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1 – 10 of 112Smart E. Otu, Macpherson Uchenna Nnam, Mary Juachi Eteng, Ijeoma Mercy Amugo and Babatunde Michel Idowu
The purpose of this study is to examine the politics, political economy, and fallout of hawkish regulatory policy on prescription drugs in Nigeria. Hawkish regulatory policy on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the politics, political economy, and fallout of hawkish regulatory policy on prescription drugs in Nigeria. Hawkish regulatory policy on prescription drug in Nigeria, such as opioid analgesics, is a very complex and multifaceted one, which usually involves the interplay of many factors and parties.
Design/methodology/approach
Policy manuals, official government gazettes (legislations, regulations, Acts and decrees), academic literature and a direct ethnographic observation of events surrounding the regulation of prescription drugs were reviewed and engaged.
Findings
The results revealed that Nigerian and global political economy and politics interface to define the direction of the new restrictive opioid policy, with resultant friction between prohibition and consumption. The reviews showed that the overarching “get-tough” and “repressive” policy are not necessarily founded on empirical evidence of an increase in prescription drug sales or use, but more as a product of the interplay of both internal and external politics and the prevailing socioeconomic order.
Practical implications
Instead of borrowing extensively from or being influenced by repressive Western drug laws and perspectives, Nigerian policymakers on prescription opioids should take control of the process by drawing up a home-grown policy that is less intrusive and punitive in nature for better outcomes. A mental sea change is required to understand the intrigues of Western power in Nigeria’s politics and political economy to avoid the continuous symptomatic failure of drug policy.
Originality/value
The politics and economic influence of the United Nations, USA and Western powers, as well as the axiom of moral panic of prescription drugs scares within the Nigerian environment, are particularly significant in the making of the emerging hawkish policy on prescription drugs in Nigeria.
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Ediomo-Ubong Nelson, Ogochukwu Winifred Odeigah and Emeka W. Dumbili
The purpose of this study is to understand the complex interplay between illicit opioids trade and consumption practices and state policies that aim to reduce their misuse.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to understand the complex interplay between illicit opioids trade and consumption practices and state policies that aim to reduce their misuse.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopted an exploratory design. Data were gathered through in-depth interviews with 31 commercially oriented drug dealers in Uyo, Nigeria. The framework approach was used in data analyses, while “friction” provided the interpretive lens.
Findings
Accounts revealed public concerns over the misuse of tramadol and other opioids among young people and the associated health and social harms. These concerns provided support for enforcement-based approaches to prescription opioids control, including police raids on pharmacy stores. These measures did not curtail opioids supply and consumption. Instead, they constrained access to essential medicines for pain management, encouraged illegal markets and fuelled law enforcement corruption in the form of police complicity in illegal tramadol trade.
Research limitations/implications
The findings reveal the frictions of drug control in Nigeria, wherein enforcement-based approaches gained traction through public concerns about opioids misuse but also faced resistance due to the persistence of non-medical use and illegal supply channels made possible by law enforcement complicity. These indicate a need to prioritize approaches that seek to reduce illegal supply and misuse of opioids while ensuring availability of these medications for health-care needs.
Originality/value
The study is unique in its focus on the creative tension that exists between state control measures and local opioids supply and consumption practices.
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The purpose of this article is to summarize three Luhmannian critiques on morality, illustrate new roles for morality and add constructive interpretations.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to summarize three Luhmannian critiques on morality, illustrate new roles for morality and add constructive interpretations.
Design/methodology/approach
Luhmann has recently been described as downright negative toward morality, resulting in a refusal to use ethics as a sociologist, thus leading to a limited use of his theory in moral issues. A constructive interpretation could support a more functional use of morality in social system theory.
Findings
First, Luhmann signals that morality can no longer fulfill its integrative function in society but also that society has recourse to moral sensitivity. Second, Luhmann describes how anxiety is crucial in modern morality and indicates which role risk and danger could play. The author builds further on this and proposes the concept of “social system attention” that can provide answers to individual and organizational anxiety. The author proposes that institutionalized socialization can support an integrative morality. Third, Luhmann states that ethics today is nothing more than a utopia but also that the interdiction of moral self-exemption is an essential element. The author adds that a relational ontology for social systems theory can avoid ethics as utopia.
Practical implications
This article is a programmatic plea to further elaborate morality from a system theory perspective in which meaning is relationally positioned.
Originality/value
This article could potentially provide a more functional application of morality in social systems, thus leading to improvements of attempts of ethical decision-making. The originality of the approach lies in the interpretation of basic assumptions of Luhmann social system theory that are not core to his theory.
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Rory Francis Mulcahy, Aimee Riedel, Byron W. Keating, Amanda Beatson and Marilyn Campbell
Online trolling is a detrimental behavior for consumers and service businesses. Although online trolling research is steadily increasing, service research has yet to thoroughly…
Abstract
Purpose
Online trolling is a detrimental behavior for consumers and service businesses. Although online trolling research is steadily increasing, service research has yet to thoroughly explore how this behavior impacts businesses. Further, the role of bystanders, consumers who witness a victim (business) being trolled, remains largely unexplored. The purpose of this paper is thus to introduce online trolling to the service literature and begin to identify when (types of online troll content) and why (empathy and psychological reactance) bystanders are likely to intervene and support a service business being trolled by posting positive eWOM.
Design/methodology/approach
This research uses a two-study (Study 1 n = 313; Study 2 n = 472) experimental design with scenarios of a service business experiencing online trolling (moral versus sadistic). Participants' responses as bystanders were collected via an online survey.
Findings
Results reveal bystanders are more likely to post positive eWOM to support a service organization experiencing sadistic trolling. Psychological reactance is shown to mediate the relationship between trolling type and positive eWOM. Further, spotlight analysis demonstrates that bystanders with higher levels of empathy are more likely to post positive eWOM, whereas bystanders with low levels of empathy are likely to have a significantly higher level of psychological reactance.
Originality/value
This research is among the first in the service literature to specifically explore the consumer misbehavior of online trolling. Further, it provides new perspectives to online trolling by probing the role of bystanders and when and why they are likely to support service organizations being trolled.
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The purpose of this study is to briefly reflect on the continuing relevance of the arguments of “The Audit Society” thesis after 25 years and to consider whether they need to be…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to briefly reflect on the continuing relevance of the arguments of “The Audit Society” thesis after 25 years and to consider whether they need to be adapted in the face of advances in digitization.
Design/Methodology/approach
This essay develops a series of critical reflections on the main arguments in “The Audit Society” (Oxford University Press, 1997).
Findings
There is a need for critical accounting and management research to explore how audit society themes require adjustment in the face of “surveillance capitalism” and how the boundaries between accounting, security and surveillance are becoming blurred.
Originality/value
This essay is a personal and self-critical account of the genesis of The Audit Society thesis which looks forward to how this thesis can develop. It also offers a defence of the value of books in enabling the travelling of ideas across fields.
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Christian Ehret, Tori K. Flint, Jayne Lammers, Alecia Marie Magnifico and Raúl Alberto Mora
This paper aims to explore the misuse of prescription opioids, associated consumption cultures and the emergence of “informal governing images” among young men in Nigeria.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the misuse of prescription opioids, associated consumption cultures and the emergence of “informal governing images” among young men in Nigeria.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a qualitative research approach involving purposive sampling: six in-depth interviews, one focus group discussion and key informant interviews with two health-care professionals using the transgressive theory approach, this paper explores consumption cultures, motivations and the resultant “informal governing images” associated with the misuse of prescription opioids among young local street high-risk users in Nigeria.
Findings
Findings show complex expressions of diverse consumption practices, such as grinding, sniffing and concoction of tramadol (TM)with other opioids. The “puff-puff pass” practice serves as induction for new users of opioids commonly accessed through street drug dealers and pharmacists sold via backdoors. Codeine mixtures with different brands of soft drinks for dilution are used to achieve a “lower high” while a concoction of different opioids, with alcohol, and spirits obtains a “higher high”. Manufacturers’ indelible colouring and bottling discourage the non-medical use of opioids. Desiring to be awake for nocturnal activities, mostly “yahoo-yahoo” (internet fraud), sexual enhancement and dosage competitions, are motivations for the non-medical use of prescription opioids. These consumption cultures create “misuse circuits”, leading to the emergence of “informal governing images” triggered by threats from formal controls.
Practical implications
This paper, therefore, concludes that pharmaceutical industries should also add colourings to TM and codeine just like they did in rophinol to discourage the non-medical use of prescription opioids among young people in Nigeria.
Social implications
This paper concludes that rather than branding and packaging in such a way that concealability is difficult for high-risk users as the best way to discourage the non-medical consumption of prescription opioids in Nigeria, the focus should be on addressing youth poverty and unemployment and improving access to treatment for drug use disorders, instead of calling for more enforcement-based measures.
Originality/value
This is an original research.
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Ameneh Bazrafshan, Naser Makarem, Reza Hesarzadeh and Wafaa SalmanAbbood
This study investigates the association between managerial ability and earnings quality in firms listed on the Iraq Stock Exchange and how the emergence of the Islamic State of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates the association between managerial ability and earnings quality in firms listed on the Iraq Stock Exchange and how the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) influences the association.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a sample of firms listed on the Iraq Stock Exchange over the period 2012–2018. Managerial ability is quantified using data envelopment analysis, and earnings quality is measured by earnings restatement, earnings persistence, accruals quality and earnings response coefficient. Panel regression analysis is used to examine the research hypotheses.
Findings
The findings indicate that managerial ability positively affects earnings quality of Iraqi firms and that ISIS weakens the relationship between managerial ability and earnings quality. These findings are robust to the alternative measures of managerial ability, as well as to various approaches used to address endogeneity including propensity-score matching and a difference-in-differences analysis.
Originality/value
This study provides insight into the impact of managerial ability on earnings quality in an under-studied emerging market. Furthermore, this study broadens the existing literature about the financial consequences of a modern terrorist group, ISIS.
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As the subject of female criminology in South Africa has only recently been dealt with in a qualitative manner, this paper aims to explore if there is a potential link between…
Abstract
Purpose
As the subject of female criminology in South Africa has only recently been dealt with in a qualitative manner, this paper aims to explore if there is a potential link between rehabilitation, reintegration support and recidivism as females are often placed back into the environment which prompted their criminal behaviour, further excluding them from rehabilitative reform, which might lead them to recidivate.
Design/methodology/approach
The research adopted a qualitative approach using in-depth, semi-structured interviews with six participants that were chosen purposively.
Findings
The paper notes a potential link between rehabilitation, reintegration support and recidivism as the female prisoners are imprinted with criminal dispositions since rehabilitation within the correctional facility has no implementation process to ensure that restoration can continue after they have been released.
Research limitations/implications
Due to the limited number of the incarcerated female population and the scope of the preliminary study, the sample comprised of only six female offenders. As such, it contributes to the larger discourse of female criminality, but does not offer any recommendations.
Practical implications
Provides an understanding of the conditions in which the females are released. Allows for the inclusion of the female’s voice on, and reflection of, rehabilitation and recidivism. Notes a link between rehabilitation, reintegration and recidivism. Creates a pathway for further research in the exploration of a gendered reform approach.
Originality/value
While the subject of female criminology in South Africa has only recently been dealt with in a qualitative manner, this study offers an insight into how females who offend are often placed back into the environment which prompted their criminal behaviour.
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