culture on three different disclosure levels for IBs.