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This research addresses the professional logics of street-level managers (SLMs) and bureaucrats (SLBs) working in the Brazilian National Social Security Agency (INSS) through their perceptions of distributive justice and discretion. Since SLMs have the authority to influence SLBs' actions, we investigate whether these two groups hold similar viewpoints.

We integrate the administrative data and survey responses (n = 678) with earlier thematic content analysis (n = 350) in three stages: mean-testing, regression analyses and complementary qualitative analysis, integrated through a mixed-methods matrix.

Whilst no significant differences emerge in distributive justice ideas between groups, SLMs demand wider benefit-granting discretion, praising professionalism whilst adopting managerial posture and jargon.

The study adds to the theoretical discussions concerning SLM’s influence on SLB’s decision-making, suggesting that other factors outweigh it. The finding concerning the managers’ demand for wider discretion asks for further in-depth approaches.

Findings supply valuable insights for policymakers and managers steering administrative reforms, by questioning whether some roles SLMs play are limited to symbolic levels. Further, SLBs’ heterogenous formations might be more relevant to policy divergence than managerial influence and perhaps an underutilised source of innovation.

By approaching street-level management professional logics within a Global South welfare state through a mixed-methods approach, this study offers a holistic understanding of complex dynamics, providing novel insights for public sector management.

The paper aims to analyse the meaning and extension of discretionary power of social service professionals within network-based interventions.

Empirically, the paper is based on a case study of a network-based policy involving private and public organisations in the Northeast of Italy (Province of Trento).

The paper identifies netocracy as a social policy logic distinct from bureaucracy and professionalism. What legitimises netocracy is neither authority nor expertise but cooperation, the activation of connections and involvement, considered “good” per se. In this framework, professionalism and discretion acquire new and problematic meanings compared to street-level bureaucracy processes.

Based on a case study, the research results cannot be generalised but pave the way to further comparative investigations.

The paper reveals that the position of professionals in netocracy is to some extent trickier than that in a bureaucracy because netocracy seems to have the power to encapsulate them and make it less likely for them to deviate from expected courses of action.

Combining different literature streams – street level bureaucracy, professionalism, network organisations and welfare governance – and building on an original case study, the paper contribute to understanding professionalism in welfare contexts increasingly characterised by the combination of bureaucratic, professional and network logics.

This paper aims to provide a systematic review of literature pertaining to how executive behavioral characteristics relate to financial reporting decisions.

The authors review 44 papers published between 2001 and 2021 in top journals that are nested in leading business, economic and accounting journals.

Through the systematic review, the authors provide a framework for the emergence of narcissism and how it relates to decision making and hence, firm performance. Additionally, this paper identifies different measures of measuring narcissism with their pros and cons and suggest that different measures lead to different outcomes in prior literature.

The study contributes to a growing stream of research on executives' attributes influence on decision making. The authors recommend that future research may focus more on the chief financial officer (CFO) role as the majority of literature in CEO based. Additionally, the authors suggest that different settings may moderate the outcomes, and the authors propose that future research may be conducted to show how the regulatory environment affects or moderates narcissism effect.

This paper aims to explore the existence of convergence in non-monetary working conditions in Europe resorting to widely used definitions of this phenomenon and composite indexes of job quality.

The analysis relies on composite indexes, widely used in previous literature, for 207 regions in six different areas of job quality drawing on the microdata of the European Working Conditions Survey from 1995 to 2015. This study assesses the occurrence of convergence both in terms of dispersion of job quality outcomes (sigma-convergence) and, especially, regarding the existence of a catch-up process (beta-convergence).

This study finds evidence of both types of convergences in all the domains, with the exception of skills and discretion and prospects dimensions according to the sigma-convergence approach. The results do not suggest substantial differences between the 15 European Union countries before the 2004 enlargement and the new Member States and are robust to a wide range of changes in the sample and different econometric specifications.

Tot he best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper represents the first rigorous and systematic attempt of addressing the existence of convergence in non-monetary working conditions, applying formal and widely accepted definitions of this phenomenon. It contributes to our knowledge on this topic providing strong evidence of convergence in job quality. Those results can be of interest for scholars in Economics and other Social Sciences.

This study aims to understand independence in internal auditing by investigating how internal auditor independence is constructed when analysed in its corporate governance context.

A critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the corporate governance reports of Swedish large stock market listed non-financial companies, for three consecutive years, is undertaken, using a theoretical lens of organisational embeddedness and operational coupling to understand independence as a situated practice.

The study develops four archetypes of internal auditor independence – autarchic, instrumental, symbiotic and subservient – and discusses each archetype's implications for independence, related to tripartite relations with management and the audit committee, regarding who has the mandate to direct work and how the work is done. It finds that internal auditors always have a capacity to be independent. Although they are not independent in relation to agents in the subservient archetype, they are independent of those down the organisational chain of command, suggesting independence is both situational and relational.

The analysis contributes a novel approach to the literature and develops a conception of independence using the dimensions of embeddedness and coupling. The archetypes offer an analytical framework for future studies on independence.

Internal auditors may understand their practice differently through the archetypes that result from this study.

Internal auditors' power relations within corporate governance further an understanding of the pressures on internal auditors and their role.

This study contributes new knowledge on the situatedness of independence by showing how internal auditors are embedded and coupled helps build their independence.

This study aims to empirically evaluate the effectiveness of government auditing of local authorities’ compliance with the procurement rules.

A diff-in-diff approach is used where the measure of compliance is (changes in) the incidence of private litigation under the Public Procurement Act, in audited vs non-audited municipalities. Further, semi-structured interviews were conducted with chief procurement officials.

No statistically significant effect is found. While strong effects of audits can be ruled out, the statistical results and the interviews do not, however, contradict a modest but long-lasting effect.

Few studies have addressed the effect of public procurement auditing on compliance. This study develops an empirical framework and presents empirical results.

This study aims to systematise the methodology used in comparative urban planning law and propose primary contexts for comparison in planning law.

This study undertook a review of comparative law methodology discourse and sought to establish connections between the discourse and the field of planning law.

This study argues for establishment of a realistic goal for comparative planning law by focusing on the planning law's modifiability. The goal of comparison in planning law should not be to find universally desirable principles or better solutions. Rather, the goal should be to identify a motive for devising a solution. This is because it is not only difficult to establish legal values that are universally applicable to planning law but also inappropriate to determine superiority of planning laws that have been developed over time by each jurisdiction’s sovereignty and policies on land use. When determining comparable systems for analysis among legal systems that are functionally equivalent, it is important to consider the context of land use relations alongside the comparative analysis to be done. To set realistic goals, the context should not be extended indefinitely but be systematised. Based on the foundational relationship underlying planning law, including the tension between planning authorities and property owners, this study presents five specific contexts for comparative analysis: “Strength of Property Rights,” “Level of Judicial Intervention,” “Plan- or Development-led System,” “Allocation of Planning Power” and “Level of Participation.” Examination of these contexts will allow better understanding of the similarities and differences among different systems and practical application of the results of comparative studies.

This study presents a novel approach to systematising the methodology and framework of comparative planning law.

Over a decade since the Special Criminal Court (SCC) was established in Cameroon, hundreds of individuals have been indicted, tried and convicted. Sentences have been imposed, most of which include a term of imprisonment (principal punishment/penalty) and confiscation as accessory penalty or punishment. Research focus has not been directed at the sentences which, as argued in this paper, are inconsistent, incommensurate with the amounts of money stolen and a significant departure from the Penal Code. This paper aims to explore the aspect of sentencing by the SCC.

To identify, highlight and discuss the issue of sentencing, the paper looks at a blend of primary and secondary materials: primary materials here include but not limited to the judgements of the SCC and other courts in Cameroon and the Penal Code. Secondary materials shall include the works of scholars in the fields of criminal law, criminal justice and penal reform.

A few findings were made: first, the judges are inconsistent in the manner in which they determine the appropriate sentence. Second, in making that determination, the judges would have been oblivious to the prescripts in the Penal Code, which provides the term of imprisonment, and in the event of a mitigating circumstance, the prescribed minimum to be applied. Yet, the default imposition of an aggravating circumstance (being a civil servant) was not explored by the SCC. Finally, whether the sentences imposed are commensurate with the amounts of monies stolen.

This research unravels key insights into the functioning of the SCC. It advances the knowledge thereon and adds to the literature on corruption in Cameroon.

The prosecution and judges at the SCC should deepen their knowledge of Cameroonian criminal law, especially on the nature of liberty given to judges to determine within the prescribed range of the sentence to be imposed but also consider the existence of an aggravating factor – civil servant. They must also consider whether the sentences imposed befit the crime for which they are convicted.

The paper is an original contribution with new insights on the manner in which sentencing should be approached by the SCC.

This paper empirically investigates whether trade openness (TO) in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) countries affects how banks might employ loan loss provisions (LLPs) to smooth out their earnings and how adopting the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) can mitigate it.

The analysis includes 78 commercial banks from five BRICS nations and spans 2014 through 2020. To test these hypotheses, the authors utilized a fixed-effect and two-step system panel generalized methods of moments (GMM) estimator.

TO positively affects income smoothing (earnings management) across BRICS commercial banks. The effect is clearer in banks that make financial reports under the IFRS. Path analysis reveals that the effect of TO is driven by nonperforming loans (NPLs). Additionally, the IFRS restricts earnings management in the BRICS banking sector when a better institutional environment is present. The authors found that accounting rules (IFRS) and enforcement (better institutional settings) interact to enhance earnings’ quality.

The relationship between TO and bank earnings management practices is important for understanding the complex interplay between trade and finance and ensuring financial stability, investor confidence and regulatory compliance. This study recommends better regulations and governance mechanisms for financial reports in emerging nations like BRICS. Additionally, macro-prudential regulators and banking supervisors should work closely to ensure transparent TO decisions with improved discipline, institutional quality and regulatory support to enhance bank stability.

The study finds evidence of bank income smoothing in the BRICS and introduces TO as a determinant. It also identifies the evolving role of IFRS in the presence of higher institutional quality and TO, thereby expanding the financial reporting literature.

Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV), this study investigates how tax planning affects the likelihood of financial default in different stages of the corporate life cycle.

Collecting a large sample of US firms between 1989 and 2016, hypotheses are tested using a hazard model. Several robustness and endogeneity checks corroborate the main findings.

The results show that tax-planning firms are less likely to default in the introduction and decline stages, while they are more likely to default in the growth and maturity stages. The findings suggest that introductory and declining firms use cash resources obtained from tax planning efficiently to meet their needs and acquire other useful resources. In growing and mature firms, tax aggressiveness generates unnecessary slack resources, weakens managerial discipline and increases reputational risks.

The results shed light on the benefits and costs associated with tax planning throughout firms' life cycle, holding great significance for managers, investors, lenders and other stakeholders.

This study contributes to the literature that examines resource management at different life cycle stages by showing that cash resources from tax planning are managed in distinctive ways in each life cycle stage, having a varied impact on the likelihood of default. The authors shed light on underexplored cash resources. Furthermore, this study shows the potential linkages between the agency theory and RBV.