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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the structure of both CEO and non-CEO executive compensation affects the overall risk of a firm. The author focuses on the interplay between CEO and non-CEO executive compensation structure.

The author uses a hand-collected pension-database that employs both OLS and two-stage least squares regressions to determine the effects of inside debt on default risk using the distance-to-default framework. The database consists of 8,965 executive-year data points from 272 firms.

This paper accomplishes three major objectives: first, the author presents a significant extension of Sundaram and Yermack (2007) by including non-CEO executives; the author demonstrates how the differences in inside debt between CEO and non-CEO executives are directly related to firm risk; and that funding these pensions via a Rabbi Trust eliminates most of the risk-shifting effects. Firms with the lowest compensation leverage gap between CEO and non-CEO executives were most likely to observe the agency costs associated with high executive leverage. When compensation leverage structures were substantially different, or the pension was pre-funded, these effects are neutralized.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, the first paper addresses the effects of Rabbi Trusts on risk-shifting behavior between both CEOs and non-CEO executives. Further, the author extends Sundaram and Yermack (2007) using a hand-collected database six times larger than the original paper. By focusing on the “leverage gap” between CEOs and non-CEO executives, the author presents unique evidence that underlines the risk dynamics between CEOs and their boards.

The desire to cut supply chain costs has made RFID technology one of today's most discussed retail technologies. Given the current implementation pace, the objective of this paper is to go beyond the hype and explore basic issues related to RFID technology, including its promises as well as its pitfalls.

The author provides a conceptual discussion of the evolution of RFID, addresses its capabilities and its application in various industries, discusses implementation challenges, identifies adoption phases, and reviews RFID's success factors.

RFID is the most recent prolific technology that provides supply chain collaboration and visibility. An RFID systems solution will increase corporate ROI while at the same time improving retail supply chain communication. Handled properly, RFID technology can result in an evolutionary change incorporating legacy systems with the real‐time supply chain management of tomorrow. Its stumbling point seems only to be a variety of issues outside the technology itself: marketing problems, false promises, security and privacy considerations, and a lack of standards.

The paper was constrained by empirical evidence of, for example, technology deployment, adoption drivers, and success factors.

The paper confirms the power of RFID – a technology in its infancy with as yet untapped potential for supply chain collaboration. It also examines some of the popular RFID products and services.

The paper discusses implementation challenges, identifies adoption phases, and reviews RFID's success factors. It identifies the biggest implementation challenge as the challenge for IT experts of determining how to integrate RFID with existing supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM), and enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibility that several workplace initiatives could stem the biases of recruiters against people who disclose or demonstrate diagnosed mental disorders. Specifically, in many nations, the level of unemployment in people who experience mental disorders is rife. Arguably, employers exhibit various biases that disadvantage people who disclose or demonstrate mental disorders; for example, recruiters tend to orient attention to the limitations, instead of the strengths, of job candidates. Because of these various biases, employers may reject applicants who acknowledge or manifest a mental disorder, even if these candidates would have been suitable.

To substantiate these premises, the authors analyzed established taxonomies of cognitive biases to identify which of these biases are likely to deter the employment of people with mental disorders. In addition, the authors applied several theories, such as the future self-continuity hypothesis, to uncover a variety of initiatives that could redress these biases in the future.

The authors uncovered five constellations of biases in recruiters that could disadvantage individuals who disclose or demonstrate mental disorders. Fortunately, consistent with the meaning maintenance model and cognate theories, when the vision and strategy of organizations is stable and enduring, these biases diminish, and people who report mental disorders are more likely to be employed.

This paper shows that initiatives that promote equality and stability in organizations could diminish stigma against individuals who experience mental disorders.

Deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) are the tool of choice for federal prosecutors when adjudicating corporate misconduct. A DPA is a negotiation that permits the allegedly guilty party from undergoing a criminal trial if they avoid committing further wrongdoing for a specified period. This paper aims to examine whether DPAs are a beneficial mechanism for the criminal justice system to use while adjudicating corporate misconduct. By conducting in-depth semi-structured qualitative interviews with 24 practitioners in the legal field and white-collar crime experts, this study identifies the shortcomings and advantages of DPAs and highlights what policy enactments might enhance their application. The study contributes to the existing literature by expanding the narratives used by judicial officials, legal practitioners and white-collar crime scholars on the role of DPAs.

The current study is an in-depth qualitative analysis that explores judicial actors’ and white-collar crime scholars’ opinions on the adoption of DPAs to adjudicate corporate misconduct. The literature on DPAs is currently derived primarily from law and literature reviews published by legal scholars. Clandestine negotiations are not accessible to the public and are frequently kept in sealed files unless a breach of contract occurs, resulting in the case proceeding to trial. Hence, a qualitative analysis is the best approach to evaluate the effectiveness of DPAs. Further, little evidence is available that focuses on the opinions of professionals who have participated in these agreements. The interviews were conducted over Zoom and lasted an average of 43 min, with the longest interview spanning 1 h and 45 min and the shortest interview being 14 minutes. A non-probability sampling method – specifically, snowball sampling – was used to generate a total sample of 24 legal professionals and white-collar crime scholars. Initial participants were found by contacting law offices specializing in white-collar crime litigation and using current networks to attain access to a broader range of participants. Then, 19 participants provided referrals throughout the study. The final sample consisted of nine government officials, eight legal practitioners and seven white-collar crime academics experts. One of the government official interviews was excluded from the final research project due to a lack of expertise in the field of white-collar crime. The interview questions were designed to promote in-depth conversation and insight into personal opinions on the adoption of DPAs. Several inquiries highlighted whether DPAs are an appropriate response to corporate misconduct and whether they reduced recidivism through their intended deterrent effect. Furthermore, several descriptive questions sought to understand which criminal justice actors support the adoption of DPAs in white-collar crime cases and why. Coding of the data was first conducted individually by each author. The researchers then compared thematic findings that reflected consensus.

An immediate theme identifiable in the research is the intrinsic value that DPAs offer in adjudicating corporate wrongdoing. As indicated by a participant, corporate misconduct is not “black or white,” stressing the importance of prosecutors having a middle ground between criminal prosecution and the dismissal of charges. A judicial official indicated that “DPAs are another essential arrow in a prosecutor’s quiver – and something a defense attorney can bargain for” (Respondent 5). Seven government officials and legal practitioners noted that you are unable to send a corporation to jail, and you do not simply want to put them out of business; thus, a DPA is the only tool in which the government can mandate structural change in a company without dismantling the entire entity. Only three academics concurred with the government officials and legal practitioners that DPAs are beneficial and offer prosecutors a vital middle ground. One academic, for example, stated that “DPAs have given U.S Attorney offices that ability to be involved for a considerable amount of time in a company's business, while simultaneously promoting change within the entity” (Respondent 14). Additionally, DPAs ensure that corporations are held criminally liable without triggering an endless cycle of collateral consequences for innocent third parties. One legal practitioner, for example, stated: “Just look at the Enron case; they charged Arthur Andersen with obstruction of justice and dismantled the entire entity they made it where the business was never going to come back. A small subset of individuals, in this case, should have been held responsible but instead, hundreds and if not thousands of people were harmed. With this in mind, DPAs are extremely important, in that it limits collateral consequences because DPAs take a more holistic view that criminal prosecution does not consider” (Respondent 21). Another respondent highlighted that “DPAs are the only tool available that can be employed to change an entire organization structurally” (Respondent 20). Ultimately, the findings suggest that there is a consensus among respondents that DPAs are an appropriate response to corporate misconduct, particularly when the agreement stipulates that a company must hire an external compliance monitor and update their current compliance system. Overall, participants emphasized that these stipulations promote a sense of corporate accountability, provide for the dismissal of guilty employees and mandate structural change. The majority of the respondents (n = 20) insisted that DPAs are advantageous, yet a subset of participants were skeptical of their use in white-collar crime prosecutions. One legal practitioner, for example, noted that “DPAs are political creatures that are awarded as political favors to the largest of corporations that our economy relies upon” (Respondent 17). Another government official confirmed this statement, indicating that “DPAs are a mere slap on the wrist for large corporations – they simply see it as doing business” (Respondent 6). Four academic participants emphasized that DPAs are typically negotiated with multi-level corporations and are not extended to the small businesses that suffer the dire consequences of criminal prosecution. One academic, for instance, stressed that “the question becomes is it fairly applied and being implemented properly. Larger companies are more likely to receive and benefit from a DPA, thus, raising the question of fairness” (Respondent 12). Another academic who was previously a government official stated: “DPAs risk abuse – there have been several instances where prosecutors have forced companies to donate money to favored charities and overstepped their powers. Sometimes DPAs also come with monitors. For example, banks typically have to pay for the auditor, and it becomes extremely intrusive, and it it not clear that they are efficient.”

Several limitations exist in this research. First, it is not a comprehensive study that is representative of the larger population, which limits generalizability. Given the contention of research on DPAs, this qualitative research contributes to the literature, and its findings are likely transferable to multiple settings in which DPAs are used. Second, DPAs are processed and drafted differently across jurisdictions; thus, comparing DPAs across state levels and among departments in the federal government would be equivalent to comparing apples to oranges. This comparison is yet another limitation to the study because criminal justice practitioners operate in both the state and federal jurisdictions. Another challenge in the current study and something that likely will be a problem for future researchers is the difficulty of gaining access to experts in an exclusive field of criminal justice, such as federal prosecutors, Department of Justice officials, federal judges and elite corporate defense attorneys. Ultimately, several obstacles arose during the study, particularly when recruiting participants to gain a large enough sample size to conduct meaningful analysis. This resulted in smaller sample size but rich, in-depth data that achieved saturation among participants.

Several policy implications are identifiable. First, it appears that DPAs are a mainstay of white-collar crime prosecution. No participants advocate for their complete removal from the prosecution process. Participants highlight that DPAs occupy an essential middle-ground between dismissal and criminal charges. Without this mechanism, prosecution would be impeded, and holding corporate criminal actors liable would increasingly become formidable. Although it appears that the system cannot function without DPAs, several respondents emphasize that we must begin to hold individuals accountable alongside corporations. Another policy implication that a minority of participants mentioned within the study involves ensuring that our compliance monitoring system operates appropriately. A majority of participants note that the overarching stipulation that promotes structural change within an organization is adopting a functioning compliance monitoring system, thus, emphasizing the importance of this process operating smoothly and ethically. The selection of an independent compliance monitor may be problematic. For example, a former government compliance monitor notes that not all monitors are experts in the field they are overseeing. A pharmaceutical expert, for example, may be attempting to regulate an automotive organization, which may present unique challenges. An agency of federal professionals dedicated to supervising specific industries such as automotive, pharmaceutical and financial would ensure that organizations are actually implementing the terms of the DPA.

Ultimately, the current research highlights the necessity of empirically studying the benefits and drawbacks of such agreements. Future research on the topic remains onerous due to the scarcity of a centralized database that contains extensive details of DPAs. The present study suggests that the verdict on DPAs is undecided, with more than half of the study's criminal justice professionals advocating for their continued and even increased use. However, about half of the participants, particularly academics, called attention to the agreements’ potential bias. The disagreement among participants is most contentious in the consideration of a DPA centralized database which would immensely aid future research and policy advancements.

Recent studies of racioethnic differences in job satisfaction have yielded inconsistent results. It is posited that the physical variable race/national origin (synonymous with physioethnicity), that is commonly used to operationalize race/ethnicity, is not sufficiently comprehensive to detect the social and cultural essence of racioethnicity. Thus, this article offers “socioethnicity” as a less observable type of racioethnicity. This delineation of socioethnicity enables the researchers and practitioners to measure the number of cultures with which an individual identifies. Based on previous research findings and grounded in orthogonal cultural identification theory, it is hypothesized that multicultural members of the majority group in a racioethnically diverse work environment will be more satisfied with their coworkers than monocultural members. Results supported the hypothesis.

Relying on relational demography and person-organization fit perspectives, the purpose of this paper is to explore the interactive effect of demographic dissimilarity and value congruence on workplace attachment outcomes – affective and normative organizational commitment and turnover intentions. Based on optimal distinctiveness theory, asymmetrical effects across gender and race/ethnicity are also examined.

A diverse sample of 278 restaurant workers in 30 different work units is used to test the hypotheses using hierarchical OLS regression.

The results partially support the idea that perceived and objective value congruence moderate the relationship of race/ethnic and gender dissimilarity on workplace attachment. Tests for asymmetrical demographic group effects showed that value congruence had a stronger moderating effect for whites than for people of color, and for men than for women.

The results suggest that value congruence can ameliorate the adverse diversity effects on workplace attachment, but that a complete substitution effect may not be present. Women and minorities may still be sensitive to demographic representation even when their value congruence is high. This implies that a simultaneous pursuit of fit and diversity is an adequate diversity management strategy to stimulate the inclusion and workplace attachment of all social groups.

This study joins a limited number of studies addressing the interaction of value congruence and demographic dissimilarity, and presents empirical evidence from a work setting. Also, this is the first study to show gender and race/ethnic differences in this interaction.

This study's purpose is to investigate the antecedents of an employee's remedy‐seeking behavioral intentions in response to wrongful dismissal.

Hypotheses generated by two paradigms are tested, the similarity‐attraction and the similarity‐betrayal paradigms, using Tobit regression and data from a scenario‐based survey of employees.

Consistent with the similarity‐attraction paradigm, the management team's racial and deep‐level similarity to the employee both were negatively related to the employee's propensity to consult a lawyer. Consistent with the similarity‐betrayal paradigm, the employee's propensity to consult a lawyer increased with the supervisor's deep‐level similarity to the employee; among men, the propensity to complain to regulatory agencies increased with the management team's gender similarity and the propensity to not seek a remedy declined with the supervisor's gender similarity.

Limitations of the study include the use a single‐source, cross‐sectional, convenience sample; the small size and heterogeneity of the non‐white sub‐sample; and the limited number of control variables. Future research should explore whether the findings are robust when tested using alternative types of data; alternative wrongful dismissal scenarios; a more extensive set of controls for organizational, job, and personal characteristics; and larger, more diverse sub‐samples of non‐whites.

Organizations should manage dismissals in a manner that encourages employees to favor internal remedy‐seeking over external remedy‐seeking options.

This study is the first to investigate the antecedents of a wrongfully dismissed employee's propensity to engage in internal as well as external remedy‐seeking and to explore the effects of management's similarity to the employee on the employee's remedy‐seeking actions.

Corporations often benefit from associating their brand(s) with a sports property; in some cases, the property is owned or supported by a not-for-profit organization (NFP) championing a cause. Title sponsorship of such a sport event has received limited research attention but is important to a NFP for raising funds and in-kind contributions to support their cause. The purpose of this paper is to investigate title sponsorship of cause-related sport events.

This research examines the title sponsorship of a cause-related sport event and its effectiveness in relation to the event, the organization, the cause and other sponsors of the NFP. Specifically, this study examines these questions in the context of a specific annual event, Sports Day in Canada organized by ParticipACTION, a national Canadian NFP and whose title sponsor is Royal Bank of Canada (RBC).

Results show that title sponsorship has significant potential value for the sponsor and the cause, perhaps to the detriment of other (lower tier) sponsors of the event and the NFP.

This research has value to sponsors and cause-related sport events alike. In the case of sponsors, it provides insight into the value of title sponsorship vs other categories of sponsorship, for a brand considering sponsorship of cause-related sport property. For cause-related sport events, the research informs about the importance and possible revenue generation opportunity linked to the title sponsor category.

The purpose of this paper is to extend investigation of differences in job performance related ratings across racial and ethnic groupings by comparing predictions derived from the theories of similarity‐attraction and social categorization with predictions derived from leader‐member exchange theory.

Survey data are secured from 91 matched pairs (managerial level subordinates and immediate supervisor) secured in a field study of 17 employers of choice in the geographical area served by a metropolitan university in the USA. A moderated hierarchical regression is performed to test the two original hypotheses, and a chi‐square analysis tests a third hypothesis evolving from the data.

Examination of data reveals that supervisor and subordinate racial demographics are weak predictors of measures of subordinate performance. Measures of leader‐member exchange make any contributions attributed to racial demographics insignificant.

This research is subject to all the concerns associated with field studies and quasi‐experiments.

Since high quality exchange between supervisor and subordinate is a track inward to the central core of the management system and upward mobility, this study points to the value of providing all managers and all subordinates exposure to and instruction in how to initiate and maintain a high quality social exchanges across racial and ethnic groupings.

While null results such as reported in this study are not typically found in the literature, they should spark additional theory development especially when the research methods used are robust.