Search results

Martin Winterkorn had high aspirations for Volkswagen to become the world's leading automaker when he was promoted to CEO in 2007. Volkswagen lacked the technology needed to meet American emissions standards and fulfill their promise of a “clean” fuel efficient diesel engine. Instead, they chose to deceive the world, violating the law and the foundation the company's code of conduct was grounded in. This case provides an opportunity to explore corporate governance, ethical leadership, and the ethical and professional responsibilities that senior executives have to create and maintain an ethical culture. Examination of the details in the case uncover value conflicts. Examples of values included in IMA's Statement of Ethical Professional Practice are honesty, fairness, objectivity, and responsibility. IMA describes these as “overarching ethical principles.”

Talent compression is the labor market phenomenon where the average productivity differential between participants declines and has been used to explain the overall increase in competition within some professional sports markets. A finding that competitiveness is uniquely driven by talent compression is consistent with Rottenberg (1956), who argued that resource distribution is independent of factors that are invariant to labor productivity.

Rather than incorporate MLB team roster turnover as many of the past studies have done, we prefer to measure of all-star turnover in membership. Problematically, movement from an MLB team to an MLB team is limited by rule, finances and the fact that there are very few teams competing for player services. In contrast, All-Star membership is typically costlessly chosen by many millions of fans, league players and managers. In this way, All-Star voting should be invariant to many of the factors that affect movement from an MLB team to an MLB team.

In the end, we find that a close association between all-star turnover rates and the makeup of MLB’s labor pool.

The paper offers a new measure of player mobility.

The paper aims to deal with the analysis of the factor leading to the repeated selection of the specific supplier and the effect of this recurrent selection on overpricing of public contracts.

A mix of quantitative and qualitative methods is used to achieve this goal. To analyze the chances of obtaining repeated contracts, the logistic regression method is used. To analyze the factor of overpriced contracts, the classic ordinary least squares regression model is used. The focus group method is then used to explain the factors acting on the part of the contracting authorities.

The results show that the prior procurement of a given contracting authority, or work for the public sector in general, has a statistically significant effect on the conclusion of contracts. The use of less-transparent forms of input has a strong impact. The non-transparent selection of suppliers rather than repetition of contracts generally results in the over-pricing of contracts. The IT sector is an exception.

This research is also essential for real public policy. Given the amount of GDP allocated to the public procurement market, it makes sense to continually seek room for improvement. Here is an attempt to find this by examining the contracting authorities’ behavior when awarding repeated contracts.

This research is original because it looks at the problem of the contracting authority in the wider context and optics of the path dependency theory, which has not yet been applied to the public procurement environment. The focus is also on IT procurement, which according to this study has not been empirically investigated in this way, is also innovative.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions that impact Canadian organizations’ satisfaction with their high-potential (HIPO) identifying practices. More specifically, the paper investigated the perceptual lenses used by HR professionals to view their HIPO identification programs and the elements of such programs that impact satisfaction.

A structural equations modeling technique was used to analyze responses to a national survey (n=219) conducted through a leading Canadian publication for human resource practitioners.

The results reveal that HR professionals form their perceptions of HIPO identification programs on the basis of perceived effectiveness to accurately identify HIPO employees, fairness and motivation. The results further indicate that the degree of formalization of an organization's approach toward identifying HIPOs is the most impactful element for determining satisfaction.

First, the study relied on a relatively small sample. Second, the criterion measures used in the study were not continuous. Third, data were collected using self-report questionnaires.

The results suggest that organizations should be primarily concerned with adopting a formal, systematic approach when implementing a HIPO identification process. The paper identifies several other elements that organizations should consider in order to maximize their satisfaction with HIPO programs, as well corresponding mediating perceptual lenses.

While many organizations regard HIPO programs as essential for their future success, most are not satisfied with their initiatives. This study makes an important contribution to the understanding of the sources of satisfaction with such programs. To the knowledge, this study is the first attempt to understand the factors that determine organizations’ satisfaction with their HIPO identification programs and, therefore, it makes a significant contribution to the literature on developing leadership capability through design and implementation of HIPO programs.

The value of an audit lies in its ability to detect and correct misstatements in financial statements. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the resolution of detected misstatements.

Using data on a large sample of audit adjustments by a German Big 4 audit firm, this paper reports an analysis of the factors that influence the resolution of detected misstatements at the engagement level and at the level of the individual adjustment.

The auditor’s book-or-waive decision is influenced by client characteristics and characteristics of the audit adjustments that can be linked to client as well as auditor incentives to oppose (require) the recording of adjustments. Offsetting effects of the detected adjustments on client income play a key role in auditors’ decisions.

The results may not be generalizable to Non-Big 4 audit firms. The sample includes unlisted firms which are subject to mandatory audits in the European Union. Other potential factors may not have been captured in the study.

The findings suggest that standard-setters and audit practice should give more attention to the offsetting effects of audit adjustments on income. The analyses at the two different levels could help practitioners to better structure their book-or-waive decisions.

In contrast to prior studies, the authors analyze the resolution of misstatements at the engagement level and the level of the individual adjustment. This design makes a methodological contribution by expanding the level of analysis of auditors’ book-or-waive decisions to include the engagement level. It further allows examining offsetting effects of different adjustments on client income, as well as the number and the total amount of detected adjustments.

The aim of this chapter is to examine appearance-based discrimination in the workplace. Modern society is exalting beautification and good looking, which affect not merely social relations but also the process of employment. It is argued that employees who have ‘good looking’ are recruited, paid more and promoted rapidly, while those who have ‘wrong looking’ discriminated against. Therefore, the chapter explores how individuals encounter discrimination in the workplace due to their appearance during the decision-making process of employers. It emerges from the literature that discriminating based on appearance is not illegal in almost all countries. However, it is publicised by lawsuits against employers. There are several measures that need to be taken at different levels in order to forestall discriminatory practices. At the individual level, an embracing attitude should be internalised. A merit-based recruitment strategy should be adopted by employers. Finally, new anti-discrimination laws and regulations must be passed by authorities to tackle with ugly discriminatory practices.

The chapter explores the role of law in society and its relation to ethical conflicts as reflected through the prism of the film The Third Man. By focusing on the complexities of life in post-war Vienna, the film exposes dilemmas that prevail in ordinary times and in functioning democracies as well. Our analysis suggests that one way to manage these dilemmas and balance the conflicting loyalties and interests they raise is to sustain open channels between the law and other narrative-generating practices from which normative stances are evaluated. The law-and-cinema discourse is one such channel and The Third Man presents, in our eyes, the vitality of that channel, due to its rich aesthetical language and its unique representation of the ethical tensions (and their consequences) in the modern era.

To examine associations by gender between cancer history and major health insurance transitions (gains and losses), and relationships between insurance transitions and access to care.

Longitudinal 2008–2013 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data were pooled yielding 2,223 cancer survivors and 50,692 individuals with no cancer history ages 18–63 years upon survey entry, with gender-specific sub-analyses. Access-to-care implications of insurance loss or gain were compared by cancer history and gender.

Initially uninsured cancer survivors were significantly more likely to gain insurance coverage than individuals with no cancer history (RR: 1.25; 95% CI: 1.08–1.44). Females in particular were significantly more likely to gain insurance (unmarried RR: 1.16; 95% CI: 1.06–1.28; married RR: 1.09; 95% CI: 1.02–1.16). Significantly higher rates of difficulty accessing needed medical care and prescription medications were reported by those remaining uninsured, those who lost insurance, and women in general. Remaining uninsured, losing insurance, and male gender were associated with lack of a usual source of care.

Additional outreach to disadvantaged populations is needed to improve access to affordable insurance and medical care. Future longitudinal studies should assess whether major Affordable Care Act (ACA) provisions enacted after the 2008–2013 study period (or those of ACA’s replacement) are addressing these important issues.

Loss of health insurance coverage can reduce health care access resulting in poor health outcomes. Cancer survivors may be particularly at risk of insurance coverage gaps due to the long-term chronic disease trajectory. This study is novel in exploring associations between cancer history by gender and health insurance transitions, both gains and losses, in a national non-elderly adult sample.

This paper analyzes what factors drive a company’s decision to align financial and management accounting policies as a measure of integration of management accounting and financial accounting at the highest hierarchy levels of a company.

Research hypotheses for six different determinants are developed: company size, number of operating segments and subsidiaries, internationality of the business, business strategy, company life cycle stage, and leverage. The hypotheses are tested using International Financial Reporting Standards 8 (IFRS 8) segment report data from a large sample of 175 German publicly listed companies.

A higher internationality of the business causes companies to choose a lower degree of integration. Companies with a prospector (defender) strategy choose a lower (higher) degree of integration. Companies in later life cycle stages and with higher leverage choose a lower degree of integration as well. Company size does not impact integration.

Companies have to decide whether, and to what extent, to integrate financial and management accounting and align the two sets of accounting policies. German companies have traditionally kept the two sets separate. As the research reported in this paper sheds light on when companies do not consider integration to be beneficial, it is useful for practitioners.

The legal reporting requirements in Germany as well as German accounting traditions make the German setting particularly suited for examining the integration of management accounting and financial accounting. Using the number of adjustments to financial accounting policies made for management accounting purposes is a novel approach, and the number of adjustments is a more fine-grained measure of integration at the highest hierarchy levels of a company than the measures used in prior literature.