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This paper describes the results of an effort to predict future freight volume in the truckload (TL) trucking industry. The approach involves the use of stepwise multiple linear regression models that relate freight volume to a variety of economic indicators. The models are built using a large set of actual freight data provided by J.B. Hunt Transport (JBHT), one of the world’s largest TL carriers. The data was first analyzed using the overall set of national data, and then for specific industrial and regional segments. The overall results of these analyses should prove useful to a wide variety of transportation and logistics operations.

This research provides accounting-ethics authors and administrators with a benchmark for accounting-ethics research. While Bernardi and Bean (2010) considered publications in business-ethics and accounting’s top-40 journals this study considers research in eight accounting-ethics and public-interest journals, as well as, 34 business-ethics journals. We analyzed the contents of our 42 journals for the 25-year period between 1991 through 2015. This research documents the continued growth (Bernardi & Bean, 2007) of accounting-ethics research in both accounting-ethics and business-ethics journals. We provide data on the top-10 ethics authors in each doctoral year group, the top-50 ethics authors over the most recent 10, 20, and 25 years, and a distribution among ethics scholars for these periods. For the 25-year timeframe, our data indicate that only 665 (274) of the 5,125 accounting PhDs/DBAs (13.0% and 5.4% respectively) in Canada and the United States had authored or co-authored one (more than one) ethics article.

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

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

This article provides a review and conceptual comparison between self‐report and performance‐based measures of emotional intelligence. Analyses of reliability, psychometric properties, and various forms of validity lead to the conclusion that self‐report techniques measure a dispositional construct, that may have some predictive validity, but which is highly correlated with personality and independent of intelligence. Although seemingly more valid, performance‐based measures have certain limitations, especially when scored with reference to consensual norms, which leads to problems of skew and restriction of range. Scaling procedures may partially ameliorate these scoring weaknesses. Alternative approaches to scoring, such as expert judgement, also suffer problems since the nature of the requisite expertise is unclear. Use of experimental paradigms for studying individual differences in information‐processing may, however, inform expertise. Other difficulties for performance‐based measures include limited predictive and operational validity, restricting practical utility in organizational settings. Further research appears necessary before tests of E1 are suitable for making real‐life decisions about individuals.

In the March issue, John Wellens reviewed Roberts, White and Parker's study of THE CHARACTER‐TRAINING INDUSTRY. One of the statements in the book with which issue may be taken was that course organisers ‘proved rather ambivalent about having their schemes assessed by outsiders.’ In the first part of the following article, Peter Whitfield, a recent graduate from the MA course in Organisational Psychology at the University of Lancaster, presents some of the findings of just such an outside assessment of the Brathay Hall Month Course which was initiated at Brathay's request in 1973. The main findings of this specific assessment are at variance in many instances with the general conclusions drawn by the Roberts team, and a more detailed report is being prepared for publication elsewhere. In the second part, Chris Graham, Brathay's Development Tutor, reviews key issues determining current and future developments at the centre in the light of Peter Whitfield's work and in the context of Roberts, White and Parker's conclusions.

The authors examine the impact of audit quality (AQ) on classification shifting (CS) among non-financial firms operating in the UK and Germany.

This paper used various audit committee variables (size, meetings, gender diversity and financial expertise) to measure AQ and its impact on CS. The authors used a total of 2,110 firm-year observations from 2010 to 2019.

The authors found that the presence of female members on the audit committee and audit committee financial expertise deter the UK and German managers from shifting core expenses and revenue items into special items to inflate core earnings. However, audit committee size is positively related to CS among German firms but has no impact on UK firms. The authors also document evidence that audit committee meetings restrain UK managers from engaging in CS. However, the authors found no impact on CS among German firms. The study results hold even after employing several tests.

Overall, the study findings provide broad support in an international setting for the board to improve its auditing practices and offer essential information to investors to assess how AQ affects the financial reporting process.

Most CS studies used market-oriented economies such as the USA and UK and ignored bank-based economies such as Germany, France and Japan. The authors provide a comparison among bank and market-oriented economies on whether the AQ has a similar impact on CS or not among them.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.