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The relational nature of franchising flowing from the contract between franchisor and franchisee which enshrines a close, continuing relationship raises the issue of good faith. While there are academic papers analyzing good faith, these do not capture the practical understanding and expression of the concept and the manner and application in which it operates in the real world of franchising. The purpose of this paper is to assess how good faith is defined and understood by franchise practitioners – franchisees, franchisors and their legal advisors.

The authors have adopted a qualitative approach by conducting and analyzing a series of 18 in-depth interviews with franchisees, franchisors and lawyers specializing in franchising.

The findings show that good faith is particularly important in franchising because of the disparity in the knowledge and power of the parties. They suggest that good faith is not only a legal notion but also a notion that is linked to the personal relationship between the franchisor and its franchisees. It then plays an important role in terms of management of this relationship and of the system as a whole. Moreover, they demonstrate that there is not one single shared understanding of good faith amongst franchising practitioners. Indeed, franchisees, franchisors and specialist franchise lawyers suggested that good faith can refer to transparency, trust, loyalty, fairness and equity amongst the franchisees, fair play, frankness, respect, ethics, kindness, “best efforts” and personalities.

The originality of the research lies in the fact that good faith is examined through the voice of franchising practitioners who explain how they define and understand good faith rather than through a detached academic lens.

The purpose of this paper is to look at auditor obligations to their clients and potentially to third parties such as investors, with a focus on the quality of financial disclosure in an evolving legal framework.

The article outlines and compares established and emerging trends relative to information disclosure and contractual performance in parallel contexts where information asymmetry exists. In particular, this article considers the disclosure regime that has evolved in the insurance industry to address the substantial imbalance in the level of knowledge possessed by the insured in comparison to the prospective insurer. Abductive reasoning is used to identify causal constructs that explain the data pattern from which the theorised potential for judicial revision of the interpretation of “true and fair” in line with “good faith” in legal regulation is derived.

The authors conclude that there is little doubt that a duty of good faith in relation to auditor-company contractual dealings and potentially a broader good faith duty to third parties such as investors in companies may be on the horizon.

In the context of stated objectives by organisations such as the International Federation of Accountants to reconcile ethical and technical skills in the wake of the global financial crisis, there is an increased need to rebuild public and investor confidence in the underpinning integrity of financial reporting. This paper offers a perspective on one way to achieve this by recognising the similarities in the information asymmetry relationships in the insurance industry and how the notion of “good faith” in that relationship could be useful in the audit situation.

The purpose of this paper is to determine and lay out the variables that influence countries to carry out regulatory modernisation of the regulation of the principle of good faith in insurance so as to ensure standardisation of its application and to reduce regulatory asymmetries and uncertainties in the handling of this requirement, given the fast pace of changes in the current ecosystem. Moreover, the authors show whether these variables differ, given the different demographic factors of the respondents participating in this research.

To collect the research data, which consisted of 1,794 valid responses, the authors administered a purposely built survey, which they designed after carrying out and extensive literature search, which yielded 3,248 valid records and resulted in the inclusion of 27 research articles through a scoping review after considering inclusion/exclusion criteria (i.e. the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis) search strategy. The authors carried this survey between September 2019 and June 2020 using the social network, verbal and online communication systems. The survey was addressed to persons within insurance associations, professional members, persons within large corporates in the insurance industry and selected experts in the field who were purposely selected based on the work experience held, roles occupied in the industry, qualifications attained and area of expertise. The quantitative data was analysed using statistical tools, specifically descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, Cronbach’s alpha and multiple linear regression. The qualitative data obtained was analysed using the thematic approach.

The authors found that four variables determine the need for modernisation of the principle of utmost good faith requirement, specifically institutional stakeholders and the political-legal framework; the market, consumer influence and the socio-economic environment; socio-technological environment and insurance practice; and international business. Moreover, the authors found that these variables hold relationships with some demographic variables and differ with age, gender, level of education and occupation in a variety of ways.

The statements grouped under the themes determined as influencing factor variables for the need for modernisation of the principle of utmost good faith, can be used by stakeholders such as policymakers and reformists within countries as a measure to determine whether this regulatory requirement is in need of modernisation or it can be used as a model for determining modernisation of other regulations or for the development of other similar models. Moreover, scholars may use this model for other sectors and other regulatory frameworks in different jurisdictions.

Although, the authors have noted several articles about modernisation carried out on regulations, to the best of their knowledge, they have not encountered articles that capture the influencing factor variables for the need for modernisation of the principle of utmost good faith under a group of themes.

Insurance is a dynamic business highly affected by the environment it operates in. Alongside the practice of insurance, come principles on which the business of insurance is based. One of the principles, that is not short of controversy, is the doctrine of utmost good faith which requires full disclosure of material facts by the contracting parties. The author, in this chapter, explored the need for change in the regulation of this insurance principle and discussed the drivers behind these changes and the commensurate effect on the practice of insurance. The author delved into case studies, practices and literature and traced back to the origins of the long-standing principle of utmost good faith. This principle is one on which the acceptance (or otherwise) and premium of an insurance contract is based and through which certain factors and developments in the industry have led to a major reform in some jurisdiction.

The author discussed the development and drivers leading to reform and concluded that reform is ultimately the result of public outcry, through individual cases heard predominantly in court, a well-established reform committee, the socio-political environment of that country and the advent of technology. Moreover, although, different countries have their own jurisdictions, laws and regulations as well as market practices and international trade have made it imperative to have common technical practices between market players especially in insurance, which depends on the spread of risks between countries internationally. Smooth insurance business can only be established if this reform is harmonised between jurisdictions.

Discusses the origin, the purposes, and the development of the Exclusionary Rule and the good faith exception to the rule with special emphasis on the now defunct HR666 (Exclusionary Rule Reform Act, 1995), which would have allowed the admission of evidence not now admissible under the currently recognized exceptions of the rule. Proposes that the judicially created exceptions to the rule have been excessive and suggests that police officers are tempted to violate intentionally the warrant rule, so causing innocent persons to be caught in the net.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate why environmentally-sensitive companies still face criticism despite the extensive disclosures in their annual reports. This paper explores the extent of site-specific social, environmental and ethical (SEE) reporting by mining companies operating in Ghana.

The authors conduct an interpretive content analysis of the annual/integrated reports of mining companies for the years 2009–2014 to extract site-specific SEE information relating to the companies’ mining operations in Ghana. The authors also theorise these actions using the existentialist work of Jean-Paul Sartre, in particular his work on “bad faith, nothingness and authenticity”.

The findings suggest that SEE information disclosure at site-specific level remains problematic because of bad faith and inauthenticity by mining companies attempting to placate a range of stakeholders. Bad faith represents a form of self-deception or internal denial which manifests in corporate narratives. Inauthenticity is a self-awareness that culminates in the denunciation of corporate identity and the pursuit of external expectations. The effect is the production of inauthentic corporate accounts that is constrained by the assumption made on stakeholder expectation.

The authors apply a Sartrean lens to explore site-specific SEE. Furthermore, the authors seek to expand the social accounting research domain by drawing on Sartre’s work on “bad faith” and “nothingness”. Sartre’s work to the best of the authors’ knowledge is not explored in social accounting research.

This paper uses data from a city with a multi-ethnic, multi-faith population to better understand faith-based food aid. The paper aims to understand what constitutes faith-based responses to food insecurity, compare the prevalence and nature of faith-based food aid across different religions and explore how community food aid meets the needs of a multi-ethnic, multi-faith population.

The study involved two phases of primary research. In Phase 1, desk-based research and dialogue with stakeholders in local food security programmes were used to identify faith-based responses to food insecurity. Phase 2 consisted of 18 semi-structured interviews involving faith-based and secular charitable food aid organizations.

The paper illustrates the internal heterogeneity of faith-based food aid. Faith-based food aid is highly prevalent and the vast majority is Christian. Doctrine is a key motivation among Christian organizations for their provision of food. The fact that the clients at faith-based, particularly Christian, food aid did not reflect the local religious demographic is a cause for concern in light of the entry-barriers identified. This concern is heightened by the co-option of faith-based organizations by the state as part of the “Big Society” agenda.

This is the first academic study in the UK to look at the faith-based arrangements of Christian and Muslim food aid providers, to set out what it means to provide faith-based food aid in the UK and to explore how faith-based food aid interacts with people of other religions and no religion.

This paper seeks to explore the role of virtues in the context of management from a religious perspective. Its objective is to shed some light on the significance of Martin Luther's anthropology and theology of justification for a modern understanding of practical wisdom.

The paper reviews some passages of source literature by Martin Luther and – with side glances to Georg Simmel – reflects on basic structures of personal failure, as implied by Luther's metaphor of the self‐inclined man (homo incurvatus in se ipsum). By developing two theses, the paper proceeds to the question whether a protestant re‐formulation of practical wisdom could be useful to overcome self‐reference, not only on a personal, but also on an organisational level.

Faith and love, reformulated as virtues of practical wisdom for modern management from a protestant perspective can be understood as a receptive attitude and the ability to establish non‐instrumentalised and respectful relationships to humans. Lived by managers, they could help preventing companies and economy at large, to get caught in self‐referential, and inherently instable feedback cycles.

The change of perspective, inspired by Luther's theology of justification, enriches the notion of practical wisdom with new connotations and makes them accessible to the discourse over virtues in management.