Search results

This paper aims to examine the impact of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) on the academic business ethics literature with the intent of making this research more accessible to those researchers and practitioners working in business ethics and other related fields. Specifically, the authors outline the types and scope of SOX-related research, examine the extent of reliance on SOX, identify which theoretical frameworks and research approaches are used and point out under-researched areas.

Using a descriptive approach, the authors examine the theoretical perspectives, classifying these perspectives into four groupings (economics, ethics/moral, psychological and sociological). Using counts, categorization and content analyses, the authors provide an overview of 115 articles with further analysis provided for articles relying heavily (n = 14) or moderately (n = 42) on SOX.

Whistleblowing and codes of ethics are well-researched topics. However, employment of some theories (e.g. signaling theory and stakeholder theory) and qualitative approaches are used less often. Other under-researched issues in the sample include CEO/CFO certifications, cost of compliance, auditor disclosures and empirical investigation of SOX and auditor independence (or corporate culture).

The authors’ decision to use certain databases, search terms and research methods, and to focus on business ethics journals and English language articles are possible limitations.

The authors’ contributions comprise an examination of the scope of SOX topics and detailing how reliant the research is on SOX. The authors identify trends in this literature and provide evidence of the broad theoretical frameworks to better understand the breadth and depth of theories used.

The purpose of this paper is to assess if a firm’s ethical lapses, which result from unethical behavior or actions, influence its social disclosure (SD) practices as well as how ethical lapses affect both the firm’s legitimacy within society and its standing in financial markets. This study addresses two-related questions: do a firm’s ethical lapses undermine the credibility of its SD in financial markets, either directly or through a firm’s legitimacy? Do ethical lapses affect a firm’s market value and is this effect mediated by SD and legitimacy?

Three hypotheses are derived based on two theoretical approaches, information economics and institutional theory. The hypotheses lead ultimately to an examination of a firm’s legitimacy. Ethical lapses are inspired by the Global Reporting Initiative grid and by ISO 26000.

The results suggest that a firm’s ethical lapses underlie its SD practices and affect its legitimacy and standing in financial markets, the latter being proxied by financial analysts’ forecasts.

The limitations of this study include that alternative ways exist to measure the constructs employed, the measurement of SD is subject to discretionary choices, and the North American sample results may not be generalizable to other countries.

The originality and contributions of this study are based on the use of information economics and institutional theory in a complementary way that recognizes information as serving various purposes and constituencies. Additionally, the paper extends prior research on the SD aspects of CSR by showing it matters to both financial markets and non-financial stakeholders.

The purpose of this study is to examine three electric utilities, two publicly owned and one privately owned. The basis of this examination is legitimacy theory employing a small sample case‐type approach. In particular we are interested in social and environmental disclosures found in annual reports and how these disclosures differentiate between publicly owned and privately owned enterprises. In our examination we use some traditional efficiency measures but we also employ effectiveness measures relying on the proprietary costs and information costs views in our analysis. Our major findings are that ownership status and size, which are likely to affect legitimacy, influence the amount of social and environmental disclosure. Finally, while environmental disclosures seem to be related to information costs and benefits, this relationship does not seem to hold for social disclosures.

The conclusion of this paper is that market prices fail to reflect the information required to provide meaningful accounting measurements that are used in real‐life decision making. This failure is due to the employment of an “ideal” economic world’s assumptions that do not, and cannot, fit the real world of business. The argument in the paper begins with a discussion of the ideal market as envisioned by the Chicago School and outlined in Tisdell (1995). From this ideal market characterization, it is argued that even Adam Smith recognized the existence of external effects resulting from certain social undertakings. In addition to externalities, two other market failures are discussed: the use of efficiency measures while ignoring effectiveness measures; and the emphasis on the short‐term time horizon at the expense of the longer term.

The Branch held a week‐end conference at Hertford College, Oxford, from 17th to 19th April, on the theme ‘Educating the user’. Mr Gordon H.Wright, County Technical Librarian of Hertfordshire, in a paper on ‘Educating tomorrow's potential information user’, discussed critical thinking and the art of communication. Mr J.E.Terry, Information Officer, AERE Harwell, described the course on information sources and library services which is run for scientific officers at AERE. Mrs Irene Veasey of Blackwell's urged that Aslib appoint advisory officers to discuss with representatives of organizations the practical aspects of information dissemination within their own concerns. Mr Jack Bird, Education Officer, Aslib, and the three speakers were on a panel to discuss points arising from the papers, and open discussion then followed.

This paper aims to explore the relationship between identity construction and consumption motivation of the socially active and wealthy Brazilian older adults, applying a new approach that focuses on important circumstances and life events retrieved through storytelling.

Using in-depth semi-structured interviews with socially active and wealthy older Brazilian consumers, this study adopts “Noting, Collecting and Thinking about Things” (NCT) and two-cycle coding methods to explore the qualitative data.

The results indicate the need to explore identity construction and consumption motivation in an integrated matter. Life circumstances and events help explain older consumers’ identities and its impact on main consumption motivations, which include self-expression, a need for social contact and relationships, attachment, detachment, nostalgia, knowledge appreciation and technology affinity, among others. An integrated approach allows for the identification of new consumption motivations.

The main consumption motivations identified in this study help delineate some new marketing strategies targeted to older consumers, such as taking into account the importance of building relationships with older customers, adopting family references to promote products and services, taking into account the value older customers place on technology usage and being connected with current matters and treating the elderly as a heterogeneous group, among others.

This paper focuses on an attractive and yet unexplored segment of older consumers in the literature, contextualizing their identity and consumption motivations in an integrated fashion, rather than studying these concepts in isolation. New marketing strategies targeted to the older consumers are identified.

This paper is one of a series of studies they have done on the careers of women and men in management. The large alumni data base used for this paper has allowed this research team to study the multiple determinants of managerial salaries. In the future, the authors plan to do a seven‐year follow‐up study to see what changes occurred for women managers in the decade of the 1980s.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

This study aims to assess the alignment of South Korea’s government-certified social enterprises (GCSEs) with prevailing social enterprise (SE) models, notably the entrepreneurial nonprofit, social cooperative and social business models delineated in the “Emergence of Social Enterprises in Europe” (Defourny and Nyssens, 2012, 2017a, 2017b) and the “principle of interest” frameworks (Defourny et al., 2021). Thereby, it seeks to situate these enterprises within recognized frameworks and elucidate their hybrid identities.

Analyzing panel data from 2016 to 2020 for 259 GCSEs, this study uses tslearn for k-means clustering with dynamic time warping to assess their developmental trajectories and alignment with established SE models, which echoes the approach of Defourny et al. (2021). We probe the “fluid” identities of semi-public sector SEs, integrating Gordon’s (2013) notion that they tend to blend various SE traditions as opposed to existing in isolation.

Results indicate that GCSEs do align with prevalent SE frameworks. Furthermore, they represent a spectrum of SE models, suggesting the versatility of the public sector in fostering diverse types of SEs.

The concept of a semi-public sector SE model has been relatively uncharted, even though it holds significance for research on SE typologies and public sector entrepreneurship literature. This study bridges this gap by presenting empirical evidence of semi-public SEs and delineating the potential paths these enterprises might take as they amalgamate various SE traditions.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding of how the institutions of family and culture play out in shaping family business practices. This study focusses on family business led by poor entrepreneurial women in a context of extreme poverty.

The methods included participant observation, focus groups and interviews in two poor villages in South-East Nigeria. Thematic analysis was used to develop insight about how the institutions of family and culture shape family business practices.

The analysis demonstrated that the family, with associated responsibilities and norms, is a powerful institution that determines women’s role and business behaviours. Poor entrepreneurial women depend on the family to run their business, but also use the business to sustain the family. They make use of their limited resources (e.g. time, money, skills) to meet families’ basic needs and pay for necessities such as children’s education. These are family priorities, rather than maximising profits.

The study was limited to rural Africa, in particular to a small sample of rural women entrepreneurs in South-East Nigeria, and as such, the findings are not necessarily generalisable, but may be at a conceptual level.

The study has highlighted the need to tailor micro-enterprise development programmes that facilitate change, add values to entrepreneurial activities and support women to fulfil their roles and ease institutional pressures affecting rural women economic activities. In short, such programmes need to account for cultural institutions.

This study presents insights of the influence of institutions (family and culture) in business led by rural Nigerian women.

This research fills a gap in the family business literature by offering conceptual insights about how the institutional obligations of family mean that micro-enterprising should be conceptualised as an entity, rather than as a family in business or the family business.