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In 2015, Utah enacted the first white-collar crime (WCC) registry. Similar to sex offender registries, this registry provides demographic information to the public. Utah’s law includes convicted offenders of second-degree felonies for a variety of non-violent, financial crimes, including securities fraud, insurance fraud and theft by deception (H.B. 378, 2015). The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceptions of this new registry.

A survey was built in 2016 to better understand the perceptions of said WCC registry. This paper considers the relationships between demographic variables, fear of crime and support for Utah’s WCC registry using data from over 968 university students in Utah.

The authors find strong support for the registry, with 76% of the sample supporting its implementation. Only one variable, social political affiliation, was significant. Those who defined themselves as social strong liberals were more likely to select somewhat support rather than definitely support the registry.

This is the first paper that we know of to examine support for a WCC registry.

Companies use figures within the annual report to send messages. The purpose of this paper is to explore the opinions and understandings of annual report preparers who produce the figures and users who interpret them. The focus is on figures that the authors consider convey messages about the company's intellectual capital (IC).

The paper used a questionnaire to obtain the opinions of “informed investors” and conducted interviews with the preparers of the annual reports. It compared the opinions of the two respondent groups.

Preparers and users bring multiple meanings to the figures. Users overlooked some messages which were complex and symbolic and also perceived more messages than intended by the preparers. The two respondent groups generally perceived brands, corporate image building and aspects related to employees as the IC items best portrayed in the selected figures. Most users and some preparers perceived the main reason for using figures was their strength as a marketing tool.

The paper is exploratory in nature and there is scope to extend the work to a greater number of annual reports and/or figures. The research is limited by the use of students as a proxy for users of annual reports.

The findings may be helpful to annual report preparers in understanding the rhetorical impact of images. Such understanding will help them in choosing figures which are effective and persuasive when seeking user engagement.

The authors are not aware of any prior research that examines the perceptions of preparers and users in respect of messages conveyed through figures, and, in particular, research that incorporates aspects of IC in corporate annual report figures. The paper, therefore, extends the empirical literature on IC.

This article seeks to explore the use of surveillance in personal litigation.

The paper involves a discussion drawing upon case material in relation to acquired brain injury.

Surveillance can have a detrimental effect upon the person with traumatic brain injury's emotional state and psychological wellbeing, adversely effecting rehabilitation and potentially producing misleading information.

This paper raises awareness of the possible ramifications of surveillance and the need for vigilance by families and social care staff.

The paper highlights the ethical implications and potential adverse effects of surveillance.

This study aims to investigate how artificial intelligence (AI)-powered smart home devices affect young consumers' requirements for convenience, support, security and monitoring, as well as their ability to advance environmental sustainability. This study also examines the variables that impact users' motivation to use AI-powered smart home devices, such as perceived value, ease of use, social presence, identity, technology security and the moderating impact of trust.

The responses from residents of Sarawak, Malaysia, were collected through online questionnaires. This study aimed to examine the perceptions of millennials and zillennials towards their trust and adoption of AI-powered devices. This study used a quantitative approach, and the relationships among the study constructs were analysed using partial least squares - structural equation modelling.

The present study found that perceived usefulness, ease of use and social presence were the main motivators among actual and potential users of smart home devices, especially in determining their intentions to use and actual usage. Additionally, there was a moderating effect of trust on the relationship between perceived ease of use, social presence, social identity and intention to use AI-powered devices in smart homes.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to examine the factors influencing smart technology adoption. This study provided meaningful insights on the development of strategies for the key stakeholders to enhance the adoption and usage of AI-powered smart home devices in Sarawak, one of the promising Borneo states. Additionally, this study contributed to the growing body of knowledge on the associations between technology acceptance model dimensions, intention and actual usage of smart technology, with the moderating impact of trust.

This condition is very common but can diet help? Jill Davies PhD reports

The purpose of this paper is to obtain insights from preparers on the new Performance Report requirements for New Zealand registered Tiers 3 and 4 charities, in particular the non-financial information included in the ‘Entity Information’ section and the ‘Statement of Service Performance’.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 interviewees, each involved with governance and reporting of one or more Tiers 3- or 4-registered charities. These interviews were analysed in terms of accountability and legitimacy objectives, which motivated the regulators to introduce the new reporting regime.

Key findings are summarised under three themes. Manageability relates to perceptions and suggestions regarding implementation of the new requirements. Scepticism concerns some doubts raised by interviewees regarding the motivations for performance reports and the extent to which they will be used. Effects include concerns about potentially losing good charities and volunteers because of new requirements making their work ‘too hard’, although an increased focus on outcomes creates the potential for continuous improvement.

The subjectivity that is inherent in thematic analysis is acknowledged and also that multiple themes may sometimes be present in the sentences and paragraphs analysed. The authors acknowledge too that early viewpoints may change over time.

Themes identified may assist regulators, professional bodies and support groups to respond to the views of preparers. Findings will also be of interest to parties in other jurisdictions who are considering the implementation of similar initiatives.

This paper provides early insights on new reporting requirements entailing significant changes for New Zealand registered charities for financial periods beginning on or after April 2015. The focus is on small registered charities (97 per cent of all New Zealand registered charities) and key aspects of the Performance Report: Entity Information and the Statement of Service Performance.

The purpose of this chapter is to present key characteristics of early reading text by describing a new series of researcher-developed early reading books that were specifically designed to address multiple criteria, including word structure or decodability, familiarity, repetition, high-frequency, syntax, and text cohesion. We describe the theoretical and empirical rationale that guided the design of the books, how we developed them, and their key features. This is followed by a technical analysis that describes the (1) characteristics of the target words used to guide the writing of the books and (2) characteristics of the text, such as the percentage of words on common high-frequency word lists, word counts, type-token ratio, sentence counts, unique sight words, unique decodable words, and content (i.e., picture-supported) words. The analysis demonstrates that the target words and the text in the books are consistent with our intended goal of simultaneously addressing multiple variables.

This study evaluates an attempt to develop a mediation program within a state environmental agency. A number of concerns arose during the agency's efforts to use mediation, including the neutrality of mediators, the types of cases mediated, the voluntary participation of parties, and acceptance of the mediated agreement. These issues were examined through a case study of a conflict that was mediated by the agency. Based on issues in the case, criteria are suggested which help guard against the problems that arise when government agencies serve a mediating role. These criteria may be useful to any organization that contemplates using mediation to help resolve conflict.

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce and provide an overview of the topic of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The approach is to present an introduction to the importance of the topic and a review of the concept’s evolution and development which includes an exploration of the topic’s meaning and competing and complementary frameworks which are related. Among these related concepts are the following: business ethics, stakeholder management, sustainability, corporate citizenship, creating shared value, conscious capitalism, and purpose-driven business. These concepts are frequently used interchangeably with CSR, and they have more in common than differences. At their core, each embraces value, balance, and accountability. The chapter also explores a number of key research avenues that are quite contemporary. Among these, the following topics are addressed: political CSR; the CSP–CFP relationship and business case for CSR; upstream/downstream CSR; CSR in emerging economies, corporate social activism, and corporate social irresponsibility. In the final analysis, it is argued that the topic of CSR continues to be on an upward and sustainable trajectory in both conceptual development and practice.

This chapter explores the role that birdwatching plays in The Archers. It demonstrates some significant similarities between the way that birdwatching is portrayed in present-day Ambridge, and the way it was presented in both fictional and non-fictional literature of the 1940s. These similarities suggest that birdwatching in Ambridge is an activity that tends to perpetuate traditional class and gender divisions. Particularly in terms of gender, this is a surprising discovery, given the many strong female characters in the show, and suggests that cultural assumptions about gender and birdwatching run deep in UK society today. The chapter warns that a failure to recognise these assumptions not only hampers the progress of women who aspire to be taken seriously as ornithologists, but also risks reinforcing dualistic thinking about humans and nature at a time when the environmental crisis makes it more important than ever to recognise the ecological interconnectedness of human and nonhuman worlds. However, the recent development of Kirsty Miller’s storyline, in which she is rediscovering her earlier love of the natural world, not only offers hope of a shift away from this traditional bias but also opens a space for a more nuanced examination of the importance of birds in human–nature relations.