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The purpose of this study is to validate the Matten and Moon (2008) implicit-explicit corporate social responsibility (CSR) model by examining whether the respective differences in CSR practices between Europe and the USA reflect their respective societal expectations.

The principal component analysis is used to develop an innovative societal expectations index (SEI). This study tests the relationship between SEI and CSR through panel data and t-tests.

The empirical findings show a significant association between the SEI and all forms of CSR, which provides empirical support for Matten’s and Moon’s implicit-explicit framework.

This study is the first to develop an SEI to validate the Matten and Moon (2008) model that predicts implicit countries would adopt and conform to broader societal expectations for CSR, and therefore be more likely to embrace CSR activities than their counterparts in explicit countries.

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.

Prior research shows different associations between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and executive compensation in the United States versus Canada (i.e., McGuire et al., 2003; Mahoney & Thorne, 2006). It follows that these cross-national differences may be attributable to: (1) different compensation strategies; (2) other national differences; or (3) differences in the sampling and measurement techniques used in the respective studies. To gain insight into the factors underlying the cross-national differences, our study uses a single statistical approach on a U.S./Canada database to compare the association between CSR and executive compensation while controlling for size, industry, financial structure, and using common measures of salary, bonus and long-term compensation (LTC). We find that after controlling for size there are no differences in the association between executive compensation and CSR between the United States and Canada, and that LTC is positively associated with CSR in both countries. Thus, our findings suggest that previously reported differences in CSR between the United States and Canada are likely due to differences in the size of the firms used in the samples from the respective countries. Furthermore, our findings show the importance of the association between LTC and CSR for both the U.S. and the Canadian context. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Our paper explores the evolution in the reporting of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for 115 Canadian firms (51 cross-listed on U.S. stock exchanges) throughout the seven year period of 1999–2006, which was the period before and after SOX and Bill 198 were enacted, resulting in a period of increasing pressure for CSR and CSR disclosure (Ballou, Heitger, & Landes, 2006). We examined CSR scores for Canadian firms listed only on Canadian stock exchanges and for Canadian firms cross-listed on U.S. exchanges. During this period, our analysis shows an overall decrease in CSR scores for all Canadian firms in our sample, and for both our subsamples of firms: Canadian firms cross-listed on U.S. stock exchanges and Canadian firms listed only on Canadian exchanges. Our analysis suggests that as a result of increased scrutiny facilitated by the regulatory changes, CSR disclosures become more transparent and comprehensive: CSR Strengths and CSR Weaknesses Scores both declined after 2002 resulting in an overall decline in Total CSR scores. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Over the last decade, many published papers lament auditors’ shift from professionalism to commercialism and call for increasing auditors’ commitment to the public interest (see, e.g., Bailey, 2008; Fogarty & Rigsby, 2010; Lampe & Garcia, 2013; Wyatt, 2004; Zeff, 2003a, 2003b). At the same time, suggesting effective methodologies for improving auditors’ commitment to the public interest is particularly challenging because issues arising in the audit context are complex, and often involve tradeoffs between multiple stakeholders (e.g., Gaa, 1992; Massey & Thorne, 2006). An understanding of auditors ethical characterizations across separate phases of the audit process is needed so that methodologies can be devised to improve auditors’ commitment to the public interest. Thus, in this paper we interviewed 24 auditors and asked them to describe critical ethical incidents that they have encountered throughout the various phases of the audit process. Our results not only document the tension underlying the shift between professionalism and commercialism in auditing suggested by others, but also show that ethical conflicts are found in each phase of the audit and there are cross-phase differences in the auditors’ ethical characterizations. Limitations of the findings are also discussed as are suggestions for future research.

Prior research shows that after financial restatement, firms' corporate governance practices are strengthened (Farber, 2005; LaGore, 2008) as firms respond by increasing their disclosure practices and making executives more accountable (Arthaud-Day, Certo, Dalton, & Dalton., 2006). Nevertheless, it has not been established whether the impact of restatement extends to the domain of voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures. To address this question, we compare firms CSR scores and the association between executives' compensation and firms CSR scores before and after restatement. We use a sample of 44 U.S. firms in the two-year period before and after a financial restatement announcement. In firms that had undergone restatement, we found a significant increase in CSR strengths and CSR weaknesses that resulted in a net decrease in total CSR. In addition, we found a stronger association between bonus and CSR after restatement. This contributes by furthering our understanding by suggesting that voluntary CSR disclosures are indirectly impacted by restatement. Our findings are useful in understanding the pervasiveness of restatement on a firm's disclosures and operations and also in gaining insight into the comparability of CSR disclosures after restatement.

Increasingly, U.S. firms voluntarily issue standalone corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports to demonstrate to society a commitment to social and environmental activities (Bebbington, Larrinaga, & Moneva, 2008; Erusalimsky, Gray, & Spence, 2006). To ascertain the effect of standalone CSR reports on investors, we compared the association between CSR performance scores and subsequent stock returns for firms that issue standalone CSR reports versus those that do not. Consistent with a signaling perspective (Akerlof, 1970), we found that firms that voluntarily issue standalone CSR reports have a stronger association between total CSR and CSR strengths and subsequent stock returns than firms that do not. Our findings indicated that investors are relying on standalone CSR reports because they reward CSR performance for firms that issue standalone CSR reports CSR performance for those that do not issue standalone CSR reports.

The authors’ examination of corporate social responsibility (CSR) scores in dual-class firms provides a window on firms’ CSR performance when insulated from external pressure. Dual-class ownership confers greater voting rights on a superior class of shares held by insiders; consequently, managers of dual-class firms are insulated from external pressure from inferior class shareholders and, potentially, from society. The authors compare CSR scores in dual- and single-class firms and investigate the association between CSR scores and cash flow rights in dual-class firms. This analysis reveals that dual-class firms have lower CSR scores than their single-class counterparts and that CSR scores in dual-class firms are positively related to the relative cost of CSR borne by the superior class of shares. The findings suggest that external accountability encourages CSR performance, and CSR performance is higher when the superior class bears a smaller portion of the cost of CSR activities. It follows that the analysis suggests the importance of governance structures for encouraging CSR, and the dampening impact of cost to CSR performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of three different types of budget goals (egocentric individual, groupcentric individual and group) on group performance of an additive task, assigned within an individual budget-based incentive contract. While previous research has established that budget-based incentive contracts motivate higher group performance than piece rate contracts for additive group tasks, no studies, which we are aware of, have considered explicitly the type of goal within this context.

We conduct a 3 × 2 experiment in which we manipulate the presence of an individual goal (egocentric, groupcentric and absent) and a group goal (present and absent) on group performance of an additive task.

Group performance is higher for groups assigned groupcentric individual goals than for groups assigned egocentric individual goals, either alone or in combination with a group goal.

Egocentric individual goals may reinforce an individualistic orientation, which may work against the potential gains from having group members adopt more of a group focus.

This paper considers how groupcentric individual goals may improve group performance. The management accounting literature typically examines just egocentric individual goals.