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Building on work that explores the relationship between individual beliefs and ability to recognize discrimination (e.g., Kaiser and Major, 2006), we examine how an adherence to beliefs about gender essentialism, gender egalitarianism, and meritocracy shape one’s interpretation of an illegal act of sexual harassment involving a male supervisor and female subordinate. We also consider whether the role of the gendered culture of engineering (Faulkner, 2009) matters for this relationship. Specifically, we conducted an online survey-experiment asking individuals to report their beliefs about gender and meritocracy and subsequently to evaluate a fictitious but illegal act of sexual harassment in one of two university research settings: an engineering department, a male-dominated setting whose culture is documented as being unwelcoming to women (Hatmaker, 2013; Seron, Silbey, Cech, and Rubineau, 2018), and an ambiguous research setting. We find evidence that the stronger one’s adherence to gender egalitarian beliefs, the greater one’s ability to detect inappropriate behavior and sexual harassment while gender essentialist beliefs play no role in their detection. The stronger one’s adherence to merit beliefs, the less likely they are to view an illegal interaction as either inappropriate or as sexual harassment. We account for respondent knowledge of sexual harassment and their socio-demographic characteristics, finding that the former is more often associated with the detection of inappropriate behavior and sexual harassment at work. We close with a discussion of the transferability of results and policy implications of our findings.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between corporate reputation and earnings quality. This study uses a sample of 1,092 firm year observations from 273 firm listed companies on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2013 to 2016, except for the financial industry. We uses a public measure, “100 Top Emiten” by Investor magazine, as a proxy for corporate reputation, while earnings quality is measured by calculating the absolute value of discretionary accrual. Growth of assets, firm size, leverage and profitability are used as control variables in this study. Multiple linear regression analysis is used to test the research hypothesis. The results of the regression in this study indicate that corporate reputation has a positive and significant relationship with earnings quality. This indicates that a reputable company will be encouraged to produce an earnings quality in an effort for the company to maintain investor confidence in the company, so that the company's image and reputation can be maintained. Earnings management in this study was calculated using cross-sectional method instead of time series method. Cross-sectional method is a method by comparing the financial data of a company with a company or other similar industries, whereas the time series method uses the comparison of financial data in a period with the previous period by analyzing what happens behind the trend figures on a company.

While existing research explores the impact of audit market competition on audit fees and audit quality, there is limited investigation into how competition in the audit market influences auditors' writing style. This study examines the relationship between audit market competition and the readability of audit reports in Iran, where competition is particularly intense, especially among private audit firms.

The sample comprises 1,050 firm-year observations in Iran from 2012 to 2018. Readability measures, including the Fog index, Flesch-Reading-Ease (FRE) and Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG), are employed to assess the readability of auditors' reports. The Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) is utilized to measure audit market competition, with lower index values indicating higher auditor competition. The concentration measure is multiplied by −1 to obtain the competition measure (AudComp). Alternative readability measures, such as the Flesch–Kincaid (FK) and Automated Readability Index (ARI) are used in additional robustness tests. Data on textual features of audit reports, auditor characteristics and other control variables are manually collected from annual reports of firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE).

The regression analysis results indicate a significant and positive association between audit market competition and audit report readability. Furthermore, a stronger positive and significant association is observed among private audit firms, where competition is more intense compared to state audit firms. These findings remain robust when using alternative readability measures and other sensitivity checks. Additional analysis reveals that the positive effect of competition on audit report readability is more pronounced in situations where the auditor remains unchanged and the audit market size is small.

This paper expands the existing literature by examining the impact of audit market competition on audit report readability. It focuses on a unique audit market (Iran), where competition among audit firms is more intense than in developed countries due to the liberalization of the Iranian audit market in 2001 and the establishment of numerous private audit firms.

The ideal of an open, all-inclusive, and participatory internet has been undermined by the rise of gender-based and misogynistic abuse on social media platforms. Limited progress has been made at supranational and national levels in addressing this issue, and where steps have been taken to combat online violence against women (OVAW), they are typically limited to legislative developments addressing image-based sexual abuse. As such, harms associated with image-based abuse have gained recognition in law while harms caused by text-based abuse (TBA) have not been conceptualized in an equivalent manner.

This chapter critically outlines the lack of judicial consideration given to online harms in British courts, identifying a range of harms arising from TBAs which currently are not recognized by the criminal justice system. We refer to non-traditional harms recognized in cases heard before the British courts, assessing these in light of traditionally recognized harms in established legal authorities. This chapter emphasizes the connection between the harms suffered and the recognition of impact on the victims, demonstrated through specific case studies. Through this assessment, this chapter advocates for greater recognition of online harms within the legal system – especially those which take the forms of misogynistic and/or gendered TBA.

This article outlines the theoretical foundations of the research contributions of this edited collection about “Diversity and Discrimination in Research Organizations.” First, the sociological understanding of the basic concepts of diversity and discrimination is described and the current state of research is introduced. Second, national and organizational contextual conditions and risk factors that shape discrimination experiences and the management of diversity in research teams and organizations are presented. Third, the questions and research approaches of the individual contributions to this edited collection are presented.

Total quality management (TQM) must include orientation towards quality awareness in the overall organisational processes in a firm. A successful TQM needs a supportive culture that can adapt to alterations and strengthen innovation. This study aims to confirm the association between the style of management known as organisational culture (OC) and TQM practices in manufacturing Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

Data-driven research was drawn from self-assessment inquiries among 772 managers/owners of manufacturing SMEs of the Saudi Arabia Kingdom (KSA). The dominant culture was detected by means of a cross-sectional technique.

The findings enrich the literature by revealing a positive effect of OC on TQM execution in the manufacturing SMEs of KSA.

Prior to the execution of TQM operations, administrators of manufacturing SMEs should be aware of the culture within organisations so that TQM may be implemented.

The study suggests that organisations, particularly manufacturing SMEs, should constantly strive to enhance the TQM culture.

Amid intense competition among manufacturing SMEs, it is crucial to guarantee their high performance. This research assists society in evaluating the strength of a particular SME sector and further enables it to assess which SMEs really have a good OC–TQM relation.

The paper creates and presents various platforms of the OC and TQM as a unified body of knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to identify sensing, seizing and reconfiguring routines of dynamic capabilities that enable digital transformation in firms.

A qualitative approach is used. Representatives from a firm going through digital transformations are interviewed, and focus groups have been carried out with a consultancy firm experienced in giving advice to firms going through digital transformation.

Six routines identified as relevant specifically for digital transformation are identified. These are cross-industrial digital sensing, inside-out digital infrastructure sensing, digital strategy development, determination of enterprise boundaries, decomposition of digital transformation into specified projects and creation of a unified digital infrastructure.

The authors provide direction for managers on how to approach digital transformation. In relation to previous research, the authors provide more specific guidance regarding how to reconfigure the organization in digital transformation.

The paper uses a novel context for digital transformation and complements the very few studies available using dynamic capabilities to understand digital transformation.

The purpose of the present study is to investigate travel agencies' social media usage and its perceived effectiveness by small- and micro-Italian travel agencies; the pre-pandemic period is compared to the forecasts for the post-Covid-19 period and different characteristics of firms and entrepreneurs are considered. Furthermore, the study analyses the expected benefits in terms of marketing objectives, such as improving brand image and/or personalizing the offer.

The research was developed through a questionnaire administered electronically to travel agents (282 respondents). The resulting data was analyzed by applying the McNemar test, a pairwise t-test and the multivariate analysis of variance.

The results show that social media are strategically significant for travel agents, even though their adoption is influenced by different agency aims; the perceived effectiveness results are diversified according to varying agency typologies.

The two main limitations of the study are its focus on the Italian context only and the missing consideration of the consumer's point of view. The latter prevents an exhaustive assessment of future trends regarding the use of social media in the client–agency relationship.

The study, which focuses on a little debated topic concerning the relationship between social media and SMEs, organically explores various dimensions related to the adoption of social media by small agencies, also considering the impact of the Covid-19 on the perception of travel agents. As a further element of originality, the research takes into consideration the main social platforms separately rather than the set of tools as a whole.