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Using the lens of upper echelons theory, this study examines the degree to which National Collegiate Athletic Association athletic department performance outcomes are associated with the personal characteristics and experiences of the athletic director leading the organization.

The authors match organizational performance data with athletic director and institutional characteristics to form a robust data set spanning 16 years from the 2003–04 to 2018–19 seasons. The sample contains 811 observations representing 136 unique athletic directors. Fixed effects panel regressions are used to analyze organizational performance and quantile regression is used to analyze organizational revenues.

The authors fail to uncover statistically significant evidence that athletic director personal characteristics, functional experience and technical experience are associated with organizational performance. Rather, the empirical modeling indicates organizational performance is primarily driven by differentiation in the ability to acquire human capital (i.e. playing talent). The results also indicate that on average, women are more likely to lead lower revenue organizations, however, prior industry-specific technical experience offsets this relationship.

In opposition to upper echelons research in numerous settings, the modeling indicates the personal characteristics and experiences of the organization's lead executive are not an economically relevant determinant of organizational performance. This may indicate college athletics is a boundary condition in the applicability of upper echelons theory.

This paper contributes to this special issue on the ethics and aesthetics of adaptive reuse with a reflection on the specific case of the reuse of those sites and buildings that can be regarded as “difficult”, “uncomfortable”, or “neglected” heritage (MacDonald, 2009; Logan and Keir, 2009; Pendlebury et al., 2018; Lanz, 2021). By doing so it is the author's intention to add to the most recent research-driven and theory-oriented strand of the contemporary architectural debate on adaptive reuse (Lanz and Pendlebury, 2022). They also intend to encourage increased research engagement within such a debate, both across disciplines and with methods and approaches that may be able to bring in greater critical consideration of the more-than-architectural aspects involved in adaptive reuse practices.

Building equally on a comprehensive literature review on the subject and extensive field work, the paper works through one paradigmatic example – the San Girolamo mental asylum in Volterra, Italy – and combines on-site observation, field notes, qualitative interviews and archival research with theory-driven reflections to discuss the ramifications of adaptive reuse processes in place-based memory and heritage practices.

The case of the former mental asylum San Girolamo in Volterra, today abandoned and decaying on the landscape, is discussed via the metaphor of the building as palimpsest to explore the significance of this built heritage in both its materiality and meanings. The San Girolamo asylum demonstrates the value, complexity and potential of this heritage site, and other alike, to act as a powerful place which connects the past and present that might serve as a platform to promote productive discourses about contemporary sensible topics, ethics of care and human rights. Drawing on these observations, the paper concludes by expanding on how the case of the San Girolamo former asylum both showcases and advocates the need for developing more creative, explorative, trans-disciplinary and collaborative approaches and methodologies to the study and implementation of adaptive reuse projects for these site “beyond intervention”.

This paper draws on and contributes to the more recent research-driven and theory-oriented corpus of studies focussing on adaptive reuse.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a gender-sensitive analysis of economic agency in Islamic economic philosophy.

A critical review of classical ethics literature and the concept of khilafah is undertaken and discussed in conjunction with the current understanding of homo Islamicus.

Building on the principles of khilafah, the concept of homo Islamicus is a pious stand-in for the flawed homo economicus. Among its flaws is the complete absence of a discussion of women as economic agents. To remedy this the discipline must acknowledge explicitly the denial of women and gender from the discussion of moral agency and include gender as a category of analysis for economic agency. This is only possible by: (1) introducing a non-patriarchal reading of khilafah as the model of agency and (2) by operationalising taqwa as the cardinal virtue of the economic agent instead of neoliberal rationality.

If Islamic economic philosophy is to contend as an alternative mode of economics, it must consider gender and class dimensions in its micro-foundation discussion, economic agency is one of them.

This study reveals the patriarchal readings that are part of the foundation of the concept of the economic agent in Islamic economics, problematising it and providing a gender-sensitive concept of economic agency.

Much prior work involving director incentives and corporate behaviour has been focussing on their absolute dollar value or the intrinsic value and generated mixed findings. Comparison theories, however, suggest that the relative value of an incentive may be the main drive for individual performance. This study attempts to investigate the role of director relative pay in promoting the board’s intervention with unrelated diversification decisions.

The analysis uses data from firms operating in more than one segment during the period from 1999 to 2019. Data were obtained from WRDS databases. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis and the two-stage system generalized method of moments (GMM) were run to test the hypotheses. To test the robustness of the findings, alternative proxies for the key independent variables were used in separate analyses.

The results support the hypothesis that unrelated diversification negatively impact firm performance, while higher director relative pay will help reduce unrelated business diversification. The absolute director pay, however, has no significant impact on corporate strategic choices. The results also highlight the moderating effect of director overcompensation. Director overcompensation will cancel out the impact of relative director pay on unrelated diversification.

This study takes a fresh theoretical perspective by framing the investigation using the dimensional comparison theory to address the single untended comparison framework in the director pay structure – the intra-individual framework. It is the first to investigate the role of director relative pay in corporate strategic choices. The findings support the contention that the relative value of the incentive is an important indicator of the effectiveness of the pay.

The purpose of this study is to extend the Fraud Diamond Theory to celebrity Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) and investigate their post-Initial Public Offering (IPO) stock market performance.

After obtaining a sample of celebrity SPACs from the Spacresearch.com database, fraud risk characteristics were obtained from Lexis Nexus searches. Buy and hold abnormal returns were calculated for celebrity SPACs versus a small-cap equity benchmark for time intervals after IPO, and multiple regression analysis was performed to examine the relationship between fraud risk features and post-IPO returns.

Celebrity SPACs exhibit Fraud Diamond characteristics and significantly underperform a small-cap stock portfolio on a risk-adjusted basis after IPO.

This study only examines celebrity SPACs that conducted IPOs on the NYSE and NASDAQ/AMEX and does not include those that are traded on the Over the Counter Bulletin Board (OTCBB).

Celebrity endorsement of SPAC vehicles attracts investors who may not be properly informed regarding the risk characteristics of SPACs. Accordingly, investors should be warned that celebrity SPACs underperform a small-cap equity portfolio and exhibit significant elements of fraud risk.

The use of celebrity endorsement as a marketing device to attract investment in SPACs has regulatory implications.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to examine the fraud risk characteristics and post-IPO performance of celebrity SPACs.

Most prior literature on the GCC workforce nationalization has focused on a limited set of themes (e.g. nationalization challenges), initiatives (e.g. quota system) and methodology (e.g. qualitative) and none has captured the full range of content associated with its implementation phenomenon resulting in our current incomplete knowledge on it. As one of the first studies on this phenomenon, our study explores the factors influencing comprehensive implementation of workforce nationalization in Qatar. We postulate a research model based on the strategic human resource and strategic management works of literature which contain five exogenous variables under three perspectives: Qatarization, organizational and environmental.

The study model was tested by using structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze data collected from 300 managers in Qatar.

The results show that four variables –formal Qatarization planning, top management commitment, Qatarization experience and stakeholder pressures – positively influence the comprehensive implementation of Qatarization efforts.

Successfully implementing Qatarization objectives requires a robust synergy between dedicated planning and unwavering commitment from top management. Further, to effectively navigate the challenges of nationalization, collaboration with key stakeholders becomes pivotal. Our findings offer actionable insights for public organizations aiming to optimize their Qatarization efforts, emphasizing the integral role of holistic strategies and committed leadership.

We introduce a novel research model rooted in both strategic human resource and strategic management theories. Diverging from traditional qualitative approaches, our quantitative methodology provides empirical depth to our findings.

The purpose of this paper is to synthesize insights from the emerging work in accounting on greenwashing and sustainability assurance and propose an agenda for future research in this area.

This article offers an original analysis of papers published on greenwashing and sustainability assurance research in the field of accounting. It adopts a systematic literature review and a narrative approach to analyse the dominant themes and key findings in this new and rapidly evolving field. From this overview, specific avenues for future research are identified.

In the past few years there has been a substantial spike in concern relating to greenwashing among academics, practitioners, regulators and society. This growing concern has only partly been reflected in the research literature. To date, research has primarily focused on: (1) the characteristics of firms adopting sustainability assurance, (2) the challenges facing sustainability auditors, (3) the development of appropriate assurance standards and regulations, and (4) capital market responses to greenwashing and sustainability auditing/assurance. Three key future research issues with respect to greenwashing are identified: (1) the future of standard-setter attempts to regulate greenwashing, (2) professional jockeying in sustainability reporting assurance, and (3) capital market opportunities and challenges relating to greenwashing and assurance.

Despite the profound economic and reputational impact of greenwashing and the rapid development of sustainability assurance services, research in accounting remains fragmented and emergent. This review identifies avenues offering considerable scope for inter-disciplinarity and bridging the divide between academia and practice.