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21 – 30 of 400This paper aims to investigate the motivations behind the publication of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports, and particularly the effect of information asymmetry…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the motivations behind the publication of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports, and particularly the effect of information asymmetry between firms and their owners.
Design/methodology/approach
A natural experiment contrasting the CSR reporting of private vs public firms is used to test whether the degree of information asymmetry is a significant factor in the decision to publish CSR reports. Using a hand-collected sample of the 239 largest US private companies matched with publicly-traded firms, the effect of these inherently different information environments on CSR reporting is tested through logistic regression. Factors suggested by stakeholder and legitimacy theories are tested for their differential impact on private vs public firms’ decisions to publish a CSR report.
Findings
Results indicate that private firms are less likely to publish a CSR report than similar public firms. Public firms also follow Global Reporting Initiative guidelines more frequently, consistent with signaling report quality to dispersed investors. A subsample of private companies facing greater information asymmetry is found to be similar to public firms in their reporting behavior, reinforcing the link between information asymmetry and CSR disclosure. Further analysis suggests that non-owner stakeholders play an important role in private companies’ CSR reporting decisions.
Practical implications
In addition to accounting and governance scholars, the findings should interest private firm managers preparing for an initial public offering (IPO), as the evidence suggests that CSR reporting is used to communicate information to dispersed investors. The insight into reporting motivations should be useful to accountants engaged in CSR consultation and assurance.
Social implications
With the growing attention paid to the CSR performance of firms, demonstrated by the growth in socially responsible investing, the study provides evidence that effective communication of CSR information to investors may play a key role in CSR-engaged firms’ disclosure strategies.
Originality/value
To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to analyze the CSR reporting decisions of a large sample of publicly-traded and privately-held firms. The results add to our understanding of what motivates firms to publish CSR reports, highlighting the importance of information asymmetry between the firm and its owners.
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Nemiraja Jadiyappa, L. Emily Hickman, Ram Kumar Kakani and Qambar Abidi
The Indian Companies Act 2013 mandated auditor rotations in the financial year 2018–2019. Similar regulations are being considered in many countries, based on the assumption that…
Abstract
Purpose
The Indian Companies Act 2013 mandated auditor rotations in the financial year 2018–2019. Similar regulations are being considered in many countries, based on the assumption that longer tenure is detrimental to audit quality; yet, the evidence from investigations of this assumption is inconclusive. This paper aims to examine the effect of moderating factors on the relation between audit quality and audit tenure, given the regulatory trend and the lack of consensus in extant literature.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper examines the relationship between audit quality and audit tenure among Indian firms from 2001 to 2015 and tests for moderating factors including auditor compensation, business group affiliation and chief executive officer (CEO) duality.
Findings
Contrary to the objective of mandatory rotations, this study finds that longer auditor tenure generally enhanced audit quality among Indian firms prior to mandatory rotations. However, for companies paying abnormally high compensation to auditors, this paper finds that longer tenure decreases audit quality, particularly if the firm is affiliated with a business group or firms where the CEO also serves as the board chair. Thus, the potential benefits of mandated shorter tenure appear to be confined to high-fee paying companies with a business group affiliation and/or a dual-role CEO.
Originality/value
This study is one of the first to examine conditioning factors that affect the relationship between audit quality and auditor tenure. Results suggest that regulations limiting auditor tenure would be beneficial only to the shareholders of a narrow group of firms; while for the majority of firms, limiting auditor tenure may actually be counter-productive.
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The primary purpose of this study is to determine if the main character is a shapeshifter and, if so, how does the tale contribute to shapeshifting lore.
Abstract
Purpose
The primary purpose of this study is to determine if the main character is a shapeshifter and, if so, how does the tale contribute to shapeshifting lore.
Design/methodology/approach
The focus of the study is confined to a version of the tale that appears in Jane Yolen's Folktales From Around the World (1986) and on summaries of other versions of shapeshifting tales when needed. Support for the findings is provided by an examination of the observations and rhetorical techniques employed by what appears to be an unreliable narrator and selected knowledge and practices from a variety of academic disciplines.
Findings
The research findings neither confirm nor deny that the main character is or is not a shapeshifter.
Research limitations/implications
Instead, the critical reading confirms the traditional characterization of folktales as coming from diverse folk roots and disappearing or changing as they circulate through geographical space and narrative time.
Practical implications
It also implies that the tale has outgrown its practical and social folk roots and now extends far beyond that of traditional shapeshifting or literary folktales.
Social implications
By bringing to light the racial and gender fears, ignorance and emotional and physical violence that lurk just below the surface of the society from which serpent-woman emerges, the study creates a haunting vision of the embedded biases that lurk just below the surface of many societies.
Originality/value
To this author's knowledge, this is the first study of this tale to appear in publication. The findings need further investigation.
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Hyun-Woo Lee, Heetae Cho, Emily M. Newell and Woong Kwon
The purpose of this study was to investigate the complexity of how spectators' multiple identities influence their behavioral intention. Specifically, the authors examined the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to investigate the complexity of how spectators' multiple identities influence their behavioral intention. Specifically, the authors examined the effects of spectators' place identification, team identification and an interaction effect on attendance intention using social identity complexity framework.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from spectators attending professional baseball games in South Korea. While 550 questionnaires were returned, 475 (86.36%) were used in the analysis after excluding incomplete responses. The research model was tested using latent moderated structural equations modeling.
Findings
Results indicated place identification only influenced attendance intentions through an interaction effect, while team identity directly affects attendance intention. Highly identified sport consumers intended to attend future games regardless of place identification, while the sense of love for the team's home region motivated low-identified sport consumers more to attend future games.
Originality/value
The findings of this research led to understanding the relationships between multiple identities and behavioral intention and provided the spectator sport industry with valuable strategies to manage their sport consumers.
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Through this exploration of subject matter knowledge and teacher knowledge, we present two stories of teaching social studies in the sixth grade. Using a narrative inquiry…
Abstract
Through this exploration of subject matter knowledge and teacher knowledge, we present two stories of teaching social studies in the sixth grade. Using a narrative inquiry approach, we share the complexities and complications of teaching children content within standards related to world history and religions. We call on the writings of Schwab to consider these experiences. Using Schwab’s concepts of deliberation, the balanced negotiation between the commonplaces of curriculum in a meaning-making process, first, exposes tensions and the teacher’s acts of negotiating between the learners’ needs and the subject matter (the standards). The teacher stretches to meet the requirements of the standards in different ways that take care of herself and her students. Schwab’s commonplaces are used in a more straightforward exploration of the second story. The interplay between the commonplaces is less nuanced and less deeply understood, coalescing in tensions between the commonplaces. The stories and our analyses illustrate Schwab’s assertion that there is no right alternative. Daily, and moment-to-moment, teachers are in the position of deliberating – making the best choice of many alternatives. “Ramifying consequences must be traced to all parts of the curriculum” (Schwab, 1978, p. 319). Schwab, we find, counsels that the consequences of a chosen action must be considered by all those who must live with those consequences.
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Thomas F. Luschei and Gayle S. Christensen
We examine how school districts in California help their high schools respond to state accountability requirements. We discovered two contrasting forms of district interventions…
Abstract
We examine how school districts in California help their high schools respond to state accountability requirements. We discovered two contrasting forms of district interventions: those aiming to increase schools’ internal coherence and those encouraging direct but narrower responses to state requirements. Drawing on interviews in six districts and eight high schools, we find that many district efforts focus on immediate responses to state requirements to raise test scores. Yet, our analysis suggests that without strong district efforts to increase internal coherence, interventions aimed at eliciting school responses will be less beneficial over time.
Abena Emily Ayowa Asante-Asamani, Mohammad Elahee and Jason MacDonald
This study aims to examine how negotiators’ goal orientations may affect their negotiation strategy and consequently the negotiation outcomes.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine how negotiators’ goal orientations may affect their negotiation strategy and consequently the negotiation outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
Using cross-sectional data collected from a Fortune 500 Global firm based in France, this study empirically examines how goal orientations of negotiators may affect their value creation (win-win) and value-claiming (win-lose) negotiation behavior reflecting their desired outcome in a given sales negotiation. In so doing, this study proposes a conceptual model and tests a number of hypotheses using partial least squares structural equation modeling.
Findings
This study shows that learning and performance goal orientations (PGO) are indeed related with two commonly used negotiation strategies: win-win (integrative) and win-lose strategies (distributive) strategies, respectively. The results indicate that while the learning orientation has a positive relationship with a win-win strategy and a negative relationship with a win-lose negotiation strategy, just the opposite is true with the PGO, which is positively related to win-lose strategy and negatively related to win-win strategy.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research represents one of the first attempts to connect goal orientations with negotiations strategies to achieve desired negotiation outcome using data from salespeople with negotiation experience.
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This study examines educational inequalities under socialism in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Russia to assess the extent to which egalitarianism was achieved and…
Abstract
This study examines educational inequalities under socialism in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Russia to assess the extent to which egalitarianism was achieved and whether there was restratification after the common retreat from egalitarian ideology and practices since the 1970s. Exploring the extent of parental influences in three key educational outcomes and their changes in four birth cohorts, the study finds remarkable stability across cohorts and across transitions. Contrary to expectation, the net effect of parental social capital (communist party membership status) is prominent only in the former Soviet Russia and Bulgaria, moderate in Czechoslovakia, and negligible in Hungary and Poland. On the other hand, the effect of parental cultural capital is consistently strong but its influence is somewhat weaker at higher transitions. Its inclusion also dramatically reduces the effect of parental education and father’s occupation, suggesting that a significant extent of intergenerational transmission of educational inequality is mediated through parental cultural capital rather than human capital per se.