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The recent COVID-19 crisis has been followed by an epidemic of fraud. This study aims to evaluate cases of COVID-19-related fraud to identify cognitive heuristics that influence decision-making under the pressure of crisis conditions.

An analysis of fraud advisories and cases relating to COVID-19 is conducted and matched against various types of cognitive heuristics to explain their influence on victims of crisis fraud.

The affect, availability, cue-familiarity, representativeness and scarcity heuristics are identified and explained to have a substantial influence on risk evaluations of crisis fraud.

The findings from this study can help individuals avoid fraud victimisation by helping them understand psychological vulnerabilities that they may be unaware of under the pressure of crisis conditions.

Internet fraud is an epidemic that costs US$7.1 billion as of 2007. The advent of the internet and proliferation of its use makes it an attractive medium for communicating the fraud, particularly through the use of e‐mail. This paper aims to explain how victims of online fraud can be influenced by judgmental heuristics and cognition when they make nonnormative or sub‐optimal decisions.

The paper will analyse the content of 14 recent fraud e‐mails to explain how victims of online fraud can be influenced from a psychological perspective, using theories of bounded rationality, judgmental heuristics and cognition.

The paper suggests that e‐mail fraudsters, whether intentionally or not, employ specific methods that correspond closely to how the human mind works within a context of bounded rationality. These methods have a propensity to exploit psychological blind spots in victims caused by selective perception and post‐decisional dissonance, as well as sub‐optimal or nonnormative responses in automatic behaviour due to the common use of heuristics (for example, representativeness, availability and affect) when making decisions in complex task environments.

Considering the current and widespread problem of online fraud, this paper is expected to inform and prepare internet users against such deception by offering a better understanding of how fraudsters can psychologically influence the way victims and potential victims make their decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the current stage of the development of the study of tourism policy and some of the key issues that have come in for attention.

The work is based on a review of the literature relating to tourism policy over a 40-year period. Based on one of the models of tourism policy-making, it uses a five-part structure to organise the literature and for each part, it explores the issues dealt with by researchers over the period.

After a slow start, most aspects of tourism policy are now well-covered in the literature, and notably, there has been a marked quickening in the pace of study over the past decade. Influences on policy are well-documented, as are the roles of the different stakeholders in the policy process. This contrasts with the understanding of the work of the policymakers, which is less well-developed, as is the nature and influence of the different forms of policy output. Neoliberalism and governance have been prominent among recent policy themes pursued by researchers.

The paper draws on a wide range of work over 40 years, but it cannot be comprehensive.

The paper’s originality lies in it providing a brief overview of the current state of research into tourism policy.

This paper aims to share how an Asian university enhanced students’ global competence through international business study missions (BSMs). More specifically, it focuses on how the design of these BSMs enabled “deep” learning beyond industry tourism and how 21st-century competencies such as “global competence” can be acquired through participation in short-term, faculty-led study missions.

Using the case study approach, it critically analyzes the learning goals and objectives, design decisions, implementation details and learning outcomes underlying three BSMs led by three instructors from the same university to the USA (New York), Germany (Berlin and Stuttgart) and South Korea (Seoul).

The study shows that students gained global competencies related to specific fields of study such as the creative industries, urban sustainability and entrepreneurship. It shows how design choices such as destination, range of organizations, length of individual visits, range of pedagogical techniques, intensity of preparation and quality of management contribute to students’ acquisition of global competencies.

This research presents a subset of case studies that may limit the generalization of the findings; the bias that results from an unrepresentative, opportunistic sample (selection bias); and lack of quantitative causality in a qualitative evaluation.

The course design described here provides practical information for designing study abroad “deep” learning goals, objectives and outcomes focusing on global competence.

The detailed case studies of three instructors from different disciplines to achieve the country’s education vision of globally competent students.

At each New Year we stand at the threshold of fresh scenes and hopes, of opportunities and pastures new. It is the time for casting off shackles and burdens that have weighed us down in the old year; almost a new chapter of life. We scan the prevailing scene for signs that will chart the year's unrolling and beyond, and hope profoundly for a smooth passage. The present is largely the product of the past, but of the future, who knows? Man therefore forever seems to be entering upon something new—a change, a challenge, events of great portent. This, of course, is what life is all about. Trends usually precede events, often by a decade or more, yet it is a paradox that so many are taken by surprise when they occur. Trends there have been and well marked; signs, too, for the discerning. In fields particular, they portend overall progress; in general, not a few bode ill.

This paper aims to examine the dynamic nexus between corporate governance (CG) and firm performance in hybrid model countries. It also investigates the effect of horizontal agency conflicts on CG adherence.

This research uses vector autoregression methods and dynamic panels to examine the cross-sectional and longitudinal association between CG and performance, using three CG adherence indexes of transparency, management and board governance. The data set includes annual market and firm performance data from a sample of 93 companies trading in the Mexican stock market for the period 2010–2016.

This study finds evidence of dynamic interdependence between CG and firm performance, as well as weak effects of CG adherence on firms’ performance. The adverse effect of increasing return on equity and return on assets (ROE-ROA) gaps on CG adherence, which results from agency conflicts and insider ownership, is likely behind the weak association between CG and firm performance.

The findings in this study provide evidence that hybrid systems weaken the nexus between CG and firm performance. The propensity to prefer banking and bond debt to issuing stocks, as indicated by a greater ROE-ROA gap, points to favorable provisions for majority shareholders, adverse normative environments for minority shareholders and a low level of compliance with CG measures, among other problems.

This paper examines the influence of stress arousal and burnout as mediators of the negative relations between role stressors and job outcomes (satisfaction, performance, and turnover intentions) among a sample of AICPA members working in public accounting. It extends prior research which examined these linkages (Chong & Monroe, 2015; Fogarty, Singh, Rhoads, & Moore, 2000; Smith, Davy, & Everly, 2007) by evaluating a model that simultaneously incorporates stress arousal and the three fundamental dimensions of burnout, i.e., emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. This paper also utilizes a recently validated stress arousal measure designed to capture the worry and rumination aspects of arousal posited to be responsible for a number of negative personal outcomes.

The results indicate that role stressors, mediated by stress arousal and the individual burnout dimensions, have a negative influence on job outcomes. In line with predictions regarding the temporal ordering of stress arousal and burnout in the model, each of the job stressors had a significant positive influence on accountants’ stress arousal, and the influence of the individual role stressors on each burnout dimension was either partially or fully mediated via their relations with stress arousal. In turn, the influence of stress arousal on each of the job outcomes was either partially or fully mediated through its relations with emotional exhaustion.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the government of Brunei’s anti-corruption programme.

A range of sources are used including online materials from Brunei government websites, reports of international organisations, press articles, conference papers, a thesis case study, journal articles, a book, chapters in books, and interviews with an officer working with the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) of Brunei.

The paper considers the factors that contribute to government corruption, and the measures to combat it. These include various laws to combat corruption and the work of the ACB in enforcing these laws and in undertaking major initiatives of prevention and education. The effectiveness of these measures are assessed and a number of recommendations are made of direct and indirect measures improve the programme to combat corruption. The paper points to the moderately favourable rankings and ratings that Brunei has earned in combating corruption, which is well above neighbouring countries where corruption is still widespread, but noticeably below the rankings and ratings of the least corrupt countries. However, it argues that further progress to combat corruption may be difficult, as a result of the lack accountability and limited transparency, which are essential features of Brunei’s system of government based on absolute monarchy. Also hindering further progress is the inbuilt protection of the privileges of the Malay community within the country, which protects their role in the civil service and the business sector.

The paper is the first scholarly examination of the anti-corruption programme in Brunei.

In contrast to recent forecasting developments, “Old School” forecasting techniques, such as exponential smoothing and the Box–Jenkins methodology, do not attempt to explicitly model or estimate breaks in a time series. Adherents of the “New School” methodology argue that once breaks are well estimated, it is possible to control for regime shifts when forecasting. We compare the forecasts of monthly unemployment rates in 10 OECD countries using various Old School and New School methods. Although each method seems to have drawbacks and no one method dominates the others, the Old School methods often outperform the New School methods for forecasting the unemployment rates.

In Kenya, an award for reporting excellence is presented annually to the entities in the public and private sector. The purpose of this paper is to examine the characteristics of savings and credit cooperatives (SACCOs) that apply for the annual reporting excellence award in Kenya.

The study employs correlation and probit regression analyses to establish the factors which explain the decision by SACCOs to participate in the Financial Reporting (FIRE) excellence award. The study utilizes data consisting of 1,272 firm-year observations for 212 SACCOs, over the period 2008-2013.

Consistent with institutional and legitimacy theories, the results demonstrate that structural and governance variables are significant and positively associated with the decision to participate in the annual FIRE awards by SACCOs in Kenya. Similarly, larger SACCOs and those that have adopted best cooperative governance practices are more likely to participate in the annual FIRE awards. The results also reveal that SACCOs audited by the Big 4 audit firms are more likely to participate in the annual FIRE awards.

The study focuses on the factors explaining the decision to participate in the annual reporting excellence awards by organizations in a specific sector. Further studies can adopt a multi-sectoral approach to investigate the same phenomenon.

The findings highlight the importance of cooperative governance and resources in explaining why SACCOs choose to participate in the FIRE awards.

The study adds onto the dearth of literature on the aspect under focus. Globally, very few studies have examined the drivers of the decision to participate in reporting excellence awards by organizations.